so in spoken word poetry events we when
we really like a line we snap our
fingers so can we all snap our fingers
now awesome so now when you guys hear a
line from this poem that you think you
really like her that just really hits
you you know what to do stop eating your
words away my mother always tells me see
I have a say so I find myself speaking
schools just to make sure that everyone
in the room can hear exactly what I’m
saying you probably can see that I have
a paste problem which is why I can’t
face a conversation I can’t tolerate
that I contact the Hurricanes
of questions the world is waiting for me
to say something smart or witty you’re
funny and all I can offer is I don’t
know let me think about this a blank
paper lets me think about this it
doesn’t glare at me when I job the wrong
words down it listens it understands it
doesn’t tell me what to say it is just
blank empty patient asking me to bring
it into life reminding me to turn the
thunderstorms in my mind into a gentle
breeze it absorbs each word and lets it
take the space it needs so I’d rather
write then speak because with a paper I
know that I can start with I don’t know
let me think about this and I can arrive
to its ending with hey I thought about
it and I might know a little which is a
little different than blanking into
someone’s face and trying to shackle my
thoughts from blowing up in every
direction people they are too busy to be
considered with days too short to fit
the time that my voice requires to start
making sense with Minds too full of
their own opinions usually I just want
to disappear but I’ll only walk away
slowly and I will pen down the only
truth that I know that blank papers are
my best friends my savior is my home and
when I see it when I see a pair of
slightly trembling lips or a head buried
down in the corner of a room trying its
best to be invisible my lips will curl
themselves into a smile and when their
voice prevails wonder
jakie nervous uncertain voice mumbles
its way into a room my head will built
itself to their direction my eyes will
fill up with patience my heart will
speed up just for theirs and I will do
what blank papers have taught me I have
a listen thank you so cliches are the
boring and repetitive sentences stories
and ideas that we’ve all heard or her
the Virgin of before we see them as
unoriginal even mind-numbing
best at best a story of a cliche is
normal but normally we see them as MIDI
ocher and the main problem with cliches
is that they are overused we have heard
them so many times they just simply stop
being special they’re an everyday thing
now now with all of that in mind I want
you guys to think about one thing about
yourself that you would consider a
cliche something about you that you
think is totally boring it can be an
interest a habit or just a stereotype
that you really fit in and I wanted to
think about to keep that one thing in
mind because throughout my talk I will
prove to you why that cliche is actually
awesome so one way that I’m a cliche is
that I’m the youngest child in the
family which means that up until this
point my mom still calls me by all of my
other siblings names before remembering
my real one I don’t even bother
correcting her it also means that
growing up I was surrounded by people
who could understand concepts and ideas
that were way out of my minds reached so
I always try to read I felt like books
were these magic portals that led me to
a world where everyone else’s minds made
sense and when I was 10 years old my dad
came home carrying a huge blue book it
was probably the biggest book I’ve ever
seen and I the book said Alamelu
committed us allaha he and the full
works of Sailaja hain so I asked my dad
who is that and what did he write so
much and he told me he’s a poet he
writes poetry and I didn’t really know
what poetry meant but I started reading
the book and I couldn’t understand what
most of the poems were trying to tell me
but you know I kept reading them anyway
single dad go to my older sister who I
thought knew everything in the world and
I’d be like can you please explain these
to me and she would and by time I
started to comprehend the poems all in
my own and the book became my best
friend I carried it everywhere and read
it all the time and I memorized it cover
to cover well except for the really long
poems I tried my best with these and I
remember thinking to myself whoa
Sahin is a magician like he has this
super power with words he can actually
use them to explain his own fears and
thoughts and ideas and emotions I was
the shy kid that stuttered whenever
someone looked at me I could never be a
poet or so I thought until I started
seeing this on the news a revolution
sparked in Egypt and I remember in the
29th of January 2011 I was standing at
the balcony of my house and there was a
protesting March passing by and I could
see the people religiously chanting
their demands for their rights and I
thought to myself oh this is history I’m
witnessing history right at this moment
I have to tell the story and that was
why I wrote my first poem and when I
went back to school I was just showing
it to a friend of mine when a teacher
happened to overhear me and on the same
day the same teacher passed by my
classroom and asked me to go with her
which is strange this doesn’t usually
