Author: Brianna Forgione

As I sat in class for the first time this week, I couldn’t contain my excitement over the fact that I get to share not only my work but read and engage in my peers work. Surrounding myself with such powerful and intelligent people pushes me to work harder and inspires me in so many ways.

I know for me personally, being at such a young age, creates a sort of writers block compared to writers who practically lived more than half their life. Being so young means not nearly as much life experience to incorporate into my work. I often am faced with a struggle of what to write about when wanting to make my writing personal. I often find myself taking a cliche route and writing about “love” and “heartbreak”. After reading my peers work, I have been inspired by so many interesting thoughts, ideas, and techniques.

One technique I wish to try, is spreading my words and or sentences throughout the page, and not keeping them in a basic couplet or stanza. This will  be challenging for me but I believe in order to become a stronger writer it is important to challenge oneself.

As a writer, sound plays an important role. Sound varies from on paper to off. Anyone can write something like, “the clock made a ticking noise”. But what did the ticking noise actually sound like? Was it loud? Annoying? Calming? That is when it becomes the responsibility of the writer to dig further on what is just on the paper and to add meaning to the words.

 

As a writer it is difficult to incorporate sound in a piece. I believe in incorporating the five senses in a piece because it stimulates an image and causes the readers mind to think past the words and apply them to an actual meaning. Think about a song. If a song only had one instrument throughout the entirety of the song, the song would be really boring and no one would want to listen to it. So in writing, if we only wrote about things that stimulated, for example, smell, the piece would lack in both creativity and imagination.

 

Sound to me plays an important role to not only my actual life but writing as well. Each sound is unique. Some are calming like waves hitting a beach, and some are aggravating, like nails on a chalkboard. When I write I want my audience to feel what I am feeling. If I am writing a piece and want them to feel my anger or sadness I will use words to describe the sound for that emotion. Sound is often kept on a low radar but it is more relevant than we think.

Yesterday I attended a poetry reading by Christopher Soto. Soto is a poet based in Brooklyn, New York. He is the author of Sad Girl Poems (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016) and the editor of Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color (Nightboat Books, 2018). Soto read a few original poems and other poems produced by other poets as well. Throughout this experience, all of the poems shared a common theme. There was a shared theme of inclusivity within the poems. Each poem covered serious issues, such as mass imprisonment, sex slavery, and racism. One writing technique I gained from attending this poetry reading is call and response. Soto read a poem aloud and when he raised his hand, the audience replied with the same response. I found this to be effective in accomplishing the message of the poem. The poem was in regards to mass imprisonment. The poem also contained the technique of repetition. Repetition stands out to the reader in that it makes the piece memorable and quotable. Christopher Soto is an incredibly talented writer that touches upon economic, racial, and social issues throughout society.