Extra Credit: Sawako Nakayasu's Poetry Reading

Walking into the Callen Conference Center in on Thursday, September 20th, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Sawako Nakayasu’s poetry reading. I had never been to a poetry reading and had never even heard one of her poems. After taking a seat, she was introduced and then began to read.

The poem that stuck out the most to me was “Battery”. It was a very dramatic poem about an ant. Being set in the New Mexico desert far away from any civilization, the poem sounded very frantic and had a panicky type mood because the ant was trying to get somewhere and was struggling. I really liked the way in which Nakayasu read the poem, I think that’s why it stuck out the most to me. She read it in a way that made it feel like you were part of the action and really hoped that the ant succeeded in its struggles. Throughout the poem the word “very” was repeated an extensive amount, even in places that ordinarily wouldn’t have made any sense. For this reason I think it made it feel even more urgent and desperate. Then at the end of the poem, Nakayasu yelled, “ Charge!” which was an abrupt end to such a fast paced poem, yet it fit in very well with the struggling, then conquering theme.

I think the reason that this poem stuck out to me the most was because it’s easy to relate to. Everybody goes through struggles that seem impossible to overcome and you’re just desperate to succeed, so you just keep pushing yourself to the limit, like a battery, and like the ant in the poem, working constantly. Life isn’t always easy, not for humans or for ants, and Nakayasu made this point very clear in her poem.