Change Inspired by Literature

This article was originally published by the Mount Mercy Times on April 4, 2019 by Lincoln Currie, staff writer.

Orlando Clark dreams of playing professional soccer, a sport that has created many other opportunities for him.

“Soccer gave me the chance to get a degree and at the same time I am close enough to go pro in soccer,” Clark said.

Clark’s hope is to get a contract to play soccer in the United States, but he also wants to return to his home country, Jamaica, to use his English skills to help the Jamaican people.

"I want to be an English professor in my home country," said Clark. "I want to help my country and the best way to help a people is to educate them."

Clark also hopes to write while teaching as a professor. 

“My writing style is very odd, as I try to push the boundaries of literature,” Clark said. “I love to mix things.” 

Clark said that in addition to his unconventional style, his perspective is also distinctive because growing up in two different worlds, America and Jamaica, gives him the ability to deal with people better.

That unconventional style and unique perspective can create new results.

“I can write a poem in English and then can switch stanzas of that same poem and write in my Jamaican dialect, and just like that I have two poems,” Clark said.

Clark added that he does not intend on sticking to one literary genre.

“I don’t have a set genre that I encapsulate myself in.”

“I don’t have a set genre that I encapsulate myself in,” Clark said.

Clark considers John Donne, George Herbert, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Jack Kerouac to be some of the most important influences of his writing and morality. He likes those writers because they write about freedom, love, and nature.