Month: December 2019

Jada Mathurin 

9/16/2019

Literacy Narrative 

 

                How the love for poetry began

 

 It  began in 10th grade. I was in a class called poems and poets . It was the end of the semester and we had one last assignment to do for our final grade , it was to create our own poem and present it for exhibition night . I didn’t know how to write a poem or where to even start so you can only imagine the trouble I had with this assignment . After explaining to my teacher that I didn’t know how to write a poem she suggested that I read poems from famous writers such as Maya Angelou , Alice Walker and Alicia Keys . After reading and listening to all of they’re poems the one I could most relate to was Alicia Keys “ Prisoner of words”.

The poem “ Prison of words” by Alicia Keys mostly talks about being a prisoner. Not a prisoner in a cell but a prisoner of words , words she holds inside. She states that “ only a puppet mostly i say what you wanna hear” by this i believe that she is saying that she is basically questing our ability to accept the truth if it  were spoken. She says that she is scraping the earth to find a piece of herself. She is searching high and low for the real her. The her that is hidden . the part that she wants everybody to see, the only problem is that part of her is trapped by words unsaid. Alicia keys compares herself to being a puppet by using figurative device  metaphors . “yet only a prisoner mostly i say what you wanna hear”. This is a metaphor because it compares two or more things without like or as . the next device she uses is symbolism. In this spoken word piece the prison mentioned refers to her mind. Her unsaid words are trapped in her mind like a prisoner in a cell.They are unable to come out and be heard. 

 I connected with this poem more because at the time i found it very difficult to speak my mind and I allowed my excuses to guide my response. I mean everyone has been in a situation where we see something wrong ,but can’t force ourselves to say or do anything about it . Sometimes i wish i could talk to that certain someone , but i end up stopping myself . I  feel imprisoned in myself by myself. Once I realized that poetry could help me understand myself more and open my mind to things I never thought of I fell in love with it and I began looking at other poets such as Pierre Alex Jeanty , Rupi Kaur and Omar Rodriguez.They mostly talk about their journeys,including mistakes they made walking into love , loss, trauma, healing, femininity and hope that other will learn from them  . For me being the reader it helped me to understand that I wasn’t the only one going through these mistakes or feelings . It also helped me to view the world different .