Abena Ntoso: Welcome to Backlit, a space for groundbreaking conversations with emerging authors. I'm your host, Abena Ntoso. In each episode, I converse with a contemporary writer and thinker whose work inspires deep and authentic conversation around social issues. Our discussion is not just about the book, or even just about the writer’s life and work; our discussion is a shared space where minds meet to be inspired by one another, explore issues together, and ultimately to generate new ideas and perspectives. 

Today’s thought partner is Andrew Kwabena Moss, whose newest poetry collection Hybrid Heaven & other(ed) poems explores identity across continents, cultures, and histories. Andrew has lived in the UK, Japan, and currently lives in Australia. Of Anglo-Ghanaian heritage, his work seeks to explore and challenge liminal landscapes, complex identities and the social constructs of race. Andrew is the author of 6 poetry collections and a novella, and his work was featured in the Best African Speculative Fiction 2022 anthology. He has received two Best of Net Awards, a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award nomination for his poetry.

Andrew, thank you so much for joining me in conversation today.

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Thank you very much, and it is a pleasure to be here.

Abena Ntoso: So, Hybrid Heaven and Other(ed) Poems is a bold collection that maps the textures of diasporic identity across continents, cultures, and history. The opening poem “At the Polo” beautifully introduces us to your bricolage style of stitching together fragments of objects, places, memories, music, migration, and myth into a vivid poetic tapestry. I'd like to discuss some of these ideas in depth, but first, I'd love to have you read a bit of the opening poem for us.

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Okay, my pleasure. So this is called “At the Polo,” and, as you say, we'll sort of interrogate it a little bit later. So, “At the Polo.”

Onto the modernist flat, trapezoid prism roof,

A white eagle swoops

The godlo's wings splay Turner 

& O'Connor neighbourhoods

Its crowned talons & regal beak 

reach Mount Kosciuszko, 

down the Snowy Hydro

via Namadgi & Black Mountain poles 

apart yet united red shield

At the Polo, heavy rimmed glasses 

magnify the shoeshine's funereal overcoat 

The white-haired face asks if we're customers 

He nods us on in husky overtones

Witamy chalks a crowded blackboard, 

in a flourish of bubble calligraphy, 

stuffed with pierogi,

dumplings & golabki cabbage rolls 

for Jew & Gentile Pokies free socials

For Pole & non-Pole

Opposite, students wrap up in the loop 

of Dr. Who scarves,

time travellers from a seventies TARDIS,

Eco warriors in hiking boots & Nepalese fleeces, 

chunky translucent step sepia soles 

Doc Marten loafers juxtapose 

with the French Resistance

white pop socks, once more Top of the Pops

Abena Ntoso: Beautiful.

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Back there… Takes me back when I read that.

Abena Ntoso: You know, the thing that came to mind, especially as you read that last line, was hip-hop, the lyricism of hip-hop, and so when I read these poems over and over again, there was this style that feels very eclectic and otherworldly. I mean, we've got the Godlow and the kind of deconstruction of the Polish national emblem in the same poem as Doc Martin's French Resistance Dumplings, you know, there's this hodgepodge. So there's this mashup of sharp images that are full of vitality and very concrete. So I'd love to hear what some of your literary and artistic influences are, and if music and visual art have influenced your literary style at all.

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Okay, great question. In my 20s, I was very lucky to go to the South Bank in London and to see Kamal Braithwaite before I really realized how important he was, obviously, for nation language, etc. And I had a sort of nascent interest in poetry's ability to, sort of encapsulate, you know, messages about diaspora. And I saw Kamal Braithwaite, perform from The Arrivants, and he basically tapped out. You know, his beats, on the lectern, which was an amazing moment of seeing that… that mixture or mashup of, you know, very academic work, but also with, a kind of underlying tribal kind of rhythm, and, you know, in essence, you know, he was someone who was schooled in the Western canon and grew up, you know, reciting Wordsworth like Walcott. However, you know, he had very much used different influences, and he'd used the influences of having lived in West Africa himself, and also used a lot of the Caribbean influences in his work. 

So, to me, that was sort of groundbreaking as an experience, because it showed there are no limitations to the number of influences you can have, and to create something that is you is necessarily going to involve lots of other traditions, which I suppose takes us to this idea, you know, of bricolage, and basically, you know, that improvisation and combination of influences that are, you know, as colonial subjects or as neo-colonial subjects, we are going to receive those traditions, and they will be blended with the longer-lasting, that we have also. So, to me. That's an example, you know, of someone that was sort of deriving things from that rich, well of influences. So he's, he's a big influence. 

Derek Wolcott, you know, with his sort of the formal style and kind of erudition that he has, so those are people, in poetry. I'm influenced by Carol Phillips, the black British writer, and he, in a way, introduced me to the African diaspora canon. He's written an amazing book called A New World Order, which, again, I read in my 20s, and he introduced me, you know, to the… to a breadth of, different writing, Black… Black Caribbean writing, French Anglophile, Caribbean writing, et cetera, et cetera, African American writing, so he opened the door to me. 

