Tamara's Opus Poem Analysis Essay

Spoken poetry is when a speaker recites a poem, representing it in ways the reader never anticipated. It highlights certain quotes that you wouldn’t think would be so significant to the story. In this case, Bennett expresses his true regret for his silence and love for his sister. We get to see his face, hear his voice, and experience his use of sign language. As a result, truly feeling the connection to his sister that we could never before imagine.  In conclusion, Bennett uses performance techniques such as sign language and word emphasis to stress his change over the course of the poem. 

Bennet’s use of sign language emphasizes how he wants to speak to his sister and have a "heart-to-heart" talk. Bennett beautifully put into words how he felt when seeing his sisters joy, “Until you have seen a deaf girl dance, you know nothing of passion”. This is the moment when Joshua had his epiphany; finally, he realized he is responsible for not making an effort to have a relationship with his sister. He let himself believe that her being deaf was the issue, not him refusing to learn her language. Saying “I am sorry for my silence” in sign language, towards the end of the story is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful uses of a performance technique. All of the years staying quiet, he is now remorseful, and wants to talk to his sister. Overall, experiencing the use of sign language heavily impacted the way the reader perceives Bennett’s point of view, you get to see how he is truly making an effort to make up for the lost time.

By using word emphasis, it demonstrates his development as a person in his spoken poem. You get to see him grow as a brother, we get to see the character development and how he views his sister. Later on in the story, Bennett explains what his dad told him when he was little, this was something he didn’t quite understand but now does, “God just makes some people different”. That his sister isn’t weird or wrong, just different. In the spoken poem, he pauses right before the word “different”. I think this was to show how he processed this as a child. How those 9 letters affected his life, changed his point of view of his sister. If he hadn’t highlighted this moment, I don’t think the moment of realization would have been as significant. At this point of the story, he is starting to realize that his sister didn’t do anything to be deaf, however, he did something to put up a wall. “please, if you can,  just listen”. This last quote is  very powerful and can be taken in two ways. By emphasizing just listening, at first it seems like he is playing a victim, or acting as if she put up the barrier. But, his tone and facial expressions show the audience how he wants to talk to her, speak her language and connect. He makes an effort to show her how sorry he is, he wants to grow closer and  Bennett uses word emphasis to emphasize and demonstrate his development as a person in the poem” to add more words.

Spoken poetry is extremely impactful and eye opening when it comes to expressing the author's emotion. Throughout Bennett's poem, we get to experience moments we could have never thought of, just by simply reading the poem. Ultimately, Bennet’s use of performance techniques help the reader understand how much Bennett genuinely regrets the time passed that he wasn’t speaking to his sister in her language when she couldn't in his.