‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ had a formative effect on me. I think it’s one of those works that if you encounter it very early you’re doubly enchanted by the beauty of the language and the strangeness of the vision. It stays with you.
Category Archive: Nigerian
I was going to be a scientist.
Some of my reactions are very Nigerian. I still believe that words are things.
When I write a poem, I go into a state of self-forgetfulness, and something higher takes over; I like to call it my best self.
To sustain your belief through situations that completely undermine it is quite something.
Artists and writers have to deal with the element that makes the real real and the dream real while you are dreaming it. That’s where stories and poems get their power.
Our time here is magic! It’s the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is great, whatever is potential, whatever is rare, whatever is unique, in. It’s the only space.
I study people all the time. For some reason, we’re not very good at seeing what’s there or hearing what we’re hearing.
Don’t despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.
Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the book, then they’ll only see their narrow range reflected in it.