Extra Credit: Sawako Nakayasu

While attending my first poetry reading, I was amazed at how energetic it was. I enjoyed every minute of it! My particularly favorite poem was the poem titled, “Hitch Hiking.” I felt this very compelling to my own life and many other peoples’ lives. This poem was about ants climbing on top of shoes to get from place to place. I feel like, at times, in order to survive and stay on top of things in the world one must “piggy back” on another friend to get by. Life can be frustrating to go through and many people sink, but also many will swim. The ants mentioned that the little things like crossing the street was hard to do without the help of a shoe nearby. The ants were not able to make it across the street in time without the cars being able to go; therefore they will be squished and succumbed to death.

Everyone can relate this to their life, especially those who are not made of money. America seems to be all about how much money a family has and who can gain the respect of being rich faster than their neighbor. In order to get ahead in the game, it is always good to rely on a friend. The importance of friends comes out in this poem in that, nothing is possible by yourself. Well, it may be, but things will be a lot harder like that. According to the ants, if you weren’t fast enough to hop onto a shoe you would be left behind. Left behind can mean a lot of things. Are you left behind in the scheme of the world, or in the life of your own? A lot of self opinions are relevant to this subject. Many would think that if they do their own thing, they will be just fine in the end, other’s will think that they must keep up to date with the entire world in order to be in the know. While listening to this poem, I thought a lot about myself and what I consider “getting left behind.”