It’s not often you get the opportunity to be present in a room with one of only four sound poets in the world, a voice transcending appearance, and a Pulitzer prize winner. That’s exactly where I found myself during our last class, in the company of Tracy Morris, Romi Smith and Professor Tyehimbah Jess as the host.

Romi Smith’s performance left me astounded at not only her talent of story telling, but her voice. Her voice was a talent on it’s own. She had somehow mastered the art of performing in the voice in which she heard the piece in when initially writing it. It was captivating to say the least. I found myself watching her mouth intently in disbelief that the British woman who had introduced her self in the beginning had somehow transformed into a black southern woman, her lover Soulfood Jones and white girl Alice. Three distinct voices, three personalities, all her.

Tracy Morris’ unapologetic humor and authenticity set her apart and kept me intrigued. Ready to hear the next story, flashback or reading. Then she did the unthinkable, well to me at least. She  used her mouth as a living breathing record, starting and stopping and repeating with speed and attitude and sounds that not only made you hear what she was saying, but placed me in the context of which she was saying it. Hearing her second version of Project Princess had suddenly had me double dutching with her.

Both poets made me alter my perspective when writing my own pieces. They presented me with the element of sound I’d never incorporated in this way. Not only as a muse but as a major character. Morris and Smith reminded me when writing my own piece to never forget the sound, that if Project princesses and dead woman can sound like that imagine the sounds I haven’t been listening to.