Poem: “Spoken But Not Heard”
Spoken But Not Heard
From the pallid walls my voice emanates, it elucidates our struggle
It depicts frustration and rage from when our voices were muffled
When no one listened or cared, feelings never were spared, so hearts
resembled prunes. Violence ensued leaving too many cold and blue.
Blood red tears cascaded down the cheeks of momma’s face,
she cried as she consoled her baby with her last loving embrace.
Spoken but not heard!
Our cry for help rejected, learning facilities neglected, hearts dejected
by circumstance, nobody saw our anger. Danger followed,
murder hollowed bodies because they failed to listen.
Intentions misunderstood due to malignant intuition.
Sentences issued, toy soldiers locked away to decay from inside out, doubt
filled our world without drought. Certainty never came.
Red rain beating the roof of a house where hurt and pain resides.
Memorials raised, pictures depicting fertile thoughts that strayed,
then died. All we ever heard from the public was why. Debating facts
and fantasy as our world collides.
Spoken but not heard.
7 Comments
Leave a Comment
The poets featured here are currently incarcerated, and many of them are in federal prisons far from home. Your feedback is a valuable source of motivation and connection to the outside community. Post your comments, feedback, and encouragement in the space below the poem. Messages will be passed on directly to the author. Comments may not appear immediately on the site, as our team processes them to mail to the poets.
Wow! This is a really powerful poem. The poem itself emanates and elucidates, just like in the first line. I really like the rhythm in this poem – you can hear it as you read. I think it would be naturally musical if read aloud. The very skillful use of internal rhyme drives this natural rhythm.
I think the poem is at its strongest when it seizes on concrete images – “hearts resembling prunes,” “red rain beating the roof of a house,” “toy soldiers,” etc. A poem like this, that deals with big themes rather than specific events, can easily get lost in vague notions and rhetoric that don’t work as well in poetry. If I could give any piece of advice for this poem, it would be to make sure that it stays grounded in the specific rather than the abstract. Rather than telling the reader about “frustration and rage,” try showing us grinding teeth, dizziness, the pressure cooker boiling over.
When reading, I wanted to close my eyes and hear the words wash over me. The poem made me feel a righteous indignation and a sorrow at the messed up situation that so many people in our prison systems have gone through. It was really an excellent poem with a beautiful, natural rhythm, and I’m looking forward to reading more.
This poem is a very deep one .
Your poem is so evocative and emotionally intense. When you start off with “pallid walls,” right away I get a sense of hopelessness and being stifled. When you use the colors “red” and “blue” to describe the violence and alienation, it makes a great contrast with the pale white walls–as though to suggest that the human emotions can’t be controlled by institutions. I like that you repeat the refrain “spoken but not heard,” and I completely get that feeling from your poem–the frustration as well as the power of this speaker’s personal voice. I thought this poem was very complex because on the one hand, it speaks of being unheard and shut up. Still, under the surface, this poem seems to be a testament to the power of humanity and emotion and creativity. I love the way these two themes struggle within the text.
I agree with Shannon’s comment, and I would suggest in the future that you continue to focus on concrete, vivid images and let those images carry the emotional weight. You have a wonderful sense of diction and rhythm–the sounds of this poem are sharp and driving.
Thank you for this beautiful poem. Please keep writing!
The refrain of “spoken but not heard” is powerful and works really well. You effectively use metaphors, and I especially like the image of the red rain falling on roofs. The rhythm and sounds of the poem are compelling and move me forward throughout the entire piece. This is a profound piece of writing, and it captures emotions well. It feels like the poem is a vessel for a message that needs to be said.
Powerful poem here – the imagery is incredibly poignant – “hearts like prunes,” “red rain,” were some of the phrases that grabbed me the most. There is a certain swirling feeling you get while reading this, which you establish with the the rhythm. The spoken but not heard refrain is also great. First not heard because the audience (the dead body) is physically unable to hear, and in the refrain not heard because the audience (society at large) chooses not to hear. Really well done!
One thing that immediately stood out to me in this poem is your strategic use of rhymes, slant rhymes and assonance throughout, not just at the ends of the lines but expertly embedded within the bodies of the lines, giving it a slam poem feeling. I can easily see this being performed on a stage to empower a large audience. Your imagery is stunning, violent, lovely, gory, and reverberant all at once, and I can tell you have a perfect comprehension of the fact that this is what a powerful, earth-shattering poem needs: it needs to uncover some of the ugliness in order to delve to the truth. My absolute favorite line was “When no one listened or cared, feelings never were spared, so hearts resembled prunes.” I mean, come on. That simile is gorgeous, dizzying, and very visceral. This line is also brilliant: “Intentions misunderstood due to malignant intuition.” A very insightful observation into the darker side of human intention. This poem is amazing, it is heartbreaking, it is empowering, it sheds light on a sheltered truth of our nature. Please keep writing more incredible poems like this; the world certainly needs these words to be heard.
Nice poem. It makes it hard not to feel the emotion behind every word. I like the line, “Blood red tears cascaded down the cheeks of momma’s face.” It’s a powerful image that shows how much pain and sadness mothers feel.