I love Hannah Lowe, the English, well, she's got Chinese, Jamaican heritage. I love, she had a collection called The Kids, if you know that collection. Which is a series of sonnets, but her style is really, you know, it's deceptively simple, and it uses everyday language. Yet, it's crafted so well that it really does, you know, hone in on, to me, really kind of crystalline, images and experiences, so I love her work.

When it comes to fashion is a big inspiration in the collection Hybrid Heaven. You'll notice I refer to Nicholas Daly, the… Scottish, Jamaican, clothes designer who actually grew up in Leicester in the UK, and he does an amazing mixture of things like, huge Tams, you know, Ferrastas or, oversized baker boy hats, but he does that in a mixture of fabrics that pay, sort of, homage to his, Scottish ancestry. There's another fantastic, fashion collective called, Art Comes First, or the Black Gypsies, and they have Sam Lambert and Shakamado. They have got some incredible collections that draw upon their African influences and Afro-Pean influences. 

I mean, talking of Afropean, Johnny Pitts, who wrote Afropean, the book. Where he charts… those communities, Afropean, sort of liminal communities, you might say, in different parts of Europe. So yeah, there are a lot of influences. Music's a huge influence, reggae ska music. So that's, yeah, that's a vein that you would see, certainly in this, in this collection of work.

Abena Ntoso: Thank you, thank you. So the thread that I am hearing continually in your influences is this idea of hybridity, and so it sounds like this idea of hybridity has been a consistent theme for you throughout decades of work, and so I'd love to kind of break down the bricolage concept a little bit. I'll sometimes mention that word, or the word, you know, might come up in my work, and people always ask, what exactly is bricolage? So, how would you define it and describe it, and how do you see it in action in the world around you?

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Yeah. I came across the word, I think, with Dick Habbage, he wrote the kind of cultural theorist that you would know of. He wrote a book about subcultures, and I, you know, the word, because I'm interested in words, did come up. Bricolage, and in a fashion sense, I believe he was talking about the bricolage of punk fashion in the 70s, and he sort of used the metaphor that the pins that punks use are stitching together those different, literally stitching together those different, eras of influence, you know, the Edwardian fashion that then became sort of used by the Teddy Boys in the 50s, things like that.

But I've read subsequent things about—and Hebbege may make the point, I'd have to check—but basically, that we sort of move into this kind of, you know, postmodern world where we don't… the safety pins are not even there, we're just constantly using, mixing, and improvising, from different fabrics, if, you know, to continue that… that metaphor. But I think it's something that we've always done, you know, from a sort of anthropological level. You know, it's impossible to not use, reuse, be influenced by the things around you. 

So, and maybe it's something that I am particularly interested in, because, you know, through my childhood, I've seen that bricolage, or to me, that improvisation of existing resources and combinations in new ways. I've seen that growing up as a child, and to me, it was pretty mundane to see it, and it was almost like this… it's like a pre-cognitive… there's the image, and this is why I like haiku and haibun. 

So I've seen, you know, I've grew up with things like, and I've written a lot about them, things like my dad, putting his A-level marking papers on a Ghanaian stool, but to me, that image represents how you re-craft and improvise something that, in another context, could be, you know, in a museum vitrine, the beautiful stall, but he was using it in everyday life. So there's… there, to me, is if… there's a fusion of… of the Ghanaian and the English. So he would be in his study with those papers on the stool, he'd then be playing on the piano, he'd be playing Ghana Songs of Praise, one of his favorite, you know, from his favorite, sort of, you know, hymn books, so he'd be doing… doing that. He'd be warming up with English scales and arpeggios, but the music, I suppose, is also a mix of influences. You know, there's the influence of Christianity, but then there would be, you know, in the music itself, there'd be a kind of many voices, polyphonic voices of, traditional African song as well. 

So that was one aspect of it, and, you know, still in the study, we had a German table tennis table, a Kettler, that was the brand, a Kettler table that was covered in kente and adinkra cloth, so another kind of juxtaposition, or that one's almost more like Russian dolls, you know, you remove the cloth, there's another layer, there's another culture, and then we move from—and I wrote some of this in my novella nicknames. I based maybe a scene or two about it. I've written then about my dad playing, in his study, and I called that Ghana Songs of Praise, and then I looked into, you know, what was my mum doing in the next-door room? divided by, you know, the sliding UPVC doors, and then my mum was watching British soap operas. You know, well, actually, Australian soap operas as well, you know, from sons and daughters, young doctors, all this sort of stuff. EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale Farm, all of these sort of regional soap operas, and in a poem, I sort of, I realized, through the poem, that my mum was doing… whilst my dad was kind of studying Ghana and Nigeria, because that's where he first lived, my mum was studying Britain when she first moved to the UK in, you know, the mid-70s. She was studying that culture, so that is… that, to me, is… is field work equally. 

