The MFA Chronicles blog series offers perspective on the experiences of Nigerian writers who are currently on MFA programs, shedding light on the challenges and rewards of such a journey.
Nigerian writers who aspire to pursue their writing dreams can gain valuable insight into the application process, program selection, cultural and language barriers, and how to overcome them.
This month, we spoke with Edwardson Ukata.
Ukata, Edwardson is a queer nonbinary writer from Nigeria in the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis. They were a finalist for the 2022 Anzaldua Poetry Prize and second-place winner of the 2021 SprinNG Poetry Prize. Their work has been honorably mentioned in the Starlit Awards and the Dan Veach Poetry Prize in 2021, as well as the Bergen International Writing Competition in 2023. They have poems featured in POETRY, Channel, Lolwe, FOLIO, Consequence, Vastarien, DREICH, Afritondo, and elsewhere. Their poetry focuses primarily on familial relationships, queer identity, religion, and disease, and has been included in anthologies including UNBOUND and Queer Voices of the World by the International Human Rights Arts Movement. They tweet @eddiewatson31.
What motivated you to pursue an MFA?
I had many motivations, the most important and prominent being that I needed a new space for my writing to manifest fully, freely, and truthfully. It may likely come off as untrue or at least not fully genuine to so many because many people would think about the money associated with an MFA— the stipend, how some $30,000 sure sounds like a lot for an average Nigerian, whether or not it is for a year or a month— the idea of making money that can try to sustain you, and some if not many of the young dreams and goals you could fathom while within the intricacies of a country like Nigeria, by ‘merely doing something as simple as writing poetry’.
And it honestly does sound like a fun getaway too, may even feel like it at the moment, and might truthfully be, but my motivations or the motivations of any Nigerian writer who has pursued an MFA, I would like to think, can simply not be reduced to the idea of the associated money, or even the idea of escape, but it can always be summarized into the idea of the need for a more consistent and comfortable environment for true and powerful creativity to emerge and thrive. Needing a new space for my writing to manifest fully meant that I needed somewhere I could practically learn poetry, and be physically exposed to it in ways that would feel institutionalized, formal, and at the same time deeply connective with and rooted in my identity and desired freedom. And of course, there was, is, and will always be poetry in Nigeria, in the culture, in the songs of my tribespeople, the national anthem, the Ancient and Modern Hymns I sang in my choir at Ahoada, the slang and under-the-radar queer lingo of Port Harcourt, formally in the schools at all elemental and secondary and tertiary levels, everywhere, but in Nigeria I was a writer who moved by instinct and passion and talent, educated but not enough, emotionally free but not enough, aware but not enough, and I needed to find my bearing because true art comes from a place of true knowledge, and true knowledge is knowledge that is enough.
In this light, I limitedly knew myself while Truth, in the concept of it, has no limit. This is the momentum I worked with. I thought of the benefits of moving to America where I would be free to be as queer as possible, not that freedom in America, and honestly anywhere, is ever complete, but I thought so because whatever I wrote and needed the world to pay attention to, came from the utmost depths of my queerness, my overall traumatic and beautiful and inspiring identity. This is what I needed to understand more, practice more, and experience more— myself, or else I would become stagnant and enveloped in that little, as I like to call it, incompetent knowledge of myself. I also thought about the full sponsorship for an MFA. I already had a Bachelor’s degree I was helped through and paid for with everything I had.
Pursuing a Masters degree in anything at all was a dream I simply could not afford in Nigeria. I did not have the money. I also did not have the zeal to go through the Nigerian educational system again. But I needed to know beyond what I knew about poetry, beyond the classical styles and theories I had read and learned in books from my previous University’s library, beyond the free-floating ideas I assimilated from generally reading other people’s poems, from poetry arguments, from Twitter trends and Facebook and Instagram posts. I burned with the desire to advance my knowledge in the craft of writing. I needed mentors, teachers, a school, a workshop— something I could be physically immersed in, something, someone I could physically revere, look up to, or deep into the eyes as I would be taught and advised, and be demanded from.
