What I Choose / Response

To celebrate the release of NPEP student Erika Ray’s new collection of poetry 42 and Freedom, the Northwestern Insider has published four of her poems. NPEP graduate Dré Patterson responded to the poem, “What I Choose.”

Response

By Dré Patterson

Sis came out swinging with a soul-piercing sword. I

immediately felt Mother Soyini’s Poetry and

Performance class reflexively kick in. I'm noticing how

the enjambments Erika uses reflect the meaning, how

the words dictate the pace.

If you are reading this out loud, each line bleeds and

blends into the next with no chance to catch your

literal breath—or mental breath, if you are reading

silently. There’s no period, no comma, no grammatical

symbol that signals your consciousness to pause. I

especially like these last lines:

hoping for a steady world

that will make us fear death

It expresses the existential anxiety that prisoners feel

daily, questioning whether death would be more

welcome than this.

What I Choose

By Erika Ray

Every day I choose to go on living

in an unsteady world that makes

death seems easy

there are no passions here

and dreams are a nostalgic imaginatory indulgence

for those who cannot pass go

or collect their things and spring forward from

the days that bleed and blend into each other

no sunrise or pink moons

to capture the breath

of dreaming mothers

but we go on living

hoping for a steady world

that will make us fear death