Naked Human Poem

Growing up I didn’t have any interest in reading. All throughout elementary school I was placed in the lowest reading level and I took that position as a sign that I wasn’t good enough to read, so I didn’t enjoy it. Why did people read for fun? What was fun about reading?! I didn’t find any kind of interest in reading until fairly recently so today, I’ll share my journey with reading with you.

The first book that truly had an impact on me was Shel Silverstein's “The Giving Tree”. To me, this picture book meant more than what was printed on the pages. It was my grandmother’s favorite book and I wanted to be like her, so it quickly became my favorite book too. Years after reading the book, I heard about the controversy about the book was the book about a boy and a tree or an abusive relationship? As a young girl, I decided to stick with the positive outlook on Silverstein’s novel and as the years went by, I fell in love with more of Shel Silverstein’s work, specifically his illustrations. “The Thinker of Tender Thoughts”

illustrated what it meant to stay true to yourself and there was no better advice I could have had at that time.
Eighth grade was also the first time I read a book for school that I actually enjoyed. Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” demonstrated the struggles Alexie had to face to escape poverty, abuse, and racism. This book didn’t sugarcoat his struggles, Alexie told them as they were, and this was a writing style I had never seen but learned to appreciate. The following year I read Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha”. This was the first novel about spirituality that I had ever read and since then, I’ve branched out and picked up some different ones about religion. Since I went to a Jewish day school for ten years, “Siddhartha” was one the only times that we actually researched in depth a religion other than Judaism, of course, we did compare Judaism to Buddhism. Learning about something completely new and then realizing that it’s not too different from what you practice was truly eye opening and it encouraged me to want to learn more about different cultures and religions. Being driven to learn more about my and other religions, I picked up an interactive crafts book by my mother, Rebeca Edid Ruzansky. “Celebrating with Jewish Crafts” is a step-by-step book that allows you to emerge yourself and your family with entertaining crafts while learning about the importance of Judaism and its traditions. As I read and researched more about other people’s journeys with religion and faith, I noticed no one had a story identical to another and that religion and faith is something that’s different for everyone.
During my time in middle school, I had Mrs. Goldblatt as my eighth-grade English class teacher. You know how there’s always that one teacher that kind of changes your life? Well, that was Mrs. Goldblatt for me. She encouraged us to read as much as possible so she wasn’t too happy when I told her I couldn’t remember the last time I picked up a book for my sake. After several tries of looking for a book that fit me, she gave me a copy of her book “Stray”. Stacey Goldblatt’s “Stray” emphasized how being held on a tight leash only resulted in being prone to stray as soon as the first sign of freedom was showed. She taught me to not take advantage of my opportunities and the importance of limits. Eventually, she recommended me Ned Vizzini's “It’s Kind of a Funny Story”. Craig Gilner, the main character, suffered from depression and checked into an adult psychiatric hospital. The book was written while he was in the hospital but wasn’t published until after he died. His thoughts and imagination remained alive while his mind was slowly killing him, but he wanted to get better. He wanted to be happy so Vizzini wrote the novel. Through Ned Vizzini, I realized how strong of a coping mechanism writing could be for people, and eventually, I began writing as a form of expression.
Christopher Poindexter’s “Naked Human” and “Lavender” are my two favorite poetry books.

Both books are beautifully crafted each page has its own poem on it and each time you turn the page appears your new favorite poem. “Naked Human” focuses on Poindexter’s most recent life experiences and how beautiful and rough life truly is. “Lavender” focuses more on poetry about love falling in and out of love, the state it brings you, and why it’s so important to love. As someone who writes to remember experiences and as a form of coping with life, I admire the way Christopher Poindexter expresses his thoughts because that’s something I struggle to do sometimes. I can’t always find the proper words to express myself and often stay silent. Christopher Poindexter has now become so popular that it’s almost impossible to get your hands on one of his books, but somehow I managed to do so and I’ve never appreciated a work of art more than

this.
After reading novels by famous authors like Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut, I decided to try reading something different. I began to read novels by authors no one had ever heard of, anonymous authors. “Go Ask Alice” was the first book I added to my collection of books written by anonymous authors. “Go Ask Alice” is the diary of a teenage girl who battles her war against drugs, alcohol, peer pressure, and society itself. Alice’s drug addiction shows how such a simple thing can twist your life and sometimes even end it. Another book published anonymously I read “Diary of an Oxygen Thief” told the story about a recovering alcoholic who lived off the thrill of hurting women, emotionally of course. He lived by the saying “hurt people hurt people” until he got hurt in the worst possible way he fell in love with a woman who simply used him to play her own game on. Through his own battles, the author demonstrates that people must treat others the way they’d like to be treated because ultimately everything comes back to us.