Rongo Art Residency: A Conversation with Chukwuebuka Alu
- How did you feel when you got accepted for the Rongo Art Residency?
I received the news of my acceptance into the Rongo Artist Residency at a particularly challenging time in my life. So, when I received the email, I didn’t know what to feel. I felt a lot of emotions at once, but most prominently, I felt excited.
- What’s your favorite moment at the residency?
Every moment at the residency was my favourite moment, for real. But I really enjoyed the night bonding sessions I and other residents had. Where we told ourselves stories and played games. It helped me get my mind off a lot of things.
- What is the most important thing you learned from your facilitator during the residency?
I learnt the essence of reworking my first drafts. Like Ifeanyichukwu Eze would say, “your first draft is like vomit, no one likes to go back to their vomit.” At this residency, I confronted myself as an artist for the first time. I confronted solitude for the purpose of art.
- After this residency, what next?
I don’t live my life on “what’s next”. Que Sera Sera.
- How has the residency impacted you as a writer?
It changed my perspective about art and artists. I have never had the opportunity to live in a shared space with artists and eat from the same table as them. I made a solid lifetime connections with the writers and artists I met at the Rongo Arts Residency.
BIO:
Chukwuebuka Alu is a Nigerian poet of Ehugbo-origin. He has received various accolades for his writing including nominations and shortlists for The Best of Net (2021), the Stephen A. Dibiase Poetry Prize (2021 & 2024), The Jack Grapes Poetry Prize (2021), Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize (2022) and the Brigette Poirson Literature Prize (2024).
His poems can be found on Third Coast, Beaver Magazine, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, Roadrunner Review, MacGuffin, 20.25 Africa: An Anthology, Glass Mountain, Rigorous, Deraciné, Defunkt, New Feathers Anthology, and elsewhere mostly under his pseudonym Ebuka Evans. He is also a fellow at The Ugly Collective.