And as… as children, we would listen to all of those regional accents, and my brother and I would mimic those very rich, you know, dialects up and down, you know, from the north to the south of the country and Australia. Maybe that's why I'm here in Australia now. Who knows? And in that living room, as well as the TV, being that bit of bricolage. We had a drinks cabinet, which I would describe as very, sort of, British 1970s or 80s. There's a flap you put down inside the drinks cabinet, you know, there's ginger wine, Stone's ginger wine, sherry, you know, very British middle class. However, on that sort of shelf, there were Akan gold weights. So, you know, there's a whole host of those combinations that are basically being used or were being used in the everyday. 

I didn't think anything of them, but later, when I looked and I thought, well, you know, at times I felt like I missed out on having that, you know, connection with my Ghanaian heritage. It was a way of actually realizing and appreciating, even though we didn't live in a multicultural area, or we didn't live in an area where there were lots of Ghanaian people. I still, you know, was lucky enough to grow up with a lot of those influences, you know, and I, you know, my mum read me and Nancy stories as well, for example, so that was more about empowerment that as, I suppose, the bricolure, you know, I was then using those influences, you know, that I was basically exposed to.

So, yeah, and that goes with the literary theory that I then look into, and then you see, okay, texts are all made from other texts, meaning is constantly, you know, negotiated between cultures. So, it's something that's very obvious to me because I suppose it's… those experiences were, you know, very rich for me, and quite dramatic when you look back at the fact that, you know, people sometimes will look at them as, you know, these mutually exclusive influences, but to me, the reality is they were just there very naturally.

Abena Ntoso: I love that, and I could relate to a lot of it. I am, myself, a daughter of two cultural heritages, you know, Haitian, from Haiti, and then from Ghana, and then growing up in the United States, and… and I had that same kind of mixture, you know, that when we have Thanksgiving, there's Ghanaian food, next to Haitian food, next to American food, and I always thought, doesn't everybody eat rice and beans? 

So, what you speak to is this idea that as a child growing up who is exposed to multiple cultures that are not viewed as separate, but where there's kind of an authentic kind of blending of cultures. It's obvious to… to you, and it feels the same way to me, feels very obvious that one can hold multiple identities within them, and I want to stick on that, actually, that idea of multiple identities because it's an idea that I think recently has come up as a novel one. Kind of this idea that, well, we all have, you know, multiple aspects to ourselves, but it's one that's almost innate, I think, if you are growing up where you see these multiple aspects juxtaposed, that multiplicity is a part of who you are, how you move about the world, how you exist in the world, how you interact with the world, and so it… we almost take it for granted that everyone else understands that. 

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Yeah, that's right. And I mean, now it is, as you say, it can be quite trendy, and it's theorized, but it's lived. And the fact that it's non-threatening to have these… these mixtures, I think, is… is some of the, the absolute joy of it. So, yes, it is, You know, yes, we have these intersectional theories, and yes, you know but it's no surprise to me, it's, you know, the people that have looked at this in detail, people like Stuart Hall, people like Paul Gilroy have that. But everyone has a mixed heritage, so to me, back to the idea that it's very concentrated, if you are living with that within one generation in a very short space of time, that is a reflection, though, to me, of human development over time Anyway… But it is quite fascinating and disappointing that, you know, there will be people that are essentialists, despite the fact that they might drink a cup of tea, you know, with sugar that's, you know, based on, you know, these are commodities from other places, you know. I suppose it sharpens your hypervigilance when you really think about that influence. So… But it's something that you can also… really enjoy and play with, you know, as well.

Abena Ntoso: Absolutely, absolutely. And speaking about… speaking of enjoying and playing with it, you have this very unique way of pulling all of these disparate experiences and places and cultures and objects into your poetry, and bricolaging them, you know, kind of, stitching them together. Your poems are really rich with all of these… these stitched-together images. How do you collect these observations from all of the different places and experiences and cultures you've had, and how do you work them into your poems?

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: I think memory is really important, but reliving, not being afraid to adapt the memory also, and that's part of the playfulness in it, and that is, you know, Anansi, the Akan, sort of, folkloric Spider-Man's really important, because, you know, you can shapeshift, and as you have, as you would have, those experiences between cultures and histories, you're naturally shapeshifting anyway. So the process, to me, I sort of, I suppose it's allowing myself almost like a sort of thought experiment, or go into the portal of the experience, and I'm glad you said the word observe, because there's a lot of observation in it. It's replaying, perhaps those experiences to then… It's a way of really valuing those mixtures, you know, that are in your everyday life. It's paying attention to them, I suppose. 

It's celebrating that, and poetry is a great way of doing it. It's not rule-bound, particularly. It allows you to experiment with, with, image, with sound, with, you know, how words look. So that is, you know, really what I suppose I'm doing, but I don't really have any set format, but it's just more… I use it to explore and, you know, it's really for me, very fulfilling to do that. And then, you know, there is a sense of having a document that then you can, you know, look back on, or more. 

