I think, when you grow up as a black person or an African in a black and African country, identity isn’t something you are particularly concerned abo… - Wana Udobang

It is always very easy hide with poetry. The bones of some of the poems were written as part of a month-long challenge that I was part of in a closed Facebook group. Everyday we got a prompt and had to produce a poem before midnight. It was quite grueling, and I don’t think any of us finished the thirty days but it really opened me up emotionally. I also wrote many of the poems traveling.

My work is also very minimalist aesthetically, which is an extension of me. I think as an individual I am constantly living and dealing with a myriad of complexities, so I crave and need simplicity to function and I think those same principles drive my work.

Energy is a real thing, so whether it’s with people or what you read it comes with the spaces you enter. You allow yourself to absorb those things and they will have an impact on you. If you are consuming a diet everyday of negativity and danger, and thoughts that everyone is out to get you, this is all that will consume you. Even when you are saying your prayers this is all that is going to consume your prayer pattern. You are going to keep fighting demons in your prayers.