As a young girl growing up in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, I was always outside, at the park, or on the block jumping double dutch and playing hand games. The many sounds I heard played a very significant role in my childhood without my knowledge. As an adult I can still recall the various songs and dance moves taught to me at the age of five. After hearing Tracie Morris perform at the CSI Schwerner writers series event, it became evident to me that my memory stored those songs because they were examples of a very rare art form. The combination of the words with the rhythms of the rope hitting the pavement and the high pitched voices served as my first encounter with sound poetry.

Tracie Morris recited a sound poem where she incorporated traditional hand games and double dutch songs with Shakespeare’s Macbeth. She found a parallel between the 3 witches in the play and the 3 girls in a game of double dutch. This not only amazed and intrigued me but it made me realize that I too am a sound poet in my own unique way. After hearing Morris, I was inspired to do my own research. Sound poets perform using unusual and unexpected phonetic aspects of human speech,  and explore the dynamics of sound as poetry. When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I went on a trip to Barbados with my aunt and my sister and I made a song based on the sound of the tapping of my grandfather’s foot and the sound my grandmother made as she tasted bread and cheese. The reason I still remember it is because we were demonstrating the components without even knowing. I was connected to this performance at the age of 8 but I didn’t know it until today.