First Gong Vol. 8: Thrust FIRST GONG 8 THRUST | Page 5

PREFACE
‘Learning is like rowing upstream; not to advance is to drop back’.
Chinese Proverb
I have watched my daughter grapple with learning how to swim, the excitement with
which she came to the pool waned after the first class as the trainer kept her hands
firmly under her stomach to help her learn to float and prompting her to thrust her
limbs. The day had ended with her dreading water as she filled her lungs a bit too
much with chlorinated water and soon dreaded swimming. However, she picked up
courage again and now that she has mastered swimming, she almost can’t hide a bit
of a show off at the pool.
Sometimes, it is impossible to hide a strength especially when display is inevitable.
It is especially difficult to hide or ignore a poet’s command of language or mastery
of literary devices, particularly when they are no doubt deeply therapeutic,
intellectually and emotionally stimulating.
This book chronicles the thought thrust of a team of anglophiles. Some at the
beginning of the learning rung, while some are published and have several titles
under their belts. In attempting to edit this readings, as an editor, you would
naturally take out some juicy words, loved dearly by the poets, some altogether
lovely and some downright poor, some were meaningful but so badly put together
and I had plans to take them out. However, I ended up keeping the beautiful, the
bad and the ugly because there is no doubt that the learning ropes of a great skill is
a story in itself.
It is a great privilege to be able to feature this display of word mastery and the
beginnings of great mind thrusts; the baby steps of word alchemists in the making,
who are not afraid to fail forward.
‘Debola Samuel
Lagos, 2018
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