But to me, actually, to be honest, it's more the process of, this is just allowing me the space on the page to then go through those different images like—and often I am revisiting, so I will revisit, you know, going to the market, the monocultural, sort of, market in Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire. Very, very local places, and they're always grounded. I… well, most of my poems are grounded in that local experience. But because, and I think, you know, we've spoken a little bit about the hyper-glocal, the local, and to me, it is, just as things connect with the bricolage, or a juxtaposition, we're all in, you know, my experience, and everyone's experience, we're in a web of connections. 

So if my mum, you know, when she went to the market in Leighton Buzzards, she brought with her her market trading background from Kwelu in Ghana and… That is very natural to bring in those influences. I'm not really, you know, I don't know if I'm doing it consciously, subconsciously. But maybe I am making a point, actually, that those influences… there is no reason why we can't put the place, Obo, and Leighton Buzzard in the same line, because that's very much… Our experience, but, yeah, it gets some attention, because it's not considered to be, perhaps, you know, a norm, but then it's exposing to me what's my norm? So… Why not?

Abena Ntoso: I love that, and this idea of play, I love that you brought that up, and… and this idea of, well, why can't you, right, play around? It reminds me of a quote from a book on literary theory by Mary Klages, and she speaks of Levi-Strauss, who wrote about bricolage, especially, when it comes to culture, and she says, “Levi-Strauss's choice is to keep using the structure, but to recognize that it is unstable, that the terms it sets up won't always stay neatly in their designated places, but will have play.”

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Excellent, yeah.

Abena Ntoso: Yeah, and it was building on the idea of deconstruction, right, which is a very, you know postmodernist idea of breaking down structures and revealing structures for what they are, which is just kind of man-made concepts. But rather than just outright rejecting structures, there's this idea of, hey, well, if we know that these are all constructed concepts and constructed ways of being in the world, why can't we play around? Why can't we, you know, pick different things, you know, and bricolage them together. Why can't we do that? And that idea of play, I really love.

It also makes me think, when it comes to your work, of this idea of Afrofuturism, which I feel like really builds on the imagination, the use of imagination to play around, to envision, re-envision. So you do a lot of exploration, in your work that… that delves into Afrofuturist kinds of… of images and ideas. One thing that I noticed is it's witnessing a world, an aesthetic, that is already in existence.

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Yeah.

Abena Ntoso: So, you know, we say Afrofuturist, and the word has “futurist” in it, but it's actually a poetics of now, of what's out there now. There are a lot of people who are doing work and living lives that really take imagination and play and bricolage and reinvent with it. So I'd love to hear more about your work with Afrofuturism and what your thoughts and hopes are in exploring Afrofuturism in your literary work.

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Yeah, and it's a really important point you make when you say it's envisioning, but it's also re-envisioning, so it's a… to me, it's an artificial construct to say it is futuristic, because it, you know, part of, my understanding is, as a kind of cosmological view, there is not a separation between the past, the present, and the future. So it's… it's non-linear. So, again, it draws on playing with time and space, like, you know, the pun on space, and that is, the tool, to me, opens up, you know, many kind of, you know… well, you can go down through so many wormholes of it, because to me, as you have put, we are already living in that so-called future in certain pockets and in certain wormholes of the universe, but it also then gives you the license to explore that further. 

So I think I naturally, yeah, as a form, or as a kind of movement, it is very exciting because Paul Gilroy again, he talks about planetary humanism, so if you are extending your perspective, and looking back, from an imagined third space, you know, you're further out from it, you're looking down on Earth. I think that gives you the ability to prioritize, you know, how insignificant, you know, the construction of races from that angle. So… and it gives you plenty of, sort of, metaphors to think about and, you know, to imagine, or to just use certain images of What would it be like? if we did inhabit another space, whatever that may be. It just gives you a broader viewpoint on what's already sort of going on. 

In a kind of tangible way, I wrote a poem, and I had to look it up earlier, I've forgotten what I called it “Nyankapoxycan Breath of Fresh Air.” I wrote this poem. It was not long after, you know, George Floyd. I was looking at that, and I was obviously very, sort of, disappointed about the events, but I also wanted to acknowledge that there are many places where people are far beyond that very kind of myopic view. So, you know, I read things about… like, the word nyankapoxican is a sort of portmanteau, and I suppose that is then a classic kind of bricolage, the word itself, so I got the idea from nyankopon, so the Akan god, but I fused that Copoxican, so that came from, Drexia. 

Do you know that there's a techno duo, DJs from Detroit, who constructed this Afrofuturistic world where women in the Middle Passage jumped off the slave ships. They then went underwater, and it imagines how their progeny were able to then adapt and survive. So it's metaphorical, very metaphorical, but it also, yeah, it's incredibly graphic with the music, with the soundtrack that inspired graphic novels, you know, other imaginings of this event. So then this civilization was able to survive underwater. They built that civilization. 

