Today we’d like to introduce you to Olatunde Osinaike.
Hi Olatunde, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
The oldest of three boys, I grew up on the West Side of Chicago with my mother and brothers in a few spots but all nonetheless vital to who I am today. I recognize the community as the source of both joy and purpose; all the poems I write are in response to and thinking of the community. Though I am a software developer and work my day job as such, I write to grow close to the relief life brings elsewhere. I am eternally grateful for the opportunity of mining the love, thought, and understanding around me into the page which shows its gold.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’d be remiss in saying that it has been, in any way, smooth. Something of a shared thread between all creatives I’ve encountered. Baldwin mentions that “if I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see” and in a lot of ways that is how I embrace the full endeavor of writing. Not only am I the “I” but I am also the “you”. There are things the poems teach me – even if I go in knowing one thing, I might leave without the comfort of that knowledge or, better yet, aware of something else completely.
I’ll add that STEAM (STEM and the Arts) are a thing is entirely different in how it manifests in your day-in, day-out. Balancing both can be both fulfilling and testing in that there may be moments when your time is stretched but if you have supportive people around you and a time that is forgiving the fulfillment will outweigh the test.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a writer, practicing primarily in poetry and essays. I don’t go about the work of thinking of myself as special, but I do think I am particularly fortunate to have a life that is exemplary of being both the technology and art worlds. I don’t know that there are too many examples of doing both and especially as a Black man. Most proud of? That would be my life and my wife. What I treasure most, of recent, is the happenstance of having a book out in the world. It is about Black men, our privileges, our shortfalls, and our pleasures. I wrote it thinking of my brothers and the fact that I couldn’t protect them from what they know, the surrealist appointment of realizing how we sometimes can not need to succeed in doing so.
The book has its own life now. It won the 2022 National Poetry Series and has been featured by EBONY, The Root, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Review of Books, The Millions, Booklist, and elsewhere. I hope to see you as I am on tour from Winter 2023 through Spring 2024.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I like listening to poetry podcasts, almost all of the ones I’ve seen but particularly Bread & Poetry, Black & Published, VS, and Keep the Channel Open. A few other podcasts that help me tie to the world also are Black Men Unlearning, Dissect, Stuck with Damon Young and Code Switch via NPR.
Pricing:
- Debut book at Akashic Books ($13.46)
- Support indie publishers at Bookshop ($16.69)
- Buy the book at Target, Walmart or Barnes & Noble ($18)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.olatundeosinaike.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/tundelasoul
- Other: Book Purchasing: https://www.olatundeosinaike.com/thankyou
Image Credits
Photo credits to Jeremy Howard and Audrianna Irving
