A Child is A Seedling is a product of experiential learning in literary creativity in secondary school. This involved engaging learners in long-term learning that transcended learning boundaries – classroom, school, all schools to encompass persons and at least one organization. It transcended time beyond the learner’s days in school. Some of them are now in workspaces, and some now raising their own families!
That is how it is for me with the all-ladies poetry anthology, A Child is A Seedling. In some ways, its marvel is not so much in the book itself but the process leading to the final product. So many people have been drawn into it at every other stage with their contributions and learning experiences to share. Experiences of rewarding moments and challenges and setbacks and triumphs. Perhaps most importantly, it is a process through which I have seen several young girls grow and develop to assert their own identity and potentially begin to thrive in poetry.
The anthology seems to have coined a place for itself for the freshness that budding artists can bring to a literary environment where attention tends to be drawn to the well-established and famous. Ms. Kaigo Betty, the editor summarizes it pretty well in her commentary:
As I read and edited the over fifty poems of these young women, I realized they have a story to tell. Their poetry is raw. This is good because it is not tempered with the staleness that can mute emotions in the name of learned ‘craft’. Some images they use are very powerful and fresh – from their own physical and social environment.
‘A Child is A Seedling’ is not an anthology of what you may call accomplished writers. It is an anthology with a story that calls for us to capture the traits of authentic work and greatness early in the young, and that the net should be cast wide in doing so. Then the harvest of outstanding poets will most likely be very high.
That is why, the launch of the anthology was organized with a precursor of an engaging and immersive poetry-writing mentorship for young people to capture and condense the enduring spirit behind the process leading to the publication of A Child is a Seedling.
Featured image: Muleke Alex, the illustrator of ‘A Child is A Seedling’ guides a learner on day two of the illustrated poetry writing mentorship.
