Poetry for Peace

Hello all. I went to Poetry for Peace last week, as I said in class. This begins my first blog about a poetry reading. (I’m excited)
Poetry for Peace consisted of half a dozen readers and a few observers. I decided not to read at the first meeting because I wanted to get a sense of the structure of the reading and the sort of poems that are read. There were four adults who read their own work and two students who read works of other people. One boy read a poem entirely in Spanish and then had a translator reread it in English. While he was reading in a language I didn’t understand, I listened for appealing sounds.
I like spoken poetry in foreign languages for the same reason I like songs in foreign languages. You have to listen to the most basic part of language, which is basically fragments of sound (the signifiers). Without even diving into the meaning (the signified), pleasure and appreciation can be extracted from the work. With English poetry and songs, I tend to focus more on the meaning of the words than their sounds.
Of the poems read, I liked the lyrical material the best. They let my mind flow alongside the language easier than the narrative poems, which I tend not to understand fully unless I have a hard copy in front of me and I get to read is multiple times.
Overall, I liked Poetry for Peace but I hope more people attend next time. And perhaps I’ll try reading a poem myself next time. Everyone in class should come at least once, it’s very flexible in terms of content and relaxed about reading styles. ☺

P.S. There is a typo in my candy poem that I’ll point out tomorrow in my group. There’s a “to” where there should be a “too”.