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

I Don't Want to Write a Poem.

I don't want to write a poem

Since poems aren't meant for MEN.

Men drink their pain away in whiskey every night

And smoke their sadness pretending to be all right.

You ask what brings this pain and sadness.

What instance was it? What madness?

Well just guess and I bet with the first try you'll find it.

Yes, of course! What else. My woman, not anymore, was it.

And I am trying to avoid all my friends

But stuck I am with all their clichés.

You'll forget her. She doesn't deserve you or even worst

Don't worry. It's ok. She will regret it and it's her loss.

That's why the whiskey I love.

Lost I am in this dark bar.

To the always nice songs from the 80s listening.

They don't really help. Who am I kidding?

My chest, my lungs is squeezing.

It hurts so much, even the breathing.

And at the end I know that I myself became the cliché.

My feelings for her so stupidly in this trap led.

I didn't want to write a poem

Since poems aren't meant for MEN

And this unbearable pain in a poem I ended up writing

Until I wake up one day and go back on leaving.

by

Geopapas

Source:

http://voices.yahoo.com/i-dont-want-write-poem-3944218.html?cat=42

TAKING THE MIC by Kate O'Shea

Performance poetry, poetry slams, open mic nights. What’s it all about? Sitting through any number of poetry readings (with or without a microphone) is a good way to grasp a healthy loathing of the form. Yet in recent years, technology has led to a resurgence of interest in poesia. Indeed, on a bad day, the Internet is almost sluggish with poets and poetasters.

And while it’s not quite celebrity, many have made their way out of the closet to find ever-more-youthful devotees who not only read poetry but write and perform it as well.

What of it? We must have our fancies – for some it’s a microphone, others may prefer a pen no larger than their sense of humour. Aristotle observed that the poet is concerned with the universal rather than the particular. Would the rhyming world be a better place without open mic nights? I seriously doubt it. Microphones are not easy to come by or affordable in comparison to pens, available in most newsagents. Newsagents are not fussy and will furnish any die-hard scribblers with the necessary tools.

Should we gather up all the pens in order to stop the collapse of poetry, or to guard against shoddy penmanship? The idea is ludicrous. While almost any experience might create a poem, it does not follow that every successful utterance of experience is poetry. Verse alone does not make a poem.  Lines may scan and rhyme yet be quite unpoetic:

"I put a hat upon my head
And walked into the StrandAnd there I met another man
Whose hat was in his hand.”
- Dr. Johnson

A poem is self-transcending but, while the microphone may amplify sounds so that you seem louder (and more important), it cannot make you a poet. The nature of poetry is too mysterious to examine, and there is no yardstick by which you can measure technical proficiency.

A poem is or isn’t. Emotion, no matter how strong and genuine, is not poetry. I, for one, am very amused by the paradox of poetry’s obstinate continuance in the present phase of civilisation. As for open mic nights – poetry is reinventing itself and finding new audiences.

It’s hard enough for a young person to admit to writing poetry and then have to go out there (without a parachute) and read it to a roomful of giddy strangers. Yeats would call that reckless courage.

Who knows: in that vast cosmos of poeticules, perhaps there’s a John Betjemen or an Anne Sexton bumping in the crowd? I would ban boring verse, the type that’s mannered and literary in the old-fashioned sense. Personally I cannot stand the trained actor method of reading poetry. It’s sonorous and empty.

A poetry reading/open mic night is an odd creature. However, it shouldn’t be reduced to therapy. Each reading has its own character; it affects and reflects the audience. There is no correct or exact formula, but it is important to have good poets who know their craft. Each individual poet offers a contribution to the whole. Even with the microphone you cannot make a poem better than it really is.

The most experience and dynamic poets run the risk of boring an audience if they are unaware of the listeners’ capacity for absorption. Enough of poeticalness. Open mic nights have got a bad press and are a fairly recent phenomenon on this island. However, they should not translate to complete laissez faire on the part of the poet, a licence to metrical anarchy.

I hope it won’t become a dead movement – doing the poetry thing and seeking novelty for its own sake. The purpose of poetry readings, with or without the microphone, is to interest and entertain.

It’s not poetry wars. Really.

Yours truly, Kate O’Shea.

Kate O’Shea ran a very successful multi-media group Chocolate Sundaes at La Cave for four years in the nineties with William Kennedy and the late Christopher Daybell. They did not have a microphone.

http://www.poetryireland.ie/resources/feature-articles/taking-the-mic.html

Tips for performing at poetry and spoken word open mic nights

Reading your own poems out loud to a room full of strangers might sound terrifying. Having done it a few times myself, I can confirm that it is. But with the number of poetry open mic nights in Scotland increasing, sometimes eclipsing their musical cousins, there must be a reason why so many people put themselves through it. So if you’ve penned a few verses and are considering taking the plunge, what should you look out for?

