Any journalist worth reading must be something of a poet

Poets during a public presentation in Kigali, Rwanda. Journalists seek words that give clarity and precision. Poets seek words that express the inner truth. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Both journalism and poetry seek the truth, carefully choosing words to convey the right facts and emotions.
  • In every good journalist, it’s apparent, there’s a poet and vice versa.
  • Andrew Springer says poetry is about experiences while journalism is about facts; yet both seek truth.

Adarsh Shah was very upset with a Nation Online story, Families to identify victims of FlySax plane crash at Lee, published on June 8, 2018.

“Kindly review James Kahongeh’s article on the FlySax plane crash. There is a paragraph which uses such strong and emotional words that can cause serious dis-comfort to readers,” he wrote.
“How can you even publish such gross and grotesque words to describe human beings who have lost lives?

“Imagine family members and friends who have lost loved ones and are forced to read the following words: ‘Some of the passengers sustained severe injuries to the extent that some could not be identified as female or male. Some of them had missing limbs and visible deep cuts while others had their insides out.’

“How do you even allow this to be published? Quite disgusting and appalling, in my view, and must be taken down. Very poor journalism.”

OFFENDING WORDS

I agreed with Mr Shah and suggested to Digital Editor Churchill Otieno the offending words were not necessary for the story. The words were expunged from the story.

The follow-up story, Families identify victims of FlySax plane crash, was a more dignified and somewhat poetic story, in which James Kahongeh writes of the “anguish, disbelief and tears” that prevailed at Lee Funeral Home as the bodies of the victims of the air crash were identified by friends and relatives.

“On a gloomy Friday morning in the city, and in a chilly weather that seemed to resonate with the grimness of the moment, family members identified the bodies of the 10 victims who were involved in the Tuesday evening air crash in the Aberdares,” the story reads.

“One by one, families were taken to the morgue’s viewing bay to identify their relative, from which cries of disgust would burst upon seeing the horror in which their family member had died….

“Now seeing their bodies laid on the icy morgue stretchers, lifeless and badly mutilated, was too much to bear for some of them, who wept their hearts out until they could cry no more.”

FACTS AND EMOTIONS

This story, and many others the Nation has published about the misfortunes and calamities that have, in recent weeks, befallen the nation, including corruption stories, shows that good journalism and poetry are sometimes inseparable.

Both seek the truth, carefully choosing words to convey the right facts and emotions. Even so, journalism is more concerned with facts while poetry is more concerned with emotions.

Editor-poet Rita Dove of the NYT Magazine describes the role of a poet thus: “You tell the story, but you tell the story that’s under the story.

“You bring to light human reactions to grander events, in the hope that people will recognise themselves in it.”

In every good journalist, it’s apparent, there’s a poet and vice versa. The challenge for both is to pick the words that tell the truth.

Journalists seek words that give clarity and precision. Poets seek words that express the inner truth.

A former Daily Nation features writer and author of the poetry anthology Black Tipped Nipples, Mildred Ngesa, says poetry is “the language of the heart”.

Poets convey “the unspoken and unmask the hidden truth about what we truly feel,” she says.

Andrew Springer, executive producer of NBC’s StayTuned, says poetry is about experiences while journalism is about facts; yet both seek truth.

SAVOUR WORDS

“What’s remarkable about poetry and poets is their ability not just to use words, but savour them,” he says. “Every single word is chosen for a specific meaning in a specific place to evoke specific feelings.”

He advises journalists to take a lesson from poets: “Don’t just use words, savour them. Make our essential work lodge itself in the mind of our audience.”

In a word, journalists look, poets feel. So, if you want to find the debris of the crashed FlySax plane, send a journalist.

If you want to find out what it felt like to be in the crash, send a poet.

Better still, send a journalist-poet for the complete story.

Next week: Why newspapers aren’t keen on publishing poems from readers.

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