Oku onuora biography sample

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Oku Nagba Ozala Onuora (born Orlando

In part 2 of our exclusive interview with Oku Onuora he explains how his poetry secured his release from prison, and performing with the Light Of Saba influenced him to try recording…. So how did your poems manage to escape from prison and get out to the people? After my first collection of poems was confiscated I rewrote some of them from memory.

Because even now with my poems, the poem is normally finished or almost finished in my head before I put it on paper. Because I come from an oral tradition also. My poetry is more influenced by the music, by reggae, than literature. It is more informed by the music, by the early revolutionary protest music as opposed to Chaucer, Shakespeare, Louise Bennett.

To be truthful, in my early days I saw Miss Lou as a folk poet. She was funny and I wasn't into laughing thing. It was in later years that I realised how this woman was using this medium to convey some serious messages. But I was mostly influenced by the music, by reggae. I decided "Yo, these dudes ain't going to do this again. They ain't going to get my work".