Africa-Press – Namibia. Trying to find answers to his identity, Shen Nanyanga embarked on a journey of writing poems to discover his inner self. Nanyanga (19) began penning poetry seven years ago with the motive to try and keep his emotions and thoughts in check.
The first-year engineering student at the University of Science and Technology described poetry as “an imagination; a way of expressing feelings, emotions and thoughts through literature”.
“Writing does not only help shape dreams but is also a skeleton, and its architecture is what we base our everyday lives on,” he explained.
Nanyanga regularly recites poems at the poetry.nam events, established in 2017 by a group of poetry enthusiasts with an objective to keep the poetry community together.
Co-founder of poetry.nam, Lafewa Uapunduka (20), otherwise known as Patric.star, said the reason behind poetry.nam is to give a space and platform for expression to “those who need to feel and breathe through art”; especially for the youth to allow them to create and expand their knowledge and talent.
“Poetry has always been a part of me. Since 13, I have always been writing stories and short essays, but I am stuck more on the spoken word and poetry as a whole,” she added.
The poetry.nam organisers have thus far hosted events at the Vinyls Music Café, Kalahari Coffee, Jazz Café, Bank Windhoek Theatre School and the Basement. However, there is hope for a permanent venue in the nearby future.
“By establishing the network that is poetry.nam, we started slowly moving into an age where Namibian writers have a comfortable space to express themselves,” said Nanyanga. Uapunduka expressed her views on poetry, saying she uses poetry to heal, and writes about her life, which consists of trauma and life experiences.
“Not many will understand but when I put my words together, it becomes a story. It also depends on how others interpret it; it’s all about perspective and perception,” she noted.
Another poet enthusiast, Faith Nawases described poetry as an “expresser of emotions through a great magnitude”. Nawases (22) further said poetry is a language that is not understood by many.
“Poetry expresses feelings in-depth that makes it beautiful, scary and thrilling,” she added.
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