BEFORE I BECOME A SENATOR......!!!

Not my making just a futuristic inkling
Politics is not my game
But might find myself in same
Though a little dirty, hope not to end up in shame
Corruption is a sweet virus;
They all fly abroad having their holidays in Cyprus
Even though i like the money, i won’t be cunning like Hon. Lawan and Senator Ete
Even though i love young beauties but i won’t be a paedophile like Senator Yerima
Acts that is scandalous, absolutely ridiculous
My mama thought me well
Instilling values, discipline and integrity to uphold
My woman will be my strong pillar, supporting me with prayers and love for my home
Even if i end up having a shoeless and clueless head
Kind that plans on giving mobile phones to farmers
I will stand for the truth and forge ahead
Making my constituency consequential and my nation essential
Saying Hi and Nay where it matters, so to make my country greater

Before i become a senator, Voices heard from the creator
Want you to know I’m a professional Estate Surveyor
C.E.O of Bishop & Knights, a priority closely on my mind
Though i write a little in my leisure
And listen to music for my pleasure
A goal getter though a slow pacing nature
Always i use my church mind Cus I’m one of a kind
I’m the Preachers son, trying to catch a little fun
Just like the thriller in manila
I always have my finger on the trigger

Before i become a Senator
Hold me, hug me, kiss me, and please me
Be my elevator, be my motivation.

by 

Yommy Bishop

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.

Emeka Otoba: insured to win #WarOfWords

Emeka Otoba is a freelance writer and novelist. 
He spends his free time as an internet marketer and maintains a blog at  www.autopilotincomeng.blogspot.com. 

Emeka is also a part time student of the Writers' Bureau where he's studying Creative Writing. 

He currently works with an insurance company in Lagos.

Watch his video entry after the break

Spoken Word ENTERTAINMENT versus Poetry.

Debate!

Spoken Word vs. Poetry. If a spoken word poet cannot show that they are strong on paper, should they be labeled an entertainer, NOT a Poet?

Entertainment vs. Life in Literary Motion

As a writer, I have always had a need to read my work to someone. My ear's have to hear the creative work of my mind come to life as these lips work like an assembly line. I know that I am a part of the mass majority of most other writers out there, ESPECIALLY poets. Poets tend to be odd creatures. We are very egotistical on the outside, but our true existence consists of completely insecure kindergarteners hoping and praying somebody will know that their green elephant really is a purple snowman. Enter: Poetry Readings.

Do NOT confuse poetry reading with Spoken Word Poetry. Poetry readings are held in places like libraries and tea houses...Starbucks and churches. Spoken Word Poetry Venues are just that...venues. They are loud. They are ruckus. They are spiritual. They are humanitarian. The Spoken Word is sexual and sensual...emotional and philosophical. The Spoken Word Poetry venue is ENTERTAINMENT through and through!

Which brings me to the debate at hand. Spoken Word vs Poetry. Are both Poetry? Or is Spoken Word entertainment?

My answer is this.

If a spoken word artist cannot show you their piece on paper...if that piece is not on paper without grammatical and spelling errors so drastic that you cannot easily read the piece. This person is not a poet. If a spoken word artist freestyles more than they spill ink...then I am more apt to label him/her a rapper/entertainer than a poet. If a Spoken Word artist has never even considered publishing a chapbook, I question why?

A poet writes. A poet cries tears of blood. They dream in stanzas, and wake in the wee hours of the night...unable to fall back to sleep because poetry refuses to allow it. A new poem, that new born child lying next to the Poet in the bed... whimpering and whining, screaming and crying until the Creator agrees to finish...and the Poem and Poet can sleep. This Poet? This Poet is the Poet that gets on stage and leaves sweat in pools on stage. This Poet leave tears on the cord of the mic. This is the one who steps off stage and can barely speak because everything just short of life was left on that stage in the name of Poetry. This one... is a Poet... not an entertainer.

Spoken Word vs. Poetry

Entertainment vs. Life in Literary Motion

Source:

http://mariefontaine.hubpages.com/hub/Spoken-Word-ENTERTAINMENT-vs-Poetry

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/

Debutant LAHDE set to storm #WordUpVol2...!!!!

LAHDE

Omobolade Odeniyi is a graduate of Electronic and Electrical engineering from Ladoke Akintola University of technology, Ogbomoso; with an executive master’s degree in project management. 

He is also a Cisco Certified Networking Associate. His true passion however, lies in the written and spoken word, and an appreciation for poetry that is beyond words. 

His poem, epiphany was published in the World Poetry Movement’s 2012 edition of stars in our hearts, a collection of poems shortlisted as finalists in an international poetry contest.

He is currently working on his book, ramblings of a bard, a short collection of poems, due for release in the second quarter of 2013. 

He is a jack  of many trade, and master of all, and there is still many more to come from him. 

Certified engineer, OAP, project manager, song/screenwriter, published poet…and still filling the blanks!

Spoken Word Poetry by Lahde titled, My Greatest Fear, at Chill and Relax (October Fever) on October 14, 2012 in Gbagada, Lagos, Nigeria. Chill and Relax is a monthly open mic Performance Poetry, Spoken Word and Soul Music Event.

WORD UP 

Volume 2

holds on the

17th of November 2012 

 at

Lecture Theatre, UNILAG Guest House, Akoka, Lagos

Time is 3pm

http://wordup411.blogspot.com/2012/10/count-down-to-word-up-volume-2-starts.html

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.