So my poem is inspired by it, and extends that to, because George Floyd couldn't breathe, I then think about how we could go underwater as an image and continue to survive, and this is like, you know, surviving in hostile environments, and then I imagine going up through the stratospheres. You know, into space, and again, being able to survive, which is an image of what already happens for people that are facing prejudice in the world. So, to me, these are really ways of celebrating that adaptation and resilience, but also giving yourself the license, again, for exploration. And, you know, what a tool it is, to me, you know, this duo that have basically created this world, which may well come into existence at some stage as well, you know, and obviously space exploration, that's not, you know, something particularly new. 

So yeah, I've sort of… I'm drawn to that because I actually think it's, you know, paradoxically very grounded in the world as well. And why not look at the cosmos and the other world, you know? And the Dogon, you know, with, what was it, Cirrus B, they had that connection way back, hundreds of years ago. So, to me, that's part of, again, the joy in the play, and not being restricted by just the here and now, time and space. And that's where, to me, my work probably is… becomes a bit more… more spiritual, in a sense, because I'm looking at those you know, ancestral influences as well. And in that… in that poem, I do draw upon, you know, the sky god, for example, so there's a connection.

Abena Ntoso: This idea of exploration, there are so many different modes of exploration, right? There's kind of global travel, you know, international travel, which is planetary, physical, exploration. There's extraplanetary exploration, you know, kind of space exploration. There's exploration of myth and time, exploration of myth as in crossing genres and crossing truth versus imagination and all of that.. and then time, you know, I love that you mentioned that it's not linear, you know, we make it linear in order to be able to collaborate and work together, but in and of itself as a concept it's something we've imposed, right?

And so, I'm curious, because there are a lot of people who don't do exploration, who are very, kind of, you know, “I can only think about here, now, what's in front of me,” and you teach, you work with students on a daily basis. So, how do you get people to think about and embrace exploration into realms that they may not be inclined to go to normally. So, you know, anything from international travel to time, space, all of those, those things.

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: With students, though, I'm very lucky, because they are, I feel, very open, you know, neuroplasticity, it's happening, you know, they're open to those pathways, and they may, you know, some are very worldly and they've traveled, so they can compare cultures. Equally, there are many people that haven't, but through teaching, you can draw upon those influences in the same breath, and that becomes part of a conversation. But we all… we're all doing it, though. We all have dreams that we can't suppress, like the literal dreams. So, to me, I think it's… it is actually an instinct, but it might just be more that you make that explicit yourself, you know, as a way of opening up a conversation. So I think it's already… it already happens, really.

And, you know, travel's a funny one, though, isn't it? Because, you know, it might… yes, it's physical, but, you know, I'm very local as a person, you know, I'm not a great navigator, ironically enough. Like, I can get lost very easily, but I have got a curiosity in exploring, you know, other ways of life, and sometimes I won't get immersed in it, necessarily. I observe from a distance and slowly dip my toe into it. 

Teaching allows you, as you know, to be able to be very much instantly part of a community. So that… that is, you know, a great, sort of honor to be able to do that. This… the exploration of myth, I mean, look, there are just so many traditions, aren't there? So many perspectives on the world, and as someone who loves narratives, isn't it… yeah, it's just fascinating to look at what those different expressions are, but also, and there's a bit of the Levi-Strauss, there are some underlying patterns to this, you know? So I did… I remember doing an anthropology evening class, which I found absolutely fascinating, where you compare, you know, the Wallywax sisters in Aboriginal Australia, and you, you know, you compare that to other traditions… in South America, and then in Africa, so I think there's a… there's a sort of universality as well below the surface. And equally, does the genre really matter? 

You know, again that comes back to the idea that you should have the license to use those different, those different traditions. And I mean, you know, I could be in danger, perhaps, of, kind of, appropriation, but to me, appropriation… it's a natural movement. That is, you know, how humans have developed. So, it's honouring to me, but obviously you need to be respectful of traditions equally. But don't be afraid of them, and don't be afraid to be inspired by them, you know, however disparate they may seem. So yeah, those are, I think… All the facets you mentioned are to be… to be, you know, they're too being explored, but I think we all do them anyway, and I think, you know, no matter if we suppress that or not. There are obviously imponderables that we cannot, you know, calculate physically, so there's a spirituality there that, you know, I think most people, if they… if they really… you know, I think most people are very much aware of that.

Abena Ntoso: Yeah, yeah, and I like that you brought in the word spirituality. I think there's an element of spirituality that it touches upon, and of course, not spirituality in a religious sense, but spirituality in the sense of, you know, connecting with something that is fundamentally part of the human soul. And so this also makes me think about something that your collection actually inspired in me, and inspired me to do. 

