Thursday, March 28, 2024

A passion for words

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He is passionate about words and he knows their power, and for the last year or so Robert Gibson has embarked on a path to turn his love for language into an EroticEmpire.

Don’t think Hugh Hefner, nubile women, mansions, ascots, smoking jackets and cigars, think T-shirts, novels, poetry, editing and performances. It is a little different and some people might think it is taboo but for the NIFCA award-winning poet, he knows that waxing poetic is an outlet for him to earn money doing something that he loves.

The author who uses the moniker PassionPoet, told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY that his brand of poetry, novels, and spoken word performances seeks to remove the mystery surrounding sexuality that many people still talk about in hushed tones.

“Sex and sexuality are important for any society and should not be seen as taboo. We believe this brand can and will bring enjoyment, a healthy level of respect to sexuality, why should Fifty Shades Of Grey be the only thing that people think of when they think of erotica? Barbadian erotica has its place, and I want to express that to the world.” 

“I want EroticEmpire to be a vehicle for the spoken word persona PassionPoet. At this point, I’ve done gigs for exposure, done open mics but from the time I came up with the name and created the Facebook page for the books, I started thinking bigger,” Gibson said.

“Even though I created the page as a vehicle for the books, I thought everything can go under this banner. Each thing has a different name, for example, the editing is Passionate Words and Services but I still think that everything should be under the business name.”

He has published Erotic, Seduction, Offering And Quotes Of Passion, the latter two are ebooks as well as edited other authors’ works.

Acknowledging that it is an unusual business to be undertaking in Barbados in the sense that he is using words in a non-traditional way to earn a living, there is no doubt in his mind that it can be a viable business.

“I love words and I don’t know that I’ve thought about what will make it succeed, I’m just expecting it to succeed. I want it to work because as I say Passionate Words slogan is ‘words are writers’ currency, let us help you spend them wisely’. That’s basically how it works. period, in everything. Words are my foreplay, words are everything to me. Some people take their hobby and monetize it and that’s basically what I’m doing.”

The fact that Barbados is celebrating its 50th anniversary of Independence is also the impetus for Gibson to press ahead with his goals. He knows that while some of would cringe at the thought of someone using the service to speak about sex and sexuality above a whisper, it is because of their ancestors’ hard work and foresight that he is able to do what he does.

As he sees it, writers in every genre have played a pivotal role in this state’s heritage evoking thoughts, actions or capturing an aspect of the past.

He started writing when he was 14 years old but not steadily. He wrote a few lines and put it down and it was an outlet for him to express his feelings.

About his NIFCA entries, he has copped silver for Luscious – a poem about a ham cutter – that is craftily written and this year, he won a bronze medal for his poem titled Naniki:Frank Collymore Hall 2016. He admitted, though, that he has never written a poem specifically for the national festival, but would do so for 2017 as well as enter more categories.

His advice to other writers and people contemplating getting into the creative sector is this: “Don’t give up, believe in yourself and fight for your voice. The thing about art is that it is subjective. Art being subjective means – no disrespect to the judges – that even if the judges don’t like it, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved on, that it, in and of itself, is no good.

“I’ve critiqued people and recognising that they were still babies in the author’s world, I couched my critiquing in soft language and they still wanted to give up. I said ‘come on now, your voice is your voice, if nobody likes it, it doesn’t stop it from being your voice, you can always improve”, said Gibson. (GBM)

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