Author Q&A with Muiz Ọpẹ́yẹmí Àjàyí

Muiz Ọpẹ́yẹmí Àjàyí (Frontier XVIII) is an editor at The Nigeria Review, poetry reader for Adroit Journal, and a 2023 Poetry Translation Centre UNDERTOW cohort. He is the winner of the Lagos-London Poetry Competition 2022, University of Ibadan Law LDS Poetry Prize 2022, shortlisted/longlisted for Ake Poetry Prize, Briefly Write Poetry Prize, Kreative Diadem Poetry Prize, and a Best of The Net nominee. Muiz has features in Frontier Poetry, 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Tab Journal, Olongo, Lolwe, SAND Journal, Poetry Wales, Aké Review, Yabaleft Review, Nigerian News-Direct and elsewhere.

Tell us about yourself.

I feel like I’m different things at different times. At the moment I’m an exhausted Law student. But most of the time I’m a Lagos-born Yoruba boy alternating between the cities of Lagos and Ibadan, and as a dear friend would say, making attempts at beauty. I enjoy poetry, music, football, basketball sometimes, and good conversations.

To me Mosaic was a beautiful poem about putting yourself back together each time life breaks you. What was the story behind Mosaic?

At the time I wrote Mosaic I was thinking a lot about healing. I come from a society where there’s so much hurt—so much tragedy in the papers, on air, in the mouth of your next door neighbour. Somehow though, as a people we’ve always come to traverse these challenges. The societal condition reaches its worst-in-history every few years. And when you think it couldn’t get worse, it just out-does itself and worsens further. Yet each time we grow a thicker skin. We adapt. We pick up our pieces and move on—sometimes almost too fast. The poem also speaks to me too. I’m often very hesitant about cutting myself any slack, allowing myself or anyone to kiss my wounds close. But sometimes in hindsight, I reflect on my small battles, fondling my scars—as my dudie Chinedu Gospel said in a poem—like a trophy.

What message do you hope your reader takes from Mosaic?

A Yoruba proverb goes thus,“ilé ọba t’ójó ẹwà ló bùsi.” This translates to “when a king’s palace gets razed, it becomes more beautiful when rebuilt.” The reader, I hope, reaches the end of this poem with a new definition of healing. I hope the reader begins to see healing beyond the ordinary scabbing of wounds. I hope the reader is able to see healing as a journey towards an unprecedented beauty.

Mosaic suggests a divine presence in our creation. How does faith impact your life and work?

I’m a practising Muslim, and belief in the supreme being is an integral part of my life. In the society I belong to, for many, it’s what keeps us forging forward. The creation story—however believable it is—is one of my favourite stories. I like the idea of God being the first artist so much, that each time I make art I like to believe I do it as the reflection of God. I like to think I’m merely imitating the work of Allah.

How does writing poetry affect how you view the world?

This reminds me of Sylvia Plath saying “I don’t know what it’s like to not have deep emotions.  Even when I feel nothing, I feel it completely.” Often, I tend to show very little emotion, but when I feel someway about something, I feel it most intensely.  I think poetry makes everything much more real to me. Say how every single person that dies is a real human being with people who loved them, and not just numbers that make up the stats. Makes me feel and see everything in HD.

What is your favorite form of poetry and why?

At the moment I’m kind of obsessed with ghazals. I won’t say it’s my favourite form, but since reading Agha ShahidAli’s Call Me Ishmael Tonight I’ve been a fan. There’s a musicality that comes with it. And perhaps because I love good music, I do enjoy the symphony in ghazals. Written a couple myself. I hope I do write more in the future.

What subjects do you tend to address in your poetry and why?

Most of my writing revolves around identity. Being a Nigerian boy. Being a Yoruba boy. Being a Muslim boy. My writing often addresses how these identities intersect each other. How they conflict with and complement each other. These days though, my writing has been less personal, and more outward looking. In recent times, I’ve written more poems about places—particularly Lagos—than anything else. Been connecting more with all the historical and contemporary violence and degradation, embedded in these environments, which very few people talk about. And they’re some of the best things I’ve written.

How has being an editor and poetry reader affected your own work as a poet?

The overall experience of judging other people’s work has influenced me significantly, especially as poetry can be very subjective. It’s taught me to write exactly what I want to write. There are probably hundreds of really good poems in the slush pile. Why try so hard to write a good poem? So instead I just write what’s true to me, and see if we can make a good poem out of it. That way, even if it doesn’t get published, I still have a sense of fulfilment from writing what I want and understanding that one rejection doesn’t necessarily speak about the quality of my work. When you see the ratio of accepted to rejected works or have to turn down really good works yourself, you begin to re-evaluate some things.

What do you hope to do with your law undergraduate from the University of Ibadan, in Ibadan, Nigeria? 

Upon gaining admission into the most prestigious university in the country, I had only a vague idea of what to do with my law degree. And even now after a session and half, spanning over two years, it’s still gradually unfurling. I intend to use this undergraduate degree as a medium for getting other law degrees I already have my eyes set on. Only then can I get what I intend to achieve with my legal studies as a whole.

How does your law undergraduate and your passion for poetry and writing benefit each other? How do you carve out time for both?

One way my legal studies has probably impacted my writing is in the sharpening of my logical thinking. Poetry on the other hand has made it easier for me to think and write more creatively when required, especially with the nature of law exams in the Nigerian legal system. I became serious with submitting my poems during the one year compulsory hiatus imposed on my set of undergraduates, as a result of an eight-month strike by university lecturers. Two years later and I do not find it easy carving out time for both. My home of permanent residence is two states away from the city where I go to school, which is ironically my state of origin. The downside is that even if I do—and I rarely ever do—find time to write, I’m unable to do much writing while away from Lagos (my original city of residence). I have even less time to respond to mail or make submissions, while completing school assignments, and extra-curricular tasks. I sometimes have to sacrifice one for the other. In October, for instance, I missed two tests—which I took upon my return—to attend the Lagos poetry festival whose concert I opened alongside my Poetry Translation Centre UNDERTOW cohorts. I was in Jericho Brown’s poetry workshop, knowing my mates were having their NLS test. But I was happy at the moment, totally without regret.

What do you think of when you hear, “The Good Life?”

I think of the philosopher lecturer in my first year, telling us, on that hot afternoon in the musty lecture theatre at the faculty of arts, how Aristotle said the ultimate goal of human life is the pursuit of happiness. And although I never read half of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, I couldn’t agree more with that idea of a good life. I tend to think of a life of fulfilment. Fulfilment, for me, is a life where the “red ink”—to quote a Lenrie Peters’ poem—is far less in comparison to the ticked boxes; a life, no matter how simple or ordinary, where the joy outweighs the regrets.

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Muiz’s poem “Mosaic” is available in Issue #13 ~ Autumn 2023.

Thank you, Muiz. We’re grateful to you for your willingness to spend extra time with us on this Q&A and for making life more beautiful with your poem. We wish you the best!