happen and usually means bad news so I
was thinking what did I do
what what did I thought what could I
have possibly done wrong so I asked her
where are we going and then she said
I was panicking the principal was an old
strict extremely like you know strict
lady that she said she just always
seemed to be mad at something and I was
really scared just to be around her but
that day she asked me to read her my
poem in her office and I did the scared
as I was and yeah then like it was my
first time ever seeing her smile in my
life I was you know incredibly confusing
because up until that point I just
thought you didn’t smile it didn’t seem
like her thing and then she asked me to
read my phone in front of the whole
school and I said yes and I went back
home and I started practicing for my big
performance and then when the day came I
was cutting a confused that this amount
of people were listening to me as I
spoke and then they clapped after I was
done because being the youngest child
cliche that I am I had to be really
really really loud in order to be heard
in my house but in that moment I felt
very heard and seen in a way that I
didn’t even know existed
but soon enough I started losing
interest in poetry and I just want it to
be cool i want it to be you know to have
more friends which means that you can’t
be the friend quirky or weird let’s face
it that’s exactly what poetry is
and I felt blank soon I just you know
everyone here probably knows how it’s
like to be an 11 years old and so
confused and to have all these big
questions about life and not even know
how to put them into words and that was
my problem and then when I was 12 I had
to move from Egypt to Kuwait a place
that I’ve never been to and that only
added to my confusion but then at 14 I
got a bit lucky I stumble upon a TED
talk by Sarah Kay where she spoke about
her about her journey with spoken word
poetry and she described that as poetry
that refuses to just sit on paper that
something about it demands to be heard
out loud or witnessed in person and I
really fell in love with her story
because when she had her first
performance she was a fourteen years old
and she was shy and awkward and she
don’t like it when someone looked at her
for too long you know obviously neither
did I we both fit into the cliche of
being scared young and overwhelmed by
all of these people around us and that
got me to connect with everything that
she said even the parts that I couldn’t
have possibly experienced so far and it
reminded me that because she used to be
the cliche that big cliche of someone
who was young and afraid and there was
more to her than that then there is
probably more to me than what I was done
and it’s inspired me to write but I was
really scared of something I was really
scared
of writing a cliched poem how many
people here have been told to avoid
cliches at some point in their lives can
I see it oh yeah well me too it almost
seems like avoid cliches is a cliche but
it’s there for a reason it’s there to
remind us that we have to be authentic
with we have to be original and creative
with our work and it actually brings the
best of us so in that way avoid cliches
is a cliche that is there for a purpose
the same way the time the once upon a
time is a cliche but how else are we
gonna start our bedtime stories and time
heals all wounds is such a cliche but I
know that I have very little in common
with someone who lived 500 years ago
somewhere completely different spoke a
whole other different different language
but both of us at some point in our
lives needed to hear that that time the
does hear our wounds right now I’m the
cliche of someone who just like you know
so cliches do this super cheesy thing
where they just they jump over all
barriers that could separate us and they
connect us as humans so this talk is
very for humans if you are a robot this
is your cue to leave and I’m really
hoping that no one gets up right now and
as I dived into poetry I realized that
poets do use cliches to connect with
their audience a lot of the time and one
of my favorite examples of that is the
poem accents by Denise from and where
she described her mother’s thick accent
and fixed Spanish accent while speaking
English and the way that she chose to
describe that is English sits in her
mouth remixed keep in mind she said
remix not disfigure not sits in her
mouth and comfortable
it is remix that one sentence changed
the way that I thought about my own
accent because at the time I was
surrounded by all of these non Egyptians
and I only needed to speak one sentence
in Arabic but sukham Nevada and everyone
would know exactly where I came from and
that made me feel extremely
self-conscious but the pride that Denise
Raman had when she spoke about her
mother’s accent how she described it as
a stubborn compass always pointing her
towards home it reminded me that my own
accent is exactly that – and yeah and
because she showed me how to defy the
cliche of someone who was who didn’t
culturally fit into their surroundings
and was so afraid of that the poem gave
me freedom and about a month ago I was
preparing a poem for the AP
International week about Egypt and if
almost full of cliches about living in
Egypt it’s about how we put everything
in caneta
even revolve it so about how the traffic
