I Am

I am the prince of Egypt

And this is the slaying of the Egyptian.

I am Mahatma Ghandi

And this is the revolution of the Indians.

I am Oliver Twist

I dare ask for more.

I am Mount Everest

Standing tall with the clouds in my hair.

I am Sizwe Bansi

This is King Williams Towm.

I am Steven Barnes

And this The Great Sky Woman;

I am John Bunyan

Visualize this Pilgrim’ Progress.

I am Ludwig Van Beethoven

And this here’s my 5th Symphony.

I am Will Smith

I am Legend.

I am Nostradamus

And this is tomorrow.

I am MLK

With big dreams to never stop being free.

I am Homer

And this is the Iliad;

I am Nelson Mandela

This is the unconditionally free South Africa!

I am MJ

I am off the wall.

I am Jane Taylor

Twinkle, twinkle I’m a star!

I am John Milton

No sweat. This is Paradise Regained.

I am Christopher Columbus

This is the New World.

I am Maya Angelo

And Still I Rise

I am a firefly

And this is the darkest of night.

I am Miriam Makeba

And this is Aluta Continua.

I am 2pac,

I was born not to make it but I did!

I am William Wordsworth

And this child is father of the man.

I am Gulliver

And this is Lilliput.

I am Charles Dickens

And this is the story of Copperfield.

I am Achebe;

I thrive as Things Fall Apart.

I am Luther Vandross

Stealing one final dance with my father.

I am the Trojan horse

Within is an arsenal to capture a fortified city.

I am Abe Lincoln

And this is the Proclamation of Emancipation.

I am Mungo Park

This is the stretch of the Niger.

I am the Magi

And this is the cradle in a manger.

I am Hamlet:

To be or not to be?

I am the Shepherd boy;

Give me five smooth rocks and I’ll slay a giant.

I am Arthur

And this is Excalibur.

I am Wole Soyinka

I am the pride of the Jewel.

I am Tananarive Due

And this is My Soul to Keep.

I am Negro;

The whole world is African soil.

I am Napoleon Bonaparte

I came, I saw, I conquered.

I am Tupac Amaru Shakur;

Sheez, it’s just Me Against the World.

I am Terry McMillan

This is how I got my groove back.

I am Stephen King:

And this is The Stand.

Akpan

Robbing Hardy to Pay King

Dracula is quoted as the most widely adapted villain in a work of fiction. The 20th/21st century has witnessed so many adaptations of the blood sucking count and doubtless, many more are in the works. Vampire film geeks never seem to get enough of him.

As of 2009, an estimated 217 films feature Dracula in a major role, a number second only to Sherlock Holmes (223 films). The number of films that include a reference to Dracula may reach as high as 649, according to IMDb (Internet Movie Database) owned by Amazon.com. http://www.wikipedia.com

If you are a vampire movie nerd, you can root for that. The character, Dracula, is author, Bram Stoker’s baby. Of course, he had a little help from Romanian history.

Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent seven years researching European folklore and stories of vampires, being mostly influenced by Emily Gerard’s 1885 essay Transylvania Superstitions. http://www.wikipedia.com

I have watched at least three screen variations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, from The Odyssey to the more recent cinematic Brad Pitt’s Troy. Each of these films tell their story from a separate Major Character’s POV. Troy, I think, was in Achilles’ POV. Homer, a Greek poet, wrote The Iliad and its sequel, The Odyssey as documentation, not just of the Trojan War, but of how the gods interfere in human affairs. Events seem to depend as much on the choices made by women and serfs as on the actions of fighting men. http://www.wikipedia.com

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has enjoyed numerous adaptations, both plagiarized and altered copies. Virtually hundreds of tragic love tales have been spun off this masterpiece, thousands because writers perceive threads of immortal plots running in between the lines and tap into it. And right there’s the point I’m getting at.

There is a note of continuity in every genuine work of fiction. No story is ever completely told, no plot’s ever overstretched. No question about it, there will always be those gleanings some other author can explore and launch into a story with a different twist.

Thomas Hardy supposedly said the most brilliantly drawn character in a novel is but a bag of bones. Stephen King took that and ran with it and churned out a world wide best selling novel, Bag of Bones. Now, on a personal level, you oughta read that book to see what I mean. For those of you who have guess you know what I know, then. Things Fall Apart, a novel by Dr. Chinua Achebe, by far the most widely read African novel by an African residing in Africa. (*sic*) pardon the repetitions, now. But the title of the book derives from The Second Coming (1919), a poem by the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats.

No need to mix things up, thinking I’m preaching plagiarism of sorts. Being original means learning from the originals how they learned to be original (there I go again with ‘em repetitions). It’s about threading in the golden footprints of legends and not being shy about it. Actually, it works best if you’re loud about it.

Read any stories, recently that sprouted new ideas for original plot developments? Get your post-it notes and jot them down. Whatever you do don’t let them get away.

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

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Materials of Poetry

Robinson Jeffers' Hawk Tower

Timeless art is a silhouette embossed on a backdrop of things that never die.

Immortality takes liberty and lends enchantment to works that are wedged by a theme of permanence. Art with a note of continuity possess characteristics that breach generational chasms with timeless messages. It is the piece of clothing left behind after the author is caught up on "Time's winged chariot".

Robinson Jeffers lists two items as the resource of poetry-the lasting qualities that sustain a resonance of impressions in a reader's mind long after the poem is read and the book closed.

One is Permanent things, the other is similar yet, unique, Things forever renewed.

I believe the twosome is for the most part, self explanatory and presents itself to the mind of the reader. Nevertheless, I will take the liberty to touch on details a little bit.

Robert Wallace in his book of poetry, "Writing Poems", fleshes out Jeffers' quote.

"Permanent things or things forever renewed like the grass and human passions, are the materials of poetry; and whoever speaks across the gap of a thousand years will understand that he has to speak of permanent things, and rather clearly too, or who would hear him?"

The upshot of this is that this is also true of other forms of writing like fiction – stories and novels and so on. Shakespeare's works remain relevant to contemporary taste and a big chunk of the credit, besides artistic merit goes to the universal themes of love, betrayal, revenge and the others which characterize Shakespearean literature.

Homer's Iliad is pregnant with pungent subjects of bravery, of lust for wealth and power, of hubristic, you name it. These are problems the race of man will battle world without end as long as there are men on the face of the earth.

We can create a pattern for our writing from these examples. There are lots and lots of cases, of course. Think back to your childhood years-some may have to think longer and harder than most of us. Remember all the stories that have grown up with you and, you see where I'm coming from.

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

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