Thoughts

The Poetry in Money

~ Sarrah Hakim ~ 5 Comments

I’m sitting in the business school at my university as I write. This past semester was my first semester being part of the business school, my first semester taking business classes. People kept asking me if I liked it. Do you like your classes? Do you like the B-school?

And I felt myself struggling to say yes. I really wanted to, but for some reason I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would.

Why?

I wasn’t sure before, but I think I know now. I think for a long time, I’ve typecast myself. I’ve told myself that I love creative writing, and therefore I am a certain type of person. And that type of person doesn’t belong in a business school. It sounds absurd, and honestly, it is. But it’s what I was doing subconsciously.

Last year I took an English class and didn’t like it as much as I thought I would. But my brain said, “You like English. So you should like the class.”

I’m realizing now how silly that was, and I’m also realizing that I don’t have to like every aspect of things I like, if that makes sense. I can like business without liking all the classes in the business school, and I can like English without liking all the English classes I take, and I can like reading without liking every book I read.

Most importantly, I’ve realized that choosing to major in business does not make me a certain type of person. It does not mean I have to follow a certain path. It does not mean I’m greedy or materialistic. And it doesn’t mean I can’t love to write poetry.

It means I’m learning things that are useful, things I want to know, things that will help me understand the world around me better. And yeah, hopefully I can get a job out of that. But hopefully I can also live a life that makes me happy and that makes me feel good about what I’m doing.

Robert Graves said, “There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.”

But I think there is poetry in money – if you want it to be there.

New Poetry!

~ Sarrah Hakim ~ 1 Comment

This isn’t a real post per se, but I promise there’s some good stuff for you to read. 🙂 I spent a good chunk of time digging out and sorting practically all of the poems I’ve ever written. I’ve uploaded them and categorized them under the poetry tab. You’ll notice that the majority of them rhyme, but I’m also beginning to experiment with free verse. I think rhyming will always be my signature style though. Check them out, enjoy, and please comment if you like what you read!

The Perfect Idea + The Best of 2014

~ Sarrah Hakim ~ 2 Comments

So at this point there are about six hours until 2015, which just goes to show how good I am at procrastinating. I think the reason I stayed away from this blog for so long was that I just didn’t know what to write about. I wanted to write something interesting, something people would enjoy reading, but I didn’t know where to begin. I spent so long searching for the perfect idea that 2014 got tired of hanging around and just sped on by.

It’s the same way with writing novels. I’ve been sitting around for a year now, just waiting for the perfect idea to come to me. Just waiting for inspiration. But I finally realized that you can’t just sit and wait, because life will pass you by. The perfect idea isn’t something that comes; it’s something that’s made. And it can’t be made unless you start somewhere. So from now on, I’m not going to sit and wait anymore. My resolutions for the new year are to resurrect this blog and to write as often and as much as I can.

That being said, even though 2014 went fast, it was a great year, and I feel obligated to recount some of what made it so memorable for me:

1. Graduating high school/getting my IB diploma/starting college

2. My trip to Egypt, Yemen, and India/seeing family

3. Getting my driver’s license

4. Summer sleepovers/get-togethers with friends/volleyball/badminton/playing euchre all night

5. The coldest winter ever/the most snow days ever/skiing/bonding time on the ski lift

6. Performing at teahouse

7. Prom

8. Senior prank/senior skip day/senior skit

9. Playing “I Spy” with my friend Shriyash during band class/band in general

10. My last synchronized swimming season

So here’s to 2014 –  and here’s to 2015 being even better.

What Good Poetry Does

~ Sarrah Hakim ~ 1 Comment

Yes, it’s been a long time since I last posted. And yes, I don’t have an excuse. But I’m not going to make one up. The truth is that I had plenty of opportunities to post. I just didn’t. Maybe it had something to do with the abnormally cold winter that Michigan experienced this year? (It was nice getting snow days at first, but after a while it was miserable. Sucked out all the motivation.) Maybe senioritis kicked in and I felt like doing absolutely nothing, including updating my blog?

I don’t know. But hey, better late than never, right? On to what this post is really about:

This is the last stanza in the poem “The Secret of the Sea” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Till my soul is full of longing
For the secret of the sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a thrilling pulse through me.

Longfellow might have been referring to the ocean, but good poetry does the exact same thing. It sends a thrilling pulse through me. And then I think to myself, “I want to write like that!”

To be honest, I think that’s the best possible thing poetry can do. Inspire you to write your own. Great writing makes you feel something, but the best writing makes you write something. It’s kind of like when you listen to music that’s so beautiful it makes you shiver. And then you wonder what it would be like if you could do something like that; what if that gorgeous sound you’re hearing were made by you?

Writing poetry is about expressing yourself, but it’s also about putting your thoughts and emotions somewhere. It’s about putting something of yours into the world. And it might seem insignificant, but it’s not. Because it’s yours, and it’s in writing, and it’s there. Even when you’re gone, the writing stays.

I like that. I like the thought of an author or a poet living on through his or her words. I don’t think you have to be famous for that to happen, either. Someone will have read it. Someone will read it in the future. And that, I think, is enough.

Looking Past the Rain

~ Sarrah Hakim ~ 5 Comments

I don’t know where you’re living, but where I am there’s nothing but rain. Michigan weather can be ridiculously unpredictable at times, but every single day this week has been the same. (Okay, to be fair, it hasn’t rained yet today, but it’s still cold, it’s still rained every other day this week, and it looks like next week will be the same.)

It makes it hard to get stuff done, and if you’re like me, it makes you feel gloomy, too. I guess they don’t kid around when they say “April showers.”

It reminds me of this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

The Rainy Day

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

I like this poem a lot, and the main reason is that although the first two stanzas sound really depressing, once you get to the third one you realize that the poem itself is quite encouraging.

Some days (in Michigan’s case, weeks) are going to be gloomy. And there’s nothing we can do about it, except remember that the sun is out there, somewhere behind the clouds. We can’t control the weather, but at least we can control our outlook on life. Besides, if every single day were sunny and bright, I don’t think we would appreciate those days as much as the first sunny day after a period of rain. I guess this way we don’t take the sun for granted.

And hopefully we’ll get a lot of nice flowers because of the rain. 🙂

I personally have a really hard time with gloomy weather because it affects my mood. It may have something to do with SAD; I’m not sure. But whatever it is, the lack of sun gets me feeling rather depressed. When this happens, it helps just to remember sunnier days of the past or look at pictures of tropical places I’d one day like to visit. I have a calendar on my desk with a photo of a tropical island for each day. I also have vivid memories of my trip two years ago to Florida. This might sound silly, but if I try hard enough, I can almost feel the sunlight on my back.

A photo of me in a place I’d rather be at the moment – relaxing in the Florida Keys on a sunny day!

It reminds me a lot of the book Frederick, by Leo Lionni. You can read more about the book here. It’s a children’s picture book, and it’s very nice. I would definitely recommend reading it. It’s quite inspirational and the pictures are beautiful.

At any rate, I think if we can just look past the rain and remember those warm, sunny days we’ve had, we can make it through the gloominess. Just try not to let those dark days get you down. Here’s to brighter days in the future!