POETRY INVOICE ON A TALK WITH MARIAL AWENDIT

INTERVIEW SECTION WITH A PROLIFC WRITER.

I am Adeniran joseph, the HOST for today's interview section, & i am with my GUEST. Just keep calmn & relax. We are about to enter into the realms of this beautiful section.

H:  Let's all welcome our GUEST, Mr. Marial Awendit

G: Much thanks to the Admin(s) and members of Poetry Invoice!!

H:  You're most welcome.

G: Good evening!!

H: Sir, let's quickly commence for tonight's interview.

You're new here, & we all are eager to know you more, can you please introduce yourself briefly?

G: Thanks. I am a poet essayist, fine artist and songwriter. A little that I can tell you.

H: Indeed. We know a profile writer like you, don't talk much. Just brief, & sometimes, their pens do the talking...

Ok. Sir, you said, you're a songwriter, still a poet essayist. Great. But, what actually led you into writing songs, and poerty? Which actually came first?

G: It was songs that came first. I wrote a few gospel songs for my friends between 2010-2013. Some of them rap songs. I had that passion but I was not ready for music so I ended with having about five songs. Poetry came later in 2015.

H: Wow!. I am wowed. Interesting. You really did well to yourself. Maybe i should call you Lord of muse [LOL!]

Ok. Sir, what do you understand by passion for literature and emotion for literature, can you please differentiate both in details?

G: Passion for literature is that desire to create literature. To have art out.

Emotion for literature is a little bit different, it's what pulls people towards what appeals to their senses and context.

H: Oh! Yes. Brilliantly said, sir. I love that. You really nailed it. Bravo!

Sir, what if I ask that do you derive joy emotionally in writing than litterature or why do you pick up writing poetry, was it just emotion or passion or influenced or what?

G: I had lost both my father and my brother in 2014, and I was beaten down emotionally. I was grieving against my will. I wanted to be strong but I found myself dimmed. I had a little vein for poetry before so I chose poetry as a means of expressing what I felt. I was surprised I later developed art that did not carry grief.

H: OMG! I'm so sorry, May they rest in perfect peace. I'm sorry for reminding you. So sorry. I do love how you pick up writing also, that shows how poetry heals in its own way, by expressing yourself. So wonderful. That's poetry. It deals with recollected memories. Bless you, sir.

Ok. Sir, when you started writing poetry and songs, what are the things you encountered during the process as challenges & how do you overcome them?

G: Do not worry anyway, I am healed now. In writing songs, I found myself deeper than most songwriters who swam in the shallows, penning easily chewable lines. I had problems having most songs easily memorable.

In poetry, I live in a rather unique society are unique. Justice itself has no name where I come from so I find problems expressing what others will view nonexistent or surreal. I feel alienated sometimes by publishers when I write about something real and its trashed just because it is not their context.

H: Wow. Beautiful. You're god in your own Creativity & environment. You use every thing around you to create poetry. What a wonderful concept and creative mind. I love such mind.

Sir, in your writing, especially in literature. What do you love writing most, which aspect, I mean, themes. Is it about death, sex, life, children or which one, & why did you picked such themes. What healing those it make in you?

G: Thanks. I write about death, God and the human condition. My poetry is not a defined road traffic. It changes with my attitude towards the subject. How to you explain a poem like "Ode to a Wild Flower" or "Random Hallucinations? "

H: Hmmm. What a creative mindset. You really have a beautiful goal. Death, God, and Human. What else? That's life. Kudos!

Sir, kindly define poetry in your own perspective due  to how it took you so far and what it has shaped inside of you?

G: Poetry is to me that which we make from the deepest feelings sweet or bitter in the best form possible. Poetry is not reenactment of the ordinary, it is  elevation of the ordinary.

H: Mehh, well spoken. I love that. Such a Profound perspective. Bless you!

Sir, with those contest you do submit and several you have won. From the start, should I say: you do it for money, prize, or the material things, or what makes you write a poem patiently, and submit for a contest, why submitting for contest?

G: Contests give you the compass. They give you the perspective of what is judged in art. They motivate you psychologically. I therefore submit to see how best I dealt with a certain subject matter. However some poems need not be judged as long as they look beautiful to the creator.

H: Wow! Wonderful. I love your heart. So focus & determined. Bless you!

Ok. Hmmm, sir, how do you overcome your writer's block? And what does it mean to you?

G: I must say I am lucky. I don't get a writer's block but when a similar thing happens in writing poetry, I simply write in my diary a few events of the day, take a walk or a jog.

H: Lol. Wonderful. That's good. At least, it makes you feel positive changes. So brilliant.

