On Wednesday, our class continued the poem recitations. On Monday, I missed class so I was curious about how the process worked. I didn’t even realize the purpose of having Shumaila go right after Christian because both poems were “snapshots”. While both poems might have been snapshot poems, they both had a different feel to it. Shumaila’s poem was more satirical and it was evident on her final performance when she pretended to have fun with the poem. The first few times, I was confused about the real meaning behind the poem but after Shumaila changed up her performance, I clearly understood. That’s when I realized that the words of a poem are meaningless unless some sort of performance is put behind it. A sad poem would never be sad if the narrator was hyper and excited.

After listening to all five of the performances done this wednesday, I realized that all revolved around New York and that in the eyes of many poets, the astounding nature of New York is root for inspiration. And many poems just liked to feed out of simply visually viewing New York such as in the case of Andrew’s poem which was simply about the day to day activities that happen on the Staten Island Ferry. His poem brought back memories of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” by Walt Whitman. It shows that as vibrant as the city can be, the behavior and dynamic of the residents and tourists has always been the same and will continue to be the same. One of my favorite performances of Wednesday was Andrew’s because he wrote his own poem and his poem tied very nicely with the theme of the other two poems he had to recite.

I was able to learn something by observing the performances of those who presented this Wednesday. In order to properly recite the poem, we would have to interpret the poem and feel the meaning. It might not be exactly what the poet is trying to bring across but as long as we can support it, it will be a convincing performance. Hopefully, I can do the same this Monday.