"Words find light in the midst of this green garden that you watered with love, flowers glowing with such passion, in the midst of other hands holding yours tight - sober in love - collecting coins and hard earned money to pay off rent - words become lines among all this melancholy- mediocre moments - art end of the day is art, our souls writing off our own and each other, the railings still could be rusty and the walls gathering dust but our eyes will find the pealing and the colours of the rust." - Adrian De Silva - 

What does a writer mean when they say what they see? A string of words together to tell a story or translate emotion. Poets and bards, composers, writers express a feeling unravelled and unhinged in raw procession. The beauty of its articulate nuances fragmented in words manifested by the cell of a perception. We conversed Adrian De Silva, emerging writer whose poems and prose we comprehended through his perception as he discussed his inspirations and thoughts, the inklings that begin a verse to create a stanza.

Q | Can you share with us a brief description of yourself and your journey in writing?

A | Known mostly for my work in the fashion trade of being a creative director for upcoming brands and a former model, I would best describe myself as someone who takes solace in the daily chaos of life, using its elements and what’s around me to create for myself and for others what I would describe as art, though people know me a lot as Adrian De Silva – I use a simplified version of my name going as “Ian” to build a different persona for my writing as a getaway. Though I didn’t study literature nor did I study in English most of my life, poetry was a no-brainer for me. Many years ago, while sitting at my work desk, something amazing happened. I started stringing words together, it was effortless, and what I created was a very simple version of the reality I experienced in others and myself - raw simplified poems and prose.

Q | What were/are your inspirations that have influenced your poetry?

A | Mostly people. By which I mean people themselves are their own works of art, and writing about them gives me a chance to step into their shoes and their lives for a moment. From an early age, I liked the writing styles of ‘Hemingway’ and ‘Charles Bukowski’ – even a few modern age poets on social media platforms like, ‘Atticus’ or ‘R M Drake’ really changed the way in which I viewed how poetry can touch, move and effect people. I myself experienced this, hence, why I try to write my own little bits here and there.

Q | What are your thoughts on the romanticization in poetry and how has this practice been implemented in your writing?

A | I think every bit of detail in our mundane days, like the comparison of a person’s feelings to what surrounds them, has a big impact on how we write and grasp that kind of poetry. I too, write about daily occurrences, trying to make something dark and dull into a piece of readable art. It changes the scope of how we interact with the world, between the writer and the reader, it’s kind of therapeutic in a broader sense, to understand themselves and everything around them, in relation to elements, words, instances all strung together by another person. A simple occurrence like a wine glass swirling in its spirts in extreme detail, or how a sun rises and sets can have more depth when written in poetry than when treated on a literal stance.

Q | Can you explain what your thought process is in writing?

A | I don’t set a specific time or reserve time to sit down and write out pieces. My poetry happens on the get-go, while traveling from point A to B, I build on a simple idea with a structure to have an end message and a beautiful story between the beginning and end. I then try to set myself in a place where I can imagine the piece happening, in order to bring intricate details of the setting to the reader, to make them feel more connected to the story, as though they are there, in that very moment.

Q | What are your thoughts on the Sri Lankan literary industry?

A | I think it’s growing, people are able to express themselves on a much broader sense with social media platforms at their disposal and poetry readings happening. With set events, like-minded people are able to gather and make a community. We should work on publications and traditional methods of bringing these local talents to light, which I hope will happen in the near future.

Artists are often romanticizing nuances of mundane instances, presenting intriguing contemplations through rose-coloured lenses, and idealizing their perceptions of a cracked simulation to convey and translate their innermost beliefs. In his poems, we find that Adrian De Silva writes poetry in soulful methodology, an act of self-serving honesty that understands his introspective internalized observations. From encapsulating a feeling to putting pen to paper, the mind of a poet or writer is constantly capturing the mundane and the extraordinary. We believe Adrian’s potential to realize and acknowledge his cognizant ideas and implement them poetically allows his words to echo into the conscious of a reader beautifully.

Adrian’s poems can be found on his Instagram page, @poemsbyian