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Writing poems about
football is not a big deal, notes Ismail Bala Garba, as he explains why
he writes poems about the popular game.

“Poetry shouldn’t
necessarily be about the so-called important issues; it could be about
mundane issues like football. If someone writes a poem about football,
he’s not only showcasing his love for football, a particular player,
club or brand of football, he is also making a statement that art could
be serious. It could be high art and at the same time, it could be
about mundane issues like football,” he says.

Though he has over
20 poems on ‘Football Poets’, the website that carries the motto:
‘swapping shirts with Shakespeare’, the round leather game is not only
what Garba, a lecturer in the Department of English and French, Bayero
University, Kano, writes about. His poems have appeared in local and
international journals including ‘Okike’; ‘Poetry Review’ (England);
‘Poetry’ (Chicago); ‘Stand'(England); ‘New Coin’ (South Africa); and
‘Karogs’ (Latvia), amongst others. “It’s something that I do
occasionally. Even amidst writing so called serious poetry, you could
find yourself writing poetry about other issues outside the main domain
of what counts as serious poetry.”

The co-editor of
‘Pyramids: Anthology of Poems from Northern Nigeria’ with Abdullahi
Ismaila, and ‘Fireflies: An Anthology of New Nigerian Poetry’ with
Ahmed Maiwada, is so interested in football poetry that he considered,
“bringing out an anthology of football poems” at a time.

“I have a friend
who is very keen and passionate about football poetry; he is an
American with an African sounding name based in Belgium. I don’t know
what happened, maybe the idea died. But I hope one day to revive it.”

Garba, currently at
the University of Iowa, US, for an international writing programme,
became interested in writing poetry in secondary school. He later chose
poetry as his preferred medium of expression, “maybe because it was the
first genre of literature that I came in contact with and from there my
love for literature developed.”

The dawdler

Though his poems
have been published in journals, newspapers, and anthologies, Garba’s
personal collection of poems is yet to be published.

“I am afraid I
still don’t have a collection to show for all these years of publishing
poetry. It’s quite a shame, one would say, and I would agree. I am the
kind of person who dawdles a lot, who procrastinates. So, perhaps, that
may explain the delay of publishing my poetry in a book. To put some
logic to it, I see myself as being very patient with the idea of bring
out a collection,” he says.

“I wouldn’t say I
am like the great Lebanese poet, Kahlil Gibran, who kept the manuscript
of his ‘The Prophet’ for many years, submitting it only when he thought
he was absolutely sure about the poems. But all the same, I would like
to keep the poems I have written over the years until I feel some level
of satisfaction before I collect the disparate poems I have published
over the years. “Another way of explaining it is that what I have
written in the past, published around the world, was written in a
voice, in a style I don’t recognise any more. As my writing voice and
style evolve, I become sceptical about what I have written previously.
I have this knack for revising endlessly what I have written.”

The author of ‘A
Strip of Wonder’, ‘A Nigerian Elegy’, and ‘The President’s Face’,
amongst other poems, writes “anytime, anywhere, any day. Mostly, I
write my creative pieces after reading other people’s work. That’s the
best time I get inspired.”

Interestingly,
poetry is the only way Garba expresses himself because, “I’ve tried my
hands unsuccessfully at short stories. So, basically, I’m a one man
show. I just concentrate on poetry.”

More doggerel, less poetry

Assessing the
seeming popularity of poetry in the country, the poet and critic says
more Nigerians are taking to poetry. “Probably because it is much
easier to write than a novel or play, which requires long years of
training. I’m not saying poetry doesn’t require such effort, but it’s
easy for people to string words together and call them poetry.”

Co-editor of the
critical book, ‘Towards Sustaining Creative Writing in Northern
Nigeria: Proceedings of the First Summit of Northern Nigerian Writers,’
Garba is, however, not happy with the quality of poetry collections
being published. “Any discerning observer of Nigerian poetry must have
noticed that just as many books are being churned out daily with an
alarming alacrity, the quality, really, has significantly gone down. Of
all the books being published in the name of poetry, honestly, only
very few can lay claim to being called poetry collection.

“Poetry is not just
stringing words together; it has many requirements. You could begin to
say poetry must have this, must have that, but in the end, when you
read a good poem, when you come across good poetry, you know it,
irrespective of the technical aspects. When you see a good poem, you
know it’s a good poem. For me, much of what is being churned out today
in the name of poetry in Nigeria really is not poetry, it’s something
else. Doggerel, just words strung together. Lifeless, uninspiring.”

Like other
observers, he attributes the decline in quality to self publishing. “In
an ideal situation, any would-be writer writes and tries to get
published in journals and anthologies. Popular newspapers, presumably
they have good editors, will sift through all submissions, look for the
good ones, edit, and publish them. A person who is lucky to have his
piece published in a journal, newspaper, or anthology will now go on
and collect those pieces that over the years are published in
newspapers, anthologies and journals to form a collection. He’s not
just going to approach a roadside printer, no.

“In an ideal
situation, such poems considered for publication will be submitted to a
conventional, professional publisher, who would pass it on to his
editors for assessment. After it is assessed and found to be
publishable, it would be published in a professional manner and then
there would be the cultural aspect of it; the critical industry out
there in form of publications in scholarly publications and newspapers.

“Good literature
thrives in a place where many things work in tandem to help nurture
that literature. You could say that such vital requirements, which
helped develop Nigeria literature in the 60s and 70s, are no longer
there now. Maybe that’s why we have this problem.”

The remedy

A lot, he says,
needs to be done to remedy the situation. “We‘ll need to have a serious
publishing industry. Serious newspapers that don’t just publish
anything, and good editors who will look you in the eye and say your
work is not good, we are not going to publish it, and would be writers
trying to avoid self publication.”

Though he agrees
the South has an edge over the North when it comes to creative writing
in English, he believes the North has made significant progress in
writing in indigenous languages, especially Hausa. That progress,
however, faces a new threat.

“That improvement
is also being hampered by the rise of the film industry. We have a
vibrant film industry in the North, which is more or less a Kano affair
and is nicknamed Kannywood. The rise of that film industry coincided
with the decline in what is known as Kano Market Literature.

“Many of the writers have turned their attention to filmmaking
because that’s where money could easily be made. Whether it’s true or
not, I cannot say but this is what is happening.”