Friday Poetry: CHAT WITH ABDULKAREEM ABDULKAREEM 

By Saheed Sunday

Saheed: Hello, Abdulkareem. Kindly introduce yourself with something not on bio.

Abdulkareem: Abdulkareem Abdulkareem is a lover of music, and dances to himself when he is alone. He supports Chelsea Football Club. 

Saheed: Different poetry collectives have taken up the literary world. One of such is the Frontiers Collective which you are a member of. How has been in Frontiers Collective helped shaped your art? Do you think the existence of poetry collectives is meaningful to the art?

Abdulkareem: Yes. Definitely. It is meaningful to the existence of art because being in a collective comes with different opportunities. This includes having access to quality critique from colleagues, sharing opportunities among each other. Joining a collective was a highlight of my journey because it gave me a literary family. These people include everyone who would be willing to tell you the truth about a work. and this, itself is an important thing to growth, because it allows the consciousness of mistakes and to correct them. 

Saheed: One of your most popular poems “Self-portrait with Phonemic Analysis” was published on Poetry Foundation. The poem reflects linguistic elements [phonemic] right from the title into the verses [who will pour joy like a fricative sound into the living of this boy?]. How did your background in Linguistics contribute to achieving that feat?

Abdulkareem: Experimental poetry is a beautiful genre of contemporary poetry because it allows us to try our hands on different things. I wrote the first draft of the poem without the linguistic element in it. Although one of the courses I took in school inspired and influenced my experimentation with phonemic analysis and I added it to later versions of the poem.
I certainly believe that this experimentation is only possible if you've studied phonemic analysis or generative phonology in its entirety. 

Saheed; You are a winner of the University of Ilorin Student Union’s Writers Competition; a shortlist for the Vallum Poetry Award, 2022, and a recipient of The Hill-Top Creative Writing Award for Excellence, 2023. What do these extended lists of achievements mean to your art now? How were you able to pull them off?

Abdulkareem: I think awards, to some extent, might sound like validation to art. Though it doesn't mean it is an overall validation in all essence. That's because when you realize a certain poem you've written is shortlisted or longlisted for an award, you hope it wins, and when it doesn't, you still have a good feeling about the work. When I received the email that my work was on the final shortlist for Vallum, I was a bit shocked and surprised, because it was a contest that required paying $25 as the submission fee. I was only able to submit due to a fee waiver. Then it didn't win, I was still hopeful about the work before Lolwe picked it up. Winning awards is a great thing for us as writers because there's a feeling it gives about the art. That's it in all honesty. But then, winning is not the only thing that determines you are a good writer.

I wouldn't say I was able to pull them off in a way, I only say Alhamdulillah because He was/is why I was able to pull them off. That's because the same work Poetry Magazine accepted was rejected by various literary magazines that are big. So, I wouldn't say there's a way or a strategy of how I was able to pull them up. It's all about Almighty Allah's grace. 

Saheed: In Ezra Pound’s “A Retrospect”, he talks about the three propositions that are important in poetry [demanding direct treatment, the economy of words, and the sequence of the musical phrase]. It is noteworthy to say that almost all — if not all — contemporary poets visibly fall out of two of the elements: economy of words, and the sequence of the musical phrase. Do you think contemporary poetry is a form of redefinition of what poetry originally means? Do you think contemporary poetry is bad poetry? What do you think?

Abdulkareem: I won't say contemporary poetry is a redefinition. I'd rather say contemporary poetry is the effect of time on the genre, an epoch of its new form. 

We lean towards emotions and feelings, rather than form and restrictions. The situation of contemporary poetry is a bit different because it leans more on emotions, messages, feelings, and everything the writer is hoping to pass across to the readers, but classical poetry on the other hand is like a song in a rigid rhythm of form. 

Mathew Arnold in his essay, "The Study of Poetry," said, “Mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us”. Our predecessors have been doing so and it is rather the whole point of contemporary poetry.
I want to write a poem just because, and not be restricted to a certain meter or anything.

