I saw the message you sent me about your friend who is interested to be guided as a new unpublished poet. I’m also honored that you take me as someone who would be able to guide someone else. I’m honored because I myself am also a new poet, and I’m willing to help in ways I can.
First of all, she has to see poetry as something that she does for herself first, before other people. I started writing poems just before the end of secondary school, and my poems came from sorrows and grief. I remember how we took Literature-In-English classes together and how we did so well in the arts department, and how we were among the best students. We were in the same debate club, we read together, laughed together, but it didn’t occur to me that anybody would read my works in the future and classify them as poetry. Or even classify them as anything. Yes, let me confess that I wasn’t confident. I did not have faith in my writing then. For many years I thought my writing was something that only I could enjoy, love and understand, and I was satisfied with that thought because sitting down every evening to write and pour my heart onto paper was the most glorious thing ever, something akin to prayer.
I didn’t know that I was writing poetry because even though I did literature, I wasn’t very sure if what I was writing qualified as poetry. So I would write for myself for many years as a form of therapy. Poetry helped me to heal of my emotional pain. I wrote poems to see myself, to find myself. I read other poets as sources of comfort. I was deeply introverted, and because I was very hurt in my spirit, poetry helped me to stay alive. I wrote to myself without being sure if I was doing it in the right way, without knowing what I was doing, until many years later when I got an opportunity to be published.
I’m emphasizing on writing poetry for yourself first because poetry wouldn’t make you automatically richer than you are, but it can open doors for you. It can connect you to people or your readers whom you wouldn’t have met outside your writing space. Many publications do not pay you when they publish your poems. You will be paid or earn something only when you win poetry contests, or when a publication that pays their contributors pick you up. So I want her to approach poetry as something that she does for herself first, not as something that can fetch something else.
I want her to approach poetry with humility. I want her to be kind to herself. I want her to be truthful to herself. I want her to be truly herself. Let her see poetry as something she must do, something she has to do, if she is really a poet. If she is a poet, I want her to be proud of being a poet. Let her listen more to her literary spirit. I want her to be happy. Any day she decides to send her work out to any publication, I want her to know that rejections are normal. Many publications will reject her, but she shouldn’t be discouraged. The more she is rejected the more she should write.
The Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says she writes because she has to write. In interviews, she says that even if she didn’t have the wonderful opportunities she has today to be read widely and deeply appreciated, that she would still be somewhere writing, unknown, but still, she would be writing, and this is true for every genuine and unpretentious writer. Being a published writer is a secondary aspect of being a writer. I think the first aspect is more important than the second. First of all, you have to write, and the writing has to be for yourself first, before moving into the world. You will have to love and believe in the work first, before looking for a publisher, or a publication.
If your friend the poet is Nigerian, or African, I will advise her to read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s books. If she’s not interested in big books, then she might be interested in her smaller pieces. She might follow her on her social media handles. She might also be interested in watching her interviews on YouTube. Or her popular Ted Talks, The Danger Of The Single Story, and We Should All Be Feminists.
I wish her everything good.
From Isaac Dominion Aju
Isaac Dominion Aju has appeared in different literary publications in the United States, including Poetry X Hunger, Flapper Press, and New York City’s Writers’ Journal. He will be a featured writer in Cajun Mutt Press in the US by November. He lives in Nigeria where he works as a fashion designer and writes in his free time.
