Chapbook Chats: Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto Interviews Light Through Water Author Connor Cogill
To celebrate KUMI New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set, Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto is talking to poets whose chapbooks are included in the KUMI edition of the wonderful ongoing series. Enjoy this conversation between Chinua and poet Connor Cogill.
Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto: Congratulations on the release of your chapbook, Light Through Water, featured in the 2024 New-Generation African Poets series! Could you share your experience of seeing your work published in this acclaimed series, and what it means to you personally and professionally to be part of this important moment for African poetry?
Connor Cogill: Thank you very much for the congratulations! Having my work published as a part of the New-Generation African Poets series of 2024 has been an amazing honour on two fronts: Firstly, due to the prestige associated with this project, and secondly, due to the pleasure and pride of actually having my work released into the world in a physical form. Growing up, I always dreamed of having a book with my name plastered on the front, and to have achieved this for the first time as part of a series which focuses on celebrating African poetry and the diversity and richness of our perspectives is nothing short of an unforgettable milestone.
C. E-O: How did you arrive at the title for your chapbook?
C.C: The title of my chapbook was taken from one of its poems, which shares the same title and focuses on the passage of time as a sometimes malforming force in one’s life. In this poem, I jump between scenes of learning to float in my backyard swimming pool as a child, then drinking and ruminating at that same pool as an adult. It was felt that this title and the poem it belongs to represents a large theme of the chapbook: How the past informs our present, bending us just as light through water. The poem is also cemented in the same location as most of the other poems— my childhood home.
C.E-O: Can you talk about the organisation and how you chose the poems included in Light Through Water?
C.C: I first encountered the African Poetry Book Fund in 2022 when I was shortlisted for their annual Evaristo Prize. I have since kept up with the organisation, particularly due to their commitment to granting exposure to up-and-coming African poets. I was thrilled when they later invited me to submit a manuscript for consideration, and even more thrilled when it was accepted for the 2024 series. In choosing which poems to include in Light Through Water, I focused on poems which I felt shared a similar theme, but were strong enough to stand on their own. The publishing team was also very helpful as I edited the chapbook and made some much-needed cuts.
C.E-O: In “Continent Without a Name,” the speaker reflects on their connection to family history while passing a graveyard. They think of their grandmother, who has no headstone and exists only in memories and photographs. What motivated you to explore the theme of ancestry and its absence in the poem, particularly through the lens of your grandmother’s story?
C.C: Driving past my grandmother’s unmarked grave felt like a very literal representation of a lost history for Black and Coloured South Africans, whose enslavement, segregation, and oppression has led to no clear answers to ancestry for many, and no gravestones for others. As such, I considered that perhaps a form of ancestral reclamation and restoration of dignity within my grasp could be as simple as speaking about said ancestors, and exploring and decrying the ways in which they have been lost to us due to past injustices which continue to inform our present.
C.E-O: The phrase “call a car your continent” is striking. Can you discuss the significance of this metaphor in relation to your sense of home?
C.C: Piggybacking off of my last answer, “Continent Without a Name” aims to retrace and reposition lost pieces of my personal history as a metaphor for broader injustices and lost histories in South Africa. As such, if my grandmother has no headstone to point to, I will reaffirm her existence through speaking about her and her nameless burial. Likewise, if I have no hospital to point to as my birthplace and risk a similar placelessness, I will supplant this history by calling a car my continent, my home, my birthplace.
C.E-O: I enjoyed reading “In Search of Warmth.” What inspired you to write about the interaction between the persona and the geckos on such a warm day? In what ways does this poem reflect your broader views on nature and coexistence with the environment?
C.C: My mother is green-thumbed and has always had a thriving garden. This has allowed me to explore my relationship with nature, and all the ways it has shifted since I was a child. I liked the idea that there is a likeness between the geckos and me; that I could project my own self-involvedness onto these simple creatures, and in turn, their simplicity onto myself. In a way, I think that one of the largest and most selfish reasons humans like to interact with animals is to see themselves reflected in them, and I suppose the poem proves that I am not above this.
C.E-O: How did you approach the contrast between the simplicity of childhood and the complexities of adult life in the poem “Sunday Roast”?
C.C: Cementing the poem in the metaphor of a family quilt, something physical which develops from simple stitches to become intricate as time goes on, was a good foundation to represent the difference in intricacy between childhood and adult life. I was able to further explore these passages of time and growing complexities through the imagery of a smooth sapling developing into a large tree. Furthermore, locating the poem in my backyard provided a solid and unchanging backdrop against which to contrast the me of then and now, and my family of then and now.
C.E-O: While growing up, I was interested in Greek mythology for its vastness and richness. Coming across “Tantalus” and understanding its exploration of yearning and desire through the lens of daily life, I became curious. What inspired you to draw a parallel between your experiences and the myth of Tantalus in this poem? What does the concept of beauty mean to you, and how does it influence your creative work?
C.C: First of all, I am partial to seeing my daily life through the lens of Greek mythology for our simple shared quality: We are both extremely dramatic. There is a quote by the late fashion giant André Leon Talley: “It’s a famine of beauty, honey! My eyes are starving for beauty.” My conceptualisation of beauty is ever-changing, but it is something I am always craving, much like Talley. As such, likening my constant reach for new forms or definitions of beauty to Tantalus’ constant grasping for a branch just overhead felt correct—much like Tantalus, the reaching feels like a form of divine punishment, though it is ultimately self-imposed, the consequence of ego and too often placing oneself at the centre of all things, even through my writing.
Chinụa Ezenwa-Ọhaeto is an Igbo and Nigerian poet, fiction and nonfiction writer, and essayist, exploring the themes of culture, religion, lineage, ancestry, divination (dibia afa), post-colonialism, migration and the complexities of existence. His full- length poetry collection, The Naming, will be out on December 1, 2025 with African Poetry Book Fund via Nebraska press. The Naming explores the movements, excesses, and extremes of existing as a postmodern individual, connecting these experiences to familial ancestry and lineage.