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RobertZimmermann

Robert Zimmermann

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Falling in Fiji (The Falling in Paradise Series) (Volume 1)
Casey Hagen, Lisa Ricard Claro
Progress: 141/286 pages
B - Sarah Kay, Sophia Janowitz I first heard this poem performed quite awhile ago. I was just starting to listen to spoken word poetry through the IndieFeed: Performance Poetry podcast, and from that I was searching youtube for various poets and videos. I came across Sarah Kay and fell in love with what I heard.

The performance I listened to was from the TED conference, referenced in the description. It became one of my favorite poems to listen to. This is why I was happy to find out that the poem was available in print. I hadn’t read a spoken word poem before. I didn’t know what to expect. Would the emotions, the power, or the essence Sarah Kay brought to this poem through speaking it out translate to the page and move me? Well it did.

I’m one to enjoy seeing words on a page. I like to see how they are placed on that page; how the poet wishes his or her words to be visualized on the page. For B, there may not be many lines and there may not be many words, but B holds the beauty Kay’s performance in how it’s presented. There are illustrations to go along with the text and I think that makes the experience that much better.

The reader is able to slowly soak in the poem over roughly 50 pages, when a less creative and resourceful poet may only have used 2 or 3 pages for a poem the same length. At first I had at hard time justifying paying for one poem that I knew only takes the poet a few minutes to read, but I’m glad I didn’t let that stop me from trying it out.

I’m happy to have B and Sarah Kay on my shelf. This has become one of my favorite books of poetry. I’m happy to have it in my collection.