like a blow from armor surrounded by shining deities
glowing eyes polished around the blade
spectators saw him unwrap his golden feet
the zero of moon region approaches Sun machine all fused
but earth edge turns galaxies off its golden haze in
the water maidens see nitrogen like methane glowing
A FABULOUS MARBLE DREAMED ON RED GLASS
A FABULOUS marble DREAMED on red GLASS
a Butterfly IS YELLOW pumpkin and pop
daisy aftershave
soft peppermint Sausages with cake
cock of sandpaper in blue ice lake
fallen peach Candied BETWEEN the skirt inside of
pink tabletop touching crunch with pop
pink sunshine and blue apples
then another between the legs
with chuckling woodchuck and freaky cone
clock made of pudding
penguin wearing sombrero OF hard sunshine
Eating a marble peppermint and talking to a woodpecker
SUN in skies under yellow Lake
glass eyes floating in wooden belly
Bunnies pecking corners with Candied lips
breast hops between fuzzy tabletops
ANTIQUE MOON
Submarine with green flesh
bubbles with swarms of bees
empyrean universe filled with ghosts
folded back the jungle as
mist crowns little lakes
Chemical wind roars
world collapses slowly
waitress forces salts beyond
the pyramidal structure
Empire under thick edges of chopsticks in creased sea
GRANULAR sky polished cloud
flashing to misted Book buried in darkness
spheres disappear in milky skies
strumming folded fringes in a carbon buzzer
Or harps of ice found hazy rays of jeweled atoms
Blisters looking from the sparkle pulses
recombining floating equations
disconnected in cobblestones
five surfers handed his hats to Blood compounds
infinitesimal CLUSTER an opalescent dream
Kierkegaard the sweet rubbing world
the antique moon disturbing particles through
Little boxes wearing EASTER with intricate gears
pill opened by dull darkness ironed
Roman
off
HILLBILLY BEES
I saw tables inside tiny rooms
there the sand drops two forbidden nose cones
HILLBILLY BEES on a blurry Road
fuzz approaches with one of the beetles
chieftain sent yellow cone but
space benches would double him
unclear efforts moved to March
clearly someone with gold glass of photos and a talking
system photocopies with corkscrew
Historic animals flip before
washed shirt or glass of buzzers
Helga couldn’t bestow a tube that sent dozens from vapor
STORM linen wearing the standard deduction
constructing numerous evenings
which formed and blended
a grim cheer of Bundles when
Neptune saw only Small rimmed etching
CONCENTRATION CAMPFIRE
Swampy crocodiles in
wrecked fluorescent dimension
rain dress shrank her armor
brightness scalded thunder
fire clusters hide shake dimension
focus generators flag electric springs
feather lanterns vanish
cheeks elliptical
assembling continuous drift
accumulate system vortex
Shelley bruised pillow and cloud
from relaxed incandescence
pink sardines curled freeze arrangement
dented women on confused face magnet
ringing top the juice curfew
thick insect surrounded
lost lozenges of haggard kisses
with hands embroidered groups of
transposed gas planets
POLTEXT
The risen is unbearable
sudden brightness through trigger profits
their galaxy dreams of 22
distant Hardtop without the poles
cyclones flick those silent crystals
smoke falls where ghost seconds against pieces
their mountain systems choreographed despite silver rust
oblivion islands glow in five Ray process
THE wounds had accepted faded bottles
poltext cocked the disintegrator
Chicago shrank into blue hares
black sky pale in the golden time
stepping transparent brightness
denouncing range through melted wire
regressing to the mandatory parentheses
Africa felt hatch of fluttering color
trees dissolved with Aldebaran out of ICE police
hot pressed metal whispered from forbidden consequences
Monday in tiny glowing crack of TWITTERS and decomposing crummalite
the manda grass around nylon gun is GLOWING
closed skull tries swiftly the glimpsed room
ash separator hop and long palms through world liquidation
The timejector pulsation creeps on tomorrow
then the call was spinning on Machine for pink hours
again picture pressures THE computer candy
but dotted 16 oscillations over crylon bars
burning owls give small covering for folded hands
Gregory Wallace has been making art of various kinds for at least 50 years. He was active in the mail art scene in the 80s and participated in international mail art exhibits and correspondence. Mr. Wallace was a founding editor of Oblivion magazine and has published several books of poetry including The Girl With Seven Hands, The Return of the Cyclades, and Exile and Kingdom Come. His artistic activity encompasses poetry, collage, sculpture, assemblage, photography and painting. His work has appeared in Typo, BlazeVox, #Ranger, Black Scat Review, Clockwise Cat, and many other journals.
