Author Jacob Oketch dares to delve into the world of writing poetry

Jacob Oketch wears many hats. He is a practicing print journalist, a performing artist and a storyteller. As if the hats are not too many for just a single head, he has added yet another to his burgeoning collection.

Following in the footsteps of journalists-turned poets like the renowned English journalist, poet and novelist Joseph Rudyard Kipling, Mr Oketch is now an author.

Fusing the feelings in the heart and ideas in the intellect, the University of Nairobi alumnus has taken a dive into what is considered the most honourable literary genre: poetry.

With more than a decade of writing as a freelance journalist, the PEN International, Kenyan Chapter Treasurer has harnessed the experience and skills into a debut book; an anthology of poems titled Aphorisms and Poems of Light, adding his name into a world less travelled by many literary minds.

Aptly captured by the title, the poems are simple in nature but are intended to express a general truth complete with astute observations loaded with thought-provoking shades of unparalleled emotional and spiritual awareness.

Though not at the calibre of great poets like Kipling, Oscar Wilde who was known for his dalliance with aphorisms and even William Shakespeare with his famous sonnets, Mr Oketch, nonetheless, has managed to pen 106 poems representing a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings and emotions recollected in tranquility as William Wordsworth would put it, summarised in very few words.

Not restricted or dictated by the distinctions of serious poetry including structure, form, literary devices, rhymes and meters, the author, still in his early 40’s, goes about his work stirred by his life experiences.

The self-published collection contains poems that are mostly relatable and focus on everyday life experiences packed with pieces of advice on how to navigate through challenging circumstances borrowing heavily from the author’s experiences while battling doubts, hopelessness and other vagaries of life at the time of writing the poems.

Feeling somehow unchained from his past, Mr Oketch goes ahead to pour his heart out through the 112 page-book while also delving into the spiritual realms tackling matters to do with vanity, afterlife, and salvation, among other themes.

“I read a lot of spiritual literature and I guess this is what partly inspired me to write the book. I also felt that there isn’t much written about the supernatural category of poetry. And I was also going through a lot of tribulations and so it was a kind of a way of healing for me,” Mr Oketch, a master’s degree holder in communication studies from UoN, told Saturday Nation.

What makes this book the more intriguing is its repleteness with symbolism and imagery with the cover page setting the pace.

The cover is made up of a burning candle set on a pitch-black background with the word “light” from the title contrasted with the rest of the words by being set in a white colour. White, often synonymous with purity and peacefulness, here denotes hope.

On the other hand, the opaque background represents an obscure and dark past while the burning candle is a symbol of life, hope and bright future amid the darkness.

Aphorisms and Poems of Light, therefore, embodies candid expressions of what the author went through battling darkness until he saw the light that he unpacks in various themes.

The first poem is titled “Someone Walked Through a Wall”. The poem talks about triumph against obstacles, represented by a wall, encountered in day-to-day life.

In "Avert the Calamity," the author delves into the world of dreams, reminding the reader of the power of a dream which he says could be premonitions of what lies in wait for us.

"Eternal Being and No End" talks about belief in life after death where the author says we are beyond what we appear to be because before we are born, we were present and we will still be there eternally even after death.

In "The Self," the author tackles the issue of vanity reminding the reader that the truest form of accumulation is spiritual abundance that should be everyone’s desire.

But can poetry be complete without a dip into the world of love? The author takes the reader on a soul train of sorts with several poems exploring this abstract noun.

What best to sum up the love theme than "Matters of the Heart?" The poet is explicit in his belief that matters of the heart are not for sale unlike those of the flesh. For him, when it comes to love, there are no willing buyers and sellers but all is about inner feelings that know no tangible gold.

The book is available online on Amazon and at All African Bookshop at Hazina Towers, Nairobi. The book will be officially launched at the French Cultural Centre on July 16, 2022.

The book can also be ordered directly from the author through his mobile number 0716059616.

The author, who is working on his doctoral thesis on behavioural communication, is set to release his second book – a non-fiction piece on alcoholism – later in the year. Mr Oketch still writes for Nairobi Law Monthly and Nairobi Business Monthly.

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