I see Ishle Park’s spoken word as some of the most powerful of the readings we had this semester. While I have no personal connection to the places she talks about, or the familial events she put at the focus of her work, hearing an author read her own words had an affect on me that reading the same poem 100 times over still wouldn’t create.

Last year in Literary Criticism with Professor Harper, he couldn’t stress enough his belief that poetry should be read out loud. This is a belief that I share. But regardless of whether or not the reader makes a habit of reading these particular works aloud, I feel that the experience of reading another person’s poem will in some way always lack the author’s original intention of how and why the words are intended to be read. Sometimes, it is only by hearing the pauses, emphasis, and intended cadence as read by the author, that the “reader”—in this case, the “listener,” is able to have the most complete experience of a poem.

When it comes to slam poetry, I feel that there one other additional element that adds to the reading process. It is the understanding that the poet reading her poem is consciously reading her own words to her audience. The very act of spoken word includes the “listener” in the saying of the poetry.

In addition to Park’s work, I was also extremely drawn to Suheir Hammad’s “First Writing Since.” The first time I read this poem, I got goose bumps. (Now, coming from me that is really saying something, because the only times I ever get goose bumps is when I’m cold.) I still remember 9/11 very clearly, the images of fire on TV screen floating behind Matt Lauer and Katie Couric’s grave faces. At school that day teachers were giving updates on what was going on. And I wrote a poem about things I didn’t really understand to go into the Chino Hills High School yearbook.

But in this piece, Hammad explores ideas and topics that she understands all very well. I find the following statement to be very powerful: “but I know for sure who will pay./ in the world, it will be women, mostly colored and poor. Women will/ have to bury children, and support themselves through grief.” When transposed over images of Middle Eastern women crying and screaming in the streets of Baghdad—their own lives and loved ones casualties of the war on terror, this line seems almost prophetic. Though this idea was never far-fetched to begin with, I think that many times when people go into war, they are so focused on killing the world’s villains, that they forget about all the innocent people who are casually destroyed along the way.

I think it is important, when talking about race and cultural identity, to every so often stop and notice the humanity of all the people on this planet. Despite our understanding of the differences present in terms of color, creed and cultural identity in the United States, it seems to me that so many people have this belief that different lives have different values. I feel that in her poem, Hammad is working to combat this notion and trying to help her listeners to see the overall fragility and worth of all human life.

--Nicole Guillen