Keetmanshoop — "During my recent visit to Berlin, I attended an arts and culture programme, where my English poem about art was translated into German and it sounded plain awesome.

"This trip to Germany inspired my current project, a series of poems on how a paradigm shift can alter one's life. I want to write in German, because being a student of the language unfolds my conscious creativity.

"I am inspired to put my heart and mind on paper in a different language," said Morris Cloete, Keetmanshoop born poet who went to Germany and did an intensive German course, after he was awarded with a scholarship by the Goethe Institute where he has been learning German.

The 21-year-old poet says writing in German will be an extraordinary experience and although he doesn't have a specific style of writing, he makes use of life and nature to express emotion. His poetry is inspired by events, daily acts and the people in his life that have made an impact and triggered some kind of intense emotion - either sad, happy, confused, and any intriguing element that arouses the deepest yearning to write.

Although born in Keetmanshoop, Cloete grew up in Arandis whereafter he returned to Keetmanshoop to complete his secondary education.

"My writing reflects an inner part of myself and many times I use writing as a healing process because I got into poetry as an outlet for my emotions. I express my innermost feelings, comfort and discomfort, meaning and healing through poetry.

"My process of writing stems from not wanting to bother others with my emotional turmoil, so I'd rather explode on paper, add some rhyming and that special impact that those lines have on my emotional state is mammoth.

"I go through such a massive spiritual empowerment and healing process from the moment I start a poem until I'm done with it." said the poet, and added "I see myself most probably in Germany in a couple of years, studying literature and finishing my first book, a best seller."

Cloete advises young and upcoming poets to just allow their writing to flow, and when an idea or emotion appears, they should capture it there and then, otherwise it will be lost forever. Furthermore, they should just let it flow naturally from within, and keep writing, expressing and communicating to the world what is within.

"The most inspired highlight of my poetic life is when I partook in a writing competition in 5th grade, and got second prize - until this day it is still one of my highest accomplishments, most probably because I was such a tender age and it was an entry into my biggest challenge, puberty. All the turmoil that went along with puberty was just so overwhelming to me, losing touch with myself, feeling and being completely lost. I overcame it gradually, just went with the natural rhythm of life, and stopped regretting all my mistakes," he added.

Morris, who describes himself as his own role model, says: "I was defined by so many things, the weather, sunrise, sunset, colours, stories, tales, power, influence, muddling, but I overcometh them all, all on my own. And it resulted in reflection, which created an indescribably strange bond with myself. I now create my own beliefs, insights and motivations."

The young poet doesn't read much poetry because he wants his writing to be unaffected and not influenced by the works of other poets, however he is and continues to be inspired by Maya Angelou.

"I am excited most about the end product. How words and sentences can be structured to carry so much feeling and emotion and communicate to the reader that feeling about a certain subject, person, circumstance, situation, period, etcetera.

"What discourages me most about writing poetry is feeling uninspired, going for days and weeks, sometimes months without writing.

For something so beautiful, that brings me so much joy, and which I am very passionate about, I would want to do it everyday, every waking moment but unfortunately I can't as I strongly believe, writing can't be forced. It has to come naturally," he exclaims and continues: "I believe success and happiness go hand in hand. So I would define success as being that stage where you are so content with self, happy and just living your dream. I don't believe success has anything to do with money or possessions but with accomplishing that which makes you happy, which you've set out to accomplish."