Interview by Chimedum Ohaegbu
A Growing Room 2020 Festival author, NASRA is a queer, Muslim, Oromo curator/creator living in Amiskwaciwȃskahikan (Edmonton) on Treaty 6 territory. They were the Youth Poet Laureate of Edmonton from 2016 to 2017. They are also the Festival Director of Black Arts Matter—Alberta’s interdisciplinary Black arts festival—and were the 2017 recipient of the Mayor’s Emerging Artist award. In this interview they discuss embodied poetry, the importance of community, and more.
Just a basic question for starters: why slam? How did you fall in love with it?
Slam definitely chose me; and by slam I mean the competition format of slam, not spoken word poetry itself. I have always expressed myself through forms of storytelling, music and dancing so falling in love with spoken word poetry made a lot of sense. With spoken word it was my literal voice, my words, my ideas, my beliefs—I had the mic and people wanted to listen. Carvens Lissaint from the Strivers Row has a poem “Beauty Part 3” (Inspired by Mega) and I swear…the day I saw a 6ft tall dark skin Black man cry, spit and split open talking bout his healing was a monumental day. The poem was beautiful and seeing parts of myself in this brilliant collective of writers, performers, lovers—as Black and as curious as they were—was like an initiation, or an invitation to be who I am wholly. Zora Howard, Jasmine Mans, Alysia Harris—they fucked me up, man. I listened to them on my phone all day. Started memorizing them, just like music. And that’s what I love about spoken word, the realization that it can be everything and anything.
Many of your poems are deeply engaged with the now — how the present surrounds us, but also how it’s built on the past (for example, in “Mo(u)rning” when you mention wondering whose spine you’re stepping on, regarding Canada’s colonialism). What is the importance of urgency in slam poetry, for you?
So again, I don’t necessarily see an urgency for slam competitions, the format can be dangerous and I know it was not a sustainable avenue for me—personally. But within spoken word I think speaking what is true, what we see, what is failing us (even when it’s us) has always been the work of the poet. Illuminating the relations we have with ourselves and the way that identity relates to the Universe(s) around us. It’s Indigenous shit.
In an interview with Rabble from 2018, you said something that really struck me: “I seek the relationships, not the product.” How does this mindset inform your process? That is, is it something you’re actively thinking about as you write, or does it come about more in the editing stage, or when you get feedback from others?
I write so I can understand myself and then so I can understand the people/world around me. Again, it’s all about relations. I see myself through people, through nature, through the art. I know that as an abolitionist, and as an Indigenous African person, it’s crucial that I operate this way. Even only being a generation removed from my ancestral land I can see how colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism etc. has bred me. Moulded me into this small, extremely anxious and lonely thing—this version of myself that I KNEW in Spirit wasn’t me—they got to me. My mind and body broke and I had to take a lot of energy to heal, but my mother consistently reminded me that it was not meant to happen alone. That I needed family, whatever that meant to me. Spiritually and physically. I had to reconnect with myself in deeply compassionate and inquisitive ways in order to metabolize what was happening to me. It’s Indigenous shit. And it’s a lot of fucking work because of how deeply engrained these systems of theft are…but it’s possible if I keep repeating it at every stage necessary.
Occasionally you dip into use of Arabic, as in “Victory”, when performing to audiences primarily in English. Is there power in speaking specifically to those who would understand, while not explaining to those who wouldn’t? And relatedly, which Muslim poets are you reading/listening to right now—what are they doing that’s exciting?
Yeah, Safia Elhillo helped me with that. Which I guess partly answers the question below. She talked about her use of italicization and how it othered the language in a way that didn’t centre her gaze/perspective. And I really heard that. It got me thinking about who I was speaking to and why and what I needed from them. If these poems are for me and my own self-exploration, and then further for people that share my tongue and the experiences it holds—then why italicize?