So I was reading your collection, and at the same time, I was also reading a book called My Great, Wide, Beautiful World by Juanita Harrison who was an African-American female, during the early 1900s, who, in the 1930s took it upon herself to just travel the world, which was something that was just incredibly, brave, not very many people did that, let alone people who were coming from the African American community who were female, right? There were so many restrictions and so much oppression that made that an impossibility for most people, and yet, she did it. And so I was reading your collection and then reading a few pages of her travel diary at times, and it inspired me to have this feeling of freedom, this feeling of liberation, and to approach my day with that feeling, as opposed to approaching my day feeling stuck, or feeling, you know, like you're in prison, or going through the motions. 

So it made me think about this idea of having one's own literature for self-empowerment. So this idea of, you know, who's in our library for self-empowerment? Who's in our library for freedom and liberation for each of us as individuals? And I thought about it not as a sort of, you know, canon of liberatory literature, that's not what I was thinking of, but more as in, you know, if I am this specific individual person, what are the books that make me feel a sense of liberation, that make me feel a sense of agency and empowerment and joy in my life.

So… so I started, kind of re-evaluating what I had on my shelves, and… and I added several more titles after, after finishing your book. So I'm curious, this is a two-part question. The first is, do you have a literature of self-empowerment? Do you have, you know, particular authors or books that you feel like have really inspired that sense of liberation in you? And then second part is, how does one go about finding the books that would make their, their personal, you know, library for self-empowerment, because it's going to be different for each person.

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Sure, okay. I'll sort of start with a recent one. It's a great question. Linguistic empowerment, and the celebration of mixture, you can call it Creole, but, someone like Kamal Braithwaite, Nation Language, and his experimentalism. That… that's empowering to me, because it shows someone who is not afraid to draw upon these different influences and come up with something that's wildly, original and playful, so that's inspirational. 

Johnny Pitts, definitely, with his huge, sort of, travel writing, Afropean, and his investigation of different Afropean communities and the fact that he uses that language, that portmanteau for self-identification. Now, that, to me, self-identification, that is, self-empowerment. He also… he's inspired by Carol Phillips, as I am, as someone who actually, you know, it was from St. Kitts, I believe, in the Caribbean, but he grew up in Leeds, in a working-class neighbourhood, so he goes… he lives those intersections, you know, and he went to Oxford University, so he has broken, you know, supposed, barriers, so that's really empowering, that there are these, these great, sort of, literary influences. 

Musically, someone like Linton Kwesy Johnson, in his dub poetry and his bravery, you know, to document the struggles, you know, with racism, as they were, but to do that, obviously, creatively. 

And I think we're actually back to Johnny Pitts, and he cites the book Michelle the Giant, do you know it? An African in Greenland?

Abena Ntoso: No.

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: So it's a travel book by… I think he's from Togo, Tete Michelle Copamasi, and he as a child, I think he went to a bookshop, this sort of answers your second part, how do we find these ways of self-empowerment, and he saw, I think it was a book, perhaps, about Greenland, and he was growing up in Togo, and he saw that book, and he thought, one day I will go to Greenland. And he did go to Greenland, and he wrote this incredible account of that encounter, you know, that negotiation. 

So that shows there are no barriers, and like the lady you've mentioned, Harrison, you know, who traveled the world, you know, why can you not, as someone who's totally go to Greenland and exchange cultures like that? So that, to me, is the empowerment, and I think the image of Copamasi, you know, in the second-hand bookshop, looking for his inspiration in the most unlikely of places, that's how I think we find our liberation. It's by exploring your obsession. 

And for me, before I went to Japan, I was concerned about, you know, how I might, you know, be received, and, you know, possible… You know, racism, and, you know, ironically, I found, you know, I didn't encounter, you know, that at all. Quite the opposite. So it's about opening yourself up to actually the vulnerability of it, and I think travel, there is a great vulnerability in opening yourself up to the possibilities of not understanding a language. Not being able to navigate, that brings you closer to the humane aspect of the fact that you are connecting with other human beings, and I'm a believer that there is that underlying, you know, redeeming human… Ability to make those connections, which has proved why we've spread through the world as we have, so… Being human, and allowing yourself to be vulnerable, I think, are the keys to empowering yourself through acknowledging our vulnerability and connection with other people. And there are, of course, huge risks in doing that, but I think the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, and we are children of that —we are literally, you know, we are the products of people that made that leap—and not to fear that.

Abena Ntoso: I love this idea of embracing one's humanity in order to be able to connect with people across cultures, across languages even, and… and language can be a barrier, you know, it's… it is very daunting. So I'd actually love to hear about that also. You know, you… you did spend time in Japan, and you do very much, kind of embrace, even on a… on a local level, you know, meeting people from other cultures and… and interacting with people from other cultures. And so… when language is a barrier, or maybe not barrier, but a challenge, right? When language is a challenge, how do you approach it? Especially, you know, when you went to Japan and you wanted to communicate and get to know people. Where did you start with… with learning language or trying to overcome that challenge?

