I'm over 30, and I've never been to a Night Club!!!

I'm over 30, and I've never been to a Night Club.

Seriously?!!!. Some might exclaim. So? Some might ask in sarcasm. But really, I'm not asking you dear readers to react. Rather, I'm hoping that in writing, I might be able to see some reason myself, why I have refused to grow up with my generation.

Writing.

Writing has always helped me think. When issues clog my mind, and I'm trying to meander a way out, I write. When I need answers to bothering questions. I write. When I face a crossroad and need to take a decision. I write. When I'm bored, I write. I write. Sometimes, when I'm hungry, I write. Why do I write so much?

Well, I think the question I would be asking is, why don’t the whole world write as much? I believe the world would be a better place if we were all writers. There is something about writers. I think, it is almost impossible to be a writer, and be a cheat at the same time. If the whole world wrote as much, we all would be too preoccupied with expressing our thoughts into words, to have the time for so much of the mischief and misdeeds in the world today.

Imagine a robber having to write about his robbery operation. Imagine his whole gang having to write, just before they DECIDE to carry out the robbery operation. In writing, they would come to their senses, as all the hard drugs they use to psyche themselves up would have worn off, by the time they finish writing, and then they would have no strength and will to rob. Imagine this cycle goes on before every robbery operation. Your guess is as good as mine.

Imagine a moment, that a corrupt politician, just before he became corrupt, (assuming that sometime in his lifetime, he wasn't corrupt), had to write before falsifying those financial documents for his monetary gain. Imagine he had to write about a subject, like…like, like the sky for instance. Maybe a poem about the sky. As soon as he starts writing this poem, his thought would drift to the Big God that created the skies, and surely, he wouldn't have the guts to steal.

We all need to be writers. This is a proposition I'm taking to the national assembly to make into a law. I do hope though, that they would pass this proposition of mine into law.

As you may have noticed, I've drifted. That happens a lot. It doesn't bother me much, as long as im still writing and I've not completely lost my opening line of thought. So, as I was thinking, I'm over 30, and I've never been to a club. Why could this be?

…..to be continued.

By Daniel Ikekhuah aka Lion Kisser

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.

Why You Should Stay Away From Poets by Alice Keys MD

You should stay away from poets. Far away. Poetry is a contagious, untreatable virus which is transmitted through the eyes and ears, directly to the heart. Even stuffing your ears with cotton and poking out both eyes won’t kill poetry, once contracted. There is no cure. 

One can, however, confer immunity to poetry. This works best with children. Poetry classes taught from volumes thick with chapters on syllable counting and meter, punctuation and rhyme can make the most poetically vulnerable, resistant. This works best administered after lunch while seated on hard wooden chairs in an over-heated room. Distractions from the natural world must be blocked by concrete walls, fluorescent hums and window shades.

There should be signs on the doors of the houses of poets. “Poet here”. “Keep away”. “Danger”. Poets should be forced to wear warning tags stitched to the fronts of their jackets so people will know to keep their children at a safe distance.

Poets are notorious for feeling and then writing the truth. This is another reason they should be ostracized and bound. They have no limits to what they’ll drag out into the light. They may fool you by beginning with bird songs or snowmen or a kelp-scented breeze. But beware. Poets sprout razors. They cut deep in the belly and tear open hearts.

Contracting poetry poisons one away from useful endeavors, like writing cell phone apps so children can practice killing at bus stops. Those who tear feathers by the handful from the bodies of half-live chickens at the processing plant are more valued than poets. They’re paid. They have jobs.

If you become infected with poetry and are find yourself inking couplets on the corners of napkins over breakfast, don’t quit your graveyard shift job unpacking truckloads of cheap Chinese junk. Keep flipping burgers. When one says “starving artist”, the poet does not even make it up onto this lowest of rungs on the socioeconomic ladder. At least a “starving artist” has that quirky patina people revere from a distance. Jazz musicians and landscape painters rate the secret awe normally reserved for yogis that meditate bare-bottomed in the snow. Poets don’t.

If you’re asked what you do and you reply “write poetry”, the questioner will go silent, blue then ask again. “No really. I meant, what do you do?”

It makes no sense for me to feel so good to be infected by poetry. The making of poems earns no money. Even family members sigh from having to live around me. They want dinner and attention, not clever words or insights into the horrors of our modern culture. My poor children. My sainted husband. My lost friends.

When you hang out with poets, you rub the folding corners of your arms with those who are too busy listening and watching, feeling and writing to notice the jab of your elbows.

by Alice Keys MD


http://alicekeysmd.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/why-you-should-stay-away-from-poets/