After “Day of Song, Day of Silence” By Ada Limon:  Loud

I want your voice to be heard again

not have your stories be told

in hushed tones or your art

be torn to shreds all because you

were born with a different identity, a

different idea of love than the one society

puts on a pedestal. The peacock’s screech

rings in my eardrums, a familiar sound in

the wake of your absence. In the wake of all

we’ve lost. I still remember the kisses and abashed

flirting at one another. We were so unafraid

of the possibility, that everything

would change. That our voices would be

hushed too. We were radiant even in the

silence. Oh, how loud we were.

Poem Word Count: 110

For this blog, I created an after poem to “Day of Song, Day of Silence.” For this poem to exist, I wanted to implement a few elements Limon used. With the silence aspect, I wanted my speaker to have this desire to have their voice back and no longer live in silence. Almost, showing this grief that Limon was lightly touching on with her “can’t speak.” I wanted the silence aspect to be shown but have the “after” be that the speaker wants it to be loud, not have this unspoken thing existing. I wanted the speaker to have this desire to be loud once again, with either their own group of people or a specific person depending on interpretation. I wanted to include the peacock element as well that persists in Limon’s poem with the lines “crying sounds of the peacocks” and “peacocks screaming.” I wanted to continue with the screeching mentioned at the end, with the speaker in my story seemingly grieving the time before the peacock’s existence. I wanted to show more loss with my response to this poem. Using both of these elements make the speaker in my piece almost angrier and sadder than Limon’s. Showing the opposite of Limon’s positive reminiscing, whilst including the sad elements she had with the “silence.” I wanted to do similar end-stopped and enjambed lines, but I went against that idea and did a different style of enjambed lines than Limon, since hers are more finished sentences, I wanted mine to be chopped up so you had to go to the next line. I did write it all in one stanza, emulating that aspect of Limon’s lineation.

Short Discussion Word Count: 277

Total Word Count: 387

Bibliography

Garuda, Rafael Danendra. “peacock; animal worship.” n.d. Britannica. Picture. <https://www.britannica.com/topic/animal-worship&gt;.

Limon, Ada. “Day of Song, Day of Silence.” Bright Dead Things. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2015. 57.