I know when it comes to my writing, I tend to be the one who writes the long, winding phrases of prose. I’m not very good with brevity. In my creative writing class back in high school, I would send lengthy stories over thirty pages long that would only be fragments of a much longer work. My teacher would roll her eyes and poke fun at me, titling my submission spot in Blackboard as “Ethan's Very Long Story.” I was the only one in that class who never submitted poetry.
I still remember some of them, one most notable work to me being “Bitter Almonds" by my best friend How she formatted the poem into the shape of that nut. Comparing kisses to cyanide. It made me think about how well versed I was in fiction, yet utterly failed to critique our peers who wrote poetry in that class. I could talk the entire time regarding someone’s character choice in their twelve page story, then flounder when someone submitted a work with only three lines.
There’s a poem that we read in English II recently that made me think of that class, and therefore my best friend, when I read it. It’s called “Accents” by Denise Frohman. She’s a queer woman with a multi-cultural background as a Puerto Rican and a Jew. Her background is in everything that she writes, performs, and teaches. Cultural, sexual, and gender pride move her words. My professor sent me a video of her performing this piece, and her voice rings proud and true. This particular poem highlights Frohman’s mother, and her admiration regarding how unashamed she is of her Puerto Rican accent.
Frohman is sharp with her words, which matches the way she describes her mother and how she speaks. She personifies her language, giving it its own personality that leaps out from the stanzas. From “her tongue, all brass knuckle slipping in between her lips” (3 - 4) to “it got too much clave / too much hand clap / got too much salsa to sit still,” (30 - 32) she tells a strong accent that dances between her lips. And she’s not at all ashamed of it either, as it’s both a weapon and a banner of where she comes from, a “stubborn compass always pointing her toward home” (46). It’s a love letter both to Frohman’s mother but also of the culture that she represents in Frohman’s life. A grounding rock in a country that she wasn’t born into. She merges Spanish and English together in a whirlwind of words, creating this symphony of vastly different cultures. Or, as Frohman states, “a sanchocho of spanish and english / pushing up against one another / in rapid fire” (6 - 8). The spanish word isn’t italicized or indicated to be different in any way compared to the rest of the text, but instead jumps between one to the other like a jubilant dance.
Frohman also uses repetition at several points within the poem, but there’s one particular stanza which jumps out to me. She starts to describe all the ways in which some people may consider her mother’s accent as “too much,” but in the ways she lists it, none of them have very negative connotations. She says that her language has “too much hip / too much bone / too much conga,” and “too much cuatro” (23 - 26). In the perspective of a dancer, this is much preferred. There can be personality in your moves, something that can make your movement unique. Maybe more ignorant people find this difference insulting, preferring assimilation instead of diversity. I think it’s beneficial to form bonds with people from different places. Many people have done it as children, way before we were old enough to understand that some people may not appreciate this melting pot we all live in.
As Frohman writes, “say ‘wepa’ and a stranger becomes your hermano. Say ‘dala’ and a crowd becomes your family reunion” (41 - 42). Community is something that exceeds these invisible lines we draw in the sand between us. It's a power unshaken by the hate that bleeds in the world we live in today.
Read "Accents" here!
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