Written by Briah Krueger
When we read the words of a creative mind and soul, and they have the artistic power to relate to us without even knowing us, that’s when we, as readers, know they’re an excellent writer. Naturally we become curious about these writers and we’ve been fortunate enough to take a peek inside the poetic mind of Omar Sakr. After you’re done reading his work, you’ll be craving for more.
In this interview with Omar Sakr, we have the pleasure of learning more about the meaning behind his work and the magnificent poet himself.
Omar Sakr is an award-winning Arab Australian poet, writer, and editor. His debut poetry collection was These Wild Houses (Cordite) and his new book is The Lost Arabs (UQP). You can find Omar Sakr at his website.
How did poetry find you? Do you feel you sought it out, it just came to you one day by coincidence, or do you feel in your heart you were always meant to be a poet?
I came to poetry largely by accident. I had one unit left to enrol in for my first semester at Sydney Uni, where I was doing a Masters in Creative Writing, and my housemate suggested I take poetry, which, at the time I mocked because I didn’t understand it, and didn’t think it could understand me. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Through the extraordinary tutelage of Judith Beveridge, and watching endless Youtube videos of spoken word poets, I realised the problem had been my education so far. There is a poem, a poet, for everyone: they simply have to be exposed to it. My whole life I had been searching for the right way to express myself, and I found it in poetry. In that way, it’s a coincidence that I’m here, but I still think I was always meant to be a poet.
What inspires you most in your writing?
A desire to know myself and the world as much as possible.
Does writers block ever get to you, and if so, how do you pull through that?
Not really. I’ve lived as a freelance writer, deadline to deadline, and that helped me develop my discipline in order to pay rent.
Do you remember how you felt when you really started to get into poetry? Do you think it has shaped you in any way?
I felt like I had opened a door to the universe and the universe was within me. It was a glorious, addictive rush. I felt alive for the first time, and saw a way out of the depressive gloom that had shrouded my life up until that point.
In your magnificent poem “Ghosting the Ghetto” there is a sense of nostalgia throughout your words. What inspired you to write this poem?
This poem is from my debut book, These Wild Houses. I had been commissioned by the Red Room Company to write a poem for their “Disappearing” project, which is tied to place. Around the same time I got a haircut from a Samoan hairdresser in Kings Cross—he asked me where I was from, and I told him I grew up around Warwick Farm. He laughed with a kind of surprised recognition and said, “oh shit, you from the ghetto.” I thought about that all the way home, my grandparent’s housing commission flat there, and how much was tied into the sense of being from a place people thought of as a ghetto, how much I had already forgotten, how necessary it is to love the things that make us who we are.
I get a strong sense that you pour a lot of yourself and your heritage into your work, which I admire very much, is there a piece that you feel very connected to aside from your other works?
If I had to pick one poem in The Lost Arabs, I would pick “Factoids”. It’s a poem about my mother that adds a great deal of context, and dimension, to the portrait of her that I paint in my work. Through it, and more broadly through the whole book, I hope people understand that despite everything, I love her deeply.
Do you think having a social media presence has helped you with your confidence and drive as a writer?
No. It did help me as a freelance writer to spread my work and gain a bit more recognition in the industry. Through Twitter in particular, editors would find my work and commission me to write.
If you could give some sound advice to the poets out there who look up to you, what would you tell them?
My advice is practical and boring. Make sure you find a job, and develop skills for it, that is outside the realm of poetry. This is as much for your sanity as it is for your financial security. Read, read, read; revise, revise, revise. Above all else, be as kind as you can—not because this will help you on the road to publication, or to connect to your peers and readers, although that is undoubtedly true, but simply to be kind. It is its own reward.
What’s next for you?
God only knows. I’m doing a PhD on Arab Australian literature, and how we’ve been read. Aside from that, I’m looking to prose and hoping to write more short fiction, essays, and one day a novel.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations?
Jericho Brown’s new book, The Tradition, is incredible. He’s had a massive impact on me as a poet and person, and I’m sure that will continue to be true. Invasive species by Marwa Helal is a vivid and innovative collection of poetry, and I also recently enjoyed the chapbook Rooftops in Karachi by Misbah. On the fiction front, I recommend The Lebs by Michael Mohammed, Lot by Bryan Washington, and Room for a Stranger by Melanie Cheng.
