Tag: poetry
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Keep your struggles.
I am always mesmerized by an interview Chinua Achebe gave on NPR back in 1988. In it he told a story about a tortoise and a leopard. The leopard meets the tortoise on a lonely stretch of road. He had been trying to catch the tortoise for a long time. Tortoise, being a trickster, always…
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Keep flowers!
I will know peace and joy, laughter and rain. I pray the roads are smooth, but if I find them rough, may all the peace I know, carry me through. Otherwise, bring flowers. Carnations or shady ladies will do.
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Keep Mount Zion!
This is not for your feelings. Or mountains burning with fire. Or places dark and gloomy. Or unending winds and storms. Even if trembling or afraid. Smash those feelings against a rock. For this is not about you. Rather, this is for those approaching Mount Zion. Those dwelling in the city of God. Those surrounded…
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Keep the public in public health or LIGHT!
Why do what we do? Why get in the game even if you don’t know how to play? My answer is simple. If your know your vision, nothing will ever get in your way. And my vision is bigger than me. What you think you see or know about what I do is only 30%.…
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Keep becoming light again!
Lucile Clifton once shared, how our lives are a circular stair. It keeps turning through time. To know why, we circle the world and back, one year after the other, is to know light. I am flooded by the brilliance of light. A majestic ray, that blooms, past the very speed of itself. The very…
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Keep my old 5th avenue!
Today, I walked through streets that framed me, streets like my old 5th avenue, my old house 9, my old Festac town, my old Festac roads, my old Nazareth school, my old Agboju market, my old suya spot, my old stomping grounds, my old joy. Hibiscus flowers are gone. Aloe Vera too. But what will…
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Keep the sweetness of life!
I am basking in the words of Audre Lorde these days. In her short essay oh how she intended to live the rest of her life while battling liver cancer, she shared the following I will keep forever: ‘I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness…
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Keep Lagos!
To be born and raised, to remember and relive the sights and sounds, plus grey skies and dusty air. Then to inhale the sense and exhale the stupidity, to be reminded of why and when, plus why again, is to accept the sigh everyone knows so well. Lagos, Lagos. Seeing you, your place, the people,…
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Keep the gift of misery with grant writing
Grant writing is writing full of misery. Suffering, despair, anxiety, pain, torture, even hell. It has taken years to see that this too is a gift, not pleasure. But a gift. I am on a quest to understand the purpose of this misery and why it matters for writing your best grants. Not your most…
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Keep beginnings filled with failures!
Let them say, you did it your way. You failed and failed. You stood too and stood. You withstood all that fear had in store, down to the last syllable. Still, you weathered the storm. Danced through fire. Circled back to beginnings full of failures and pain. Still you worked. You rose up early and…
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Keep the sound of music!
Lives healed by the sound of music. And lives restored in the middle of meltdowns, are dancing to their own tunes now. Becoming too, in tune with all the noise, and sorrow, pulling us down, sign of the times and full moon, all the good news, for lives lived beyond these times. I am on…
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Keep the tenderness and love of sons!
Like mother, like son, the one we named after God, lives like his mother. Always talking, always questioning, if it doesn’t feel right, he will be the first to ask. If it comes to his minds, words will be out and free. Like mother, like son, the one we named after God, sees the world…
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Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor 