Landry’s Story

Landry Affton, who took part in our Change the Word project in Coventry 2019, writes about capturing the human heart through words.

The experience of the Change the Word project was very rewarding. My approach to the project was only driven by a simple curiosity and I said: Let me participate in the project - who knows that learning my English improves, since English is not my mother language. 

The first meeting to start writing some poems was not easy for me, I didn't understand very well how to express my thoughts by writing them on paper. I had all the difficulties of the world because I didn't understand and I didn't know how to write well in English.

I had never written a poem. I never even wrote a poem during the elementary school, but I liked the idea of doing new things but above all of telling people that I had a story to write and make them fall in love with through poetry.

The titles on which to develop the poems were very interesting and deep; so I started writing and with the help of my classmates but especially the project supervisors, I was able to write my poem. 

Participating in the Change the Word project was fantastic, it made that period of my life one of enthusiasm and excitement. The reflections on my little experience, the discovery of poetry, meeting with people of different cultures, languages, nationalities and the beauty of how to transform words into a work of art that captures the mind and the heart was fantastic.

After that period of writing today I can no longer do without thinking of poetry and all that concerns theatrical writing.

Now I study monologue in the theater and sometimes I write some poems about the facts of my daily life, describing it as something magnificent and surprising as only poems can be.

Landry Affton, Ivory Coast