is constantly paralyzing but somehow
McDonald’s arrives like super fast it’s
about how where I come from there are
too many things lacking too many
droughts up plans too many plastic bats
flying where they don’t belong
too many cars parked where they
shouldn’t be too many struggles too deep
rooted into the system to avoid too much
noise so much hassle too much of edge
too much of everything in a population
then knows how to get by despite all the
chaos and I showed this poem to a friend
of mine who is not an Egyptian actually
she is not Arab but all she doesn’t know
anything about Egypt and after I was
done with the foam she gave me the best
compliment that I ever received in my
life she said Angie you made me feel
like an Egyptian he made me want to
cheer to this poem the same way that an
Egyptian person would and I was
speechless but I knew that this is the
power of cliches when we show our own
mundane extremely boring details we got
to connect I believe that poetry is
somewhere between extreme anxiety and
mind-numbing comfort it’s a state of
wonder it’s being able to look at the
familiar things and really be amazed by
them and when we we are always afraid of
sharing stories that we think are boring
they are just too lame they are not
surprising enough and well that’s true
but that is how we get to connect your
boring story probably the person next to
you has probably lived through a similar
version of that story and that is where
you guys get to be friends you are
always one honest cliche from making an
amazing friend from making someone else
feel less lonely or cry or you know
laugh or sympathize with you and I get
to see the magic of a cliche turning and
room full of strangers into friends who
can laugh and cry and sympathize with me
so I’d like to end this talk with a poem
that I was afraid to write one that I
didn’t want to share with anyone for
about a month after I wrote it because I
just thought they would think it’s too
lame poem full of boring details and
cliches here are cliches that make me
who I am one I really love my hair – I’m
really clumsy when it comes to anything
at all so if it so one of my really
messy days if you try to hand me a cup
of coffee I will probably put it down
because I would rather not drink the
coffee at all I would rather not have
the cup at all or even feel its warmth
then risk the chance of breaking it free
I’m not good with words all I am is just
a messy head that can only explain the
chaos that’s going on in here using
hurricanes on thunderstorms for I’m
terrified of people five
I am completely terrified of whatever is
gonna happen next six I’m scared six I’m
scared six I’m scared six I can’t just
keep saying that I’m scared I can always
keep repeating synonyms of the word
terrified I kind of will just keep
saying phrases that would tell you how
terrified I am and I know I’m a poet I’m
supposed to be able to come up with a
metaphor that would tell you how
terrified I am instead of repeating the
word over and over and over and over
again but I learned to be honest I
learned to say things exactly the way
that they aren’t exactly the way that I
am terrified of everything even right
now I’m terrified of speaking my poetry
out loud in front of people who may or
may not like it but I’ll speak it out
anyway because above everything above
all I’m terrified of letting this this
fear consumed me so I’ll consume every
bit of energy that I have left in me
trying to kill it so seven I feel in
color
so when I tell you that I’m feeling gray
it probably just means that I really
need a hug when I tell you that
something you said made me feel pink it
means they put a smile so huge in my
face that no normal description could
serve a justice when I tell you that I’m
breathing red it means that I’m being
patronized by my passion again it means
that I’m telling you that I’m asking you
I’m begging you to help me and I know I
sound completely ridiculous when I speak
in colors but it is the only language
that I’m truly fluent in eight times a
thousand is the number of times that my
niece forced me to watch frozen with her
nine I secretly enjoyed it every single
time then I’m really clumsy when it
comes to anything at all so if you try
to hand me your heart I will probably
push it away because I would rather not
have your love with all I would rather I
have your trust at all or even feel its
warmth then risk the chance of breaking
it 11 I’m really bad at lying especially
when I’m not okay 12 I’m really good at
staying up past my bedtime 13 I’m still
learning how to love myself 14 I still
have a long way to go I have worlds that
I’m yet to discover I have a future that
I’m so terrified of but I can’t wait to
dive in I still have me I still have me
I’m not done yet this poem will forever
be unfinished because you know what I
can never ever ever fit myself in any
number of points but let me tell you
this 15 I’m really clumsy when it comes
to anything at all I stumble upon my own
words and I trip on my own thoughts
sometimes I feel like I’m broken beyond
being fixed and other times I feel like
I am fixed in place but I’ll keep moving
anyway I still will take every step even
when my legs feel like they weigh tons I
will take every step I will keep moving
I will keep trying I am trying thank you [Applause]
we really like a line we snap our
fingers so can we all snap our fingers
now awesome so now when you guys hear a
line from this poem that you think you
really like her that just really hits
you you know what to do stop eating your
words away my mother always tells me see
I have a say so I find myself speaking
schools just to make sure that everyone
in the room can hear exactly what I’m
saying you probably can see that I have
a paste problem which is why I can’t
face a conversation I can’t tolerate
that I contact the Hurricanes
of questions the world is waiting for me
to say something smart or witty you’re
funny and all I can offer is I don’t
know let me think about this a blank
paper lets me think about this it
doesn’t glare at me when I job the wrong
words down it listens it understands it
doesn’t tell me what to say it is just
blank empty patient asking me to bring
it into life reminding me to turn the
thunderstorms in my mind into a gentle
breeze it absorbs each word and lets it
take the space it needs so I’d rather
write then speak because with a paper I
know that I can start with I don’t know
let me think about this and I can arrive
to its ending with hey I thought about
it and I might know a little which is a
little different than blanking into
someone’s face and trying to shackle my
thoughts from blowing up in every
direction people they are too busy to be
considered with days too short to fit
the time that my voice requires to start
making sense with Minds too full of
their own opinions usually I just want
to disappear but I’ll only walk away
slowly and I will pen down the only
truth that I know that blank papers are
my best friends my savior is my home and
when I see it when I see a pair of
slightly trembling lips or a head buried
down in the corner of a room trying its
best to be invisible my lips will curl
themselves into a smile and when their
voice prevails wonder
jakie nervous uncertain voice mumbles
its way into a room my head will built
itself to their direction my eyes will
fill up with patience my heart will
speed up just for theirs and I will do
what blank papers have taught me I have
a listen thank you so cliches are the
boring and repetitive sentences stories
and ideas that we’ve all heard or her
the Virgin of before we see them as
unoriginal even mind-numbing
best at best a story of a cliche is
normal but normally we see them as MIDI
ocher and the main problem with cliches
is that they are overused we have heard
them so many times they just simply stop
being special they’re an everyday thing
now now with all of that in mind I want
you guys to think about one thing about
yourself that you would consider a
cliche something about you that you
think is totally boring it can be an
interest a habit or just a stereotype
that you really fit in and I wanted to
think about to keep that one thing in
mind because throughout my talk I will
prove to you why that cliche is actually
awesome so one way that I’m a cliche is
that I’m the youngest child in the
family which means that up until this
point my mom still calls me by all of my
other siblings names before remembering
my real one I don’t even bother
correcting her it also means that
growing up I was surrounded by people
who could understand concepts and ideas
that were way out of my minds reached so
I always try to read I felt like books
were these magic portals that led me to
a world where everyone else’s minds made
sense and when I was 10 years old my dad
came home carrying a huge blue book it
was probably the biggest book I’ve ever
seen and I the book said Alamelu
committed us allaha he and the full
works of Sailaja hain so I asked my dad
who is that and what did he write so
much and he told me he’s a poet he
writes poetry and I didn’t really know
what poetry meant but I started reading
the book and I couldn’t understand what
most of the poems were trying to tell me
but you know I kept reading them anyway
single dad go to my older sister who I
thought knew everything in the world and
I’d be like can you please explain these
to me and she would and by time I
started to comprehend the poems all in
my own and the book became my best
friend I carried it everywhere and read
it all the time and I memorized it cover
to cover well except for the really long
poems I tried my best with these and I
remember thinking to myself whoa
Sahin is a magician like he has this
super power with words he can actually
use them to explain his own fears and
thoughts and ideas and emotions I was
the shy kid that stuttered whenever
someone looked at me I could never be a
poet or so I thought until I started
seeing this on the news a revolution
sparked in Egypt and I remember in the
29th of January 2011 I was standing at
the balcony of my house and there was a
protesting March passing by and I could
see the people religiously chanting
their demands for their rights and I
thought to myself oh this is history I’m
witnessing history right at this moment
I have to tell the story and that was
why I wrote my first poem and when I
went back to school I was just showing
it to a friend of mine when a teacher
happened to overhear me and on the same
day the same teacher passed by my
classroom and asked me to go with her
which is strange this doesn’t usually
happen and usually means bad news so I
