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Why This Book? By Timothy Beal, Florence Harkness Professor of Religion and chair of the Department of Religious Studies, Case Western Reserve University

Because she is talking to you!

Sarah Kay is a young poet who writes and performs beautiful poems that speak to the experiences of young adults coming of age in the 2000s and 2010s. Her book, No Matter the Wreckage, is a collection of poems from the first decade of her career. They are about love, family, communication, loss. They invite us to slow down and look around, to see and hear the world in new ways. They make us think about things we might not otherwise notice. As the daughter of a Japanese American mother and a Jewish American father, she is also keenly interested in questions of identity and cultural difference. She can be very serious, and she can be very funny. And she is almost always fun. Sarah Kay is seriously into fun.

Kay is a leading voice in a movement called “spoken word,” which is about creating poems meant to be performed live in clubs, poetry slams (spoken word competitions), and other places. In 2006, still in her late teens, Kay joined the Slam Team at Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, and was the youngest poet to compete at the National Poetry Slam. A year later, she was featured on HBO’s Def Poetry, which was instrumental in popularizing the spoken word movement. Some of you and your friends may already know her spoken word performances from videos of poems like “B,” in which she imagines having a daughter that will call her “Point B” instead of “Mom.”

Spoken word poets like Kay are especially attuned to the performative elements of their poems -- word play, tone, inflection, cadence, timing, alliteration, and so on. You are lucky, because not only do you get to read her poems in the book but you also get to see and hear her speak during Convocation. When you do, ask yourself how her spoken word differs from or is similar to how you imagined it while you were reading. Also, consider searching for online live performances of some of the poems in the book. Read the poem in the book while you listen to her perform it, like you’re reading song lyrics while listening to a song. How do the words on the page, the line breaks, and other features of the print poem interact with her live voice, her body movements, and her interactions with the audience in the video and in her Convocation address?

Not only is Kay a poet but she is also an educator, dedicated to helping young people discover and experiment with poetry in and out of the classroom. She is the founding director of Project V.O.I.C.E. (http://www.project-voice.net), which is about “promoting empowerment, improving literacy, and encouraging empathy and creative collaboration in classrooms and communities around the world.” She is an evangelist for the power of poetry.

Office of First-Year Experience and Family Programs Email: [email protected]

So, No Matter the Wreckage is your starting point. Read it. Re-read it, especially the poems that stick with you. Share them with your friends. But don’t stop with the book. Let it open you up to more poetry and spoken word. Here are some suggestions:

Find online videos of Sarah Kay performing her poems, including this early performance of “B” from 2008: youtube.com/watch?v=e3Ks1ceHkus.

Find online performances by other spoken word poets, like Kate Tempest, Saul Williams, and Jamilia Lyiscott (e.g., her amazing TED performance of “Three Ways to Speak English” at ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_3_ways_to_speak_english).

Check out Sarah Kay’s website, kaysarahsera.com, and follow her on Twitter at @kaysarahsera.

Learn more about Project V.O.I.C.E. at project-voice.net, and consider getting involved.

Take a course on poetry with Professor Sarah Gridley or another of our outstanding poet-professors!