I wrote my first and only poem when I was 16. It was the brilliant idea of our house captain in boarding school. We were having an end of the school year sort of arts competition among the houses, which included drama, cultural dancing and poetry. I’d proved quite useless at acting and cultural dancing and all that was left was a poem to enter into the competition. We were sitting around having a meeting one afternoon and the next thing I heard was “I nominate Lafani to write the poem.” “Excuse me! I don’t write poetry. I don’t know how to write poetry,” I screamed but it fell on deaf ears. I had been converted from a fiction dabbler to a poet against my will.As the day of the competition drew closer, I stared at a blank sheet of paper everyday and nothing came out. Everyday the house captain or someone else would ask me how the poem was coming along and I’d reply it was coming along brilliantly. I tore through Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, David Diop, JP Clark, Wole Soyinka and every poetry book they had us reading at school but nothing came. I considered plagiarising something but my hand refused to write stolen words. Finally, one evening, a few days before the competition began, I sat down and in sheer desperation wrote 13 lines of crap about life or something to that effect and presented it the next day. Everyone thought it was brilliant. Say what?
On competition day, the house captain informed me I would have to recite the poem on stage for the whole school and the judges. I promptly informed her I’d rather be shot so they choose someone else to recite it. When they announced the winners, *Lafani’s 13 lines of crap came in second. I couldn’t believe it. Were the judges high on something? I was told I was too modest and the poem was fabulous.
I never wrote another poem. However, geared by my post from 3 days ago, I decided to give it another try last night and all I have to say is my readers can be rest assured I will not be inflicting it on them now or anytime in the near future :).
But poetry aside, some of the best fiction I ever wrote came out of being under pressure to produce something awesome. Pressure has its benefits in the scheme of things but sometimes, too much of it can only lead to a burnout. I believe it was an oversupply of it that led to that spontaneous combustion of creativity under which the poem was produced and simultaneously my inability to produce another one. I doubt that moment will ever come again. I sure wish I’d kept a copy of the poem though.
When you're under too much pressure, do you create better or do you stop functioning creatively?
*Lafani is my nickname.
