Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto is a Nigerian poet and academic. He is the author of The Teenager Who Became My Mother, published in 2020. His full-length poetry collection, The Naming, was published by APBF via the University of Nebraska Press, 2025. Quotes To answer this, I think I should first tell a story about how I started writing. As a kid, I wanted to be known for an invention, like Graham Bell, Galileo Galilei, Thomas Edison… you know? I wanted the sort of situation where students would be asked who invented this and they would chorus, “Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto!” just like I chorused famous Inventors in my class. I set my mind to inventing a wristwatch that could serve as a monitor: a sort of television. This idea died when I saw a palm-sized device used in monitoring a criminal in a movie. I went to my Dad and asked him to buy me one. After a six-month stay in Germany, he came back home with one, exactly as seen in the movie. That was how my Inventor dreams died. I am an African, that’s an Identity. I am a Nigerian, that’s an Identity. I am Igbo, that’s an identity. I am Imo, that’s an identity. I am from Okoro Obashi in Imo, that’s an identity. I am a boy, that’s an identity. I am Dr. Ngozi Ezenwa-Ohaeto, that’s an identity. I am Ezenwa-Ohaeto, that’s an identity. I am Chinua, that’s an Identity. I am a poet, that’s an identity. All these I have mentioned, I assume all of them and they make me who I am. Africa is my identity. And, in reality, I am Africa’s identity. This space, Africa, is what I occupy. Denying it is telling myself a lie. Though, “Africa” has no single perspective and I cannot assume all its perspectives which may come in many forms: by region, by language, by religion, by politics, by country etc. I assume this singular perspective: by country― Nigerian.In detail, I am poet who happens to be an African, living in its western area, in Nigeria. I believe this makes it more definite. It’s very hard to choose. Really. There are many poems I have read and have been so impressed by. The poets I mentioned already impress and fascinate me greatly. Because I have to choose, I will go with Saddiq Dzukogi’s What The Poem Said. Published in Glass: A Journal of Poetry. I choose it because his poem is the first that came in mind when asked the question. Maybe, it’s because I only recently read it? Category:Living people Category:1992 births Category:Poets from Nigeria