A glimpse into poetic emotions

Bahraini poet Omar Ahmed Al Khulaqi is a busy man, straddling different worlds of art. It was a few months ago he produced his first EP (extended play) titled ‘OAK’ with his friend Ashwin Shenoy.

And now he plans to publish his poetries he wrote on Instagram page under the title ‘Beneath the OAK Tree’.

“I started writing about 11 years ago, in my ninth grade when I was in school. It was music lyrics, not poetry, interestingly that drew me to the power of words and their ability to impact the human soul,” he told Tribune.

“My early writings mainly drew from the dark atmospheric worlds of the music I listened to. Slowly that began to get a bit tired and I began to pour my own emotions into my writing. So from writing about angels and demons, I began to unleash my own psychological explorations into poems.

“With each poem, I dug deeper and deeper into my own mind, while also enhancing my vocabulary and experimenting with different themes and images. So I would say poetry helped me reflect on my own personality and opinions, hopes and dreams.

“Gothic atmospherics and terror, horrors were still my favourite genres to write about. I had a long phase where I was obsessed with manipulating the reader into falling into a cold twisted ending. At the same time, I wrote romantic poetry. So I would say those were the two prevailing moods.

“But over the past few years, I have been primarily writing spiritual poetry that relates to eastern philosophy and metaphysics. What I enjoy writing at the moment are quotes for Instagram. The picture format really constricts you and I feel that it has challenged and improved the potency of my poetic expression.”