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Yeah, and I'll tell you, I did that in a very, kind of, theoretical way, so I started… I ordered a linguophone, in those days, I mean, this is the late 1990s, but it sounds quite archaic. So I got cassette tapes and materials to learn Japanese, you know, formally, so I did the, you know, the rote method, play the phrase, say the phrase. And one of my go-to phrases was, you know, do you speak English? And I remember—and I've written about this, actually, in a collection of poems called… in a book called Japanabandon, which basically just traces that experience leaving Bedfordshire and going to Japan, and then returning with, kind of reverse culture shock. 

But I remember the first moment, you know, in the plane, which is, you know, the liminal space, however high up we were and, you know, my neighboring passenger, an elderly Japanese lady, she was talking to me, or she started a conversation, she said, “Watashiwa,” and I'd only ever heard of Watashiwa, but I knew, in theory, you don't really refer to watashi as yourself very much, but she was using this quite formal language. I noticed that she was pointing to her nose when she talked to her self-reference, as opposed to, you know, pointing at the chest, so I was getting these clues about different ways of communicating. Then I actually… So that was a great, sort of, exchange, you know, through, sort of, broken English, and just both people, you know, both of us just attempting, through all the paralinguistics and things, to make a connection, and obviously smiling at each other and being willing to just try. 

And then, I remember that phrase, you know, “Anatawa Ego Hanashimaska,” I remember trying that in a taxi, one of the first taxis I ever took, and the driver pretty much sort of shut down on me, and didn't really respond. Now, later, and I was quite surprised by that, because I thought, you know, I'd have the sentence that would allow me to then, you know, rely on the fact that generally their English may, through their schooling, have been stronger than my very scant Japanese. Anyway, students in Japan later told me that to use that phrase can be really quite confronting, more than, you know, a few students told me this, that it would be, you know, it was putting the person on the spot to then suddenly expect them to perform English. Now, I don't know, you know, whether there was a sense of… it would be a very Western stereotype to say there was a sense of, you know, shame in not being able to perform that language, but just empathetically speaking, if someone, you know, says to me, you know, directly, can you, you know, do you speak English? You know, that… there's… that is quite confronting. So anyway, I learned that it was much better to, you know, the cliche of having a go yourself, and just… showing that willingness to, again, be vulnerable. So that was a classic… to me, that was a classic kind of learning point from the mistake of expecting others to do the work. You've actually got to negotiate the work and just go beyond trying to get people to speak in your language. 

So that's it, that's an example. And another… when it comes to reading scripts, you know, and obviously Japan has the hirigana, the katakana and the kanji, I didn't learn those scripts, and I remember my first trip to the supermarket—or my first trip on my own, anyway—I bought, you know, I thought I'd make some potato chips and fry them up like my mum used to do, you know, if in doubt, have some chips. And I remember just, you know, I got the oil, I got the canister, and I poured it in, and after, you know, 15 minutes, nothing was really bubbling. And I wasn't a great chef, as you can imagine from my description, but I thought at least we should have some bubbles by now. And anyway, I remember just tasting it, and it was honey. And I just kind of thought, wow, that's hopefully something I won't do again. So, yeah, it's those experiences making the mistakes, and hopefully learning something. 

Yeah, I've got a few. There's another one where I would get, like, a bento box, and at the convenience stores, the 7-Elevens, I would hand over the bento box—and I said to you earlier, I'm not particularly a good traveller, and I only dip my toe in, and I observe—and I remember, they asked me a question, and generally I would just, you know, I kind of shook my head, but I noticed that other customers, when they handed over the bento box, you know, they would often say yes to whatever this question was, but I remember plucking up the courage one occasion to just say, hey, you know, yes, I will accept whatever you're… you're offering me, and then they turned around, they went to the kind of back corner of the shop, and then they heated the bento box in the microwave, so then I learned that they were asking me, do I want it warmed up? So it's just, you know these experiences of slowly… learning.

Abena Ntoso: Yeah, I love that. I'm gonna put two ideas that you've mentioned together. This idea of being willing to try, and being willing to be incorrect or imperfect, and you use the phrase broken English, and there are so many languages around the world that are actually languages formed from meshed languages, from multiple cultures, and so they, they themselves might be considered a broken kind of language, but I think even there, there's this, this interesting metaphorical way of looking at broken language as a way to interface on the level of humanity, you know, if two people don't speak the same language, but they're willing to try.

Then there is a shared willingness to be incorrect, and a shared humility in that, you know, in knowing that one does not have the answers, one is not perfect, one is trying, and so you're more likely to extend that grace to someone else. So there's… there's… there's that idea, and then there's also, you know, kind of thinking about what you mentioned in terms of how someone might come upon those experiences or those literatures that would be freeing or liberating. And you mentioned the phrase, well, exploring your obsession, and coming upon inspiration in the most unlikely of places.

