Spoken Word Quotes Quotes

“It is also about rhythm. The kind of rhythm found in creation. Everything in life possesses this sense of rhythm. The waves crashing into the sands on the beach. The wind whispering in my ears and caressing my face at the top of a hill. It is the flight of birds being borne by thermals, seemingly without effort, on a sunny afternoon in a commute to the outskirts of the city.”
― Valentine Okolo

“When everyone tows a popular line, the truth itself becomes unpopular. And unfortunately, truth is never popular.”
― Valentine Okolo

“For me poetry is the stuff of dreams. A world made up of words. The way these words sound to my ears and how they roll off the tongue. How they taste and how they feel. It is about the balance of the words I place on my lips and how they resonate past pages once performed. It is about the great power behind them. The massive creative force which moved a universe into existence and gave birth to life in Genesis. It is about poetic telegrams breathed out of the lungs and into an attentive ear.”
― Valentine Okolo

“It is always love at first-write.”
― Valentine Okolo

“It is about speaking with temerity and bearing witness for those who have no one to bear witness for them. Because they are poor. And the poor, unfortunately get trampled upon by the rich and powerful. They are those "underneath snake skin shoes and Mercedes tires" something which Niyi Osundare highlighted in one of his famous poems.”
― Valentine Okolo

“It is about representing the unrepresented. Because their pains are my pains. Their perseverance, my perseverance. And their pleasure, and small triumphs, when they do have them, are mine as well.”
― Valentine Okolo, I Will Be Silent

“I can never be divorced from them. Because they exist within me. I am her, the molested and the raped. I am him, the detained and the sold. I am they, the legions of people killed in regional subsidised genocides without names and buried in anonymous tombs.”
― Valentine Okolo, I Will Be Silent

“Most times I feel the emotions of others when I write. In those moments I become that which I write about. I see with their eyes, I hear with their ears, I feel with their skin. In those moments I cease to be myself, and become someone else. I become her, they, it. I become someone’s dreams. And relive, sometimes, their nightmares.”
― Valentine Okolo

“I write from a place of suffering. From a place of joy. I explore the two extremes in my poetry.”
― Valentine Okolo

“What is Raven from my perspective? I believe it is the collective consciousness of the suffering masses melding into one voice. I believe it is conscience personified. Perhaps, a messenger with a message. Or even, the depths of my consciousness rising to the surface. Whatever it is, “Raven” started me on a quest. And I have been on this journey for quite some time.”
― Valentine Okolo, I Will Be Silent

“I would rather live a harder reality than a happy fantasy. It is actually more satisfying, even despite the difficulties, to be outside of the faith.”
― Seth Andrews

“Be careful with passes out of your mouth, because that is what comes to pass in your life.”
― Ned Bryan Abakah

“Spoken words can be more potent than those written or unsaid, not just because of their meanings or the tone in which we utter them, but because of their magnetic energy, which is not to be dismissed as minimal or irrelevant.

That energy is like a spell of a kind, impacting or influencing and disrupting or uplifting the person, the place, or the situation at the receiving end.”
― Claudys Kantara, Rebel Thoughts of Wisdom: Inspiring Conscious Change for Personal & Collective Growth