BU Creative Writing

We’re excited to share this interview with D.M. “Dammy” Aderibigbe (Poetry ’16), which appeared in Prairie Schooner this week!  Dammy recently published his chapbook, In Praise of Our Absent Father, and it was selected for the APBF New Generation African Poets Chapbook Series.

From the interview:

“…I had left my Nigeria and been to Morocco, Mexico, Barbados and of course the United States where I live now. This meant stepping out of my grandmother’s gray hair for the first time. This meant stepping out of my 6-year old sister’s tiny teeth for the first time. This meant learning things like sand, air, water, etc., all over again. You know, that’s some kind of redefinition. This alteration in my life has had an enormous impact on my approach to writing… Studying under great teachers such as Robert Pinsky, Maggie Dietz and Karl Kirchwey has made me a better critic of my poems. They have helped dig out the tooth I never knew I had. Now, I am not scared to pluck out words, lines or stanzas I find not working in a poem.”

Congratulations, Dammy!

D.M. Aderibigbe is from Nigeria. His chapbook, In Praise of Our Absent Father, is an APBF New Generation African Poets Chapbook Series selection. He is a recipient of 2015 Honours from Dickinson House and The Entrekin Foundation.His poems appear in Alaska Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, cream city review, DIAGRAM, Normal School, Notre Dame Review, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, RATTLE, and Spillway, which nominated him for the 2017 Puschcart Prize. He’s been featured on Verse Daily. His first manuscript received a special mention in the 2015 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets.