Poetry is helping Michelle Chiamaka Nnanyelugo find her feet again in UK
◙
AFTER SHE GRADUATED FROM UNIVERSITY in 2017, the Academic Staff Union of University body, ASUU, went on a nationwide strike which lasted about a year, confining Michelle Chiamaka Nnanyelugo to the walls of her home in a sleepy estate in Nkwelle, outskirts Onitsha, for a prolonged period. Being very reserved and having no provisions for a social life, she was bored at home and began to pen her thoughts in short notes or lines of poetry, picking up a favourite pastime which she had developed over the years.
This didn’t begin as anything serious, but she was nevertheless pleasantly surprised at the result, how her words found a life of their own. At first, she would write poems, and other times, she wanted to become more expansive with her thoughts. “While I wrote, I found that I was suppressing my thoughts. They kept getting longer, more elaborate, more distinctive. I was suppressing them, but one day, I opened up my heart and wrote everything the way it was and found that what I had written was in a sophisticated language. It wasn’t just the very simple thoughts I expected to write.”
To share her thoughts with others, she began recording them as audio files and sent them via WhatsApp to friends, who gave her encouraging feedback. Gradually, she cultivated this into a usual practice. It felt like she had just discovered herself. “Back in the university,” she tells me, “I did not discover myself. I was mostly alone. I lived from home to school and back. I did not even keep friends because I did not want problems. And so I did not even know of poetry being something that could exist in a community. Until my final year, when I discovered a community in the university. But being very close to leaving, it was too late.” So when she began to write in the solitude of her home, she had no community to share with, and didn’t imagine she could find another outside the university whose community she missed out on.
The ASUU strike ended and she went for NYSC, where she was posted to an anti-corruption Community Development Service (CDS) and luckily met a community of young art aficionados. At a gathering, the president of her CDS insisted that everyone must perform something entertaining. Finally exposed, she reluctantly recited a poem and her performance was greeted with applause. This was when she began to come to terms with the reality of spokenword culture in Nigeria. This set the trail for a journey of self-emancipation her poetry led her to.
Michelle wrote often about her personal experience with insomnia, and dysmenorrhea, which had plagued her all through her teenage life to adulthood. And when she spoke about them on stage, it was mainly a recounting of her experiences. And the response from her audience wasn’t just listening ears. There were people who shared her experiences, who often met her after performances to share their pleasant thoughts on her poetry. This gave her the confidence to emerge further from her shell.
Originally posted to Nasarawa state for NYSC, she redeployed to Enugu where she could access medical care for her dysmenorrhea. There, she worked as an intern at Solid FM 100.9 Enugu, under Ify Melody, discussing business on air; during which time, she sharpened her public speaking skills. She also discovered the Enugu Literary Society through the programme the society held in collaboration with iServe on World Poetry Day in April, 2019.
She joined the ELS community and performed at their meetings. She found that she was performing to enlighten people about what her experiences had taught her. The books she had begun reading and the performances she watched helped in shaping her poems better. In retrospect, Michelle regrets not keeping some of her materials. “Someone made a video for me of one of my Enugu performances. But I lost everything because I wasn’t even documenting.” But not anymore. As she says, “Spokenword made me a very focused person as well. It has helped me climb stages I would ordinarily not have climbed. It also awakened a level of boldness and audaciousness in me.” It has also become the livewire that resuscitates the fire of creativity in her.
In 2019, Michelle was a second runner-up in the Poets in Nigeria poetry grand slam organised by Chisom Udeoba, and chaired by the poet Eriata Orhibabor, in Anambra. She had been encouraged to contest in the slam by Mazi Ibiam Ude, a fellow performance poet and teacher who she met in Enugu during NYSC. It was at this slam I first encountered her. Dressed in an armless navy blue jumpsuit, her quirky tone which, although, strained the ear, gave her performance an animated, unique quality.
In September, 2020, Michelle moved to the UK to pursue an M.A. in Media and Creative Cultures in the University of Greenwich. Having to juggle her studies with working to survive in a new country, and to deal with the immensity of culture shock on her psyche, she went through a phase where she was sapped of her creative juices. Laughing at the experience, she tells me, “I have not yet fully recovered from that experience.” She couldn’t take her art seriously as she used to do for two years; and now, beginning to write again is an exercise in recovery. “The struggle to adapt to life in the UK took away my passion and all. My life totally changed since I came here. And now that I am a bit more balanced, the passion has gradually returned.”
Her first years in the UK coincided with the long and hard fight against COVID-19, and an economic meltdown in Europe. Schools were not held physically, social distance was strict, and it was very hard to make friends. She struggled for a long time to get medical attention for her dysmenorrhea because each time she called the hospital, they were either filled with patients or the doctors were occupied with appointments that they could not make one for her. But she managed to carry on with her studies.
Homesick afterward, she returned to Nigeria for a holiday. “I needed that break, to reconnect to my roots. Nigeria gave me closure and a sense of community, and I haven’t gotten over it. I was genuinely happy. I even had the privilege to perform a poem and it was fascinating to see a lot of people didn’t still know about poetry. I would say my journey to Nigeria was both impromptu and spontaneous. It shaped my convictions to leave my comfort zone and made me stretch. It is part of the foundation that has further solidified my journey towards becoming.” With her M.A. done and having reconnected with her roots, she returned to the UK and seeks a new path in the direction of her passions. She continues writing poetry, while she applies for opportunities in the media and cultural organisations in the UK.
Her poem, “My Body Cannot Keep Secrets,” recently published in Libretto is part of a poetry chapbook-in-progress titled Phoenix, which encapsulates her struggles. It is a project alongside a mini-documentary titled “God is Slow.” “Recently,” she said, “I hosted a podcast for the filmmaker, Benneth Nwankwo and enjoyed doing it very well.” She wants to hone her talents and interests, to get even better and position herself in the competitive UK economy. And ultimately, to become better at her art, too.
Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera is an essayist and journalist. He is interested in art criticism and in oft-avoided topics among the Nigerian literati. His works have been published in Jalada Africa, The Republic, Brittle Paper, Olongo Africa, Afrocritik, Afapinen, African Writer, and elsewhere. He is @ChukwuderaEdozi on Twitter.