Sir, when you get inspired of something, maybe you saw something and it inspired you, or anything, like how many minutes or hours do you write your poetry, how time will will it take you?

G: My poems come to me mostly already formed in structure, content and form. I can write a poem in 15 -30 depending on its length. I don't like editing a lot, it sometimes cuts away part of the original inspiration.

H: Ok. Great. At least, you will still have your brilliant poem ready to be served. Bless you! That shows how you really take poetry so serious.

Sir, can we say, literature is enough promising to heal this country from her sickness or not? And what do you think about?

G: Literature does not only heal, remember it's also a voice for people who are affected by various forms of crises. By exposing and discoursing their plights, they feel considered and cared for. Literature gives hope. Literature raises shame from wrongdoing.

H: Yes! Indeed. Literature is life.  What a brilliant one. Interesting, so interesting.

Sir, your shortlisted poem for BABISHAI2018  LONGLIST, '38 photographs of depression' I read the poem & i was close to tears, what inspired you to write such poem?

G: After my people died, I had fallen into depression resulting from grief, I was sad deeply. I thought I could talk that as a poem so I can be free. I wrote "38 photographs of depression " to explain what I feel and what any body would be feeling if placed in my situation.

H: Hmmm... So touching.

But sir, what's the concept behind the 38?

G: Ooh! Here you come. 38 days after my brother was killed were the worst days of my life. (Harbain)Rituals are done after 40 days of a person's demise. Two days before that I was fine.

H: Hmmm, so pathetic! May their souls rest in perfect peace. Amen!

Sir, i want to challenge you, in writing. I know you're very good and so creative. But let's just diverse another way into another world. So wild like a demon water.

I'm sorry, it's kind of wild, I mean, so wild. You are you?

G: Yes

H: This is it:

You're dead. I mean people have known you to be a dead perosn. You no longer hear words, your body now deaf. Now, you're to write YOUR OBITUARY YOURSELF. With so much words of horrow that could frighten us about how death is so dangerous and how much you could have done when on earth. All lines or words must be in poetic language. Give us the depth. Let's feel it and weep.

G: Old Marial
Now calm
As a fallen
Log
Had sleepwalked
Into a road and almost
Knocked down a truck
The truck instead
Did.
I pray he'll show
His scars to Gabriel
The angel.

© Marial Awendit

H: Hmmmm. I can feel the lines, how heavy it's, & how each word strikes so hard and provoking. I love the ending. It moved me. Bravo!

G: The poem though, I was just trying.

H: Sure. I know. I saw the attempt there.

(QUESTIONS SECTION)

YemitteDpoet: Sir, when precisely did you start writing poetry and how exactly it's with you then?

G: I started writing poetry in 2015. My serious year was 2016. It was less amateur stage in 2016. I believe it was good poetry.

Abioye: Sir, concerning poetic personae.
Do you believe in making yourself your poetic personae or using of  fantasies or the unseen persona  is allowed as well?

G: Poetry is feeling. If I know the feeling, I can easily be the persona because the feeling belongs to me.

Penawd: What's the difference between poem and poetry?

G: A poem is a documented expression of a feeling, a single work with a title.

Poetry encompasses the making of poems and the collection of many poems.

QUESTIONS SECTION ENDS.

H: Well said, sir. Thank you for those wonderful answers. So brilliant.

Lastly, what do you have to say up those budding poets like me, that's just getting my feet, to do or never do?

G: Believe in what you do. Poetry is feeling, use the feeling, write what you feel. Convert your pains into poetry. Work with others who are creating poetry. You can't love singing in a band without loving the people in the band. Be original in your work, it's the best way to be recognized.

H: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir!

We are so grateful for this opportunity. More Wisdom, wits, inks.

We have come to the end of tonight's interview.

Thank you.

G: Thank you, Adeniran! Thank you members of Poetry Invoice! Keep up the determination and the teamwork.

The end.

ABOUT THE GUEST:

Marial Awendit is a South Sudanese poet, fine artist, songwriter and essayist, born Dec 1991. His poems have been  published in Kalahari Review, Brittle Paper, African Writer, Praxis Magazine Online and the Best New African Poets 2016 Anthology. He won the 2016 South Sudan Talent Youth Award for Best Poet and recently the 2018 Babishai-Niwe Poetry Award. He likes writing poetry and watching movies. He is as well a humanitarian aid worker with Caritas-DOR, a humanitarian aid organization and Secretary General for Eastern Lakes State Youth Association. He writes from Yerul, Eastern Lakes State,  Republic of South Sudan.