27 November 2022 · Live and Community · Headliner
I was invited to perform as one of the headliners at the 2022 More Life Poetry Concert in Port Harcourt, a city ravaged by oil extraction and insecurity. The theme was On My Honour, and here I sought to expound upon Dave Chappelle's exhortation:
Dave Chappelle
Before the show, I sat down with artists from Port Harcourt's poetry community to exchange ideas. The city was an important part of the conversation. Port Harcourt is a place where oil extraction has made a deep environmental and social impact. Questions of loyalty, betrayal and responsibility reach beyond the personal. They shape how people relate to one another, to their communities and to the land they inherit.
So while my poems were, on the surface, about romantic relationships that came undone, they were actually Trojan Horses to talk about the issues in ways that weren't politically charged or inciting.
My set comprised That Pizza Place on Harold Sodipo, The Day We Burnt Third Mainland Bridge and Villain's Outro. With the trio I was asking who gets to decide who the villain is. What do we justify when we feel betrayed, and what do we sacrifice when we take revenge into our own hands, as the oil militants are wont to do? Because this is a place where young people face the consequences of environmental destruction and insecurity, these questions took on another life.
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