I write to prove a publishing house wrong, and to pay rent

My best friend when I was five years old was a girl called Chipo, whose mind was just as inquisitive as mine. When we weren’t crashing from trying our darndest to learn how to ride bicycles, we were thinking of new and inventive ways to spice up our otherwise relatively boring lives.

Where we lived, there were no estates full of children to play with; we played in the house, made up games, and tried to make the best of a dull situation.

And so one day we decided that we must write an alphabet book. It was a fantastic new project, and we were very excited. We drew up the pages.

Illustrations were never my strong point, but I did my best to draw something that resembled an apple for ‘A’, a boat for ‘B’, and so on.

That was when it begun. Every writer likes to say that they started writing at the age of five (or some ridiculous age so that they sound especially smart).

What they forget to add is that they didn’t get very good until at least 15 years later. I remember when I was nine, I had song writing ambitions. The results of this were an album comprising songs that sounded suspiciously close to the soundtracks of the Disney movies I loved as a child.

My mother at the time was a teacher of English at a school down the road from our house. She saw the spark early on. She used to borrow books for me from her school’s library to add onto my growing collection.

Because we didn’t really have a TV, I used to come home and read at least two books in a day — there really wasn’t much else to do while waiting for cartoons to start.

But I am immensely grateful for that, because it got my grammar to where it is today. I remember the first time I ever got my hands on a Harry Potter book.

My father got me book 1 and 2 (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). It took me a day and a half to get through them. I remember being fascinated that someone could weave such a tale so well, so captivatingly.

On to high school, where an early obsession with storytellers like Shel Silverstein and Sidney Sheldon, and the author of one of my favourite books, Margaret Ogola, led to a clearly defined career path — I was going to be a writer (and thus, Chemistry class, in spite of my wonderfully committed teacher, ceased to be important).

I would write poems of angst and torture (which is what high school is like for most of us, no?), about boys at symposiums, about mosquitoes in the dormitory that insisted on invading my space — about anything, really. It was therapy.

When I started my blog, it was because I felt like I had a lot to say. The blog, actually, is what got me into scriptwriting (the blog and Twitter — never underestimate the power of social media), and so I ventured out of my original free verse ideals.

University was open and shut — I had some really great lecturers who encouraged me along my chosen path; Mr Nyanoti, who taught me that pornography is a form of mass communication; Mr Murej, who elucidated at great length upon the finer points of feature writing; Mr Oranga, who was the poster boy for passionate and interesting teaching; and Ms Koki, who, in spite of the students she frequently flunked out of her classes, was a diligent and kind-hearted soul. I did journalism as a degree without ever really planning to be a journalist — I just wanted to write.

And write I did. But after I was done with writing for free, then getting roundly swindled, then my first job, and my second one, and then a third one as an online columnist with the Nation Media Group, I realised that I had neglected my first love — poetry. It was time to fulfil one of my deepest wishes — publishing a book.

KENYANS HATE POETRY

Now, the funny thing is, apparently, Kenyans don’t read poetry. Or at least, that is what the publishing house I went to told me. They would not publish my book because it would not sell, because poetry is unpopular among Kenyans.

Kenyans want… well, they did not tell me what Kenyans wanted. What they told me was that I needed to make my poetry known in the relevant circles by putting on frequent performances so that when they finally did publish my book, people would actually buy it.

This is an important lesson to learn early in life — you are not good at everything. Just watch a few old TPF auditions and you’ll know this.

Everyone needs some instinct inside them that stops them from embarrassing themselves, particularly on national television. I knew I was a terrible performer.

So I stopped performing and killed my dream — until it resurrected two months ago and I decided to self-publish. This resulted in the book I have out, an anthology of my poetry called Akello — meaning "I bring". It is the culmination of a lot of borrowing and begging, no stealing, but much running around and murderous thoughts towards printers.

WAS WRONG

I’m glad I published myself. I am glad I knew what I wanted and went out and got it. I am lucky enough to have had supportive parents who knew that the way to turn a child into an adult is not to keep them caged and clip their wings, but to let them fly, even if they fly too close to the sun. It’s an essential part of adulthood, and a hard one to go through as a writer, because even after all of that, people still don’t take writing seriously.

I write to prove them wrong. And because my alphabet book can’t have been for nothing. My getting swindled and starting a blog and performing very, very badly can’t have been for naught.

That publishing house must have been wrong. Kenyans DO read poetry. I want people to read me and quote my name when they are asked about Kenyan poets.

The thing is, I write because I must. I write because there is not much else I am good at. I write because something in me compels me to put letters to the feelings I feel — whether intense rage at the idiocy of policy that wants to stone gays, or overwhelming emotion towards the men who seem to delight in breaking my heart.

Of course, I write to pay my rent as well — but at least that’s not the only reason.

Abigail Arunga is the author of Akello, a collection of poetry that was launched on Tuesday. For your copy, send an email to [email protected].