was thinking what did I do
what what did I thought what could I
have possibly done wrong so I asked her
where are we going and then she said
I was panicking the principal was an old
strict extremely like you know strict
lady that she said she just always
seemed to be mad at something and I was
really scared just to be around her but
that day she asked me to read her my
poem in her office and I did the scared
as I was and yeah then like it was my
first time ever seeing her smile in my
life I was you know incredibly confusing
because up until that point I just
thought you didn’t smile it didn’t seem
like her thing and then she asked me to
read my phone in front of the whole
school and I said yes and I went back
home and I started practicing for my big
performance and then when the day came I
was cutting a confused that this amount
of people were listening to me as I
spoke and then they clapped after I was
done because being the youngest child
cliche that I am I had to be really
really really loud in order to be heard
in my house but in that moment I felt
very heard and seen in a way that I
didn’t even know existed
but soon enough I started losing
interest in poetry and I just want it to
be cool i want it to be you know to have
more friends which means that you can’t
be the friend quirky or weird let’s face
it that’s exactly what poetry is
and I felt blank soon I just you know
everyone here probably knows how it’s
like to be an 11 years old and so
confused and to have all these big
questions about life and not even know
how to put them into words and that was
my problem and then when I was 12 I had
to move from Egypt to Kuwait a place
that I’ve never been to and that only
added to my confusion but then at 14 I
got a bit lucky I stumble upon a TED
talk by Sarah Kay where she spoke about
her about her journey with spoken word
poetry and she described that as poetry
that refuses to just sit on paper that
something about it demands to be heard
out loud or witnessed in person and I
really fell in love with her story
because when she had her first
performance she was a fourteen years old
and she was shy and awkward and she
don’t like it when someone looked at her
for too long you know obviously neither
did I we both fit into the cliche of
being scared young and overwhelmed by
all of these people around us and that
got me to connect with everything that
she said even the parts that I couldn’t
have possibly experienced so far and it
reminded me that because she used to be
the cliche that big cliche of someone
who was young and afraid and there was
more to her than that then there is
probably more to me than what I was done
and it’s inspired me to write but I was
really scared of something I was really
scared
of writing a cliched poem how many
people here have been told to avoid
cliches at some point in their lives can
I see it oh yeah well me too it almost
seems like avoid cliches is a cliche but
it’s there for a reason it’s there to
remind us that we have to be authentic
with we have to be original and creative
with our work and it actually brings the
best of us so in that way avoid cliches
is a cliche that is there for a purpose
the same way the time the once upon a
time is a cliche but how else are we
gonna start our bedtime stories and time
heals all wounds is such a cliche but I
know that I have very little in common
with someone who lived 500 years ago
somewhere completely different spoke a
whole other different different language
but both of us at some point in our
lives needed to hear that that time the
does hear our wounds right now I’m the
cliche of someone who just like you know
so cliches do this super cheesy thing
where they just they jump over all
barriers that could separate us and they
connect us as humans so this talk is
very for humans if you are a robot this
is your cue to leave and I’m really
hoping that no one gets up right now and
as I dived into poetry I realized that
poets do use cliches to connect with
their audience a lot of the time and one
of my favorite examples of that is the
poem accents by Denise from and where
she described her mother’s thick accent
and fixed Spanish accent while speaking
English and the way that she chose to
describe that is English sits in her
mouth remixed keep in mind she said
remix not disfigure not sits in her
mouth and comfortable
it is remix that one sentence changed
the way that I thought about my own
accent because at the time I was
surrounded by all of these non Egyptians
and I only needed to speak one sentence
in Arabic but sukham Nevada and everyone
would know exactly where I came from and
that made me feel extremely
self-conscious but the pride that Denise
Raman had when she spoke about her
mother’s accent how she described it as
a stubborn compass always pointing her
towards home it reminded me that my own
accent is exactly that – and yeah and
because she showed me how to defy the
cliche of someone who was who didn’t
culturally fit into their surroundings
and was so afraid of that the poem gave
me freedom and about a month ago I was
preparing a poem for the AP
International week about Egypt and if
almost full of cliches about living in
Egypt it’s about how we put everything
in caneta
even revolve it so about how the traffic
is constantly paralyzing but somehow