#WarOfWords - They were all lies by Titilayo Mabogunje

This babe dey flow o,
and no be small yarn she yarn.
Guess what,
she is just sixteen,
but flows way past her age.
Deep words from a young mind,
words that can give sight to the blind.
She is definitely one for the future.



War Of Words - They were all lies by Titilayo Mabogunje 

Let me tell you a story
Of a girl I once knew
About fifty or sixty years ago,
She was just born and literally brand new.

So men came to take advantage of her
They said "Lean on me,"
They said "Trust me, believe me,
" 'Cause you can be free with me."

Now, indirectly what happened was,
They found another way to say
"Hmm, this girl is beautiful,
"Why don't you give all your money to me?"

Naïve she was, she believed them.
She unfortunately lost control.
And one by one they left her.
And bit by bit she lost what made her renown.

Now if she only opened her eyes
She would realize
She was no bride,
That there was no prize,
'Cause they were all lies,
She had been taken for a ride
So tears filled her eyes
Every day and every night
Like a thorn in her side,
Everything that had been right,
She threw away to the night
But now, she tries to fight.

Now she is thinking "How can I right my wrong?
How can I fill up a cup that is already gone?
How can I think of a melody when there is no song?
Why did I stray from the path I started on?
She closed her eyes
If just for a while.
She thought back into the past
Of the people who were most vile.

It was her own family,
Her very own friends
The ones she held close
Are the ones that held her fate in their hands.

The ones who now mock her, tease her,
They used to treat her, pet her,
But now they are sick, tired and fed up of her.

They'll say nothing good can ever come out of her
Her own people will be the first to shame her.
But when they need oil to fuel their cars,
That's when you'll see them going to her.

However, my story isn't over.
When they eat and are full,
That's when they forget her.

They'll say "She's not my sister,
"I'm not related to her."
They'll say "Why are you asking me?
"It's not as if I know her."

What a wicked family
That throw rubbish all over her bruised body.
Look at the streets around you, they aren't clean.
That shows how wicked we can be.

So to answer the questions
Who is her family? Who are her friends?
You needn't search any further than
Who you see through your glass lens.

Because the culprits here are you and me.
It's the truth, or don't you see?
We are the ones bad mouthing Nigeria.
We are the ones who litter the area.

We are the ones who give her a bad name,
Ruin her fame, Put her to shame.
When someone asks us where we are from,
We don't even want to call her name.

You think you're helping your country
But you're really just setting her up.
When you say all these negative things about her,
How can it bring anything but bad luck?

Honesty stands and knocks at the door,
But bribery enters in.
When there is no noble man,
How won't corruption win?

When tribes keep on fighting;
Igbos against Yorubas against Hausas
We all claim to love one another
But if there were unity, why are we not together?

So if you really want a country
For your children and their children to see,
Let us come together to stop hypocrisy
Start love and charity,
Be proud of our nationality
And endeavor to practice transparency.

So next time you have a problem,
Don't say "Watin Jonathan de do?"
Let's stop looking up there
And start looking at me and at you.

We have been given this fertile land,
A land flowing with milk and honey
And it isn't for one man alone;
It's not for only you or only me
Lets not forget that whether you like it or not,
This is and always will be our country.


Watch the video here

#WarofWords - They were all lies by Titilayo Mabogunje

http://youtu.be/QFZJMV2rcXE

Friend...!!!! (A Spoken Word Poetry Piece)

"I always prefer male friends to female, they don't gossip" , she said, "and well, they are just my friends", she added. Now my best friend is all broken hearted,

and I'm getting drunk on his behalf,

She says, "they are just my friends".

I saw her with a guy,

they were too close for comfort,

I told my friend,

"well, you know, she is very friendly", he said.

She says, "they are just my friends".

I heard she went visiting the baddest player in da hood.

She went in the morning, came out at night.

My friend asked her about it,

she said, "we were just watching movies" .

All day???

She says, "they are just my friends".

I saw her in the nite club,dancing freely and wildly,

but none of the guys was my friend.

At 3am, she got into one of the guys' car,

well, I guess I can assume he dropped her at home at that time, right???

She says, "they are just my friends".

Now she is pregnant, and doesn't know who is the baby's father.

Is it my friend's?

Nope, they had never had sex

cos she had said, she "is" a virgin.

Pregnant virgin, thats a miracle!!!

Reminds of somebody in the bible.

Well, what can I say?

Too bad she didn't make me too a "friend",

that's why am drunk,

I was not her " friend".

by Olulu