Poetry is known to be therapeutic. Just like Divine Akimana, many people are impelled to express themselves through writing, as a way of healing and overcoming challenging times in life. Akimana is a poet and author who decided to use poetry to preach the message of hope and healing. She hardly knew she had potential to compose poems until her parents’ divorce. Akimana reminiscences the moments spent with her father at a young age, remembering how she used to confide in him a lot. Little did she know that her family was to grow apart. At the age of 11, her parents divorced. She watched her family fall apart; something she says made her childhood dull and painful. “My father left, and my mother was left to take care of five children. I also played a mother’s part as the firstborn when I helped her raise my siblings. This didn’t give me time to grieve,” she recalls. Some of her published poetry. “I kept everything inside and it got to an extent that I just turned mute, I didn’t know what to say or how to say anything. I could just sit in class and break down to tears. Life was hard for me,” she says. Akimana says, as one who wasn’t aware of therapy as an approach to healing, she resorted to writing. She started writing poetry in 2011, while in high school. She fell in love with literature. It is through literature that she learned different techniques and styles of writing. This is when she was able to put her thoughts to paper and then poetry. For people not to recognise that she was writing about herself, she had to find a way of disguising herself. What she wanted was for people to read her art and not have to feel sorry for her. She says, the beauty about poetry is that you can write your feelings and give them to a bird, or any different character. The first poem she wrote, was titled, “Beast in humans,” a poem that described her father’s character-where she expressed her disappointment in humans who can be of noble character but later turn into monsters. Inspiring young generation Akimana’s poems cover a wide range of themes such as injustice, racism, wars, patriarchy, and other topics especially related to women, children, and young people. She has so far published 98 poems that are compiled in a book titled, “Scars that shape us.” Her plans include teaching young ones about the African heritage through reading and watching African content. “When children have access to only international content, they end up being inspired by it because it’s what they have. Then they start comparing themselves with things and people outside Africa,” she says. It for this reason, that she wrote about the African heritage. The poet is currently writing a fiction novel that she hopes to publish by next year. She is also writing a motivation book about mind-set with a colleague. About the reading culture She explains that so far, the reading culture is developing among Rwandans though there is still lack of enough materials to read. “This is because there are few libraries and the local content is not easily accessible. There is also lack of enough publishers, even the ones that are available, are very expensive. Authors still have a long way to go.” She carries on that there is need to put in more effort since there is a lot of Rwandan news, history, and documents that could be documented but are not. “There are many intelligent writers, who have passion for writing but lack the resources, and the platform. They don’t have people to support them.” On her part, her biggest challenge is marketing her work so as to be able to earn from her efforts. She writes her work in English, French, and Kinyarwanda. The poet dreams of having at least 50 books published. “What lacks for now are finances. I have five poetry childrens books, a memoir, a poetry book, a novel among others.” Akimana yearns to give young writers a platform to showcase their work both in soft and hard copies. She also longs to have a poetry bar, where people go to read and have fun.
