Researcher Esohe Weyden is Antwerp's city poet
In Beneath the surface, we deep dive into the mind of a UAntwerp researcher. Stroom digs for experiences, interests and motivations, in order to discover: what makes a scientist tick? This time, we put Esohe Weyden in the spotlight. Weyden is doing a PhD in family property law. From 2021 to 2023, she was the campus poet at our university. Earlier this year, she was appointed as Antwerp city poet.
Poetry
What I love about poetry? The endless tinkering with it. Poems are manageable projects, little works of art that you can keep hammering away at. It continues to fascinate me how big thoughts and deep feelings can fit into just a few lines of verse. The beauty of language is why I started writing. Being a city poet allows me to celebrate that, albeit with the city as my canvas and a much larger audience.
I draw most of my inspiration from my own life: the hustle and bustle of the city, the pace of the performance society, the pressure of ambition... For me, writing is a way of dealing with all that. Poetry feels like an encounter with yourself. They’re thoughts that don’t necessarily have to be finished. Loose ends with a right to exist.
People sometimes react surprised when I tell them I’m a lawyer. For many, the rigidity of the legal jargon is at odds with the panache of poetry. But for me, this variety is actually a breath of fresh air. It shows how versatile language can be. Legal terms are loaded concepts with concrete legal consequences and require extreme precision. Dealing with language in such a totally different way feels like an enrichment. If all I did in my daily life was engage in creative writing, it would overwhelm me.
Doubter
There is nothing more difficult for me than making choices. I am someone who overthinks things. If I have to take a big decision, I always knock on the door of friends and family for advice. I weigh all those opinions carefully before I decide. In the end, my gut feeling is the most important guide, but not before my ratio has weighed up every possibility.
I draw most of my inspiration from my own life: the hustle and bustle of the city, the pace of the performance society, the pressure of ambition... For me, writing is a way of dealing with all that.
Whether I have doubts as a writer? Of course. Exposing yourself on paper is scary. The blank page makes every writer shudder. At the same time, I find peace in the thought that you can start again and again with a clean slate. The first draft of a poem doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. The pleasure and beauty lie in the evolution of a text.
Between
My mother is Nigerian and deeply religious, my father is Belgian and a staunch atheist. Whenever anyone mentioned at dinner that they thought God existed, the other side of the table would object. I grew up at the crossroads of two extremes. That shaped me into an understanding person, someone who navigates smoothly between two worlds. In my first poetry collection, aptly titled Tussentaal (Intermediate Language), I put into words my life in that borderland.
Today I am proud of my background, but as a teenager I always felt like I was somewhere in between. Am I black or white? What place does faith have in my life? Since then, I have made peace with all those labels. Indeed, they help me look at the world with an open mind. When I was sixteen, for instance, I read the entire Bible in search of answers. Although I must admit that afterwards I was left with even more questions. (laughs)
Optimism
I never wallow in adversity for long. I have too much sense of life for that. There is still so much I want to do. That spirit is in my nature, but I also owe my resilience to the support of my parents. They instilled in me as a child that failure is part of life. They were like motivational speakers, giving me fiery pep talks. I often tell them to start a YouTube channel, but for now they haven’t followed my advice.
I’ve noticed that I’m also a pillar of support for those around me. People often come to me to recharge when they’re in a slump. At the same time, I know very well that I cannot carry all the suffering and injustice in the world.
Conversations
If you asked me to go clubbing with you, I’d pass. But I’m always up for having a good conversation – the deeper, the better. My friends and I have been known to have extremely long dinners. We talk about everything and nothing, the hours flying by, until the restaurant staff kindly ask us to wrap it up.
More than ever, real conversations are vital. Take my parents: two people who are opposites in some ways, but who’ve always kept talking. Incidentally, I have found that poetry can spark valuable interactions. When I recite a poem at an event, people often come up to me afterwards. Because they recognise themselves in what I write. Or they don’t. And before I know it, we’re having the most fascinating conversation.