I Am YEG Arts: Titilope Sonuga

A poet, performer, playwright, and occasional actor – wherever there’s a story to be told, that is where you will find Titilope Sonuga. Since 2021, Titilope has been serving as the Poet Laureate of the City of Edmonton, and her work, both written and spoken, has captured moments of tenderness and joy. As the time draws nearer to the end of her term as Poet Laureate, we caught up with Titilope to talk about her experiences, highlights, and where she sees herself going next. This week’s ​“I Am YEG Arts” story focuses on Titilope Sonuga. 

Some people may not know, but you actually started out as an engineer. What inspired you to shift your path to pursue a living as an artist?

I’m not sure that I was inspired as much as I was pushed, kind of in a spiritual way, to go on and pursue this life in the arts. I had worked as an engineer for many years and followed that path because it seemed clear and easy, but I knew there was this kind of nagging in my spirit about this other life that I loved and hoped and wished that there was a way to build something out of it that was sustainable. And I think I got to a point, like a tipping point, where I had been doing poetry and arts on the side as a hobby while going to my job, and slowly the dream started to eclipse my real life. More and more I was taking off on weekends to go teach workshops. I was like Superman/​Clark Kent where I was hiding my identity. I had to make a decision about what kind of life I wanted to live, and the one I chose was the one that felt most authentic and true. Wildly risky, but it felt like a risk worth taking. 

As a storyteller, what narratives or inspiration do you find yourself returning to in your work?

I find myself in my storytelling always returning to the stories of women, and even in moments where I’m like, OK, I’m going to write a poem about [X], somehow I return, I guess metaphorically, to the place of my birth, which was from a woman. I think I’m deeply inspired by the many ways women can and do exist in the world, and the many lives that they choose, and the ways in which the world we live in hasn’t necessarily been set up for us to flourish but somehow, we do. And the beauty of our flourishing is that we give other people, other things, other life forms permission to flourish as well. I think there’s something really cyclical and regenerative about it. The lives of women – it’s something that I find myself tipping back to in the stories that I want to tell and the stories that excite me. 

How has your tenure as Poet laureate impacted your career trajectory and relationship with Edmonton and Edmonton’s creative community?

I think my career has kind of evolved and continued to move in the ways that it likely already would have. But the role makes everything grander. It sets more eyes on your work. It introduces your work to more people who may not otherwise have known you. It invites you into spaces that you may not otherwise have been in. And so, I definitely have a bigger platform with which to do the things that I’ve always wanted to do and will continue to do. 

My relationship with the city has continued to evolve in really beautiful ways. I arrived in the city as a teenager and so much of my formative years actually happened in Edmonton, and a lot of it as an artist. I think these new invitations into spaces have allowed me also to know the city brand new as well, and I’m trying to lean into what the people of the city love and desire and the many stories that exist here in Edmonton. I feel like the combination of my role as Poet Laureate, as well as a project that I just recently completed (Black on the Prairies where we’re looking at Black life on the Prairies) those two experiences have really rooted me in this place as home. Edmonton is home, and has been for a long time, but it just feels more dug in now in a way that it hadn’t before. 

As your term as Poet Laureate draws to a close, were there any unexpected highlights?

There were many highlights along the way. I think one in particular that I hadn’t expected was that I’ve been invited to speak at many, many schools. I’ve done school workshops before as part of my work, but in this time, I’ve gone into junior high schools, I’ve gone into high schools, I’ve spoken to principals and administrators, I’ve spoken to teachers. For me, my journey as a writer and performer began in a junior high school in Edmonton, and so there’s a really important role that that early introduction to literature served for me. And to be able to offer that back by the school visits where I’m meeting young people who are the age I was when I first started writing and hoping, fingers crossed behind my back, that whatever that interaction is with them will be a seed that they can remember later on when they say, oh, you know, I write plays, or I don’t write but I journal and it’s because a poet came into my school and said something one day.

I didn’t expect that school visits were going to become such a big part of my work, but it’s a part that I love quite deeply. I cherish the voices and opinions of young people and being in their spaces, posts 2020 and pandemic life has really, really enriched my life and work and I hope that it’s been useful for them as well.

Is there anything you haven’t yet accomplished that you’d like to do during your term?

