Tamara's Opus by Dr. Joshua Bennett

  • Spoken poetry Watch as Joshua Bennett performs at the White House.

     

    Opus: “any artistic work, especially one on a large scale”. Joshua Bennett’s opus on his sister details his progression of understanding his older sister being deaf and his exploration into life experiences for deaf people. An important aspect of this poem is that Bennett includes several hand signs in his spoken performance of his poem.
    As a younger brother, Bennett describes his initial understanding of his sister through his father’s explanation: “God just makes some people different”. From this explanation, he describes the shattering of his innocence as he realizes he will always see him and his sister as “different”. The emotion of this part of the poem is significant because it builds the arc of the story he is telling. Bennett will proceed to relate his current relation to his sister, but his description of himself as a child is telling to the ignorance he held on the matter before he grew up. This change in his character delivers the moral of the poem to the reader and builds a strong emotion of familial love and understanding that a reader can relate to.
    Indicated by the words in italics, Bennett speaks while signing certain lines of the poem. The hand signs appear during lines Bennett wants to emphasize. Since the poem is a declaration to his sister about the barrier between them, he signs “I am sorry for my silence”, “family”, and “goodbye. I will see you again someday”. His use of the ASL hand signs shows important character development, as he goes from confusion to attempts at communication.
    By the end of the poem Bennett comes to the realization of what he has learned in life. He has an apology for his sister, which is signed, because he now knows that a language barrier cannot keep them apart, “For true love knows no frequency”. The message I find in the poem is that we can always change our views on what we think we know. Our interpretation of our world and what is “different” may come as a new realization later in life. Through Bennett’s poem, a connection and new-found appreciation of deaf culture is seen as he urges us all to “just listen”.
     
    Line 30-40 gets me every time! I can't wait to find out what my students love about this poem!
  • Responses from students after reading and watching the spoken words of Dr. Bennett.
     
    [1:58 PM] Stringfield, Zachary
    This poem is a great window to joshua bennetts feelings about his sisters deafness as well his feelings regarding his inability to talk to or really connect with his sister in the earlier years of his life. This poem seems like an emotional release from these feelings of guilt which i can infer he has felt for quite some time. This inference is built upon the pure passion found within the whole poem. This peace of poetry allows the reader, or listener, to somewhat connect to the the troubles between Mr. Bennet and his sister. My favorite part of this poem is lines 10-19, of which the most powerful are "god just makes some people different. And at that point those nine words felt like hammers swung gracefully by unholy hands".
     
    [1:41 PM] Strickland, Delia
    This is a deep apologetic poem that it full of many different emotions, all of which are intriguing and fascinating to read, so overall it was a very interesting and loving poem to read. My favorite part of this poem was when he wrote "' Joshua. Nothing is wrong with Tamara. God just makes some people different'" I think that is a very mind-opening moment for the narrator and very revealing to the reader because of the amount of truth that it holds.
     
     
    [3:04 PM] Anderson, Isabella
    In the poem by Bennett, he comes off as first selfish and not understanding of his sister's disability. As the poem goes on you can tell that he regrets the way he was with his sister for not being more involved with her life. In the end, he knows he cannot make up for all the time that he lost be he is willing to start learning now. He regrets not being there for his sister and now he wants to fix it which is why my favorite part was when he said " I will use these hands to speak volumes." He says this because he regrets not showing more love to his sister and learning sign language. He finally realizes a new appreciation for the deaf culture and wants to be more involved with it.
     
    [3:18 PM] Doyle, Patricia
    In "Tamara's Opus", Joshua Bennet told his story of how he went from selfish to caring because he waited for his deaf sister to get her hearing back which would never happen, until he realized how he should have cared and been there for her and learned sign language for her. My favorite part of the poem was whenever he told us what his father said "God just makes some people different". I really like his way of telling his story of regret, by using figurative language which helped me see what he was describing. For example, "So I will use these hands to speak volume that could never be contained within the boundaries of sound waves". 
     
    [3:54 PM] Parker, Ramell
    The perfection of this work is amazing. Tamara's Opus by Joshua Bennet tells the story by explaining the breach of connection him and his sister had due to her deafness. He gave a good open mic poem at the White House by sharing his poem and expressing in  ASL in the middle of his poem to speak some words. Envision yourself having to go through that, you can't so that what makes me fancy this poem so much.
     
    [3:57 PM] Davis, Emily
    This poem was very heartfelt and contagious to emotion. The part of the poem that spoke to me the most was when he realized that he never loved her as much as he could by learning sign language, and decided to push himself to learn all of it. He said these words, " I will shout at the top of my fingertips until digits dance and relay these messages directly to your soul. This really hit me with emotion, because he knows he messed up by not learning earlier and not trying, but he is convinced that he will love her to the max and proving to her that he can do it. He also uses those words to show that he won't stop until she is happy.  The video also hits base on this because the way he said those words, his tone accomplished the feeling of desire.