Guest Post: CROSSROADS (Winds of love): Poetry and Prose by Jude Itakali

Today, I am delighted to welcome poet and writer, Jude Itakali, to Robbie’s Inspiration with a post about his inaugural poetry and pross collection, Crossroads (Winds of love): Poetry and Prose.

Why I love and write poetry

I love poetry because of its ability to touch many people, and yet still touch each one in a particular way. I admire the creativity it gives and the outlet for emotions that might otherwise fester within. The ability to exercise the breadth of language to pass on a message has always captivated me because it touches and evokes much deeper than plain direct words.

I write poetry because through it, I can share concerns, happiness, emotions and awareness in ways that people can read and enjoy freely and openly.

A sample of Jude’s powerful poetry:

Morning melody

Caressed by a lover’s lips

Sweet with potential

She wakes with forever’s promise

Her embrace is insatiable

A comfort

An assurance

That this is where she craves to be the most

And so you wait all day

Savouring the coming ecstasies of night

But she does not return

And though you linger

The stars dwindle

And the moon pales

‘Nothing to see here’

No love left

Only betrayal

Luscious evening breeze

Twirled portends and promises

What love do I seek?

The blurb

In the corridors of love, at the crossroads of loneliness, we stand at our most vulnerable. As the winds of love swirl, we are often ill prepared for the portends and promises that they carry. The longing, lust, fear and deception. But also the hope, renewal and lessons of love. In this book, may we be strengthened by the memory of things we have survived, soothed with the understanding of perspective, and comforted with the hope of things yet to come.

May these poems, prose and short stories touch each of us in our own particular way.

My review

Crossroads is the inaugural poetry collection of Jude Itakali. The collection comprises mainly of freestyle love poems with a smattering of other poetry styles including etheree and haiku. There are also several poetry prose stories.

The book is divided into three sections, namely, Longing and Searching; Love, Lust, and the Horrors of Heartbreak; and Healing and the poems and prose included in each section express ideas, thoughts and emotions around the central theme. The poems demonstrate passion, anger, loss, pain, and even obsession.

Jude Itakali is a talented poet with a marvellous ability to form words into powerful and emotional poems and stories. His poems differentiate themselves with their undertone of freedom and abandonment; there is a sense of the wild open spaces of Africa and the throb of the drums like a beating heart.

My favourite poem in the collection is Ngoboka (A dance of spirits) and this is a short quote:

“At first they sat and watched

Torches were lit, the clearing immaculate

A night moist with anticipation

And the air pulsating with excitement

DUM!-DUM!-DUM!

A behemoth man struck a mammoth drum”

I really enjoyed the prose stories which had a strong melodic thread running through them a bit like the background music in a movie. It really heightened the tension and Mr Itakali certainly demonstrated his ability to write scary mythological tales.

One of my favourite stories was The Presence about a young man who seeks help form a psychiatrist because he believes he is being haunted. This story has a fearful twist at the end.

Another excellent short is Manga Finds Himself about an ugly and disfigured man who is cast out by his village after being accused of attacking and murdering small children. This story reminded me of some of Aesop’s Fables in its narration and messaging.

If you enjoy beautifully written poems that stir your blood, this book is a must read.

Amazon pre-order link

Amazon US

About Jude Itakali

Jude Itakali was born and lives in Kampala, Uganda. He is publishing his first collected works, “CROSSROADS (Winds of love)

When not being an athlete on the rugby field, or crunching down numbers on a computer for work, he delicately pens the epiphanies from life and its different relationships and encounters.

He writes about all sorts of topics, finding a way to relate them with each other, because no one theme exists in a vacuum

Empathy is sometimes considered a gift, and Jude has it in abundance.

You can find more of his writing on his website here: https://wordeologist.wordpress.com/

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