Even though the die-hard lovers of contemporary poetry still argue that contemporary poetry is bad poetry, the acceptance of something has to do with time, place or the decision of a community on it. It's not a subjective thing. If a contemporary poem is written in the 1500, the poem would probably be regarded as a bad poem, and there'll be wide acceptance of that decision of it being a bad poem. On the other hand, a classical poem in 2023 is not a bad poem.

All these, "demanding direct treatment, economy of words, and the sequence of the musical phrase" are still very much available in contemporary poetry, but it's rather not general, and it takes a personal excellence to execute them. 

Saheed: Poetry means different things to different people. Matthew Arnold defined poetry as “a criticism of life”. Edwin Arlington Robinson defined it as “a language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction, something that cannot be said.” What does poetry mean to you?

Abdulkareem: Poetry to me, is the gentle breeze that brushes through an open wound. Because there's something it's meant to do, and it does for me. I wasn't someone who started writing as a child as most writers., I found poetry only a few years ago after a few incidents, and those incidents affected and influenced who I was, and who I have become. 

Saheed: Whether consciously or unconsciously, every excellent artist has other artists whose arts have in one way, or another strike them as unique. As a poet, who are the poets that strike you as unique?

Abdulkareem: I read a couple of poets, and they've all in a way influenced my writing. They are not limited to these because I read so widely now, I love reading all these poets, and they are: Niyi Osundare, Kaveh Akbar, Safia Elhillo, Ocean Vuong, Ilya Kaminsky, O-jeremiah Agbaakin, Adedayo Agarau, Romeo Oriogun, Saddiq Dzukogi, Franny Choi, Jericho Brown, Hanif Abdurraqib, Li-Young Lee, Andrew Hemmert and a lot more I can't remember for now. 

Saheed: During your days as an undergraduate, how were you able to manage your studies without killing your art?

Abdulkareem: I think the total balance is not so possible or it depends on the self. One will be affected, but the goal is to not abandon one for the other. I was able to do this all through. I didn't write so much during school period, or when the semester gets so choking. The writings I did within those periods were the ones that came to me freely because inspirations care less about your schedule as a writer. During examination periods, writing was always abandoned until I was done with the examination.

Saheed: Apart from poetry, have you been trying your hands on any other genre? What is the genre, and what is your progress with it?

Abdulkareem: I used to write fiction when I started as a writer, though I abandoned it after I got engrossed in contemporary poetry. And since then, I barely write anything fiction. Though recently, I have stories I want to tell in non-fiction, but I won't say I've really started anything deep about it. And yes, fiction is something I'm still coming back to because I love historical fiction so much. I'd love to have a book of historical fiction. 

Saheed: Kindly leave us with one of your poems that you find yourself most gravitated towards.

Abdulkareem: This was published on Off Topic Publishing
Ode to the drum

The drum poses a conundrum.
It's rhythm redolent flowing 
like a rivulet. Which of the gen-z
can break the puzzle of the talking
drum? The wind carries the riddles
of our fathers. Dusk drizzles an 
ocean like filtered spring water. 
We sit under our tattered roof
humming sonorous sounds like 
sweet lovers. Outside, frogs sail 
silently into the pond. My grand-
father unsheathes his agidigbo &
we journey into the plane of the 
wooden melody. We swallow
the moonlight & the soft sound 
of my grandfather's hand on the
drum lullabies us to sleep. 

Abdulkareem Abdulkareem (he/him) Frontier III, is a Nigerian writer and linguist. He holds a BA in Linguistics from the University of Ilorin. He is a recipient of the Hill Top Creative Writing Award for Excellence, 2023. His works appear and are forthcoming on National Museum of Language, POETRY, Transition Magazine, Waxwing, Poetry Wales, SAND, MIZNA, Nat Brut, West Trade Review, LOLWE, Southern Humanities Review, Qwerty Magazine, Shallow Tales Review, Nigeria News Direct, & elsewhere. He reads poetry for Frontier Poetry. He is on Twitter: @panini500bc Instagram: @panini_500bc