WORLD POETRY DAY

Today we celebrate poetry.

Did you know that poetry is one of the oldest forms of communication dating back to prehistoric times with the hunting poems of Africa and ancient Egypt? It is such a beautiful form of art, one that is abstract yet real, one that speaks of corrupted purity and purified corruption, one that is too great to fathom.

World Poetry Day. Every day is a day to celebrate poetry and anything that you may love doing, but today is special. Today, I woke up feeling happier. I woke up with a skip to my step. I woke up with a smile on my face.

It’s a day to celebrate my love language, my first love, my only love, and the love of my life. Poetry. Therefore, today I take you on a journey. My journey as a poet. Buckle up; it will be one hell of a ride.

When I was seven years old, in class two, I fell in love with art. At that time though, I would not have known that art would end up being one of the most important aspects of my life. I do not know which day it was or which date it was, but I can remember quite vividly the occurrences of that day. It must have been a weekend or a holiday, because I was at home that day. My father loved to gift me books every time I would do something good. I pass my exams, which was always easy; he would gift me a book. I excel in something at church, he gifts me a book. The start of a new school term, he gifts me a book. From a young age, I was reading books and growing my vocabulary and just enjoying embedding these new facts in my head. My father had a massive book collection, but nobody to read it. My older brother loved reading but not quite as much, and he had specific tastes. I was the family’s bookworm, so to say.

On this particular day, I had gone through my father’s collection and found this book, an anthology by a great African Author and Poet. Lots of Wonders by Sam Mbure. I read it and I was amazed. Then I was watching a documentary with my father on Lake Nakuru, and this little girl wrote her first poem ever right after. It was a simple poem, called Flamingoes and the last line of every stanza was: Lake Nakuru, Lake Nakuru, what a wonder you are. I showed my cousin and he said it was unimportant and that I should try real art like drawing. So, I drew Mickey Mouse, the face only. He still said it was non-sense and I was a child. I was frustrated. In a typical Patrician Style, I tore the poem and the drawing up and burnt them down, only a small piece was left unburnt when my father found me and he took it and kept it. It had the last part of the poem, the last line only. My father would then try to encourage me to write, but that was that. I did not write a poem again until a year later.

Compositions, most people hated them. Not me though. The school I was in liked to introduce pupils to compositions and inshas early enough. As early as in class two, you are taught on how to write sentences describing events. Then in class three you start writing one-page compositions in paragraph form. The end of the year in class two, we were given some classwork and we all did it well. The English teacher, called me after class and she was with some other teachers and she asked me where I had learnt to write. I did not quite understand why she asked, she just said it did not look like an eight-Year-Old’s writing. I went home and showed my father and told him and he bought me my first note-book. He then told me to write and to never stop writing and so I did.

Long story short that was how my journey with poetry and writing in general began. I cannot even start to explain how much poetry means to me and to my life. It is like coming home to a friend at the end of a long day. It is like crying to a best friend when your day has been full of cow dung. It is like explaining to your parent an achievement and watching them beam up in pride. It is like playing with a friend and enjoying the times with them. It is like feeling the warmth of someone you love, right there with you.

The thing is though, just like any other form of art, only specific people get it. It can be frustrating when nobody appreciates your art. As much as your artistic friends and your creative friends will tell you that they don’t mind whether someone appreciates it and that as long as they put their work out there they are good, they do mind. It gives one a boost of confidence to hear that your work is good, your work has touched someone, and your writing is beautiful.

Personally, I don’t mind. Weird, I know. I have been writing pieces for the past thirteen years. I have written hundreds if not thousands of poems. Some have been lost to the tides of time. Some have gotten destroyed. Some have been stolen and claimed by people as theirs. Some I have gifted out to people. Some I destroyed myself. I would like to say that I am invisible to critic and mockery, but I am not. I just learnt to embrace the positive and ignore the negative. I will tell you though, the worst thing you can do to someone is insult their work. Poets tend to be sensitive people, mostly. You can easily break their spirit with some insults to their work especially. Most poets I know put their heart and soul in their work and let everything in them flow into that piece of writing. Disregarding it, is disregarding their feelings, their thought-process.

Next time you come across a poem, and you feel the need to critic it, give positive and constructive criticism. If you don’t get it, ignore it.

To the plagiarists, stealing my work does not and will never make you a great poet, or a great anything at that. Plagiarists are people who take someone else’s work and name it as theirs. You find a piece on the internet and you copy it, and paste it and put your name at the end, you are a plagiarist. You find a piece and take it and share it to your friend, excluding the owner’s name and say, I wrote this, you are a plagiarist. To you plagiarist out there, I want to help. Nowadays any craft is easy to learn. You can learn and you can be a great poet or writer. Just don’t be thieves. You may steal one of my works, and you may feel good about being told how good it is, but you forget one thing. I can write hundreds of pieces if I want to, but you cannot. I can make up a piece from just staring at a rock in front of me, but you cannot. Learn, do not steal.

To my fellow poets, words are just but expressions of the feelings within. You have a gift, you have a skill. Do not sit on it. Let it out. Sing it from the top of rooftops. Shout it to everyone who can hear. Share it for the whole world to see. Spread it out so ruthlessly, that the world will tremble at the intensity and magic of your words. Do not wait for the validation that it is good. If it makes sense to you, put it out there. Expand your skill. Be better. Sharpen your words. Shock them with new styles. Write in new languages. Be great at it. Show them how it is done. Most of all, make yourself proud with each new piece.

To the readers, you feel the beauty in our words. You feel the magic they possess. You feel the intensity with which they are written. A thumbs up can never hurt. A subscription to our channels, our blogs, our pages can never hurt. A comment can never hurt. It pushes us to do better and to learn how to be greater. Listen, read and enjoy our form of art.

Poetry is not just a lifestyle. For the greatest poets, it is our life. I will not post any piece today as I am celebrating other poets. As I celebrate poetry, here are some words by some of my favorite poets of all times.

1. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize. – Oscar Wilde.
2. Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus! Translation: Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love. – Catullus.
3. I hate and I love. And if you ask me how, I do not know: I only feel it, and I am torn in two. – Catullus.
4. Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth. – June Jordan.
5. Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. – Carl Sandburg.
6. Encuentra tu lugar feliz, ser feliz. – Darkheartemoji (thecodedpoet).
7. The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth. – Jean Cocteau.
8. If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold and no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. – Emily Dickson.
9. Never go in search of love, go in search of life and life will give you the love you seek. – Atticus.
10. When left to chance, life will make you laugh or cry. –Darkheartemoji (thecodedpoet).
11. Plagiarism is real, let it not shatter you. Take it as a challenge and await your trophy. – Myles The Masterpiece.
12. Drop a mouse into a poem, and watch him probe his way out. – Nasha the Poet (My Poetic Mentor).

Have you a great day and a happy one.

Happy World Poetry Day.

If truth was kept on a balance, maybe there’d be less sighs.

Happy poetry day my dear Eon. I love you so much!