it was no time for love outside- old winds of worship found hand and mouth in ruined rain slanting over cultured fields into pagan barns with patched up planks finding us two misfits.
i felt the pulse of your undressed fingers transmit thoughts to my senses- aroused by autumn scents of milky musk and husky hay in this barn’s faith we climbed the rungs of civilisation so random in our exile-
and found a bell housed inside a minaret- with priest and muezzin sharing its balcony- summoning all to prayer with one voice- this holy music, was only the wind blowing through the weathervane, but we liked its tone to change its time.
LOW VAULTED CEILINGS
within those man stone walls promoting their god bringing us to him i told the priest- you tell us to be content with poverty while you live in this big house throwing us scraps begged from money lenders. this is not what Jesus asked his disciples to do. this is not what he died for. he said live amongst us and share what they have. the priest, red with rage, oppressive and oppressed- pulled my mam aside made her shrink in his stare weep in his words walk me in our sins from his dark-damp house of angels. outside in feral sunshine i pointed to grinning gargoyles chasing chastened shadows back down primitive paths- to a cellar flat, bare bulb dangling prison beam probing baptised flesh and mam tipped tears soaking into straw mattresses sucking up cold from the flagstone floor woodworms eating a Van Gogh table where six mouths sat sharing stale bread and cold beans with whiskered skirting board mice. years later, i left Dedalus in Dublin in the pages of a book to his epiphany and Jesuit suit of guilt- while i quenched my glistening fruit in street light ladies- drenched in smokey curling dancing clouds and stories from voices bouncing off low vaulted ceilings caressing human in darkness.
OLD CAFE
a rest, from swinging bar and animals in the abattoir- to smoke in mental thinks spoken holding cooling drinks.
counting out old coppers to be fed in the set squares of blue and red plastic table cloth- just enough to break up bread in thick barley broth.
Jesus is late after saying he was coming back to share the wealth and real estate of capitalist cunning.
maybe. just maybe. put another song on the jukebox baby: no more heroes anymore. what are we fighting for-
he’s hiding in hymns and chants, in those Monty Python underpants, from this coalition of new McCarthy’s and its institutions of Moriarty’s.
some shepherds sheep will do this dance in hypothermic trance, for one pound an hour like a shamed flower,
watched by sinister sentinels- while scratched tubular bells, summon all to sunday service where invisible myths exist-
to a shamed flower with supernatural power comes the hour.
AN OLD WOODEN BOAT
an old wooden boat,
the long sail through erotic journey
tattered and torn,
lip red paint peeling on planked carcass,
bleaches on a sandbar-
the silent tributary
of its river bed
dried and cracked.
smudges of mascara
over scented seasons
woman the shell of a dress
she wore
with full breasts
and firm behind.
i remember-
don’t take
the corn coloured sun for granted,
or ignore
her constellation and unmentioned course,
unless, you want to pace the deck,
invisible to love
counting silent stars
talking to the unknown.
DOES HER FAR BEAUTY KNOW
does her
far beauty know
where my thoughts go
without her
when i walk
in lush rain lashing down-
squatting in enclosed fields
of remote wheat and barley
around told feudal cities and towns-
to talk
to fate and how it feels
to be emptied entirely
of hopes sounds-
these evolutions
fill rich men’s purses
and revolutions
are poor universes
that try to bend
the unequal
to be equal
without end.
does her
far beauty know
where my thoughts go
with her
when i walk
in lush rain lashing down-
soaked in moments come to this
paradise and precipice
belonging
bonding
thoughts
serendipitous
blowing into us-
gives shelter to the self
of us and other else-
unlike bare rooms we rent
to leave behind
when change moves us to fit
into it-
with only our echo and scent
of passion and mind.
Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. A member of The Poetry Society, nominated for the Pushcart Prize x3 and Best of the Net x3, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.
