For Closet Poets: How to Claim Your Creative Identity.

Written by Ami Mattison

Do you write poetry but rarely if ever share it with other people? 

Does anyone even know you write poetry? Are you reluctant to call yourself a poet? Do you dream of publishing your poetry, but can’t bring yourself to move forward towards that aspiration?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you’re probably a closet poet, or a poet who hasn’t yet formally and publicly claimed that identity and embraced the full significance of his or her poetry and creative process.

Life in the Poetry Closet

In college, I was a closet poet. When a renowned poet Adrienne Rich visited our school, I was excited and eager to meet her. When I did, she asked me point-blank: “Are you a poet?” While I wrote poetry, and I was indeed a poet, I rarely shared my poetry with others and I had never publicly claimed that identity. So, my reply was: “No, I’m not a poet, but my friends are.”

At the time, I thought poets were only those artists who wrote brilliant poetry, not someone who, like me, was a mere beginner and who, like me, wasn’t formally trained to write poetry.

Why Come Out?

If you’re a closet poet and you’re reading this article, then you probably possess a deep desire to own your identity as a poet, to share your poetry with others, and to improve your writing skills.

By sharing your poetry with other poets and supportive friends and family members, you may just receive the necessary ego-boost and inner drive to work harder to improve your writing.

Plus, when done in a thoughtful way, sharing your poetry is fun and deeply rewarding, and you can’t reap the benefits of those rewards until you come out of the poetry closet.

Most significantly, if you’re dreaming of publishing your poetry, you won’t be able to take yourself or your poetry seriously enough to do so, until you come out as a poet.

Spoken Word as an art of Poetry...!!!!

Spoken Word has taken the poetry scene by storm since the 80's and 90's. You can hear the earthy, raw, erotic, exciting, and honest art form in many places such as restaurants, coffee houses, museums, universities, church (yes church) and just about wherever people can be found. This art form is contagious, attracting all ages, cultures, and creeds. People are drawn to its electricity on one hand, yet for others, it exudes a solemn and spiritual quality that relaxes the mind and body.

Spoken Word is similar to rapping but there is a distinct difference. Rapping is usually accompanied with some form of rhythmic music, whereas spoken word is usually a narration; it's music a natural flow of and from the human body releasing emotions that the speaker may have. Those feelings are often used to engage and entertain the audience. The objective is all about presentation, sharing stories and feelings that people don't normally put out in the open. What's so great about the art of Spoken Word is that the listeners are drawn into a magnetic field of raw honesty which is the center of spoken word.

Spoken Word is an art form that is steadily rising, birthing new ideas and ways to express emotion and stories as well as entertain listeners. The best quality is that it’s a very positive form of entertainment. There are many venues that cater to this art form throughout California. Major cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Riverside, and Oakland, to name a few are very popular hubs; overflowing with the electric energy and popular spoken word artists like Tshaka, Poetri, and the Inland Empire’s own The Poet X. (Nigeria is also fast becoming a popular hub for Spoken Word Poetry as new venues spring up everyday).

Believe it or not there are those who don’t acknowledge spoken word as a true extension of poetry but poetry in itself is about self-expression, releasing and sharing uninhibited emotions, going to a place within one’s soul that may be riddled with complexities of life, sadness, or happiness. It’s a place that many benefit from, whether speaking or simply observing, if only they would make the trek to that place of freedom, where happiness and self-discovery abounds for many. Art is what we make it. It is done to express oneself. Those in observation simply benefit from the quest of another’s artistic expressions.

By CHANTAE KNUCKLES

http://www.examiner.com/article/spoken-word-as-an-art-of-poetry

Lagos Girls...!!! (A Spoken Word Poetry Video)

Chill and Relax, a Performance Poetry and Spoken Word Open mic event, is the event for new poets to discover themselves and for experienced poets to further harness their skills.

Though in the past we had looked at faces and frames as the definition of creative abilities. But now, when they say big things comes in small packages, we no longer doubt this cos we have come to know the small frame of a poet does not determine the weight, impact and depth of his words.

One of such poet, is the the slender framed, young and fast growing, Tofarati. A master of rhymes interlaced with wits, ever smiling and confident on stage and well, off it too. He is a regular at Chill and Relax, and he never fails to wow us with his rhymes and wits. 

This is a video of 

Tofarati doing a Spoken Word piece 

titled

Lagos girls

at 

Chill and Relax (September to Remember) 

Don't miss this edition of 

Chill and Relax : The October Fever

A Performance Poetry and Spoken Word open mic Event 

where everyone and anyone can step up and rock the mic.