Many, many things. I think the main thing that rings in my head is the Tenderness Edmonton project. I had thought, OK in the two years we’re going to get so many tender stories and we’re going to make this thing happen. I think I underestimated what point we were at in our collective healing. I think at the time it really did feel like we were around the bend; the pandemic was over, all that was going to be pouring out was these great stories of gratitude. But I think people needed more time, and as such I think the project needs more time. And stories did come in, but I think we are still at that point of figuring out and unpacking what the last few years have done to us. I had to offer myself and the people a ton of grace for the fact that yes, we have stories to tell and things to say, but maybe not yet. Maybe not immediately. Maybe we need more time for healing and recovery. Beyond my tenure, that’s definitely a project that I want to continue to pursue. 

What advice would you give to emerging artists?

1. Start with the truth in anything that you’re creating. Let that compass be pointing toward the most radical, terrifying truth of your life, because ultimately, that’s all there is. 
2. Trust your voice, and that your voice in the way that you do your thing, however wacky and weird and strange, is actually where the sauce is; that’s where the magic is. And there’s always somebody on the other side of that who needs to hear you do your thing in the way that you do it. So much of what we do as artists is riddled by anxiety, insecurity, and fear. Like, will it be good this time. Will it be horrible? Is everyone going to know that I don’t know anything at all? I’d say lean into that – that vulnerability and fear. Really magical things come out of that place. 

What would you say is your greatest strength as a creative?

I think my greatest strength is my willingness to bear my heart, my willingness to be vulnerable. And it’s taken me many, many years to get to the place where the stage isn’t just a place of performance for me, but a place of real feeling and openness and vulnerability in which I know what I’m there to do, but I’m also open to the possibilities. That keeps me soft and that keeps the work as tender and honest as it can be. I think my greatest strength is that I’m not afraid to feel with people, and that invites them to come to the work with their vulnerabilities. I think many magical things have happened in that space. So yeah, my greatest strength is actually what makes me most soft. 

Tell us a little bit about what you’re currently working on and what you hope to explore next.

I’ve gotten two really great pieces of news in the last couple of weeks. The first was a large project grant from the Edmonton Arts Council to work on my next album, Sis, which is an exploration of Sisterhood and friendship and relocating ​“friendship” as a really beautiful place of transformation and strength as the ultimate love story. We view romantic love as the pinnacle of all loves, but I think about friendships that predate my marriage, I think about friendships that I knew even before I was an artist. That’s the love that sustains. That’s the love that has transformed my life. And so, this album is a love story to all the women who have braced me throughout my life. 

And then I received another project grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to work on another iteration of Open, which is my live poetry show that incorporates music. This version will allow me to transcribe this work to classical sheet music and work with an orchestra to re-explore poems with music and what that does in a performance setting. I’m hoping, if I follow my timelines, it will be my farewell show for my role where people can come out and experience this work with a 30-piece orchestra that I’m working with out of Calgary, as well as Melafrique. It’ll be a really fantastic exploration of poetry and music and all the ways that words and music are like a perfect marriage. 

What I’m currently working on and what I’m hoping to explore next are intertwined, but just more of being out in the world again. I’ve had in the last few weeks more live performances than I have had in the last three years. I really love the stage and being in call and response with other people, and so more of that as we go forward is what I’m hopeful for. 

About Titilope Sonuga

Titilope Sonuga is a poet, playwright and performer whose work grasps moments of tenderness and persistent joy at the intersection of blackness and womanhood. She is a leading voice in local and international poetry communities who has travelled extensively as an artist and facilitated adult and youth poetry workshops worldwide. She has served on various artistic and community boards in Edmonton and is the founder of the Breath In Poetry Collective, a mentorship and performance platform for emerging poets. Sonuga is the author of three collections of poetry, Down to Earth (Self Published, 2011), Abscess (Geko Publishing, 2014), and This Is How We Disappear (Write Bloody North, 2019) and has composed and released two spoken word albums; Mother Tongue (2011) and Swim (2019). She has written three plays, The Six; an intergenerational exploration of womanhood, Naked; a one-woman play and Ada The Country, a musical. Sonuga has scripted global advertising campaigns for numerous organizations, including The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, Intel Corporation, The World Health Organization, White Ribbon Alliance and The MacArthur Foundation. Her writing has been translated into Italian, German and Slovak. 

Titilope Sonuga will conclude her two-year term as Edmonton’s Poet Laureate on June 30, 2023. Keep informed about Titilope’s work and events by following her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and visiting her website.