INTALK CONVERSATION: Ezimadu Ugorji Talks About The Peculiarity Of A Writer's Style

In this short interview, Ezimadu presents an alternative perspective on the peculiarities of a writer's style and how creatives typically perceive.

Ezimadu Ugorji Talks About The Peculiarity Of A Writer's Style

Ezimadu Ugorji's poem, The Soul Of Us, was shortlisted for the Pawners Paper's Spoken Word and Poetry Contest.

Ezimadu Ugorji is a 400-level student of Mechanical Engineering at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.

You can find activism for the soul, which I write at ezimmadu.medium.com.

In this short interview, Ezimadu presents an alternative perspective on the peculiarity of a writer's style and how creatives typically perceive the world through their own lenses.

 

How does it feel to make the shortlist? Did you anticipate it?

Immersion. It was the theme that inspired it. Of course, one word could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For me, it was how consumed someone (or people) could be by an idea or a state of mind, to the point where redemption from that idea seems impossible. 

For me, that people* was Nigeria. And the consuming state of mind is what I tried to reflect in The Soul of Us.

 

 

 

As a creative, there tends to be a different way of perceiving things, often different from the way most people would. Do you find this challenging?

 

Truly, we perceive things differently. Is this a challenge? Yes. 

Sometimes, I'm misunderstood. But most times I can't understand the other person because, as creatives, we are blessed (or cursed) with a mind that looks over the vista of everything and usually fails to see the single, little point the other person sees. For me, this has been the case, at least.

 

 

It's believed that every writer, poet, and spoken word performer has their own style, and that's the peculiar thing that sets each one apart from the rest. Do you subscribe to this view?

 

Yes, yes. I do. Every human being—not just writers or poets now—must have a distinguishing quality. God gave them that.

 

What inspired you to come up with the piece?

 

Like I mentioned already, it was a result of probing—or reflection, if you like—into the lives of the lower-class Nigerians. My lecturer, or was it Apostle Femi Lazarus, mentioned the story of a group of people who beat a bread thief and hailed with those same hands the looter who had made bread costly.

That story, and other variations of it that I'm sure you're not unaware of—those inspired me.