poems by Lana Ghannam, issue #18
6/19/21: Into the Archives: staff member Seth Rodriguez on poems by Lana Ghannam, issue #18
The author Lana I. Ghannam uses much personal experience to convey the message and story of the poems. Ghannam’s poems stick out with a unique melodic and wishful tone with excellent word choice and imagery to convey its message. Although their poems speak on a personal experience perspective, it reaches out to me on a personal level and makes me put my experiences in the same shoes of the author.
The first poem “Carnivore” discusses the world perspective of a world with anger. The poem starts off with a good quote that sums of the overarching theme of the poem, “The most violent element in society is ignorance”. It shows a world where ignorance is a dominant factor in everyones’ lives and essentially controls it, a world full of hatred, blind following, etc. What makes these poems stand out is that there is good usage of rhythm. The poem utilizes the form as well as punctuation like commas and extra spaces to add frequent breaks. This further added onto the tone of the poem giving it a darker and hopeless feeling for the reader. The usage of imagery and diction was excellent in this poem and made each line much more powerful and could make them strong enough to stand on their own, “We’re their high smoked off their beating sticks, cuts melted into bones”. The impact of the poem makes you think of the world we live in and a trait that is often overlooked in our society. A trait that controls much of our own lives at times.
The second poem “If You Ask For My Hand” delves into the perspective of someone who is in love and conflicts of family interfere with that environment. This poem utilizes imagery and metaphors that greatly enhance the reading experience: “her scorn spills like oil” “her voice designs sandstorms” each stanza holds an immense detailed word choice and imagery that helps convey the message and feelings of the characters of the poem. The form of the poem nicely breaks up the inner topics and helps compliment the tone to be stronger, the tone having a fearful yet inspirational feeling for the reader. The mother’s scolding is used to shape the author’s perspective of their love.
The final poem and my personal favorite is “I’LL HEAR HIM WHEN THE TREES MOVE”. The poem explains loss and the difference the world has around that figure who was lost. I assume this is a personal poem and it speaks to me. As mentioned before, although it is a poem from personal life and experience, it truly reaches out to me on a personal level. I feel as if I know the character Baba when reading, it also makes me think of those I once knew and the difference it is to have them around and to lose them. The imagery also stands out as the most well-crafted and imaginative aspects of the poems. “Angry, it points its crooked finger at me, demands to know where Baba is. I say the ground has him”. This gives good character to the world and sets the stage on the poem itself, showing that the world which once knew Baba is now disturbed in their disappearance. The tone of the poem instills a sense of joy but also a sadness which one feels toward the loss of a loved one. The poems overall are beautifully crafted and conveys beautiful imagery that only compliments each aspect of the poems.
