Spoken Poetry assignment

When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder you don't really get quiet moments, Neil Hilborn explains in his poem, "OCD". Hilborn creates a happy mood when he explains about his love for a girl and how "all the ticks, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared." However, this mood becomes quite depressing when the girl he loves has to leave him. Neil tells their story and how he is so infatuated with this girl that he has to "kiss her goodbye 16 times or 24 times if it's Wednesday." Neil explains how he is in love with this girl so intensely that he can overpower his OCD and he doesn't have to watch his hands after he touches her. I enjoy how during the reciting of his poem that when he speaks he will repeat a line over and over and you can't tell whether he is repeating it on purpose or it's actually his OCD. Love has the power to make OCD weaker than it actually is and love is the reason that Neil can "leave the door unlocked" when he goes to bed, hoping that she will come back.

Notice how you never hear the term "Woman Up"? That's because women and the Woman's movement have realized that being ordered around by [the media] is dehumanizing. Guante discusses his pure hatred for the phrase "Man Up" in his poem, "Ten responses to the phrase 'Man Up'." Guante has the looks of the average tough guy but quickly drops that image when he reveals his inner sensitivity and how he "wants to be free to express himself" or how he "wants to be weak sometimes". The theme is that society should stop teaching boys that the only way to become a man is to "eat steak, drive a big truck and have lots of sex with women" but rather allow them to express themselves. I definetly like how Guante start's his poem very mean tough but later transforms into an emotionally charged poet.

When Patrick Roche counts down from twenty one he isn't expressing his ability to say the numbers from twenty one to zero; he is saying an age and relating his thoughts and feeling about his father for each age. Roche's poem "21" begins on a heavy note when he explains that his dad got hit by a car with a "blood alcohol level 4 times the legal limit" but Roche didn't cry. He immediately sets the mood and it is a mood of sorrow and self-pity. Roche continues to count down from 21, repeating his thoughts at the age of 15 because that is the age when his "dad found [he] was gay", his dad "began drinking again" and his entire family began blaming others for why his dad drinks. The theme is that acceptance is mandatory, in some cases such as Roche's, if his father had been open ended and accepting towards his son's sexuality a life would have been saved and Patrick's family would be as happy as they were in his younger years.