“I grew up in a household where language was premium. Yoruba is a language that is driven more by tone than by syntax, which meant that one had to listen carefully to the inflections. My Delphic Laurel-winning poem, ‘Odidere,’ was inspired by this. The act of translation itself can help a larger audience access what one has created in one's indigenous language. What inspires my writing in English is more complex. I found it important to deal with issues of environmental degradation, class struggles, and gender, and how it has been weaponized,” the award-winning poet shared.
“We come from a tradition of oral traditions. But what is important is to embrace innovations, for instance, artificial intelligence, and digitization. If in the past we were able to protect, preserve memory through orality [and] now we've got instruments where we can record and digitize our values, our traditions, the nuances of our cultural practices, dance, music, and everything that is linked to it. So let's use and exploit artificial intelligence to our advantage. Don't allow technology to dictate the terms of your own culture, but culture must employ technology so that technology listens to the intelligence of your cultural outlook. You tell it what it must do for you rather than it telling you how you should conduct yourself,” the former parliamentarian stressed.