I want to influence society with my writing –Mee Zuyeali

Mariam Musa popularly known as Mee Zuyeali, is the national Vice President of the Association of Nigerian Student Authors (ANSA).
A graduate of English Language from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, who hails from Kogi state, speaks to AWAAL GATA, on her passion, dreams and challenges as a writer.
How did your literary passion develop? My passion for writing resulted from my quiet nature.
Right from when I was a child, from my primary school days, I have always been the most quiet child in my class.
I grew to a point that I began to feel the scar of being angry and yet quiet and then I found myself venting my anger on pen and paper.
That made me felt better; after all, it is said that ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’.
The first thing I ever attempted to write was poetry and that was after I lost my dad when I was in SSS 1.
I became even more quiet and I found solace in poetry.
Teachers knew me to be the quiet, shy and always smiling girl but that was because I felt my pains were not meant to be shared, I felt only good things should be shared with people and that so, I smiled always.
My first poem was about parenting and my then Literature teacher commended my effort and gave out the poem to be recited by a junior student during the school’s graduation ceremony because I was never interested in speaking in front of so many people.
Apparently, my love for writing developed as a result of seeking companionship I couldn’t find with the people I met in school as a juvenile.
What are your dreams? I would love to become a very free and independent writer, a very realistic one.
I don’t want to be tied to the shores of rhymes alone; I want to be a writer that drops the heart on the paper just as it is.
I am currently working on a story that tells a lot about the place of my birth, Delta State; and the story is in Pidgin English.
I want the world to know me for my special kind of writing William Wordsworth’s The World is Too Much with Us; Kobena Eyi Acquah’s In the Navel of the Soul; and A.E.
Houseman’s To an Athlete Dying Young; were the literary works I read that made me felt I could write too.
I felt in so much agreement with the authors based on my understanding of the poems then and I said to myself: “these authors seem to be seeing things from the same perspective with me, so let me write and be like them.” Are they still your role models? Literature is dynamic; it is the society’s mirror that tells the happenings of the society in beautiful ways.
From when I started writing till now, things have changed, our literature has also changed and so have my literary role models.
Presently, my literary role models are Niyi Osundare, especially for his poem: “My Lord, Tell me Where to Keep Your Bribe;” and Helon Habila, for his novel; Waiting for an Angel.

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