Click here for a short talk and reading from Dominique Christina.
"The Dream About Shouting" by Dominique Christina.
"The Dream About Shouting" by Dominique Christina.
in the dream every word
is red paint
i speak, it look like a murder scene.
is red paint
i speak, it look like a murder scene.
they try shutting my lips
with caution tape
with caution tape
but I am burnin' my mouth down.
it's gon' come back to me
a new thing
no troll bridged tongue
no yawping
soundless empty.
a new thing
no troll bridged tongue
no yawping
soundless empty.
in the dream
i am waiting for my mouth to be born
i am waiting for my mouth to be born
when she is...
everything gon' be loud.
A cool perspective on voice and the feeling of being voiceless.
ReplyDelete"They" are preventing the narrator from finding that voice. I remembing struggling a lot to find my voice the first stories and poems I attempted. My lack of language, writing skills, and confidence, made me feel like I didn't have a voice to share. That I'd rather just share something I read that was great. I wasn't really voiceless, but my writer's voice was very weak and those writings were pretty terrible. Not that I'm an expert now, but creating and producing something meaningful comes more natural.
The dream is hot, fire, red, loud, what we have been learning is "rajastic" in nature, or off-tilting to the extreme. In order to balance this heat it is best to take "caution" like the tape she puts over her mouth, to take cooless, silence, emptiness....
ReplyDeleteBut the transition in the poem is, again, waiting....what happens in this period of waiting is where life is truly lived.
Great comment
DeleteThis poem is so powerful. I'm very disappointed in my previous comment. To think my writing struggles equal the narrator's struggle to speak up is a bit embarrassing now. I didn't really think it was equal then, but it reads that way a bit now.
ReplyDeleteI love the confidence and passion in the narrator eventhough the narrator isn't ready to speak up, but when she is...