Kayo Chingonyi Interviewed For ICA Residency

Kayo Chingonyi, author of The Color of James Brown’s Scream, part of  New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Tatu) (available in April) was interviewed recently as part of his Associate Poet residency at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.

In the interview, Chingonyi talks about his influences, the relationship between language and race, and the significance of music in his work, as well as the different ways in which poetry can be a live performance.

“When you read a poem and it moves you, that is a live performance, just as listening to someone read a poem is a live performance. They are just different kinds of performance. In my work they are complementary but some poets think of print as the best mode of reception for poems. I’m inclined to disagree since I have always been most moved by poems at the level of sound first before looking at their propositional content.”

The full interview can be found at the ICA website.