Mariya Sidi: A peep into medical student’s love of poetry

Sometimes people find their love in odd things. For Mariya Sidi, despite the stress of studying medicine, the Kano-state-born still finds time to sustain her love for poetry. However, the 23 year old final year student of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the Bayero University Kano revealed that poetry helps her free up the stress.

She said: “With all the stress in medicine, poetry came as an escape. A way to free up some of the things I have been bottled in. It’s much more than that and I discovered this with time.

“It became very important to me and made me so happy. It has now reached an extent that I have to try very hard to pay attention in class whenever an idea comes to me. It feels like everything I think of must be shared. It now feels more like magic… the power that words have and what words can create.

At what age Mariya started writing poetry, she said: “I can’t say exactly. I did it at leisure when I was in secondary school. I only recently started taking it seriously.”

Though medicine is her first love, the intelligent potential doctor said poetry has a permanent space in her heart. When asked about her plans of having a collection of poems, Mariya said she isn’t at all in a hurry to go to press, instead, she said: “My collection is growing steadily. At some point I will try to publish them.”

Does Mariya write other genre, like prose and drama? Her response in that regard was: “I am interested in short stories too but I don’t have time to sit and write, just the ideas in my head for now.”
Talking about her main source of influence as a poet, Mariya said: “Reading books I would say. I love reading fictional novels a lot. I used to write short stories and stop halfway because I didn’t have the patience to finish them. So I diverted my attention to poetry. Poems are short and easier to finish.”

Granted that Mariya now has the passion, what about the energy to sustain it? Because, for example, poetry doesn’t pay instantly – one has to do and do and do before results start trickling down. Mariya therefore replied thus: “I think I do have the energy. As long as there are muses and inspirations, then patience too I think I can sustain it. Where there is passion there is endurance, remember?”

It is often said that most medical doctors like marrying themselves. How does this proclamation relate to Mariya: “I won’t say most, because it applies only to a certain proportion. To some it is advantageous while to others it’s a No-No. Also, to others it’s not the profession, it’s the person. So for me I will also say it’s not the profession, it’s the person.”

Sharing her views on writing generally, Mariya concluded that writing creates portals. “For the writers it opens portals to their mind for other to explore and allows other to see through their eyes while it allows the reader the multiple of experiences and boosts the imagination.”
“I cannot write about something I don’t believe in. Although imaginations have no limits, but when I try to write something I don’t believe in, it becomes forced and I lose flow and it often doesn’t come out good,” said Mariya when she was asked what she could not do as a writer.
Mariya’s poems are basically about relationship and personal experiences. Why does she choose to explore that? The poet said: “I just believe in the beauty of Love. Love in its many forms. Those are the musings that appeal more to me and those around me.

“That’s where I feel most of the creativity coming from though I make them as impersonal as possible. Also, it’s mostly self definition and then love. Let me add that Love is my favourite theme.”

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