A week or so ago in my English 203 class, we discussed a section in Re: f(gesture) entitled Bodies. I would just like to say that this book of poems by Percival Everett has to be my favorite. I have always loved poetry and I actually write my own poems sometimes, but these poems are entirely different from my own. They speak to readers in a new and unique way, one that actively generates a class discussion and bring conversations to new heights. For example, my classmate Lael introduced to me the interesting realization that bodies are something we think we know a lot about since we have them, but Everett describes them in a whole new light. This comment that Lael made really resonated with me. It made me question my knowledge of my own body and ask, Do I even really know my own body? What its’ made out of? What muscles I use everyday? These poems revealed to me new discoveries that not only exist in the poem, but on the larger scale of life as well.
I remember first reading these poems and not knowing what the heck Everett was talking about, as usual. It emphasizes Lael’s point about how I was reading something so familiar, and yet still I could not understand it. I have my own arms, legs, and fingers that are hitting the keys on this keyboard as we speak. I hold all the elements necessary that make up a human body and yet, Everett still describes bodies in a way that is so foreign to me. Was he trying to confuse me and prove a point? Was he making fun of me for not knowing about my body? Well if Everett was, he definitely succeeded. He made me think about all of the things I think I know about, but I actually do not.
As a naive nineteen year old, a lot of the time I feel like I have my whole life figured out. I sense that I KNOW when people are taking advantage of me, and I think that the decisions I make are almost always the best. But then, I talk to my mom or my grandma and I realize that wow, I have so much to learn. I do not have enough life experience yet to know exactly where this journey is taking me, and I do need to rely on the people that have been through this all before. Funny how that works, right? I thought that these poems would be straight forward, which is ironically similar to how I thought about life. I thought it wasn’t possible to write a poem about an ordinary tongue, in a such a complex way. Now, I can admit to you that Everett has proven that wrong, just like how I was wrong about life.