Poetry brings me closer to myself – Ahmad Abdulsamad
In the
third of series of interviews with winners of the PW second anniversary poetry
contest, Salim Yunusa interviews Ahmad Abdulsamad, poet and Environmental
activist.
Poetic
Wednesdays recently celebrated its second year of founding. Can you tell us
what impact being a member of this online poetry movement has made in your
literary journey?
Wow! PW has really been an enabling platform for me to
learn and develop as a poet, all thanks to its very colourful network of poetic
minds. I am definitely not the poet I used to be before the PW experience. Some
very dear poets I met on PW have unlocked a lot of my poetic ice walls and
closed roads. So, it's really safe to say PoeticWednesdays has been a major
influence in my evolution as a poet. I can't be thankful enough for that.
What
can you say about online Literary Movements and the impacts they make?
They are really doing great. Until recently, poetry has
largely been regarded as a grotesque, banal and uninteresting art, meant only
for a rare few in the classrooms and the libraries. But thanks to the online
literary movement's exploitation of the social media surge, poetry has been
able to do what it does best - reinvent itself. Many people now find it as appealing
as or even more appealing than other forms of art. It is no small achievement
that youths, young teens and even adolescents are now positively embracing
poetry; garnering positive energies and cognitive mastery from it, and even
going as far as trying to instill their own ideas of self and societal change
with it. Their efforts have also helped in creating awareness and bringing
problems closer to their solutions. At this rate, poetry will again become the
reckoning force it used to be in morphing human civilizations. So, a very big
kudos to these movements and their masterminds.
You
are a winner of the recently concluded PW 2nd anniversary poetry competition
co-sponsored by The Arts Muse Fair. How
do you describe that moment?
It was really a happy one. To be regarded as a poet alone
is humbling, so it will always be a thing of joy and honor to win anything that
has to do with poetry. Also, huge thanks to The Arts-Muse Fair for supporting movements
such as the PW.
What
purpose does poetry serve for you and what's your idea of an ideal poem?
Essentially, Poetry brings me closer to myself and to the
universe, I am able to truly evaluate and introspect both when I write, and so
most of my writings are just a reflection of these. Then I really love the
euphoria of that creativeness and flow that just takes you over while at it. I
am a human who's mostly on the "energy saving mode", both the mental,
the physical and the emotional energy, so my ideal kind of poem is the one that
provokes me with its OWN energy, irresistibly jumping me to life, You know...
coursing its electric ripples through the still lakes of my soul. That's an
ideal poem for me.
Can
you take us through a social issue you're very passionate about and what you
think can be done about it?
It has to be our poor attitudes to the natural environment.
Our social patterns of thoughts and actions have really harmed the planet. The
earth is 4,5 Billion years old, mankind is only about 140,000 years old. If you
condense the earth's lifespan into 24 hours, then humans have only been here
for 3 seconds!
Yet look what we have done to the planet! We have changed
the climate, drove animals we met here to extinction, poisoned the air, the
oceans and the soil, melted glaciers and destroyed beaches. We now have
stronger floods, stronger storms, hotter radiations, warmer air, brief winters
and irregular rain patterns. Our water bodies are drying up, the Lake Chad is a
heartbreaking example of that. Deserts are getting drier and forests are fast
becoming bare lands. We are destroying the earth, the only place that tolerates
life in the entire Universe, so much that we are already searching for new
homes in mars and the moon - in just 3 seconds of our existence here.
The Good news is that the impending cataclysms that await
the future generations can be pacified, if we change our attitudes to nature.
We should endeavour to plant more trees as a replacement for the ones we
remove, landscape our cities and homes with greeneries, reduce our emission
levels, switch to alternative energy sources away from fossil energy, protect
natural ecosystems and wildlife, handle wastes responsibly and engage
sustainable agriculture. Many UN policies are driving towards solving these
problems. It can also begin with you. We did the damage, so it's only fair that
we fix it.
What
advice do you have for budding writers?
The advice is to read and be yourself - don't write for
acceptance. Many budding writers may find the advice too simplistic and
ordinary, but there's no other advice that holds water if one truly aspires to
become a writer - or anything at all. Read everything that dares to cross your
vision, from signposts, to plate numbers, to product sachets to emblems. Just read
- randomly and deliberately. You simply can't give what you don't have, and the
only way to give content is to have content. The only way to contain anything
meaningful is to read - voraciously.
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