Everyone has that one person or place they feel comfortable to emit their feelings and thoughts. For nineteen-year-old Lutgardis Ineza, poetry is the safest of places to portray what’s deep in her heart. To her, poetry means she has a pal to run to whenever she feels overwhelmed by emotions or any feelings in general, which she believes it’s a blessing she carries in her. “Poetry to me means I can also give that place to others, those whose feelings can’t be easily expressed in words and those who find healing in knowing that they are not alone,” she noted. The young poetess was inspired into poetry by how the art of words made her feel, mostly by the satisfaction of being able to pour her feelings on paper and at the same time help others do the same. “I like to say that I caught feelings for poetry and eventually fell in love with it,” she stated. Ever since she started poetry in 2016, it has taught her the power of words. It has shown her that words are capable of building and destroying — that they create. She expressed that it’s such a magical thing that when sad, she feels better by reading or writing deep poems, that through them, she can overcome most of her low moments. Poetry has taught her that there is nothing as beautiful as speaking one’s mind. It’s a language her soul deeply understands. So far, Ineza has 45 poems to her name. Of those, 42 are written pieces and 3 lyric videos, though she has many more that are not published yet. Some of these both in English and Kinyarwanda are,“Duhurire Hahandi”, “Umwali”, and “Guhumbya”, “Growth”, “A Visit to Self”, “The Poetry in Me”, among others. “There are other personalized poems that I wrote in both English and Kinyarwanda for special occasions like weddings. I have like 100 pieces I haven’t published yet, so I have written more than 150 pieces so far including some new ones that are in my soon-to-be-released poetry collection,” she stressed. Her most recent poem is worth listening to, it is a lyric video poem called “Apart Isn’t Home”. It’s a collaboration she wrote with a poet known as Eldon Mwiseneza. It’s a love poem that features two lovers who had a huge fight and broke up, but regretted every second they spent with their rebounds trying to forget each other. The lovers tell of how miserable they have been ever since they fell apart, and it ends with them getting back together because ‘Apart Isn’t Home.’ Ineza writes poems based on what she has lived, heard, or what she simply imagines. She bases on life in general — the life we go through or the life we imagine sometimes. Poetry is a world of infinite possibilities, one that allows people to visit any place without really moving. When it comes to being an excellent poet or poetess, she explains that it takes authenticity and bravery. Poetry comes with putting one’s emotions out there. Somehow, through poetry, people see an individual and get to know who they are. It’s sacrificing the comfort of privacy for one’s passion and the expression they offer those who relate to their pieces. “It takes time to learn how depth can be reached with words or what exactly one can easily be expressive in. For instance, it took her some time to realize that writing about love comes so easily to her, however, she also reaches a great depth with her sad pieces,” she stated.
