By Daniel Fadzlan Bin Abdullah
On October 26, 2024, Quest International University (QIU) held a Malaysian National Poetry Slam (MNPS) 2024, organised by the Malaysian Institute for Debate and Public Speaking (MIDP). This event, set on QIU’s Ipoh campus, brought together participants from across Malaysia, both onsite and online, to explore poetry’s impact and participate in the slam competition.
The session began with an eye-opening talk by trainer Muhammad Danial Malik or better known by his nom de plume or pen name Jack Malik, a seasoned poet who has published three poetry books. Malik encouraged everyone to see poetry not just as a way to express thoughts, but as a medium to understand one’s identity. He emphasized that poetry allows us to express emotions and ideas honestly, using language that reflects who we are. Malik shared, “In a way, Poetry is daydreaming, as it is an escape to a plane where your inner self can be heard.” With references to poets like Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens, he illustrated how well-crafted verses can express what we often find hard to say aloud.
After the lecture, attendees were guided through exercises that involves experimenting with poetic techniques like metaphor, alliteration, and simile. Malik and the MIDP team had all of us play around with different forms from haiku to free verse and encouraged us to dig deeper into what we wanted to express. The interactive setup made it easy for students to engage, practice and appreciate the artistry in poetry.
As a Corporate Communications student, I joined the workshop along with Rehashinee Sathiyananthan, a student studying MBBS. Even as student volunteers, we got to participate in the exercises and share our pieces of poetry. This experience gave us a deeper connection and revelation to the purpose of poetry, highlighting its power to bring people closer to their true selves and to each other.
During the workshop, I performed my poem, “Feeling Forward,” inspired by Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise. This poem captures a journey of self-discovery. More precisely in regards to how I once felt out of place in different paths before realizing that writing was part of my calling. As a brief snippet from a stanza in the poem, I wrote:
“As I walked through the valley of despair,
A thought raced through my mind:
‘I am good at something, I am good at something,
I am good at something.’”
These lines reflect the moment I saw my potential, realizing that sometimes what we’re looking for is already within us. Performing this for an audience brought a sense of fulfilment and connection, as I hoped others who heard it could also find strength in their unique pathways.
The event wrapped up with a slam poetry competition, where high school students showcased their freshly crafted poems. Winners from this round advanced to the finals at Taylor’s University on November 9, 2024, where they’ll have another chance to share their voices.
I had the opportunity to represent the Northern region at the Malaysian National Poetry Slam (MNPS) Grand Finale 2024 on 10 November, at Taylor’s University Lake Side Campus in Subang Jaya. In preparation for the event, I enlisted the help of my family to craft and tweak the poems I had created for the competitions to ensure their quality and piercing meanings embedded within them.
For each of the poems that I had crafted, I touched upon different perspectives on what I had perceived to be experiences in my life that I had considered to be moments of me “Failing Forward” as it was the unifying theme of this year’s competition, It was only natural for me to include the poem that I had included during the workshop “Feeling Forward” as it deals with the struggles I had moving on from a path that I didn’t belong, In addition to it, I had also crafted two new poems titled “Kataomoi Finally (片想いFinally)” inspired by a song by the Japanese idol girl-group SKE48 of the same name and “The night of the living dead”, and brief snippets of the respective poems are the following:
“Kataomoi Finally (片想いFinally)”
This is the essence of kataomoi,
the art of holding on to love
even when it doesn’t hold you back,
of loving without receiving,
of feeling without expecting.
“The Night of the Living Dead”
Resistance bears a knife, tyranny rides a tank.
The living dead are in uniform, the naked runner is trapped.
Fire rains from the skies, the open air’s a camp.
Gaza means deformity, hostages don’t count.
Borders make a wasteland, and the posse are out for the patriots who defend their homeland.
In the end, through my performances of these three poems and thanks to the support I had received from my family including my Grandmother Madam Faridah, My uncles, Muhammad Afiq and Muhammad Afiq and my mother Nur Maisarah, I managed to perform these three poems in front of a diverse audience of judges, participants and spectators invited by MIDP in Taylor’s University Lecture Theatre 1, I managed to secure the second runner up position or third place in the competition for the varsity category, I consider this to be one of greatest achievements of this year, as it had been the first time I had ever participated in a poetry competition in any capacity, and for that, I sincerely thank God and the people around me including my mentors Jack Malik and Prof. Sivabala Naidu for giving me that chance to prove myself.
Overall, the poetry workshop at QIU and the Grand Finale was a space for growth, resilience, and self-acceptance. It reminded us that poetry, as Malik put it, is more than just words; it’s a revelation of one’s values and experiences, expressed eloquently in a form that while still being artistic carries an abundance of meaning behind every verse.
The full list of Daniel’s poems can be found here.
