Savannah's Literary Moments

My world awareness [Reading Literature Privately]
When I was in Junior High I found the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, and although it was a relatively easy read the content in it was so harsh and new to my young mind. Rape was something that I had vaguely heard about but this book really opened my eyes to the reality and the horrifying experiences that so many young women in our culture face and have to learn to cope with.

Heartbreak poems [Literary Coping]
I've always used poetry as a way to journal and deal with my emotions since I was a child, but this last year at BYU after a particularly difficult breakup I wrote a poem to my ex. I never showed it to him or even anyone close to me, but it was my outlet that I poured my emotions into. It was harsh, it was sad, and it was real. Even reading it now brings back a flood of those emotions because I clearly can feel the meaning behind each line.

A mother's love [Memorization of Literature]
For as long as I can remember my mom has always been reading the book Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, and the lines, "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be" are ingrained in my brain. They're not particularly complex lines, but I hold them dear to my heart and the memories I associate with them. It's so tender for me to see my older siblings starting the same tradition of reading to their young children, and it's something I plan to continue in my family.

Spoken word's changing lives [Literature Performed]
Every Spring, my high school would have selected students perform spoken words for the school  that they had written and memorized in our creative writing class. As a junior I was sitting in the huge auditorium, and this semi-"popular" boy got up and began preforming this beautifully written poem. Woven through the metaphors and literary devices he expressed his sadness of how he could never tell his dad he was gay, for fear of physical and emotional harm. My heart was absolutely broken, and it really increased my love and respect for those of the LGBT community. It also inspired me to sign up for the class my senior year and work hard enough so that I too could perform a meaningful piece in front of the school.

Nicholas Spark's has my heart [Literary Travel]
My senior trip my mom and I traveled to Savannah, Georgia because of my ridiculous desire to visit the city that shared my name. While travelling throughout the south however, I could not stop thinking of various Nicholas Spark's novels and thinking that he could have been writing of the exact places I was standing in when he wove his love stories throughout the South. Because of this, I started reading the novels during our spare time on that trip and I felt so much closer to the characters and their romances. Needless to say, I now want to fall in love in the South and have a Nicholas Spark's love story.

Same country, a different language [ Foreign Literary Experience]
Although technically the same language, when I read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, I felt like as I journeyed through the adventures of Lily and Rosaleen with them, I was experiencing a completely different culture than I was used to as a white girl from the Pacific Northwest. Their different dialect was just the first step in me understanding the history and culture of the South in the 1960's.