Self-Ashtualisation

   Hello! Owing to my owing poetry so much, I’ll start with a confession. I did not start out liking poetry, let alone loving it. Prior to studying creative writing at university, I had always assumed that poems were dull, cryptic and absolutely depressing.   It did not help that as a teenager who did not read poetry – except for those assigned in my English classes – I used to write them, poorly of course, when life was hard. When I was a bit older, I thought that was just a phase, that I had outgrown it all. Fast-forward a few years, convinced by my university’s guidance counsellor that writing poems would help me express myself beautifully and that I had it in me to write great poetry, I signed up for a poetry writing elective. This probably sounds dramatic but my life was changed for the better. I fell in love with poetry and with writing them since, though the road was still rocky at times. Initially there were all those insecurities. It didn’t matter that my creative writing in

   Hello everyone! How are you? Thank God it doesn’t rhyme this time around. Phew. My sentences have become too rhyming nowadays, so imagine my relief my friends, imagine my relief indeed! Gosh! All those daft rhythmic rubbish again! What to do? Well, I think writing this listicle’s what to do. As the self-explanatory title suggests, in this post I share eleven things you’d relate to if you’re both a prose and poetry writer like me, or to put it more simply, a confused writer. Nah just kidding. Anyway, let’s dive into that list!   1)     Most of the time, your poetry doesn’t rhyme and your prose does – especially when you don’t want it to. 2)     Your text messages read like song lyrics and although you’re not a songwriter – at least not formally – your song lyrics read like text messages. 3)     Procrastination will often try to charm you into writing a novel when you’re working on your poem and vice versa. 4)     Your poetry has too many plots and your prose none at all.

First read all the Facebook poetry memes to find out what you want your poem to mean deep down in the dumps of procrastination. Then start writing and before long digressing, because it’s nice to be wholly in touch with your holy avatar, the version of you yet to exist, maybe in a day, or in fact, right after you’ve got this poem about procrastination done and dusted.   Whilst you write, no, start writing, again, summon your ex-muse into your mind, bring the rage on, feel the raw anger and feel free to throw fireballs at her. After all she’s done, she’s not here to tame you into that copycat who is your mere self-parody in hindsight. Feeling too much? I know. Stop thinking of her then. Reprogramme your brain by procrastinating some more. This time pick three poetry collections about friendship breakups to read before you start to write your third line of your procrastination poem instead.   The next step is to philosophise about the validity of eve