It wasn’t Juno Díaz’s published work that surprised me, it was his spoken words
and the way he said them. His lecture began similarly to other famous author
talks: with a reading from his published works and a few comments about his
writing process and how he finds inspiration. I was dutifully taking notes,
expecting to write words that I’ve heard before about being a writer. But by
the end, I found myself frantically trying to record the words that were making
my head buzz.
“We
are trying to see and live in a world that takes out our tongues and spikes out
our eyes because we can’t say what we feel or see what’s really there because
we’re not rewarded for it.”
At these words I stopped
my casual scribbling and blinked a few times. I could have sworn a few moments
prior Díaz had been discussing his use of second
person and gracefully covering the topic of diversity. But suddenly the
comfortable veil that most speakers use to keep from getting too deep or for staying
politically correct was torn right in half and he began to speak about authenticity
and the culture of respectability. People are lying all the time, he told us,
for the sake of politeness, and it is an artist’s job to see beneath all the
superficiality. The way he said these things, it was as if he was simply
speaking his mind and the words flowed out like prose. He told us that our
generation was born into a unique societal movement and that we’ve been told to
stay down and keep quiet. We’re so pressured by adult concerns and issues that
we get bogged down and grow up too quickly. We’re expected to submit to society
as soon as possible. But if we wanted, we could cause more ruckus than all the
generations before us.
It
was an odd direction for the lecture to take, but in the end, I found myself
inspired and really excited about the way he spoke in prose.
Díaz left me thinking about how communication
really can move people and how what we create can make incredible changes. His
thoughts changed the way I see my world, even if it was just a little bit. And isn’t
that the greatest reason to write?
-Miranda Romano
-Miranda Romano
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