Extra Credit

I have never been to a poetry reading before so I was very excited to go and listen to Graham’s poetry reading. I went to the poetry reading of Graham and he began reading the poem against the poetry of witness and a line that had stood out to me was “hope makes torture possible.” At first I did not know why it stood out to me because I have never really sought out a deeper message into poetry. So I began to ponder on the verse. The literal translation of the verse is hope is something that keeps people going, it is something to look forward to. Without hope you have nothing. Life becomes pretty meaningless without hope in it. And therefore, when you want to torture someone or strip them down they must have hope. Hope for something better. Without it you cannot cause that person any more harm, take away their hope and life is meaningless. There would be nothing to live for so why would someone care about dying or being hurt? Another verse that stood out to me was “we are more boring in the dark, less ugly.” At first this verse made me kind of laugh on first hearing it, then I started to think about it and I realized that the world would be very boring if everything was picture perfect and beautiful. No one wants to live in a world where everything and everyone looks stunning. That would be incredibly uninteresting. What would be intriguing about the world? People may think that beauty and wealth is what is needed to be happy, but our world is much more exciting with pain and ugliness. Most people are inspired by pain and misery. It may not be what Graham meant by these verses at all but that’s what makes poetry unique. The meaning it has to each and every individual.