Fences.

  I thoroughly enjoyed hearing all the different presentations and listening to Nikki Giovanni share some of her poems. It's so funny how different, yet at times similar, our mind processes the things we experience in life which also affects how we share these experiences and feelings that make up the aftermath of life as we live it. A month or so ago, we discussed a thing called synesthesia in class. I found it cool but gave it little thought after that. That evening during my discipleship group, my discipleship leader told me she learned about this synesthesia something and whether we knew of it and understood how it worked. So, she tested us. As soon as she said a letter, a color would immediately come to mind so I would tell her and we would discuss it in awe while another one of my friends would shake her head and call us crazy. What made it even more comical would be the reasonings we had for certain colors coming to mind with certain numbers, days of the weeks, months, letters, etc. Each of us had a unique color or connection that at times would make sense to us all and at others times, confuse us immensely. These are the things I believe poets write about. Poets such as Nikki Giovanni have lived life and made connections with various nouns, adjectives, and adverbs and use these words to describe a natural part of them or the way they see a portion of life itself. This takes bravery and imagination that is so easy to lose in life. I'll never forget the moment I realized I couldn't play with dolls anymore because my "imagination" had diminished from what it once was. But I guess that's life.

     I also enjoyed a neat point that Kristen brought up in her presentation. We all think about American culture and laugh at our ability to be anal, tolerant, and greedy to the point that we are considered offensive, immoral, and subject to idolatry. Don't get me wrong. I love being American most days but I can admit to my American tendencies being unhealthy. In Peru, where Peruvians don't tend to wear watches or be prompt for normal day activities, a watch became a major stumbling block for my entire American team. We are so accustomed to molding our actions around some numbers on a wrist that I believe we do lose hold of what our body really wants and needs. The same goes for many students who feel the pressure of parents and teachers telling them to be this and that without providing an opportunity for a student to determine their strengths, weaknesses, and passions before embarking towards a degree or major that might be somewhat fulfilling, but maybe not their ultimate strength. There's no perfection with any of this but information overload happens daily in our society and it is OVERWHELMING. I literally began to have a mini panic attack before finishing this last paragraph as I sat and thought over all that I need to finish in a month and the amount of information overload it would take to process and complete the majority of these objectives. 

Poetry by Nikki Giovanni

Poetry is motion graceful

as a fawn
gentle as a teardrop
strong like the eye
finding peace in a crowded room
we poets tend to think
our words are golden
though emotion speaks too
loudly to be defined
by silence
sometimes after midnight or just before
the dawn
we sit typewriter in hand
pulling loneliness around us
forgetting our lovers or children
who are sleeping
ignoring the weary wariness
of our own logic
to compose a poem
no one understands it
it never says love me for poets are
beyond love
it never says accept me for poems seek not
acceptance but controversy
it only says i am and therefore
i concede that you are too
a poem is pure energy
horizontally contained
between the mind
of the poet and the ear of the reader
if it does not sing discard the ear
for poetry is song
if it does not delight discard
the heart for poetry is joy
if it does not inform then close
off the brain for it is dead
if it cannot heed the insistent message
that life is precious
which is all we poets
wrapped in our loneliness
are trying to say

In this poem by Nikki Giovanni, I feel that she describes the frustration many college students feel in trying to compose a future for themselves. Instead of trying to follow the many paths are made before us, if only we could accept our individuality and take the path that is designed for us that we will prove the most useful taking. I'm not encouraging young adults to be flighty and not stick it out through the hardships of life, but if only we were more comfortable with discarding what doesn't delight and intrigue us, sought joy in what we did in the moment, and allow our mind to explore the information we find that sparks our interest and makes us critical thinkers naturally. 

So, I REALLY enjoyed Nikki Giovanni. Once she started talking, it was easy to pick up on her temperance and the type of person that she is as an artist. Her poems were hectic which is a perfect representation of life in my opinion. When you think about it, artists are funny people. Looking at Ai Weiwei for instance, would you imagine the mischief he is able to bring to China just by looking at him? Never imagined I would see him jumping in the air while nude and holding a stuffed cat. Definitely shows my limited thought. Artists are such a funny group of people. They say the things we are scared to say or simply don't know how to say. That's a gift. My mind doesn't always work in a way that people would look at my words or lyrics and say "That is art! That is unique! That is beauty!" Regardless. I'm thankful that those people exist and that people like Ai Weiwei are bold enough to take a stance against the things that are unknown to me just to make a difference. I might not completely agree with everything he says or does, but like a form of alter-ego of mine, I can and so desire to relate to him. He is an anti-hero of such.