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Zakiya Muhammad

Professor Atkins

ENGW 104-039

September 9, 2015

Keep Writing Ponyboy

For me reading and writing has always been a way to mentally

escape, when my emotions felt like they could become too much I

would feel slightly better after I wrote them down. Being able

to express myself through writing is like having a very close

friend, there is no judgment and I’m comfortable with saying

whatever I need to say. Reading and writing is spiritual for me,

they both give me a sense of release in a different way. I feel

deeply about reading and writing and practice both every day

intentionally and subconsciously, as if it were my religion.

When I was younger up until now, I have been able to watch

my mom do spoken word, a form of poetry, she would perform

during church. I would watch her speak on stage and be amazed,

everything about her would be different. Her body language would

be more fluid and she would stand straighter, the tone of her

voice would be slightly deeper. Everything about her would just

scream confidence, I could look around the sanctuary and see how

other people were affected. With words she became this

phenomenal being that glowed and shined, she became a prophet

spreading Gods words to her people. Being able to witness this I

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feel as though I gained that ability, to lose myself in words

and see them for what they really are, power. The way my Mother

influenced me and unintentionally helped me understand how I

felt about words, is the same way Pearl Cleage’s environment

influenced her as a writer and her style of writing. In her

interview from ‘The Word’ she discussed how growing up she had

no limits on the books she could read and was always around

young black authors, “I think it makes such a difference as a

black person if you not only have books in the house but if

there are books written by black authors”. She also spoke of the

Shrine, a church and bookstore her father founded, she spoke on

how it was founded on a political standpoint but also about

culture. This influenced her writing style and the way she

embraced reading and writing like my mother helped me figure out

how I felt about reading and writing.

As a child my Mother would read me ‘Chronicles of Narnia’

by C.S Lewis, at night before I would go to sleep. While she

would read I could visualize all the events in the story she was

telling me, it was soothing for me to imagine and picture these

scenes in my head rather than focus on reality. At this point in

my life my family was going through some tough times, it would

help to mentally be in another time and place. I would have a

mental reprieve from all the talk about child support and cust…