And so I'm… I'm, I'm gonna put those two together. This idea of, of discovering something and then, and then, discovering that something is an interest and then exploring that interest, no matter how random it might seem, right? I love the story of Kopamasi from Togo, and just seeing this book on Greenland, and, you know, just this random country. I want to go to Greenland, right? But then what happens when you explore that obsession, and then you take opportunities that bring you closer to that, and then you also open yourself up to being incorrect to trying anyway. So, I feel like there's something incredibly liberating in putting those two things together. I don't have a particular question…

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Yeah, I liked your point, you know, the broken language, which is actually… there's an image I use, the kintsugi approach. But I… I've been looking at it with Kintsugi calabash, so I use the image of a calabash that is broken, but it's kind of plural reversal. So I'm sort of theorizing on it, and I'm writing things on it, and it's, you know, it's the seams, the golden seams between these fractures that's actually… that's the glue that puts… that joins us together. So, we're kind of on the wrong track to actually look at the fragment, we've just got to look at the golden seam between the fragments. 

And, you know, Indigenous Australian culture, there's an artist, Daniel Boyd who explores this, and in Bruce Pascoe's book, Dark Emu, he talks about some Aboriginal grapes, rather than looking at the stars, they look at the supposedly black space in between. So, you know, that, I think, is a really nice image of how we could be looking at the black space, and the stars, all the black space, all the stars. Now, I like… to me, it's double consciousness, you know, the Du Bois, but it's then the third space, the third consciousness, where you're looking at not the stars or the black space, you appreciate both viewpoints, you're actually looking with a knowledge of both of those traditions, so that's your third, element of holistic appreciation.

Abena Ntoso: I love that. Okay, the… so… and it makes me think of, you know, kind of… What we, what we learn from looking at, you know those who live in, kind of, borderlands, you know, or who cross borders, and, you know, of course, that hybridity is a big part of that. And I… and I like the… the clarification that you made, which is I think a very fine point, right? We have the… we have the one thing, the other thing, right? There's these two things that you could look at. Then there's the space in between, the kind of… the seam, the… the space where they meet, that intersection, and looking at that third space as a space of its own as opposed to, you know, well, this is a space that's a mixture. And it's a very fine kind of, you know, distinction, but I think it's one that matters. 

You know, I think even in discussions, you know, where there are two conflicting or opposing ideas or opposing values, one could say, well, you have to compromise, and there is something to be said for compromising, but that is sort of like, you know, thinking about, well, we have to give and take a little bit, which there's nothing wrong with that. 

But it's a whole other thing to say, wait, wait, wait… Maybe what we're looking to do is not so much compromise, but what we're looking to do is to craft between the two of us between these, you know, kind of diametrically opposed, or… or these very different, you know, maybe not opposed, but very different entities or situations. We're looking to craft a new one, a third one that serves as that scene. Because I'm thinking of the Kintsugi bowls also, and the gold is… it's what actually makes the art, like you were saying. So it's this whole new thing that's introduced that is meant to bridge the two things together, but in and of itself, it is a wholly new and different way of looking at what it means for something to be art.

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Yes. Exactly, but the fragments on each side remain. You're not hiding the fragments, not hiding the tension, but it's… it is the interface, isn't it? So… And maybe you're pulling… Both of those fragments in. But, you know, yeah, it's, it's just, to me, it's a helpful image.

Abena Ntoso: You have brought up so many, just really, really interesting concepts, ideas, all inspired by your work and your exploration of hybridity and all of its aspects, in this collection. So I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts, your ideas, and for taking the time to kind of generate these third ideas, right? These, these, these new ideas. Thank you, thank you so much.

Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss: Okay, well, thank you very much for… for having me, and it was… it was exciting to know, you know, you were in contact with Magdalena, who is in Australia, and then when you introduced yourself and your own background and, you know, the Haitian gone a combination, the fact that we're both, you are Abena, and I am Kwabena, both born on a Tuesday. I think that displays, and enacts, you know, how… Interesting and vital it is to have the, you know, the conversation across, you know, literally, across time and space, but… So it was an opportunity that I didn't want to miss, so… Yeah, I look forward to reading your… your work. That's coming up with your novel as well, that's… that will be fascinating. And, yeah, no, I look forward to more conversations.

Abena Ntoso: Thank you, thank you so much.

We’ve been talking today with poet Andrew Kwabena Moss. You’ve been listening to Backlit, and I am your host, Abena Ntoso. You can find more of Andrew’s work at agkmoss.com. Andrew’s most recent book, Hybrid Heaven, along with his other poetry collections, are available for purchase using the link in the episode details. Today’s episode was produced in my home studio in Houston, Texas, in conjunction with Bricolage Lit, and features the song “Campfire” by Midnight Daydream in the intro and outro. For more information on Backlit, please visit abenantoso.com/podcast/backlit. Thank you for listening, and until next time, be well, read books, and let’s generate some new ideas together.