Background Story

It took me a year to write this book which is now available on Amazon. At the start of my second year in my ICM bachelor, I enrolled into the honours program with a single goal in mind. A goal to write and publish a book.

There were two aspects which I found tricky and perhaps I found it tricky because I’m not someone who is mathematical in my way of thinking. I’m not a person that thrives with tricky issues. Nonethless, I tackeled the problems anyway.

The first difficulty that I faced was compiling the book. I don’t know anyone who has written a book and so I literally looked at other books and copied their format. After that I had to decide which poems I thought were good enough to be in the final book. Out of my 80 + poems which I have published online I believe around 30 made the final cut. I ‘killed my darlings’ but for a good reason.

The second part that I found difficult was the publishing aspect. Once again, I didn’t know a single person who published a book and so I asked my entire network and discovered that I could publish it online. After trying (and failing with google, apple and Issu) I managed to publish the book on Amazon.

I always wanted to publish a book in my life. Not like a long autobiography (that nobody really would care about after page 100) but a special book and to publish it at the age of 22 was a gift. In the future I might write more books but now the pressure if off. Becoming an author was a difficult process but a rewarding one. I receieved a lot of popular feedback from all kinds of people I knew, even people who were childhood friends that I lost contact with.

Everybody was proud of the random kid from Birmingham trying to tackle big projects and for the first time in a long time, I was proud of myself. I don’t think I would have been able to publish a book on poetry if I didn’t become an international student. My life took a unique turn and as a result, I ended up doing unique things (like writing poetry, studying communications as my bachelor and authoring a book). Truth be told, I’m very excited for the future.

Book Themes

The book touches upon various themes. I attempt to write poetry where I discuss my thoughts on the nature of the world around me. I also discuss the theme of love and romance, mental health and faith. The end of the book has a section of Eulogies where I write poems for others. It is a book rich with different themes.

Where to find the book?

‘I Spoke To Life’ is a collection os my best poems so far. I’ve taken inspiration from a broad range of poets. From Li Po to Rumi to Shakespeare to Labid to various Somali poets but most importantly, I created my own voice and spoke from my soul to give the world a part of me. An irrefutable part of me. My perspective and feelings as a youth growing up in the 21st century. The link is below, I hope you will purchase the book which now available on kindle (as an ebook) only. Thanks for reading this article. Stay tuned (for another potential book) for more updates.