My Way Home 

Spoken word poetry has been one of the most vibrant and captivating expressions of modern literature in Nigeria, especially among the younger generations who are attracted by the immediacy, accessibility and emotional directness of it all. 

Spoken word is in the here and now, unlike the more traditional forms of expression, which tend to be distant and require time to reflect, and must be validated by the academy. It is performed, heard, and felt in real time. Nevertheless, even though it is increasingly gaining popularity and cultural significance, its position in the overall Nigerian literary canon is not resolved. It is neither performance nor literature, neither art nor activism, neither oral tradition nor digital circulation. Instead of making the form weaker, this ambiguity seems to be at the core of its persistence. 

Spoken word poetry in Nigeria is characterized by its strong relationship with many years of the oral culture that has traditionally influenced storytelling, memory and the identity of people from different ways of life. The traditions give voice, rhythm, and interaction with the audience top priority, but spoken word inherits and then reanimates that for a modern audience. In this regard, spoken word is not a little break of tradition but rather a re-packaged version that is re-configured to describe contemporary issues and deconstruct certain peculiar realities. The poet is not just writing; the poet is performing. The meaning is not limited to the text; it is clothed up in the process of delivery, gesture, tone and the audience’s reaction. It is the performed aspect that breaks the barrier between the poet and the audience, rendering spoken word poetry very much participatory art.

Nigeria has had several poets who have helped this form of poetry grow and become visible: Dike Chukwumerije, Titilope Sonuga, Efe Paul Azino, Wana Udobang, Maryam Bukar Hassan, and many others. Their productions have diverse themes cutting across politics and identity, gender, memory, and social justice. 

In this rich scenery a prominent figure has been Hafsat “Havfy” Abdullahi. Havfy’s poem To the Girl in English Class, first uploaded on her YouTube channel in 2022, is remarkable for its simplicity, emotionality, and the ability to touch upon such complicated social problems, especially those concerning language, gender, and power. Havfy’s poem can be effectively read in conjunction with Ariana Brown’s Dear White Girls in My Spanish Class, published in The Acentos Review in August 2019.  There is complicity; both poems dwell upon the tensions appearing in the language-learning environment. In both scenarios the addressee is faced by a speaker whose behavior radiates the greater systems of exclusion and hierarchy. Nevertheless, though the poem by Brown predicts the existence of the racial difference as one of the major tension points, Havfy transfers this stance into the context of a similar socio-cultural space. The girl mentioned in the poem by Havfy is not a racially or culturally alien girl; she is her peer who shares a classroom with her, and, at least theoretically, they are in the same social environment. This change makes the story of oppression a bit more complicated as it implies that the hierarchy systems are not only external and imposed but can also be replicated in daily interactions.

The point of tension stems from language. In the poem by Havfy, the English is not introduced as an impartial space of communication but as a conflict space with its history and culture. It exists as a device of entry and the device of exclusion at the same time. On the one hand, English proficiency is related with education, social and intellectual mobility. Alternatively, it creates a rank whereby some categories of speech are ranked higher whilst others are sidelined. The nonconformists in terms of the norms – be it accent, fluency, or pronunciation – are usually mocked or sacked.

This dynamic is predetermined with the help of the first line of interrogation: “What is funny? What is hilarious about my painful attempt to communicate in a language that is not even my own?” This query disrupts the supposition that the learning of language is a simple or neutral procedure. Rather, it points out the emotional and psychological labor in the process of negotiating a language with the burden of colonial history. The word painful, as used by the speaker, is especially important because it puts language in a different perspective: as not only a cognitive problem but also a physical experience characterized by vulnerability and exposure.

This view is also in line with the theoretical standpoints that have been put forward by Ngugi wa Thiong’o in Decolonising the Mind and Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth. Both authors underscore language as the primary force in building identity and upholding power. For Ngugi, language is not merely a communication tool but also a bearer of culture, memory, and worldview. In his argument, the imposition of colonial languages is a “cultural bomb” that is aimed at destroying the identity of Indigenous people and substituting it with foreign-identified values. Fanon goes further with this argument by looking at the psychological impact of linguistic domination when knowledge of the colonizer’s language tends to be associated with self-worth and acceptance, thus creating an inner feeling of inferiority in those who do not conform. 

