Hi everyone,
Welcome to 365 Days of Poetry & Honesty <3 I hope this week has been good to you! The poems this week feel more vulnerable and maybe it's because there's more context than usual but either way, this is what I want to do. And not that there's a price but most of the time it feels like I’m testing my own fragility and luckily, most of the time I feel triumphant!
The song for this week is ‘Hold On’ by Skip Marley & H.E.R. I’ve listened to Skip Marley before but not in this way, and I have to thank Spotify shuffle. I heard it and I wanted more of him, but you could also argue it's because I’m a little bit in love. Anyways, there's just something so tender and sensual about this song, his voice and H.E.R together! I’ve put their live performance below as well because I’m obsessed, and Jill Scott is looking beautiful and radiant in the audience.
I hope you like it x
Monday
I thought I’d start this week with something gentle and a little magical. The girl in the green dress is a painting by Amy Sherald, who also did the official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama!
Tuesday
Two poems to mark Tuesday. The first one is about my relationship with my parents and I can't put to exact words what I mean or even really talk about it but the poem says it for me. That's what I mean when I say poetry saved me, it gave me the tools to speak when my mouth wouldn't work for me. You get locked up inside and heavu when you can't express what's going on inside your head and your body, even to yourself.
The second one I think is also bit sad but more so as an undercurrent to the boldness of the statement. This poem screams loneliness.
Wednesday
Something seductive!
Thursday
After I wrote this poem I made a big decision. I think I’d be happier elsewhere, I’m so grateful to have grown up in London and there are lots of things to hold on to here but the bad overshadows the good and everything feels heavy here. I feel like I’m living in the shadow of the person I thought I was and I’m not. I’m not her and I don't think I ever was. Would rather call it a performance that broke me and I’ve spent the past couple of years waking up and figuring out who I am. And it's funny, sometimes I think I know something and I know absolutely nothing, especially in regards to myself, but it's okay to not know and I’m learning to say that happily, to let go, to let curiosity follow in a way that gives me freedom and not judgement. Also I know where I want to go, where I’m going, and there are signs landing in my lap that I can't ignore, even today! And writing this poem was like a moment of clarity, of what mattered to me, what I wanted my future to look like, what it could like. This is still my city of London though, the place where I drop my anchor, and I think distance will only cement that.
Friday
I love this poem. It's called ‘Kissing the Wind’. I didn't think I’d write myself a beginning with this poem because I started it thinking about destruction. And as I was writing, I started thinking about the elements, about wind in particular, and my mind travelled to Oya, the Orisha of winds, lightning, and violent storms, death and rebirth. I thought maybe it's all wildly transformative, that's the point, this immense brokenness and nakedness and how it's like your ego dealing with a reckoning, or a violent reminder of what you have and what you are and how everything can fall apart because nothing’s really solid. Sometimes that thinking digs you into a hole, I went the route of inspiring change because Oya is also the Orisha of change ‘who brings down the dead wood to make room for the new’. Those are the roots of this poem and the collage is combination of pieces of art from African American artists working mostly out the 20th century. I’m really enjoying going looking through their portfolios and thinking about their art, what they’re saying and how it makes me feel in response. Images tell their own stories!
Saturday
I’m obsessed with Emma Amos at the moment and have decided that one day I want her art on my walls, an original! My favourite line is a ‘a startling betrayal’. because I forgot that word ‘betrayal’ and found it again. I think it's potent. I think to have someone suddenly stop loving you is a betrayal and the key word is ‘suddenly’. I had my heart broken in an awful way when I was 18 and the anger always felt misplaced because people have a right to leave but there’s also a responsibility of care when you establish intimacy like that with someone and it was violated. I took that to mean I was a terrible person but I’m not and they’re not either. It was a moment of betrayal.
Sunday
Another painting by Emma Amos! This poem is one of my favourites this week, it's short and says everything I need it to say.
Thank you for reading my poetry newsletter. I hope you were touched by this week’s poems and I would love to know which was your favourite in the comments!
Wishing you an inspired week :)
With Love,
Oyinda
Loooved this week! Thank you!!