Oji Lusan Anderson

B2

Poetry


A curiosity through love, feeling, and imagination shapes my writing voice. Poetry is not always a reflection of my lived experience, but rather a space where I can explore emotions, storytelling, and metaphor in a fictional way. While there is naturally some overlap between art and my own life, I don’t write to document what’s true; I enjoy writing the “what could be.”

I gravitate toward imagery and personification to animate my work. I love the idea of giving life to the nonhuman or abstract, letting an emotion have a body, or letting an inanimate object become a character. Fiction allows freedom, giving me room to bend reality and arrive at something emotionally true, even if the story itself isn’t real.

My process is rooted in exploration rather than structure. I often begin with a sentence or image I can’t stop thinking about, and the rest of the poem builds around that. I revise in layers- letting the voice, tone, and emotional resonance settle. While writing is often solitary, I’ve learned to value feedback, which helps me see how others experience my work and where clarity or connection might grow.

Ultimately, I write to create emotional worlds. Ones that blur truth and fiction, sound and language, self and story.


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