By Njoroman
Published February 19, 2023

Poets Society of Kenya Conducts Youth Empowerment WorkshopsOn the 10th of February, a Friday the Poets Society of Kenya (PSK) began its series of workshops under their Youth Empowerment Programme. The workshop called the Kreative Klinik is aimed and enhancing the performance and writing skills of poets. Also enhancing job security by enabling creative enterprises and allowing poets to discover their  voices through culturing of their poetry.

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This first edition was attended by more than a dozen poets and poetry enthusiasts. This is a good start and was a success in itself in regard to the achievement of the set goals. This edition was focused on writing and performing, it involved a group activity followed by the showcasing of a short film. The workshop was facilitated by representatives of the PSK; Keith Malenga, Mojih Morgan and master Pablo Imani.

The workshop was hosted in Kikuyu town at 902street artists collective hall. It promptly began with the group activity that was led by the PSK secretary general Babu Malenga. The activity involved the breakdown of a poem by the Grammy awards winner Kendrick Lamar titled mirror. Malenga taught four tools that were used to understand the writing of the poem, after the deconstruction the participants worked together to write a brand new poem. The activity was challenging and also very engaging, it served to enable all participants to be equipped to write better.

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This first edition was attended by more than a dozen poets and poetry enthusiasts. This is a good start and was a success in itself in regard to the achievement of the set goals. This edition was focused on writing and performing, it involved a group activity followed by the showcasing of a short film. The workshop was facilitated by representatives of the PSK; Keith Malenga, Mojih Morgan and master Pablo Imani.This activity was followed by the screening of an interview recorded by National Education Television. The interview was hosted by Lewis Nkosi and Wole Soyinka who were engaging Willam Abraham (author of Mind of Africa). The discussion was about African literature and how to serve African intellectuals. The three men were very engaged in how to represent African culture through European languages. It was a listening session but had an interlude by Malenga to break the monotony.

Mojih Morgan followed shortly after as he was facilitating Performance and how to deal with stage fright. He advised that it was best to take time on stage to avoid tension and capture the attention of the audience. He went on to talk about the different tools of performance including voice projection, gestures, dramatic pauses and tonal variations. He also encouraged the attendees not to be pressured to write but to meditate on their pieces before penning them. He concluded by saying that it was okay to mess up and that it should be embraced ‘Kama utasahau line freestyle nayo, maintain calmness na hakuna mtu atajua umehata’. A statement that was emphasized by Malenga when he said ‘There is no such thing as a perfect performance ‘

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Master Pablo Imani was the final facilitator and he gave a talk about writing. Encouraging that you do not necessarily have to be published to consider yourself a writer, as long as you journal and record regularly you are a writer. He also stated the need to know what kind of writer one is since as he claims there are two kinds of writers ‘Emotional writers and the more analytical and logical writers. His was a brief session but very profound as he posed the question ‘What kind of writer are you?’ to each and every one who was in attendance.

The workshop is the first of many by the PSK. We are hopeful for the rest of the workshops and can only wait to see how far-reaching the impact of the workshop is.

Njoroman is Chairman PSK