Best Of Newham — Meet Sonia Quintero from Newham Poetry Group.
In this weeks ‘Best of Newham’ Series, I had the opportunity to talk to Sonia Quintero, a Colombian poet and artist.
Sonia is the founder of the ‘Newham Poetry Group’. The initiative hosts weekly poetry workshops in Stratford and East Ham Library.
The poetry group workshops attract people from all walks of life. The sessions offer a space were people can feel inspired and allows them a chance to creatively express their feeling, thoughts and opinions using a range of artistic outlets.
Sonia tells us about how she started the group, what inspires her and talks about her new book ‘Words are not enough”.
Tell me about yourself and what you do?
“I’ve lived in London for 20 years, and in Newham almost 4 years. When I first arrived in Newham, I wanted to find ways to be part of the community and to engage with the community. I didn’t just want to work and live here, I wanted to find ways of re-connecting with the community and the best way to do this was through my passion of poetry. It was very scary at first as English was not my first language.
I approached Stratford Library and spoke to them about running poetry sessions. The library was very supportive and offered me the space. Initially was thinking of running the poetry sessions in Spanish but the library were really enthusiastic about me running them in English as there was nothing like this in the area.
The first 2 months I was on my own but I was happy, I had my poetry and free coffee (Sonia say’s laughing). The group eventually started to grow and week on week more and more people started to come. The group has been running for over 2 years now. We have people of all ages, ranging from 8 to 80 years old, different cultures, different languages and different skills”.
What are the sessions about?
“I don’t teach how to write poetry, I just try to inspire people to read and write and give them the space to express themselves in any way they feel comfortable.
We need to respect the fact that everyone understands poetry in different ways, for some people it could be about love, for some people its about social issues and for a lot of people it could be about breaking the rules.
I found that the word ‘poetry’ can frighten people, especially young people. These sessions are a great way to overcome that fear and show them that poetry has no boundaries”.
What are your hopes for the group?
“My dream is have a space solely for poetry, like a poetry house for Newham. Something permanent would be good. The library is a great space and I’ve really enjoyed running these sessions there but to have a space dedicated to poetry would be amazing”.
What inspires you?
“Everything, my poems are quite dark, depressing some would say. I like to talk about all the challenges that the world is facing. Political, social issues but I also write about personal things to”.
Sonia has published her first book in English ‘Words are not enough’.
‘The book is about my personal journey. The people i have met over the years and in the group inspired me to write in English’ for the first time.
“Words are not enough” can be bought in paperback and Kindle Edition from Amazon
“Words are not enough” is a journal that recreate’s the adventure of an individual who is looking for their roots, a place to feel safe and a new language that they can identify with. The poems in this book are like a contraction, a painful expression of “non identity,” the feeling that we face when the world we are learnt are not enough to make other understand us. Sometimes, during the journey of looking for who we are, we discover the priceless treasure that other languages and expressions have. We can develop a universal meaning and connection when we manage to ignore the barriers and dive into the unknown in order to recognise who is on the other side. Poetry happens beyond words”. Sonia Quintero.
To find out more about the Newham Poetry Group:
Twitter: twitter.com/newhampoetrygrp
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newhampoetrygrp