Semi-relatedly: you’re also a dancer, another very rhythmic, embodied art. “Birthright” has you doing and speaking about dancing (at least in the Vancouver Poetry House video). How do you choreograph your poetry, or make your dancing poetic?
It depends from poem to poem I think. In “Birthright” I’m literally doing moves from the songs I’m referencing. It was a way for me to tap into the nostalgic magic of those dances and how the girl on the corner reminded me of how I used to practice on the block, just like her growing up. When it comes to movement in other poems and pieces I’m really trying to paint a live picture of the images I’m seeing. If I become it in front of you the poem is able to be received a little deeper, I feel. And the musicality of how I write helps piece things together image by image.
The theme of visuality is made explicit in poems like “Blush” (with its mention of ‘leather aesthetic’) and “Victory” (with its short “do you not see” refrain). How does seeing and being seen by the audience change the nature of your poetry/performance?
I want us to be honest about the vulnerability and responsibility it is to be seen. To bear witness to someone’s unravelling. The responsibility I have to be genuine and authentic with how I’m relating to myself so that it gives them permission to be honest in how they see themselves. I try and engage with every poem as a mirror. That’s for me and my survival as a Black femme. I’m constantly having to make known the ways the world is fucking with my sense of self, my humanity. Questions like “do you not see…” poke at the spaces I’ve learned whiteness and its minions live in. The aspects of my existence that are erased, gaslit, or exotified. Deconstructing and bearing witness to the truth of my humanity has helped me find ground, that’s what these poems were for initially. But there’s always been a part of me that craves sharing with others, being seen by others in expansive ways; that’s why I love performing. And I think all humans need that, we need relations to live and thrive and grow—I think the warmth, compassion and curiosity I approach myself with spills over in how I am with an audience. My poetry challenges people to see someone they have been conditioned to overlook. And it challenges them to see how they might have overlooked themselves in the process.
Your Spoken Word Canada performance of “I Am A New Brand of Shiny” involves your arms being up a lot, standing akimbo. What does it mean to you to purposefully take space, and make space?
The stage is the one space where Black folks’ genius has been “allowed” to take space. Granted, it comes with exploitation and a certain brand of dehumanization, but it’s undoubtedly a place where we belong. When I wrote that piece I was laying out in the Texan sun, preparing for the Women of the World Poetry Slam. It was a space made for me, by me, and I could feel it. Sometimes performing in predominantly white/older spaces, that knowing dims and that poem reminds me that everywhere I go the sun is, the cosmos are, the water is. That I am made up of this knowing, so it could never actually leave me. It’s important that I share that reminder with Black folks. I started the Black Arts Matter Festival in Alberta because I knew we needed that reminder. That the arts have always been the way we relate to the world, so how could it ever be taken?
The Growing Room Literary & Arts Festival 2020 will take place on the traditional, unceded, and ancestral territory of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish peoples (Vancouver, British Columbia) from March 11 – 15. You can join NASRA at the “Say Mashallah: Celebrating Muslim Writers” panel on March 12 at Massy Books or at the Growing Room’s Slam Championship on March 13 at the Beaumont Studios. Event registration is now open and tickets are pay-what-you-can.
NASRA is a queer, Muslim, Oromo curator/creator living in Amiskwaciwȃskahikan (Edmonton) on Treaty 6 territory. They were the Youth Poet Laureate of Edmonton from 2016 to 2017. They are also the Festival Director of Black Arts Matter—Alberta’s interdisciplinary Black arts festival—and were the 2017 recipient of the Mayor’s Emerging Artist award.
Chimedum Ohaegbu attends UBC in pursuit of hummingbirds and a dual degree in English literature and creative writing. Her professional debut in Strange Horizons was longlisted for the Nommo Award for African speculative fiction, and her fondness of bad puns has miraculously not prevented her work from being otherwise published in The /tƐmz/ Review, The Capilano Review, SAD Magazine, and more. Website: chimedum.com. Twitter: @chimedumohaegbu