Please read these lines — they’re heartfelt, pure and whole.
Though my pen is weak, my words hold no disguise,
I took a page to try… still, no phrase justifies.
Mother… O my dearest mom,
Is your smile the morning sun,
Warming me in every hour,
Are your words the books I’ve won —
Each chapter growing mind and power?
Why is your heart so gently made?
So full of grace, so finely laid?
Here’s the news I want to share:
My Lord, He loves you — this I swear.
And what could be the secret cause
Of such beauty in soul and face?
Believe my words, I speak from truth,
Even the moon would feel disgrace!
Forget the moon — just look above,
The skies reflect your endless love.
What does it mean, this boundless light?
What truth does it reveal in sight?
It speaks of God’s own mercy deep,
That matches yours — so wide, so steep.
In short, to summarize it right:
Without you, joy has lost its light.
Among all realms that ever be,
No one on Earth could be like you!
I am a young poet from Zomin, Uzbekistan, born on May 15, 2007. Through my poetry, I seek to express deep emotions and the beauty of the motherly love that inspires and lights up our souls.
This article explores how young people in Uzbekistan are accessing international opportunities through information and communication technologies (ICT). It analyzes key platforms, real-life experiences, and the pathways youth follow to showcase their knowledge and skills globally through global programs, grants, online courses, and international cooperation projects. The article also highlights the importance of digital literacy, language skills, and networking in the digital era.
Keywords:
Information technologies, international opportunities, Uzbek youth, online education, grants, digital literacy, networking, global collaboration.
In today’s digital age, the ability to use information technologies effectively is not only a tool for self-development but also a key to competing in the global arena. Young people now have access to the world’s best courses, scholarships, volunteer programs, and startup competitions via the internet. However, making the most of these opportunities requires not only technical knowledge, but also determination, goal-setting, and a strategic approach.
The number of young Uzbeks accessing international platforms through ICT is steadily increasing. For instance, there are youth who study on platforms such as Coursera, edX, and Khan Academy, completing courses offered by institutions like Google, Meta, and NASA. Uzbek youth are also gaining international recognition by participating in programs of organizations like One Young World , Junior Academy , and UNESCO . These achievements are the result of using technology wisely, learning English, and continuously working on self-improvement.
Social platforms such as Telegram , LinkedIn , and Facebook play a vital role in discovering grant and competition announcements, maintaining a strong personal profile, and building a professional network. Many young Uzbeks are now taking their startups to the international stage with the help of platforms like Devpost , Hackathon , and Google Developers .
Furthermore, international cooperation is expanding in areas such as gender equality, inclusive education, and sustainable development — all supported by ICT tools. Interest in technology among young girls is growing, and they too are earning international recognition.
However, several challenges still exist on this journey — such as slow internet speed, language barriers, misinformation, and financial limitations. These problems can be overcome by using free online courses, joining local mentorship programs, actively monitoring grant platforms, and establishing connections with governmental and non-governmental organizations.
Conclusion
Information technologies are tools — how they are used depends on the youth themselves. In Uzbekistan, an increasing number of young people are using these tools for creativity, innovation, and global integration. This progress is accelerating development across the country. Every young person can define their own destiny and compete globally by leveraging technology.
This article has outlined how Uzbek youth are accessing global opportunities through ICT. Real experiences, platforms, and strategies have shown how they demonstrate their potential. In this process, digital literacy, language skills, and continuous learning play a crucial role. Therefore, every young person should use information technologies as a means to achieve their goals.
References
UNESCO. (2023). Digital Skills for Youth Empowerment .
Coursera.org is an online learning platform.
edX.org – Free Online Courses from Harvard, MIT, and more.
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know better. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Disturb the Universe Magazine, Misfit Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, Mad Swirl and Yellow Mama. He is spending most of his days taking care of his disabled mother and betting on Mexican soccer games. He still has a blog but rarely has the time to write on it. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
