After spending around 2 years writing poetry about fictional characters from all around the world, I asked a friend who is more in touch with the geeky tech world to put together a WORD CLOUD from all the poems that featured on this blog.
As many of you know, a world cloud is generated based on the number of times a word happens to be in a given body of text. Out of 100 poems and around 25,000 words the more a word recurs the larger it would be in the cloud. So looking at the result for bohemiaspeaks in which characters from all walks of life are pouring their hearts out in poetry is sort of a mini-exercise that tries to capture the essence of human nature and emotions.
Lo and behold, the result is a beautiful portrait that I will have to hold on to for some time and think about. I will not try to make sense of the exact recurrence of words in this cloud, I do not think that we need to. But I think that we can just look at it, enjoy its randomness and beauty, and be grateful for any word inside that resonates with us.
This word cloud is the common denominator between: the sex worker in Amsterdam, the Child Worker in Hanoi, the Taxi Driver in Manhattan, the Investment Banker in Calcutta, the Plumber in Buenos Aires, the Soldier in Baghdad, the Gypsy Weaver in the south of Spain, the Pop Star in Tokyo, the Woman in a Burka in Kandahar, the Painter in Lima, the Whirling Dervish in Istanbul, the Female Activist in London, the DJ in Ibiza, the Cancer Patient, the Sailor, the Sociologist, the Pilot, the Eskimo, the Suicide Bomber, the Swahili Hunter, the Pigeon Keeper, the Scriptwriter, the Gravedigger and the list goes on and on covering 100 characters!!!
This is a visual testament that there is no difference between us all. Across races, nationalities, professions, religions, political affiliations we can still find so much words in common. Words like “love”, “life”, “together”, “dreams” and “truth”. Or words like “fear”, “pain”, “empty”, “darkness” and “burn”.
In conclusion of this experiment, I guess our lives are nothing but a word cloud in progress. It is up to us to decide which words will appear with greater weight. If we take a snapshot of our lives right now, what words would be counted most? What words would be counted most if we took a snapshot of the world? And based on this knowledge, how will we act accordingly?
A famous poet called Rumi once said: “Let your words rise, and not your voice. For it is the rain that grows flowers and not the thunder”.
Just some food for thought.
Sincerely,
The Author of Bohemiaspeaks
