Blog Post 9 - Storytelling

The Unbreakable Laws of Storytelling

Sarah Kay gives a heartwarming Ted Talk in If I should have a daughter... about her becoming a spoken word poet and how it has enabled her to become who she is today.  The central message that Kay discusses in this talk is that storytelling is a way to be able to express one's self and that there are no rules when it comes to writing these stories, they can be whatever the author wants it to be.  

The talk begins with the reciting of a spoken word poem written by Sarah Kay herself about what she would tell her daughter if she had one and how this would help her figure out the real world.  She then asks the audience to think of three things that they know to be true, no matter how simple they are.  After she tells the three things she chose, Kay explains how poetry allows for her to understand the things in life that are confusing to her.  As a freshman in high school, Kay started her spoken word poetry writing and reciting in her school then in a bar near where she lived.  She explained how this allowed for her to connect to others through her personal experiences, despite her being so much younger than all of the others who also performed at this bar.  Describing the three steps that she had to take to become a spoken word poet of (1) telling herself that she can do it, (2) her telling herself that she will do it, and (3) her writing the poems how she wanted to about what she experienced through the realization that not all poetry had to be indignant, Kay was able to realize that not all poetry had to be what she thought it had to be, but it could be whatever she wanted it to.  Now that she is a teacher, she was able to connect her experiences to those of her students when it comes to poetry writing.  While explaining the struggles that one of her students went through, she described how she used the writing of lists to inspire the poems.  Through her success with a student she was able to realize that it is just the fear of being seen as "uncool" that is holding back these students from writing amazing work.  Ending the talk with another poem about the bombing of Hiroshima and how the beauty that arose from all of the damage connects to her life and how this is not the first time that her soul has lived on this Earth and that it will not be the last, she was able to show that her writing varies from topic to topic, with no rules of what the next has to be about. 

Sarah Kay was able to get her message across to the audience due to her use of relatable events and feelings, as well as her ability to persuade that what she was saying was true.  She was able to relate to her audience through talking about having self-conscious issues as a young teenager which she was able to overcome when she found her passion, which many people can relate to.  The use of pathos can be seen here when she is relating to the audience's lives in an attempt to find connections between her and them.  Although she may seem as though she is just a poet, she is the founder of Project V.O.I.C.E. which uses spoken word as an educational tool.  Her being this creator allows for the audience to understand the Ethos of this speech in the sense that what Kay is saying about how spoken word can help people learn and grow is reliable.

For me, I picked this Ted Talk based on the title.  I figured that the talk would be about her relationship with her mother and how she would convey the messages that she learned from this relationship into ones of her future daughter.  However, I was wrong!  This ended up just being the title of the spoken word poem that was recited at the start of the talk.  Interesting as it was, I was not expecting it to be about what it was!  Although this talk was not about what I thought it would be, I was very pleased with it and was able to relate to it quite well.  I too have had self-confidence issues (as many teenagers do) and mine was able to be boosted through my passion as well.  The more and more that I got involved with dance, the more confident in myself I became and the more I was able to learn with this newfound confidence.  With Never Let Me Go exploring the meaning of human life, this Ted Talk was able to help me understand that we all have similar issues as one another and we are all able to overcome them in similar ways.  Although we are not going to be able to understand everything, we are able to use what we know to explore the unknown as best as we can.