The poem by Havfy does not cope with these concepts in an abstract argument; rather, there is a firm sense of the lived experience. The speaker’s accent is the point of focus in this interaction. Instead of taking it as an indicator of weakness, she reinvents it to show strength and survival. “This accent tells a story of survival,” she says, and redefines what is viewed as a weakness into something more like a survival story. Through this, the accent turns into a repository of cultural memory that contains remnants of a linguistic culture that cannot be wiped out. We know immediately that this is a serious matter, from the speaker’s comportment at least, but also because she points out towards the poem’s powerfully hypnotizing dénouement that “this accent is how I find my way home.” 

The poet’s strategy, in one key way, is code-switching. Incorporating the aspects of Igala with the English language, Havfy disrupts the privileges of the latter and proves the validity of the linguistic forms of Indigenous peoples. There are several purposes of this strategy. It confirms the identity of the speaker, attacks the perceived universality of the English language, and establishes instances of partial obscurity to finally reverse the balance of understanding. This selective intelligibility will not be shared by everyone in the audience, and the Igala phrases will compel a re-evaluation of what is central in the process of communication.

Simultaneously, this approach creates a conflict between authenticity and accessibility. Although code-switching can enhance the cultural specificity and expressiveness of the poem, it might also restrict its short-term understanding by people who do not know the language. This tension is not removed in the poem; it is part of the structure of the poem and, therefore, an extension of the bigger issues of negotiating identity in a multilingual and postcolonial world.

This choice to direct the poetry to one more girl makes the poem even more complicated. This use of the first-person point of view establishes the gendered aspects of the speaker’s experience in advance – and how systems of oppression might be carried on among marginalized groups. The classroom, which is commonly seen as a neutral field of education, turns out to be a place where social hierarchies are replicated and consolidated. The ridicule of the speaker is not an isolated case but an expression of the larger cultural standards according to which some types of speech and behavior are superior.

The given intragender dynamic highlights the idea of internalized oppression, according to which those individuals who are the subject of marginalization themselves engage in the maintenance of hierarchical values. The girl in the poem is not placed as an outsider of the oppressive system, but she is a member of a system she has inherited and about which she may or may not be able to do anything. This complicates the moral context of the poem because it provides the shift in individual blame and presents the systemic influence while still holding the addressee – the girl in English class – responsible for her actions.

The gender interest of the poem may also be explained by referring to the theoretical background of the critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and, that being the case, one must refer to the notion of subalternity. Spivak’s question Can the subaltern speak? is considered to address the structural constraints that do not allow marginalized people, particularly women, to be heard in the dominant epistemological regimes. Spivak argues that it is a question of speech as much as recognition. The subaltern can speak, yes, but her speech can be made unintelligible or twisted by the systems that receive it.

This tension is present in Havfy’s poem. The speaker does not hesitate in stating her experience and identity even as her speech is characterized by the same structures aimed at marginalizing it. Code-switching, such as it is used, at the same time confirms her linguistic identity and creates obstacles to understanding. In this regard, the poem is not disproving the argument of Spivak; on the contrary, it shows its complex nature. The subaltern is the speaker, but the speech is still trapped in the circumstances that condition the reception of her speech.

Simultaneously, the poem is pointing at the possibility of individual agency under these restrictions. This is in line with the nego-feminism proposed by the scholar Obioma Nnaemeka in her work Nego-Feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way, published in 2004, which puts emphasis on negotiation and flexibility rather than direct confrontation. The speaker in Havfy’s work does not merely refuse to speak the language or to talk down on the one who addresses her, but she suggests reworking the relationship between the two languages. When she says, for example, “It’s about time you learn my own language too,” it is in the hope of bringing about the concept of reciprocity, obviously in opposition to the one-way process of linguistic adjustment.