McDonald’s arrives like super fast it’s
about how where I come from there are
too many things lacking too many
droughts up plans too many plastic bats
flying where they don’t belong
too many cars parked where they
shouldn’t be too many struggles too deep
rooted into the system to avoid too much
noise so much hassle too much of edge
too much of everything in a population
then knows how to get by despite all the
chaos and I showed this poem to a friend
of mine who is not an Egyptian actually
she is not Arab but all she doesn’t know
anything about Egypt and after I was
done with the foam she gave me the best
compliment that I ever received in my
life she said Angie you made me feel
like an Egyptian he made me want to
cheer to this poem the same way that an
Egyptian person would and I was
speechless but I knew that this is the
power of cliches when we show our own
mundane extremely boring details we got
to connect I believe that poetry is
somewhere between extreme anxiety and
mind-numbing comfort it’s a state of
wonder it’s being able to look at the
familiar things and really be amazed by
them and when we we are always afraid of
sharing stories that we think are boring
they are just too lame they are not
surprising enough and well that’s true
but that is how we get to connect your
boring story probably the person next to
you has probably lived through a similar
version of that story and that is where
you guys get to be friends you are
always one honest cliche from making an
amazing friend from making someone else
feel less lonely or cry or you know
laugh or sympathize with you and I get
to see the magic of a cliche turning and
room full of strangers into friends who
can laugh and cry and sympathize with me
so I’d like to end this talk with a poem
that I was afraid to write one that I
didn’t want to share with anyone for
about a month after I wrote it because I
just thought they would think it’s too
lame poem full of boring details and
cliches here are cliches that make me
who I am one I really love my hair – I’m
really clumsy when it comes to anything
at all so if it so one of my really
messy days if you try to hand me a cup
of coffee I will probably put it down
because I would rather not drink the
coffee at all I would rather not have
the cup at all or even feel its warmth
then risk the chance of breaking it free
I’m not good with words all I am is just
a messy head that can only explain the
chaos that’s going on in here using
hurricanes on thunderstorms for I’m
terrified of people five
I am completely terrified of whatever is
gonna happen next six I’m scared six I’m
scared six I’m scared six I can’t just
keep saying that I’m scared I can always
keep repeating synonyms of the word
terrified I kind of will just keep
saying phrases that would tell you how
terrified I am and I know I’m a poet I’m
supposed to be able to come up with a
metaphor that would tell you how
terrified I am instead of repeating the
word over and over and over and over
again but I learned to be honest I
learned to say things exactly the way
that they aren’t exactly the way that I
am terrified of everything even right
now I’m terrified of speaking my poetry
out loud in front of people who may or
may not like it but I’ll speak it out
anyway because above everything above
all I’m terrified of letting this this
fear consumed me so I’ll consume every
bit of energy that I have left in me
trying to kill it so seven I feel in
color
so when I tell you that I’m feeling gray
it probably just means that I really
need a hug when I tell you that
something you said made me feel pink it
means they put a smile so huge in my
face that no normal description could
serve a justice when I tell you that I’m
breathing red it means that I’m being
patronized by my passion again it means
that I’m telling you that I’m asking you
I’m begging you to help me and I know I
sound completely ridiculous when I speak
in colors but it is the only language
that I’m truly fluent in eight times a
thousand is the number of times that my
niece forced me to watch frozen with her
nine I secretly enjoyed it every single
time then I’m really clumsy when it
comes to anything at all so if you try
to hand me your heart I will probably
push it away because I would rather not
have your love with all I would rather I
have your trust at all or even feel its
warmth then risk the chance of breaking
it 11 I’m really bad at lying especially
when I’m not okay 12 I’m really good at
staying up past my bedtime 13 I’m still
learning how to love myself 14 I still
have a long way to go I have worlds that
I’m yet to discover I have a future that
I’m so terrified of but I can’t wait to
dive in I still have me I still have me
I’m not done yet this poem will forever
be unfinished because you know what I
can never ever ever fit myself in any
number of points but let me tell you
this 15 I’m really clumsy when it comes
to anything at all I stumble upon my own
words and I trip on my own thoughts
sometimes I feel like I’m broken beyond
being fixed and other times I feel like
I am fixed in place but I’ll keep moving
anyway I still will take every step even
when my legs feel like they weigh tons I
will take every step I will keep moving
I will keep trying I am trying thank you [Applause]
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