---

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.

Why Hasn't Spoken Word Found Its' Way into Mainstream Media? by EMichele Paul

Spoken Word is the art of performing poetry aloud. Poets, storytellers, and lyricists, have performed spoken word for centuries. Within the last 50 years, the art form has been "reformed" by poets such as Allen Ginsburg, Jewel, Saul Williams, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Shihan, Jill Scott, Common, Rudy Francisco, plus many others. You can find hundreds of poetry venues across the world on any given night. The audience can range from a few locals gathering together at a favorite coffee shop to a university event with over 300 people in attendance. There are even places that our military poets can go to and perform poetry while serving in overseas duty stations and in combat zones. Spoken Word is worldwide and very popular however, it has yet to make its' way into nationally syndicated television and radio stations.

Spoken word artists are reputable artists with a huge Indie following. An example would be "Shihan", an HBO Def Jam poet. He has sold over 14,000 CDs nationwide while touring and performing his poetry. As popular as the art form is, it has yet to earn its' place on a nationally recognized awards show or radio chart due to the lack of attention that it is given in the media. Yet, Soulja Boy and Waka Flaka are hyped up on radio stations across the country. When I listen to what mainstream considers good entertainment, my reaction is "Waka Flaka!!!" (censored).

Spoken Word can be found everywhere. You see and hear spoken word on television commercials and shows, Internet radio, viral videos, radio jingles, movies, and even in music. However, radio and television refuse to promote the genre, its' artists, or recognize it as a very influential and positive part of our American society. As a result, spoken word artists, even though they are more talented than most of the artists that pollute our airwaves, have to work ten times harder to make any profit from their craft. The profit being made by spoken word artists does not come from any form of mainstream media promotions. Artist sell their work by booking themselves on tours across the country, promoting their CDs, books and DVDs on their own websites, on-line stores, social networking sites for artists, and by performing at colleges and universities. Many times, the artists that go on these tours, pay for travel and other expenses, out of pocket. The money that they make will be just enough to cover their travel expenses.

Despite the lack of attention the major media moguls give spoken word, there is still a huge demand for it. This is evident in the quantity and quality of the crowds that venues pull during spoken word events. However, most radio stations refuse to play spoken word CDs because it is a niche genre and it doesn't appeal to the majority of their audiences. As a result, poets have to go "underground" to sell their work. The success of the artists selling his or her product is based primarily on his or her performance during the show. Once the artist leaves the show, there may be a buzz going around the community for a few days through word of mouth, but without constant airplay or visibility, the artist will have to wait until he or she makes another appearance to that city, before they can expect to make any more sales.

HBO Def Poetry Jam was the first weekly major spoken word program aired on cable television. Millions tuned in to watch each episode (a total of 6 seasons) and it was extremely successful. It sold DVDs of all of its' seasons and although the show no longer airs, the DVDs are still being sold. Many of the poets are still performing spoken word in addition to hosting spoken word events in their neighborhoods while others have moved on to other forms of entertainment but they are still deeply rooted in poetry. Poets give the HBO Def Poetry Jam credit for bringing this form of entertainment into the homes of an entirely new audience.

Up until HBO Def Poetry Jam came on the air, many people didn't have any idea what spoken word was about. Just like Russell Simmons took a chance and created a phenomenon, Russ Parr, Steve Harvey, or one of the other nationally renowned radio disc jockeys can do the same on radio. Millions of listeners turn on the radio throughout the day. The radio is played at work, home, school, in the car, on mobile phones, and even on cable stations. You can not escape radio. Rap and hip hop (both are rooted in poetry) were made popular because of radio however radio disk jockeys refuse to give any attention to spoken word.

Another question that should be raised is about the lack of attention given to Spoken Word at music award shows, ie the Grammys. Seriously, maybe half-witted entertainment without substance should be saluted and shown favor over things like values, morals, and education, nowadays. Maybe if spoken word was give more attention, our children would aspire to be something more than bling wearing, Ciroc drinking, thug wanna be's with video vixen girlfriends. Maybe our children would know that if most of these mainstream artists had even half of the "brain" that they claim to have, that they would know that spending more time in jail than in your community giving back doesn't doesn't make you cool, it makes you unemployable...and stupid!

With all of the "hype" about how music has taken a drastic turn for the worse over the last 20 years, bringing indie spoken word artists to mainstream media could possibly help reshape our mainstream form of entertainment and give us that breath of fresh air that we hope to sigh when we turn on our favorite radio station. If we as a nation are going "green" to help preserve our atmosphere, maybe we can include the way we choose to entertain ourselves as another way to protect the air...waves!

by EMichele Paul

http://voices.yahoo.com/why-hasnt-spoken-word-found-its-way-into-mainstream-7565836.html?cat=2

EMichele Paul - Poet, author, activist, mentor and founder of PoeticWorks. She has been writing poetry for over two decades and performing spoken word since 2005. Her sultry voice is soothing, flexible and warm. Her inspiring words are powerful, compelling and refreshing. She has a very unique style of story telling which shows throughout her poetry. She makes you exam life from different perspectives. She also dares you to test your left and right lateral limits while giving you the courage to define your own self worth.

Please do check out her blog at http://emichelepaul.blogspot.com/