Having fallen in love with poetry, and having done a handful
that my circle of my reader-friends really appreciated,I got the name Charles
the Poet. Initially ,my poems were for my private consumption- partly
as a way of venting out the ideas that buzzed in my head and the many feelings
that made me their favourite victim and as a way of learning the art of word smithing. But then it reached a point in time when I
realized the painful process of writing had began to bear fruits and it was
time to air my craft out there for its fair share of criticism. There was no
way of talking about publishing the few I had done-I never knew how publication
was done and more I was just an infant in creative writing.
In late early 2010
when I was in my 3rd year 2nd semester while visiting my
course mate and group mate who resided in Eastern zone,Kenyatta Univeristy,I
met his roomy, Preston, who was taking a course in software engineering taking
about blogs and blogging.I had no much idea about the world of the internet except the little that was limited to
googling info for coursework which of course with time I had learnt
how to maneuver around to get what I wanted.My knowledge of the computer was
sketchy and restricted to basic Microsoft word 2007.I heard them talk about an
online platform where upon opening your personal page you could write about
anything that ever crossed your mind and share it with the world.
I fell in
love with this that very instant.I thought of my lousy poems and I smiled to myself.
This was an opportunity to hop to the next level.Bwoma told me of this soft
spoken guy called Tony Malesi and the cool stuff he had online. Preston helped
me go online and we checked Tony’s online world and I could not stop marveling
at the material he had online and the little niche of followers he had curved
out for himself.He was such a satirist imbued with a unique sense of humour
that baffled me and instantly I felt that I need to do something akin to
that.Ofcourse later on I would meet Tony who blew even harder the flaming
curiosity to learn to write and publish my work by myself online on my own web
page.A few days later I went back to Preston who showed me the procedure to go
about creating a blog which was as easier as
opening an email account. The next moment I found myself in the Confucius Institute-KU
resource centre struggling to set a blog page. It was a struggle learning on
the job as I tried without any prior knowledge
of how to pull of such a magic which I realized wasn’t easy as I had thought
before in terms of getting the page the kind of appearance it needed to be
reader- friengdly,but eventually,I got it started with the first url as http://wizenedcharles.blogspot.com
I was so much excited about this I started streaming online
my poems one by one since they were in hard copy and I wasn’t good with typing.
Typing those poems wasn’t fun at all.By the end of the struggle with a single
one my shoulders were on fire with pain.I was slow and not conversant with Microsoft
word 200 7,leave alone any other application in the Microsoft Office Suit 2007.It
took me hours and days but eventually I got a few poems published which I then
told my friends about. Many people at the time weren’t very conversant with the
world of blog and so owning one was so magical to many and it was thrilling as I
received positive affirmation which made me become an instant of celebrity
amongst a few of my classmates who grabbed the blog address to go and see for
themselves these poems which sometime ate my class time penning instead of
listening to some of those boring empty lectures that did little intellectual stimulation rather than making us
sleep in the lecture halls.
The blog got its first name “Sunset Guy”.At the same time I
felt so much of a wizard to pull off such a move and I appreciatively to my
buddies Tony,Bwoma and Preston to thank them for the fete.The address www.wizenedcharles.blogspot.com
looked so amazing I thought the word ‘
wizened’ connoted a sort of wizard only to find out it had a different meaning which
wasn’t as poetic as I had thought it to
be.I had to change the url and at the
same time changed the blog title-there were just so many Sunset Guys online and
in my poetic quest,sharing a name with internet crowd wasn’t fun. Making the
changes wasn’t fun.It took me painful days and eventually got to change the
blog’s url to http://charlchotto.blogspot.com from
Charl Chotto which by then was the known me online.
At the time,I was at the climax of my intimacy with the sunset so I imagined myself this cool wizard
who knew so much about the sunset so I named the blog “Sunset Whisper”.
2013 April was our first anniversary with this gorgeous angel
I had fallen in love with and whom I had christened the Gentle Bird.In honour
of her,the blog changed the name for almost a month to Gentle Bird before I
thought it was time the page had a serious poetic name since its inception was
for it to be a platform for sharing with the world my poetic writings so I was back to the growing
board and so the inception of ‘embers’glint’ .Regardless of this blog’s name or
url shift,one thing that remains constant is the fact it has grown because I too
I have grown in my writing.I’me still eating the miles in learning to write
,though this blog hasn’t been graced with content for some time,and certain I
am that with time writing maturity will
surely settle in.The rest as they say is history.
Recently, I pulled down all the poems which have been the
heart of this embers’glint publication. As time goes by, things evolve and things
that have become obsolete with time drop by the way and those that become
better with t time move on to the next level of life. These poems went back to
the kitchen for redrafting and together with others that never found their way here,
are going to be part of well crafted and witty poems in a new poetry book that
is coming out by the end of October 2014.
All meaningful journeys always have meaningful outcomes and
tales to tell. When we remain true to our persuits we get what we want and
where we want to go to. His Excellency Obwanda Joseph of ‘High Altitude
Attitude’ puts it that “What you have if well explored will get you what you don’t
have.” Truly, by taking advantage of the altitude and latitude that embers’glint provided a literary
rocket has taken off the ground to explore the great heights of literary
expression by the publication of the upcoming poetry book that was germinated and
grew here. This is an achievement I much cherish. Watch out for the amazing
poetic work. You can be sure you’ll enjoy it.
