Jeffrey Angles poetry talk
Exophony: the practice of expressing oneself in writing in a foreign language. Jeffrey Angles surprised me in a lot of ways that I didn’t expect. From his Native American style clothing to his flamboyant, vibrant personality, he was a tremendous vehicle through which to hear his work. He shared topics— such as homosexuality, exophonous writing, and feminist works. To be honest, I was not sure what I expected to hear from his talk when I was preparing to come to the talk. However, I became a lot more engaged in his work, although these topics are not something that I am normally super interested in. Above all, his passion and perseverance in his work is what struck out to me: he started out as someone who first went to Japan and began learning the language as a teenager. He then became changed by this language and followed his passions to start writing poems, without knowing if any of it would lead to success. After winning the top literature award for a Japanese writer, he h...