When did the issue of climate change get personal for you? 

Iheoma: I think this realization surfaced in 2020, at the heat of the Coronavirus saga— at a point when it clearly seemed like the weather posed a threat to lives and everyone was scared to catch the flu. In the haze of it all, I got to take the climate change much more personal than I did before.

There is a strong presence of nostalgia in your story. Could this sense of nostalgia be of loss or hope? 

Iheoma: The sense of nostalgia stems from hope, I suppose. Even though it’s only such vague hope (which could slip into hopelessness itself). Nonetheless, wading past the nerve-racking pandemic of 2020 suggests such hope for humanity, that there is a possibility of making the planet better and of redeeming our lost chance at it.

What inspired your story for The Green We Left Behind nonfiction anthology? 

Iheoma: The story is a non-fiction piece culled out from a series of personal and familial events before and during the Covid-19 lockdown experience.

As an artist, how are you able to merge beauty in language with such a dire theme on climate change? 

Iheoma: Would like to quote this line from one of my favorite poets, Kei Miller. He writes: “language is a partial map in this world/ we speak to navigate ourselves/ away from the dark corners and we become/ each one of us, cartographers”. That said, I surely agree with the poet. Seeing language as a map allows it to be more than an effect for beauty but as well a means to plunge such dire, if not delicate themes as climate change. This overview forms the backdrop behind my writing.

As you release your story to the world, what is your wish or hope for the story?

Iheoma: I just hope it does what great art does: it lives.

Aside writing, how else do you intend to contribute towards curbing climate change?

Iheoma: Personally, I haven’t thought about this question before but considering it now, I think I’m ready to be helpful to my planet, someway, anyway I can. To start with, I’ll take on practical habits of sanitization and also sensitization.

Biography

Iheoma Uzomba studies English and Literary Studies at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. She is currently an associate Poetry editor for The Muse no 49 journal. Her works have been published in Rattle, The Shore Poetry, Kissing Dynamite, The Rising Phoenix Review and elsewhere. She lives the easy life on IG where she puts up her spoken word poems.