This scene is a minor but important change of the power balance. The speaker does not only place herself as a victim of linguistic hierarchy but also asserts her authority and demands to be heard. This need is not aimed at substituting one hierarchy with another but at disrupting the status quo by bringing the option of two-way exchange.

Spoken word poetry is very performative, and this feature contributes to the intensification of these themes. Spoken word can be best explained in terms of its phonaesthetic nature, which involves the combination of sound, rhythm, intonation, and physical delivery as argued by such scholars as Chike Okoye and Stella Okoye-Ugwu in their 2021 article From Minstrelsy to the Spoken Word Poet: Oral Tradition and Postcolonial Nigeria, published in Cogent Arts & Humanities journal. The combination of these elements in the performance of Havfy’s work creates meaning in a manner that goes beyond what the text says. The pacing she uses, for example, enables her to have some moments of emphasis and reflection. The pauses serve the purpose of making the audience take in important lines, and the changes in tone indicate the changes in emotional intensity. The metaphors deployed in Havfy’s poem, like my mouth is a battlefield and this slaughterhouse I call a mouth, are further enhanced by the use of voice – her voice – because the voice of the speaker is the voice of the power the poem evokes.  

The longing of the specific sounds and the sudden cutting off of the other sounds, as well as the employment of silence, play a role in the overall impression of the performance: more is signified by less. In such a manner even the voice itself will be used as a resistance tool. It brings a trace of the struggle that it expresses and turns it into a source of power. The very process of speaking, especially using a language that has been characterized as being exclusive, is a form of reclamation. The speaker does not aim to destroy the tension between languages but to inhabit it to the fullest and, in so doing, use it as a place of creative and political involvement.

The poem also addresses the larger issues concerning the place of spoken word poetry in contemporary Nigerian literature. Its hybrid character – it is based on oral traditions, works in written forms, and spreads in digital information – puts it in a flexible and adapting form. It has the ability to experiment around language and structure and performance to give permanence to voices that would otherwise be marginalized in more traditional literary spaces.

Nevertheless, this flexibility contributes to issues of legitimacy and recognition, too. Spoken word poetry may not be within the institutional structures of literary value, which embody publishing companies, book critics and literary awards. Consequently, it can be seen to be less formal or less permanent than written poetry. However, this perception does not take into account how spoken word provokes and broadens the scope of what literature is.

The example of this challenge can be seen in Havfy and To the Girl in English Class. It is both a personal story and a critical intervention, covering the problem of language, gender, and power, and also proving the aesthetic potential of spoken word. It is not just effective because of its thematic content but also because it can capture the interest of the audiences both emotionally and intellectually.

The poem is not aimed at giving conclusive answers to the questions that it poses. Rather, it perpetuates a chain of contradictions between English and Indigenous languages, between accessibility and authenticity, between individual agency and structural constraint. These tensions are then developed and perpetuated for further reflection and interpretation.

This way, Havfy’s work brings to light the ability of spoken word poetry to serve as a place of critical interaction. It is not simply a mode of expression but also, more importantly, a way of questioning certain social realities and fantasies. It preempts the strength of language as a means also of perceiving identity and experience.

In Nigeria, a vibrant society influenced by a variety of linguistic, cultural, and historical forces, spoken word poetry is an energizing genre for the nation’s constantly evolving literary body. Havfy’s contribution is singular: for one thing because she has a large following, for another because her work is strikingly good. The United Nations Youth Office, with which she has collaborated, says of Havfy that her “goal is to rock the nations, provoke the minds and the consciousness of the masses and change the word – one metaphor at a time.” In others words, poets like Havfy can help us answer some of the most burning problems of modern life.

To the Girl in English Class is a very interesting example of how poetry may address the issues of language, gender, and the subalternity in an approach that is both approachable and thought-provoking. Its judicious use of personal storytelling and theoretical resonance shows the way spoken word poetry can be used to bridge the divide between the seemingly abstract and the very real. It confirms the longstanding importance of voice as an instrument of expression as well as a place where resistance, negotiation and transformation reside.▪