Poety Blog

On the 18 th of October we concluded our Writing as Healing seminar. We discussed all we had covered in this past few months. To take it together, the topics we had focused and which I have blogged about was as following: Water, Unlearning, Rape, War and Immigration, Patriarchal wounds, Silence, Identity and Religion. An underlying theme that was evident in all the above themes was that of Colonialism. I am going to briefly recap some of the above themes and the poets we have discussed that accompanies it. I will then conclude with the discussion of Colonialism. With Unlearning we discussed two poems in particular, Graduation by Koleka Putuma and another poem which fails to reach my memory at this moment. These poems focused on how our parents teach us things, but you unlearn them, then re-learn or practice it again when being in their presence. A   topic of discussion that arose, which I found the most intriguing was that of unlearning the things that you were thought but ...

“And there are so many silence to be broken.” This is what Audre Lorde concludes her article with in, The transformation of silence into Language and action. In this article she speaks of her experience of breast cancer and how, through the women around her and language (the absence of healing) carried her through this time. “Within the war we are all waging with the force of death, subtle and otherwise, conscious or not- I am not only a casualty. I am also a warrior.” In this article Lorde encourages the lack of silence and finding healing in speaking. She writes that if you do not talk about things and traumas that it will one day just ‘punch you in the mouth’. She mentions that a story does not have to be exactly relevant to another person’s, to have empathy and to be encouraged. Lorde says that if one says that one cannot tell one’s story or listen to another’s because ‘I am black’ or ‘I am a woman’, then “we rob ourselves of ourselves and each other.” On the TED talk, Disma...

On the 11 th of October we discussed The Baptism by Ijeoma Umebinyuo. The umbrella theme that is discussed and that is evident within this poem is that of identity and language. The context of the poem is where an African parent is asked for her the name of the daughter and where a European says that she is not allowed that name. The theme of colonialism is tied here with religion. The reason why the girl cannot use her own name, according to the European, is because it is of heathen decent. This is evident where it reads:” Your names are heathen and Jesus needs holy names” and “but your daughter’s name is not that of a European saint and the priest needs to be able to baptize her without bringing in darkness”. It is also mentioned that “God will not understand it”. By stating this quote, it is implied that God is European and that God is not for non-Europeans. If your name is not that of an European saint, then you are not a child of God for how can you be if you cannot even ha...