LOUD AND TREMBLING BUT LOUD AND CLEAR: AN EVENING WITH SLAM POET ANIS MOJGANI
On May 14, UO had the tremendous privilege of hosting Anis Mojgani on campus. I felt like I was going to see Elton John or something.
I've always struggled to grasp poetry. It holds so many complex interpretations that I've always found it challenging, as you can read about here. However, slam poetry has always appealed to me as a kind of "people's poetry." It's fueled by emotion and personal insight and the connotation of the language is emphasized by the volume and manner of its delivery. I stumbled across slam poetry in my final year of high school, I believe regrettably from someone I haven't talked to in years. I watched Anis on a recording at Brown University three years prior, and as he humbled his audience through eloquence and passion, pulling at my heart strings with his poignant anecdotes half-true, half-fantasy, I'd never felt so moved. I've kept that reading bookmarked to this day, and whenever I need to feel inspired, calmed, or subdued, I'd play that video with all the lights off and no distractions.
(That song at the beginning is "Window" by Album Leaf.)
I arrived an hour early to the event by myself and situated my belongings strategically across three seats in the second row, the perfect proximity, for my friends and me. The evening opened up with rivoting pieces from Oregon's own slam poetry team: words on the devastation of a family torn apart, an examination of the walls in Jurassic Park and their true meaning existentially, a deeper look into the culture of sexting and how the sexiest text of them all is actually "I love you." Ah, my heart! As soon as Anis took the stage, I was overwhelmed with feelings as his humility and confidence made him feel like one of us, and yet crafting words like none of us could. He read poems from his most recent work, "Songs From Under The River." Gut-wrenching, visceral pieces on race, heartbreak, finding oneself in the faces of others, amongst some of his reinvented classics, Shake the Dust and Come Closer.
He read for an hour what felt like a series of revelatory moments, where we sat on the edge of our chairs holding our breaths. At the end, he posted up at a table outside the auditorium, signing books. I took my journal, as cliché as that sounds, and waited fiercely through the crowd to share a minute with him. And when I finally reached the front, of course I fumbled over my words, but I got out the gist of what I wanted to say. Four years prior, as a senior in high school, I'd stumbled across his poetry and it helped pull me through the emotional turmoil of finding oneself and embarking on new adventures post adolescence. And that day, full circle as a senior now in college, I was listening to his words yet again to guide me. Hopefully wiser this time, but no less in awe.
He signed my journal and told me to keep writing. I will.