CityLife

Poet Lemn Sissay - part of the Pavilion's True Faith line-up

Lemn Sissay - keeping the faith

HOME is a complex notion for Lemn Sissay, and a topic that’s sure to be on the agenda when the poet joins Scottish-Nigerian writer Jackie Kay on July 14 for an evening’s conversation with DJ and writer Dave Haslam as part of his True Faith series for the Manchester International Festival.

He was born in 1967 to Ethiopian parents in Wigan, fostered as a baby then sent to a children’s home at 11. After a prolonged search, he met his family for the first time aged 30.

In 1995 a BBC documentary, Internal Flight, followed Sissay’s hunt for his family into the heart of the Simien Mountains, where his father died. He calls this journey the narrative of his adult life and it forms the wellspring for much of his poetry.

He is currently artist in residence at the South Bank Centre and CityLife caught up with him there before he flew out to appear at The Grahamstown Festival, in South Africa.

He is excited about being part of Dave Haslam’s ‘vision of showcasing artists with interesting brains’ and took little convincing from his old friend to get involved.

“I love Manchester,” he says. “I, like Jackie, perform all over the world and we carry the city inside us. But I’m at home wherever I am. After travelling around the world to find my family the biggest thing I found was myself. I kind of don’t understand the idea of home being just one place – ‘wherever I lay my hat that’s my hat’,” he laughs, quoting the Bolton bard Hovis Presley.

Typically for those who have endured hard times, Sissay’s laughter is frequent but he’s more than serious about his passion for poetry.

“There’s a lot of **** around,” he says. “Good poetry is about style and content. That’s what I fight for – finding the vibe in a poem and if that means that the text runs away off the page and hides in the margins then so be it.

“If you’re going to be around for 20 years like I have and like Jackie has, you can’t depend on an audience to verify your existence – you have to search for the vibe in the work.

“I think that’s one of the key points of Dave’s ethos – integrity. You can have integrity and be sexy, you can have anger and not be bitter, you can have art and not be fey and you can have success and not be Simply Red."

“I get fed up with these affected, fey, faux poets who perceive themselves to be the new rock and roll. You’ve just got to be there, you’ve just got to have true faith.”

Lemn Sissay and Jackie Kay will be appearing at Manchester International Festival Pavilion Theatre, Albert Square on Tuesday, July 14.