A POEM IN ENGLISH (DREAM CATCHER)
Hi! My name is Eyelar. I am a singer/songwriter from the Netherlands, based in London with Iranian heritage. I moved to the UK about 7 years ago to pursue my dream to be a singer songwriter and here I am writing a little story for your eyes!
My journey so far has been a rollercoaster. Before I started releasing my own music, I started out writing songs for other artists and that was a great experience for me. Whilst (I’m) perfecting my writing skills I got to write songs for acts like Little Mix, Charli XCX, David Guetta and Demi Lovato to name (drop) some. By the way, I only mentioned those to keep your attention, so hopefully you are still with me and if you are I am very grateful! Because I’m about to tell you a story about when I was a little immigrant girl from a tiny village in the Netherlands. Population at the time: 5000 people.
So there I was dreaming about music, big cities, performing and dancing while no one in my family, friends or school did anything creative. I started writing poetry and little short stories and my parents really loved that, but they never thought I would actually do anything creative. Yet my parents entertained the songwriting and poetry because poetry is very prestigious in Iranian culture. Songwriters and poets have always been celebrated, dating all the way back to Rumi, a famous Iranian poet who was born in 1207.
When I was 11 and didn’t speak English I wrote my first English song. I typed the song out on my brothers computer who was a typical teenager who never wanted me in his room, so I did it when he wasn’t in. The next morning I walked to school with my song in my hands and my head held high. As I walked into class, I went to my teacher and I announced my first English song. I asked her if she could have a look at it and correct any spelling or grammar mistakes. My teacher got so excited and said: ‘come to me after school when everyone has left and perform it, I’ll be your audience.’ I waited patiently for the class to finish.
With my piece of paper I stood there, performed the song and waited for her to give me feedback on the song because initially, that was the whole reason why I wanted her to listen to it. I wanted to make it better. My teacher had a look in her eyes that I didn’t understand at the time. She took my paper and only corrected two small things while the whole song was faultless. I took my piece of paper back home and put it in my folder of poetry and songs. I still have it there at my mum’s house.
The melodies and words are flying through my head as I am writing this. Writing songs has always been natural for me. It’s what I felt like I was destined to do. And no one in my family or friends would have ever thought that I would travel all over the world to make music. But I am. Sure, I have things I haven’t accomplished yet and things that I can do better. But I wanted to write songs so I didn’t let anyone stop me.
The point of this story is that I want you to do what you feel like your purpose is. Let your curiosity flourish if you don’t know what that is yet. You have so much time. But whatever you do, believe in yourself the way I did when I was 11! You have the right to.
My new EP ‘Mistakes & Contradictions’ is out now.
