Last year, I took part in the SprinNG writing fellowship. It seemed absurd (at least to me) to turn a relaxing hobby to an intense 6-week rollercoaster of writing and rewriting. My assigned mentor Iyanu Adebiyi didn’t make it a smooth ride with constant revisions upon revision of my poems.
The most challenging writing prompt was coincidentally my first task. I had to answer the question why do I write?
Why do you write poems seems easy to answer until you realize that nothing comes to mind even after a minute of thinking.
This prompt took me days to work out then I sent it to my mentor for review. Of course, it took more than 2 ‘rewritings’ until I could come up with this:
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LOOKING INTO THE MIRROR OF I
The sea calls my name on this shore tonight. I am in awe of a beauty I cannot see, do not understand, dare not embrace. There is something swaying towards me. I feel it in the waves sweeping across my feet. As I stand enveloped by the dark, I yearn to see this intriguing stranger. For a moment, the moon lights the sky, its gentle rays pour on all things below. The blanket of night disappears and I see the mystery of the glistening sea as clear as day.
Poetry is this light that shines through the murky waters of uncertainty. Poetry gives me a consciousness of what is present and what is absent; of the apparent and the hidden. Poetry is adventure; the path that ushers me out of the familiarity of my experiences and on a journey of life’s spectrum.
I write for me. To articulate this journey of many sides and realities. To open my eyes to a world I cannot fully fathom. Like an explorer sets sail, seeking unchartered lands, I search for light in the blurriness of my opaque thoughts, hoping to find it.
I write for the other. Those who stay calmly in a room covered in mirrors, trying to see their true reflections. They need not search for lucidity on the walls – it finds them. In poetry, I am confronted with how different they are from me. How fascinating it will be to lean into their worlds, not as an escape from mine, but an appreciation of how diverse our human experiences can be.
As I write, my pen draws waves of stories on my paper. Its tide washes onto shore the gift of clarity. Through poetry, I can travel from past to future. I can meet those who have passed, I can relive the present and imagine possibilities of the future. In this journey, are countless stories to be told – the ones yet untold and others being retold. And no matter how long, the pen never stops drawing new pictures of divergent perspectives.
To write, is to remove the fog of confusion from my mind. At last I can embrace the radiance of understanding. Writing is a mirror for my thoughts. There is nothing as graceful as a page full of written words, welcoming spectrums of mysteries and reflecting lights of new revelations. Here, I can truly be awakened to a new consciousness of myself, the world I live in and those I share it with.
As I continue on this path, I hope to arrive at my destination – my room of mirrors, where the reflections are not altered or obscure, but clear and bright like the moonlit water at shore.
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Other writing prompts similar to this it helped me reflect and truly extend the reach of my writing style. It was as exciting as it was demanding and I am glad I followed through.
Two of my poems I wrote during the fellowship- ‘A prison he calls home’ and ‘Reality is a dream’ made it to the anthology cumulated at the end of the fellowship.
If you would like to read them and the works of other fellows, do check out Come Back Safely: A Collection of Essays, Short Stories & Poems by the 2021 SprinNG Writing Fellows
Photo with a Poem 