Poet’s warm presence creates a story-telling environment
September 21, 2014
Jinahie lays down her spoken word poetry in the Fred Meyer Lounge. She focused on interacting with the crowd and creating a warm environment where people would feel confident when sharing stories of their own.
There are so many different shows Linfield has showcased, yet Jinahie’s live spoken word poetry performance was extraordinary.
Jinahie’s performance was captivating and powerful. Jinahie has the ability to bring the audience in as well as a warm presence, which made the audience respond to her well.
Her first piece she recited was titled “Atlantic,” which is a personal message to her father.
As she recited the piece, there were emotions of wanting and pain, due to this piece being about her father leaving her family.
The words she recited told how much she admired him, but then her voice changed to resentment and curiosity as to why he left.
The audience was captivated as well by her words, snapping along to the verses that spoke to them.
She also recited two other poems; one that is dedicated to her grandmother and the other was about insecurities.
For the insecurities, she had four people from the audience come up and say what their insecurities were.
Jinahie made the audience comfortable and even interacted with them after the end of the show, such as having the audience do some Q&A and ask about her poetry and herself.
She gave hugs to the audience members and talked to each one of them individually, which showed the audience that she was a people’s person.
When she talked to the audience, she treated them as she was talking to her friends. Jinahie was so funny and amazing to talk to, she told the audience what drives her to do spoken word.
“I think writing down the words and our thoughts and how you feel about things is one thing and I think that’s beautiful,” Jinahie said.
She also mentioned that it’s all about bravery, “I think when we have the bravery and when we are brave enough to be vulnerable, we say our story and we speak it.”
Jinahie loved the audience as they gave her questions; she doesn’t leave the audience wondering and kept their expectations. She also mentioned how spoken word is connected to her and her artistic side.
Jinahie said that the poem finds her and how she thinks of art, “I don’t think of art as something that I do or artist do. I think the art does that; that might sound funny but art has given me a voice, art has given me an identity and not the other way around.”
She expressed the statement with certainty. The audience could tell that she meant what she said about her poetry finding her, she concluded with this statement “And so I think in that sense, my poetry found me and will continue to find me and will continue to create me.”