Verses of truth from a young author

For Naeem Hossain, 15-year old author of a poetry collection titled Something You Need to Know, writing is a part of daily life. "I find clarity and navigate my life each day through writing in morning pages," says the young poet. "I begin at the top of the first page, with my heart as heavy as lead and as I go on to the bottom of the third page, nuggets of truth begin to glimmer. My most authentic voice comes from writing. It is my source of creative inspiration."

Poetry is the best outlet for Naeem to express his feelings and personal experiences. He is a student of Little Jewels School, Chattagram.

Fascinatingly, Naeem did not really like poetry until he read Love her Wild by Atticus. Reading that book showed Naeem that feelings can be expressed immensely well through poetry. Another poetry book that Naeem highly recommends is Uncaged Wallflower by Jennae Cecelia.  After writing poetry for a while, Naeem knew he wanted to see his work published in literary platforms. So, he began participating in writing workshops and spending his time submitting pieces to literary journals, magazines and anthologies, only to receive rejection after rejection. As he was picking which pieces to submit, he came upon a realisation. "I figured out that all my poems came together to make one body of work," explains Naeem. "It was not right to pick off pieces because readers would only fully understand the emotions behind them if they read all the pieces in the order that I put them." So, he set his eyes on self-publishing the poetry collection. Even though publishing his book was a tough nut to crack, Naeem feels that it was worthwhile. His family did not even know his plans of publishing his book until the proof-reading copy arrived at their door. Today, they are proud to have a son who is a published poet at such a young age. Naeem hopes to publish a novel in the future.