But I needed this something to be far away from Nigeria because even though there was all this in the country, I remained with the feeling of fear and bondage because my desire for personal freedom and my poverty and lack of zeal to afford and pursue a literary degree in Nigeria overshadowed me. At the time I had been nurturing ideas for a full-length manuscript and a Poetry Film Album. I knew what to write but not how to go about writing it. I visualized these ideas but was stuck. I wanted a breakthrough for these projects and an MFA seemed the most feasible one. So I went after it and got it.
How did you select the program you attended and what was the most challenging aspect of the application process?
The most challenging aspect of the application process for me was paying the application fees. Ridiculously, many of these American Universities charge international applicants much higher application fees compared to domestic applicants, even while knowing their ability for intake and level of urgency to meet diversity quotas. And with the foreign exchange rates at the time, the application fees amounted to a lot to cover. Fortunately, though, I received support from so many people to cover some schools, even during my first attempt in 2022. For some schools, I was granted fee waivers. When it came to selecting what school to attend, though, WashU was an easy pick, because I had always loved and respected the Writing Program for its Faculty and its learning and writing community. I would say it was a dream come true— it was my top school.
How has the MFA program impacted your writing and creative process?
Immeasurably. The Poetry cohort genuinely feels like a family. And the many experiences of even the city of St. Louis, so far, have been nothing short of liberating. I am being tutored by MaryJo Bang, David Schuman, and Eduardo Corral who are some of the most brilliant minds I have ever come across, with courseloads packed with exercise and practice and motivators for freethinking and critical reasoning. I am now truly learning poetry beyond its craft but also deep into its philosophy, science, and culture. Recently, I had a conference with the visiting Hurst Professor, John Murillo, a remarkable, dedicated, and intelligent writer truly patriotic to the craft and the art of poetry. I have attended readings, craft talks, coffee room sessions, writers’ parties, and events that have broadened my scope and opened my mind and soul to the point where I no longer feel that stagnation. I have been writing many new poems that feel like they know what they want to do and how to do them, poems I look at and can see living like the true organisms they have always wanted to be. This is what I wanted and what I have gotten. I imagine a near future with so much more of these motivators for honest creativity.
Who are you reading now?
Right now I am reading Fiston Mwanza Mujila, particularly his Tram 83, and am almost through it and eager to pick up Saba Keramati’s Self Mythology. I recently finished John Murillo’s Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry and Carmen Maria Machado’s In The Dream House. All stellar works. I absolutely recommend!
What are your writing goals? What are you working on now?
My writing goals and objectives tend to take many forms from time to time, but generally, I always want to create literature that fights for queerness the way a hen fights for her chicks. I always want to create literature that lives through time as an activist for a deeper understanding of the true human self, writing that consoles, contradicts, contours, attacks, relaxes, and challenges the notions of family and community, the notions of nationality, religion, space, desire, sex, and the health of the body, writing that tears people and their politics apart with carefulness and tenderness, and pieces them back together again, or abandons them to fix themselves. Right now I am working on a hybrid chapbook-length poem. It is turning out so well. It will turn out better, still.
What advice would you give to other Nigerian writers considering pursuing an MFA degree?
Pursue it with honesty and confidence. Understand what your writing needs to move forward and go after schools with faculties and history that align with your educated needs. Do not be overwhelmed. Do not be shaken. Creativity requires spirit, but craft requires a stable mind. Seek assistance and mentorship through the process. Be part of a community of like-minded people. Motivate yourself. Research. Put in your best because it is a competition too. Always be ready to try and try again. You are a beautiful writer but you must be practical and concise. Revise your mission. Revise your objectives. Think long-term. Think heritage. It is not only about you and where you come from. It is also about where you are headed, and what will come from you. What do you have to offer? What do you want to give? Realize it.
Interested in sharing your MFA experience with us? Please fill out the form here.
About the Writer: Precious Obiabunmo is a graduate of English and Literature at Nnamdi Azikiwe University. She’s the Digital Content/Community Manager at Kachifo Limited. Connect with her on LinkedIn
