Who is Inua Ellams?
My website says: “Inua Ellams is an award winning poet, playwright & founder of the Midnight Run. Identity, Displacement & Destiny are reoccurring themes in his work in which he mixes the old with the new, traditional with the contemporary. His books are published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches & Oberon.” – it is largely accurate.
What would you do differently to what you do now?
I think I would just do less of it. I work way too much. I miss sleep and I need to practice being bored.
Who inspires you and why?
If I were to drill it down to a single person, I would say a kid I went to school with called Luis Siu. He showed me a part of myself I didn’t know could exist in other people. I realised the potential for genuine connection that lay beneath skin and wanted to make what lies beneath laugh, and cry, and run and say ‘Inua is just like us’.
What would you do to make a di?erence in the world?
Less meat. Literally and metaphorically.
Favourite holiday destination and why?
I don’t really do holidays. I’m slowly grasping the importance of them though. I’d like to go back in time to watch the meteor shower that made earth hostile to dinosaur life… think of it like the Northern Lights, but directed by the love child of Michael Bay and Jack Snyder.
When friends come to town, what attraction would you take them to, and why?
In London, the Southbank Centre. I spend so much time there, I feel like it is an extension to my living room.
What are you currently reading?
A novel called Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo.
What are you currently listening to?
Kanye Wests’ My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I recently went to a live performance of it by a 16 piece orchestra. The pianist was wack, but the others were amazing.
Happiness is?
If you know how big a can of worms attempting to answer that would unleash…
What does the future hold for you?
Hopefully, a serene type of love that reaches towards simplicity, but is mired the everyday deadness of human life. The quest, is to find a middle ground, a balance.
Written and performed by Inua, he will present Black T-shirt Collection at Arts Centre Melbourne for a limited season from 5 September 2017. For more information, visit: www.artscentremelbourne.com.au for details.
Image: Inua Ellams (supplied)