Book Review Literary Arts Uncategorized

RENÉE DIPHEKO TALKS ABOUT HER BOOK: MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS

"I find the night sky very surreal. I'm really interested in constellations , meteorites and eclipses.Not only that , I love the tranquility of the night sky. Most of my poems are written in the night time because there's so much peace and quietness , I get to be alone with my thoughts...

My book is in the anthology category under elegy poetry.An elegy poem is one that reflects upon loss. My poems contain themes of mourning, loss, and reflection. However, they also explore themes of redemption and consolation.

I wasn't really allowed to express my feelings and emotions and writing has granted me a way to do just that.The "negative emotions" like — anger, panic, anxiety, depression, disappointment, jealousy, hatred, and so on are suppressed over the much the "positive ones" by the elders of our society. I just want everyone to know that , it's very well to feel sad/angry.The most important thing that I have learnt is to know how to appropriately respond to feeling that way.I write about my past and present experiences. Writing poems has changed my life tremendously because I use it as a therapeutic mechanism.To sum it all, up the book is about some of my downfalls and how I've grown as an intellect by learning from them.

The book consists of 13 odes.They all have short titles that really mean a lot to me. I have tried to write happy poems and they don't turn out as the ballads.They say "stick to what you know best" but I do try to expand my form of art.

The publishers are none other than "Show Casing Talents" Publishers. I managed to publish my book through a publishing sponsorship competition that I won, and it's all thanks to Maatla B Oreng-Tsheole .She too is a poet and an author of a book called "Be hinde impedements ". A kind lady she is.

My family contributed to the book through their support financially and tangentially.My online friends too did help me accomplish my dream.Almost all the people in my life did also did contribute , but 3 cohorts of people majorly did emotionally contribute to my book . I write mostly of the life experiences that I go through hoping to heal myself. Even though they have put me through a lot of agony and suffering, I am grateful for them. They are the reason why I write , they are the reason why I am the person that I am today.

It took me about an hour or two to complete a single poem because I had to gather my thoughts and feelings , I strongly feel that by doing that adds to the authenticity and beauty of my poems. At times it would take me a week to complete a poem because I write about what I feel , hear and see and that can change very quickly.It's quite difficult to channel the exact same emotions caused by that certain character/object. Luckily , that rarely occurs.

When it comes to poetry , I leave no room for error.Everything has to be well written and organized in a systematic series.Most if not all of my poems consist of rhymes , direct parallelism, imagery , symbolism and oxymoron. Some of them show a shadow of assonance and alliteration.Not only that I used punctuation marks like ellipses to emphasize a pause in my thoughts . I used tonnes of question marks because up to today I have questions that still are unanswered hence I used rhetoric questions. Moreover , I don't like it when people know a lot about myself so I implemented suspense to create anticipation of the outcome of a plot. Furthermore, it builds up the reader's interest and it makes the readers more concerned about the character(s) to whom they might have created sympathetic attachments with. My poems have a double entendre. This implies that you may have interpretations which can be understood in two different ways.

I tried to be relatable as possible and still be myself.I hope that my writing establishes an emotional impact on readers after reading a poem or the book as a whole.You most likely will introspect and retrospect if you read the poems in detail."

Editorial Director at Africa's Very Own Magazine | Website

Maverick Kabelo is the founder and editorial director of Africa’s Very Own Magazine. Kabelo is a business student, digital media enthusiast/entrepreneur, creative, writer and content creator. He started writing when he was just 16 after founding the magazine on Facebook.

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