Date is October 14, 2012 (2nd Sunday of the month)

Time is 3pm

Venue is 16,  Abeni close,  ASA Estate, off Ayodele Okeowo 

street, after Deeper Life church, Soluyi Gbagada, Lagos

Featuring Naija's Finest Poets

Entry is free

Advice for aspiring writers (The Write Stuff)

Poet Lemn Sissay and author Tiffany Murray on being creative, the challenges of financing a creative career and advice for aspiring writers.

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Starting out as a writer

Lemn Sissay

"I always wrote poetry, and so I got involved in the literary world because I was born a poet.

"Confidence is something that builds. You have to use a certain amount of intuition. Is this really what you want to do? Why do you want to do it? I write because I can't not write. Each step makes you more confident about the direction you're going in. It doesn't necessarily get any easier."

Tiffany Murray

"I came to writing quite later on in life. I started off as an actress, I tried to be an actress for four years in London. Then I moved to New York to study an academic PhD. It was within that, that I realised academic writing wasn't my voice, wasn't for me. That's when I began to write.

"I didn't just sit there and think 'Oh well, that's it, I'm going to be a writer and I believe in myself'. No, I applied to University of East Anglia and I did the MA and PhD there. That was my apprenticeship.”

Financing a writing career

Tiffany Murray

"I am a senior lecturer and that's what pays my bills. The Society of Authors will give a sum, the average yearly earning for a writer, and mine is about that. But I'm only two novels in. Once I have five novels, then perhaps that's something I can sit back on.

Average annual earnings of a writer: £16,531, Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, 2008

“But also there's the other side of that. It’s not 'Oh, I have to have another job and isn't it awful?' I think it's important to have another job.

"I worked with a poet recently and he said other friends of his who were poets and they stopped working, they just had the poetry and that was it, their work suffered. You need something to react against. You can't write all day, you'll go crazy, you need to engage with the world.

"It is about realising how much hard work is involved. It could happen with a first book, there are those stories out there. I know people, first book, sold the film rights, sold it across the world, lovely.

"But there's a difference between wanting that and wanting a career that lasts until you die. You can write until you're 94 if you're lucky enough to get that far. It's a daily routine."

Lemn Sissay

"You can be a doctor and a poet. You can be a teacher and a poet. You can be a builder and a poet. Don't think that just because you have chosen a particular career path that you do not have to develop your creative side.

“Develop your creative side as well as becoming a doctor. You don't have to sacrifice one for the other. And what you'll find is that later on in life or at some magical point, the two will meet, and the creativity that you employ will benefit you as a doctor, as a lawyer, as a teacher, as a mother, as a friend."

Advice for a writing career

TIffany Murray

"I would say focus on the work first. Don't talk about it, do it. I know that sounds terribly schoolmarm-ish. Do a writing course, join a writing group, if you so wish, but don't overdose on that. People need that as a crutch and I think that they do overdose a little too much, so focus on the work.

"Take in everything. Schlocky TV, schlocky movies, beautiful high art movies, very very long French films that seem to have no plot but look pretty. Take it all in. I don't believe in high art, low art. It's all something that's going to be digested by you somehow, and everything is worthwhile. And also go for walks. I couldn't write unless I went for a walk every day."

Lemn Sissay

"Don't think that, just because you have chosen a particular career path, you do not have to develop your creative side."

"You have to dedicate time to learning about the industry and your own creative processes. And dedicating time means going to workshops, means presenting your work, means being criticised and developing critique. These things don't just fall out of the sky, you have to go and look for them.

“Practical places you could look are you local regional arts board. Every area has a regional arts board, they will have lists of writers' workshops within your area. You have to go to those workshops, you have to meet strangers, you have to face your fears if you're going to get involved in this industry.

“And it's facing the fears which builds your confidence. You can sit in your own little room saying you're a great writer and you're an artist and an inspiration, but not engage. You must engage, and there are practical ways to do that.

"Society often tries to account for us in very structural ways, and treats the anarchy of creativity as if it is some foreigner. Whereas actually it's the reason that structure gets built, that we are all expressive by our natures. It's a beautiful thing.".

The Emperor's Butterfly Maker

poem by Lemn Sissay

I work at the butterfly-making factory on Butter Lane,
in a town called Flower, near a city called Sun.
Every single day I stick on their wings.
Their wings sound like cats purring as they lilt and loop away.
Maybe I'll try the wings myself one day.