I learnt to appreciate poetry

I joined FEMRITE reader’s writers club in 2007. I learned about it from Hilda [Hilda Twongyeirwe, the co-ordinator of FEMRITE] when I went to their office asking about their publications. She told me about their Monday evening meeting. I accepted the invitation and joined the club the next Monday. On Mondays, members submit their work and we discuss it by positively and negatively criticising each other’s work mainly for the purpose of making it better and correcting whatever mistake. Since that day I never missed out on any free Monday evening especially when I am in Kampala.

The most important positive change for me since I joined the club is that I started appreciating poetry. Before I hated poetry and never even gave myself a chance to read any given piece without being forced to; never in my wildest dreams did I fantasize of being a poet. I was only forced to read poems in my high school days because it was a sub-subject of literature, which I loved so much because I loved reading novels and dreamed of being a novelist.

Since most of the pieces discussed in the club are poems, I believe that helped me to become accustomed to the routine. The more pieces we discussed the different interpretations they evoked from different club-readers, [the more] it helped to groom my perception of poetry, acceptance and love and respect for those who write it.

Because of the club I was also tempted to write a piece the same year, which did not have a good reception. This did not stop me from trying again and again. I continued writing and submitting to the club and my work continued improving thanks to the criticisms I learnt from.

In 2008 I submitted two poems to the Painted Voices volume, which got published. Now I continue to write and read poetry in and out of the club.

One negative change I would tell you is that I think I am getting much drown into poetry than novels, which scares me knowing that my childhood dream has always been to become a novelist and still is to be more of a novelist than a poet. Yet whenever I get a pen I find myself writing more and more poems but I believe I can work on it and hope to have a book published in the future.