MY CAIN COMPLEX

“Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.” Gore Vidal.

The first time I encountered the above quote by Gore Vidal, thought it odd and dangerous for a friend to have to feel that way about my success. I mean, are my friends not supposed to be happy and to celebrate my successes? Why else are we friends if not to help each other attain our goals and also become happy when those goals are achieved? I began to pray not to have a Gore Vidal as a friend, until, in introspection, it began to occur to me that I might also have felt some unease over a friend’s success at one time or another; I, too, might have suffered from what I now like to think of as “Cain Complex”, which I derive from the biblical figure (Cain) who murdered his brother out of envy over the latter’s “success”.

COLD ROOM

did you fall on good ground
took root & aimed at fruitfulness
only to dance to strange lullaby
& wake up clad in thorny bush

rocked by winds of varying isms
are you now reduced to shooting tired

glances
at the hearth of cold ashes
reminiscing the days of the burning bush

MY REJECTION LETTERS

I thought by now I’d have grown numb to the pangs that come with rejection letters. By the second week of January, as I churned out poems, short stories and photographs to more than twenty magazines and journals, I had estimated that I should get nothing less than 30% acceptance. But February had not even ended when not less than ten of the outlets ‘politely’ declined to use my work. It does not help much that I first work up a smile before clicking open the rejection letters. The moment I get past the first sentence which always read “Dear Uchenna, thank you for sending us you work”, the bulwark I have erected around my heart begins to crumble. It does not also help that the Editors almost always urge me to not hesitate to send them my other works in the future.

ON SERVIO GBADAMOSI’S WHERE THE LIGHT ENTERS YOU.

Title: Where the light enters you
Author: Servio Gbadamosi
Publisher: Noirledge Publishing
Number of pages: 110
Year of publication: 2021
Category: Poetry
Reviewer: Ekweremadu Uchenna

“There is no birth of consciousness without pain”. Carl Jung

Where the light enters you is a book of 51 poems grouped into seven sections each of which is introduced by a captivating excerpt from a prominent writer’s work. The first section of the book is introduced by no less a personage than the famous Sufi poet Rumi whose quote “The wound is the place where the light enters you” apparently gave the book its title. The reader’s fascination about this collection of poems should begin from its title which is not about WHY or WHEN but about WHERE, as if the reason or the moment is of less consequence than the point of penetration.

Wedding Flatlays

I got into photography late last year. Initially, my intention was to focus on street photography.  But scouring YouTube one night, I stumbled upon a video on how to film weddings by Jake Weisler and another video on how to photograph weddings by John Branch. I liked how John Branch was meticulous about flatlays and i dreamed of when I would get to do something like that.

And then (thank God!), last month, I got my first client and shot these flatlays.

Oh, I know, these shots are not as mind-blowing as I make them sound. But I am fine with them.

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