Breaking Out A cry for More: Poetry

What usually starts is pain, often our spirits cannot contain it, and we become angry all the time. Our anger bores our prejudices which give birth to even more pain. This becomes a toxic cycle which can only be broken through a shift of mindset. Accepting our pains or sources of pain, opens doors to healing, faith, hope and joy. These come in ways we never expect them to; a bird singing could be the sign you needed to see in order to have hope. Breaking out a cry for more is a poetry collection about the many aspects of humanity, or the lack of thereof. It is divided into five sections: pain, prejudice, acceptance, hope and joy. In the first section, pain, which explores different kinds of pains humanity is living with, ranging from physical abuse, racism, love, rejection and death. In the first poem, "Fire," it shows how we often feel the need to fill the emptiness of others materialistically even though what they need is not tangible. Some things we lose but we can never get them back and we have to live with the loss forever. It is not just our personal losses which hurt us, but also of those we love. It is so easy to be angry after experiencing so much pain, that we begin to look at others, no longer with love but with preconceived judgements.In the second sections, various prejudices are revealed which have become our norms. We live in a misogynistic, racist, body shaming, religious, and selfish world. In the poems, "When men used to be gods" and "Bag of dicks," it talks about the injustice women have had to endure at the hands of the men they trust and love. Being treated as part of the furniture and never having to be respected and appreciated, or at the least being left alone. The blind faith of religious people is constantly exploited by greedy and selfish people, who have made other human beings their gods. The last poem in this section, talks about the recourse of women to the oldest profession in the history to better themselves. Despite the pain and the prejudice we live in, acceptance is necessary in order to move forward. Acceptance of your true self; your pain, rejection and love leads to the realisation of completeness, despite not having all we think we deserve. In this third section, one the poems, "The blackness of my blackness," which exudes a paradigm shift in the perception of blackness. The pain of being a black person is superseded with the celebration of all that is good and true. The pain in love is accepted in the poems, "Broken" and "We are written in the stars." Both self-love and an embrace of existing together, without the need for perfection can bring "Hope." It is this hope that makes us to love again, want to grow and shine, and become all that we can be. In this fourth and fifth sections, a new hope is seen, dreams begin to show up again. Nothing becomes impossible and there even a glimmer of "Joy" in places no one ever pictured. Despite the existence of our pain and prejudices, when we accept everything and have a change of mindset, we can eventually see the light, the way out of our demise.

• | Author: Lesley Mukwada, Tendai Mwanaka
• | Publisher: Independently published
• | Publication Date: Nov 28, 2018
• | Number of Pages: 74 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1790442095
• | ISBN-13: 9781790442096