Ridaa's Riveting Journey: Finding a Mentor Poet

     I'm going to be honest, when Mrs. Feldkamp sent the form for choosing our mentor poet I had not researched any at all! I just kind of chose from the 3 or so poets in my mind: Dr. Suess, whoever wrote the Shrek 2 script, and famous, widely respected Sufi mystic poet Rumi. I couldn't relate to the Shrek guy assuming a mere normie student like me can't have anything in common with ...

Andrew Adamson. 

So I chose Rumi, who I've heard a lot about from very educated and wise Muslims and literature fanatics in general. I mean, what a perfect choice, he is Muslim- as am I- and an extremely advanced and philosophical thinker, which I am not but that's why he would be a good mentor, right? (again I'm possibly disrespecting literally my own spirituality by closely comparing Shrek to something real and serious- and once again in my defense, Shrek is incredibly real, serious, and some theorists would say spiritual even).

    I started looking into Rumi's work and truly loved it. The recitations of the original works in Persian I found on youtube are enchanting and elegant to hear. I can love Rumi, react to his poems, and at least try to analyze them. But at this point in time and with relatively little time, I would simply be too embarrassed to write a poem in any way associated with Rumi himself. He is a mentor and inspiration to anyone who interacts with his works based on their content, but for writing I chose the wrong person. Also I literally don't speak Persian so I would have to understand based on the English translation and I should also mention he's from multiple centuries ago.

yo this guy doesn't even have photographs he's from 1237 😭💀

    I didn't settle though, I searched around with keywords I identified with and found someone who is not a literal historical figure (but could become one!) and was both attached to her words as if they were about me and in awe by them- this I could work with. (Fatima Asghar if you are pre-emptively curious)