Gluttony

Part of Speech: Noun

Definition: “greedy or excessive indulgence”

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gluttony

Found In: “Choi Jeong Min” by Franny Choi line 34 – “& accuse us of gluttony when we learn to swallow it.”

Explain: The word gluttony means being greedy. This helps me better understand the poem because it shows that the speaker is accused of being greedy but she accepts being called greedy because she says she is greedy.

Pseudonym

Part of Speech: Noun

Definition: “a fictitious name”

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pseudonym

Found In: “Choi Jeong Min” by Franny Choi line 22 – “her pseudonym, though everyone in my family is a poet.”

Explain: The word pseudonym means a fake name. This helps me understand the poem better because it shows how her mom doesn’t use her fake name but her real English name.

Anglo

Part of Speech: Noun

Definition: “a white inhabitant of the U.S. of non-Hispanic descent”

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Anglo

Found In: “All-American Girl” by Julia Alvarez line 16 – “I practiced foreign faces, Anglo grins,”

Explain: The word Anglo refers to a English person. This helped me understand the poem better because the girl is trying to make the expressions on her face look american.

Disdain

Part of Speech: Noun

Definition: “a feeling of contempt for someone or something regarded as unworthy or inferior”

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disdain

Found In: “All-American Girl” by Julia Alvarez line  7 – “disgust, disdain-feelings I had yet to feel”

Explain: The word disdain means not showing respect because you are not important or good enough. This helped me understand the poem because it shows me that the speaker has not been disrespected yet but she doesn’t want to be disrespected so she tries to make herself more americanized.

Brown-Nosing

Part of Speech: Verb

Definition: “to ingratiate oneself with : curry favor with”

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brownnose

Found In: “All-American Girl” by Julia Alvarez line 14 – “as brown-nosing or cries of alegria”

Explain: The word brown-nosing means to act nice or use flattery to gain favors. This helps me better understand the poem because she is saying that if being polite means brown-nosing then crying because of joy could be understood as terror or sadness.

My Thoughts on Spoken Word Poetry

One of the spoken word poems I read that was my favorite is Franny Choi’s “Pop Goes Korea” because I like the way this poem paints an image of South Korea and touches on the true reality of South Korea. In the poem, it states, “Strawberry-cheeked gourmet popsicle ladies who stayed out all night drinking midori sours and somersaulting over their polka-pineapple platform heels.” When I imagine this in my mind, I see a array of colors popping here and there and people dressed in very colorful clothes. This seems very colorful and all but then we transition to the dark side of South Korea. The poem mentions, “The Korean headcount for celebrity suicides as a result of online persecution by fans is nine in the past five years.” This is something that a lot of people don’t know about Korean idols but Franny manages to bring this detail to attention in her poem. Franny talks about the bright streets of Seoul at night and the reality of South Korea.                                                                                                                                    The spoken word poem that I can’t connect with is Franny Choi “Choi Jeong Min” because I don’t use a English name, unlike many other Asian people, who use an English name in America. My name is simply Chinese written in pinyin so I don’t have a English name. The poem points out that “These are the shields for the names we speak in the dark.” In America, her family uses English names instead of their real names. When using your real name, you show pride for your homeland, but Franny and her family can’t since they use English names.                                                                                                                                               

I don’t think I can perform spoken word poetry because I have a shy and timid personality and, thus, cannot speak in front of a large crowd of people. Spoken poems are intended for performances, which I most likely cannot do. I can try but I will most likely be very quiet and won’t make a huge impression on the audience, since I cannot show how passionate I am about a certain poem. When you watch videos of spoken poem, you can see and feel the author/person’s passion about the poem but I, on the other hand, cannot show that. I am the complete opposite of what you want when reading a spoken poem, which is why I probably can’t perform spoken word poetry.

                                                                   

rechristen

Part of speech: verb

Definition: Give a new name to.

Source: Oxford Dictionary

Found in Franny Choi’s “Choi Jeong min”, line 15, eighth stanza

“my father ran through all his possible rechristenings — / ian, isaac, ivan — and we laughed at each one,”

I first thought that rechristening might’ve meant her father converting to Christianity and trying to choose a baptismal name that will also be his English name. Most definition I found don’t say rechristening is explicitly something baptist/christian, but I think Choi’s use of the word is still deliberate. Despite what religion her father follows, she’s comparing his decision of an English name to be as heavy and grand as a baptism because the name he chooses will be what he goes by in his new life in a western country, much like how baptisms represents a new life under God to christian converts.

Choi (최)

Part of speech: Noun

Definition: A governor who oversees the land and the mountain.

Source: Wikipedia

This word is found in Franny Choi’s “Choi Jeong min”, line 8, fourth stanza

“i wanted to be a writer & worried/ about how to escape my surname — choi”

Knowing what Choi means doesn’t add to the poem directly, but I do know names in most East Asian countries carry cultural significance beyond linguistics. Going by that I understand that there are two meanings behind what Franny Choi is conveying, a desire to assimilate to American literature by not using her foreign last name and a desire to get away from the ethnic background and culture she were raised in because of internalized racial shame.

Spoken Word Poetry

When I watched, Louder Than A Bomb, I could see that all of the poets were passionate and really put their soul into their writing. Some of the high schoolers were willing to basically tell their life story to strangers; the girl who spoke of her inattentive mother and sick younger brother or the guy talking about how he felt before his nephew was born. Now I myself have never written poetry nor did I have a poetry class in my high school. But I remember when I was little, my older sister would write poetry and read it to me. I found the movie to be very inspiring as the poets used art to discuss challenging topics going on in their lives and going on in the world. There were poems about racism, about police brutality, about ghetto living and how dangerous that is.

I myself hate public speaking, I’m too nervous and shy to do it, but these people put their fears aside and put their hearts forward. The stylings of the second winning group wrote and expressed their poems like rap music. Now I personally am not fond of rap music, but they did it in a way that I could understand and feel what they were saying. When Professor Bannett put up Franny Choi’s ” Choi Jeong Min “, I enjoyed the poem. I could relate to it because I know what it’s like to have others put you down to the point where you want to change yourself completely just to win their approval. But Like Choi, I understand the importance of loving who you are, just the way you are.

Blog Post #3- Spoken Word Poetry

During my high school senior years i discovered spoken word poetry. i found it invigorating and the perfect excuse to voice my opinions on matters that i would not normally speak about in public. Conversations such as race, inequality, politics, sex and feminism, that would normally be offensive, were uncovered to the ears of those who would shy away from them. Spoken word poetry was my escape from societies unspoken rules on what one should and shouldn’t speak on in public. It was also the reason that i chose to do this poetry class, other than it fitting a CUNY requirement. One of the spoken word poets that we covered and that i connected with was Elizabeth Acevedo.

Elizabeth Acevedo is a New York times best selling author of the award-winning novel “The Poet x” as well as the holder of other awards. her poets explore the demographics of Dominican people and African people. exploring history and comparing it to now. One of my favorite poems she wrote is entitled “Hair” . With its strong meanings, such as appreciation of past; slavery and self love, in my opinion it is one of her best poems. Having natural hair like her, i find myself connecting with her messages on a more personal level. I would describe spoken word poetry as song without any musical background, just the lyrics, flowing to the speakers own rhythm.