ours poetica
Eloisa Amezcua reads "Teaching My Mother English over the Phone"
YouTube: | https://youtube.com/watch?v=-xEWrD8gz6c |
Previous: | Carl Phillips reads “Effort at Speech Between Two People” |
Next: | Hrishikesh Hirway reads "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop |
Categories
Statistics
View count: | 13,120 |
Likes: | 1,273 |
Comments: | 51 |
Duration: | 02:32 |
Uploaded: | 2019-10-23 |
Last sync: | 2024-10-18 23:45 |
Eloisa Amezcua shares her poem "Teaching My Mother English over the Phone".
Brought to you by Complexly, The Poetry Foundation, and poet Paige Lewis. Learn more: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
Eloisa Amezcua:
http://www.eloisaamezcua.com/
https://twitter.com/Eloisa_Amezcua
Poem:
Read from: From the Inside Quietly, published by Sundress Publications
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780692955482
11 issues of Poetry, subscribe today for $20: https://poetrymagazine.org/OursPoetica
Follow us elsewhere for the full Ours Poetica experience:
twitter.com/ourspoeticashow
instagram.com/ourspoeticashow
facebook.com/ourspoeticashow
#poetry #ourspoetica #EloisaAmezcua
Brought to you by Complexly, The Poetry Foundation, and poet Paige Lewis. Learn more: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
Eloisa Amezcua:
http://www.eloisaamezcua.com/
https://twitter.com/Eloisa_Amezcua
Poem:
Read from: From the Inside Quietly, published by Sundress Publications
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780692955482
11 issues of Poetry, subscribe today for $20: https://poetrymagazine.org/OursPoetica
Follow us elsewhere for the full Ours Poetica experience:
twitter.com/ourspoeticashow
instagram.com/ourspoeticashow
facebook.com/ourspoeticashow
#poetry #ourspoetica #EloisaAmezcua
My parents moved to the US in 1985 and my mom's been living here for a really long time but every couple of years she'll take an English class.
She would call me and ask for help with her homework, and having to explain these things to my mom really made me consider language and the way we come to language and come to understand it.
Teaching My Mother English over the Phone
I try to explain the difference between pant and pants
why the former isn't simply one pair
but what the lungs do with fear or excitement
why clothe isn't a singular noun
but what most do the body each morning
she calls on a Wednesday needs help
with an assignment for her third English
beginners course where she meets twice a week
her classmates from countries with names beautiful as hers
I try to make the language clear to my mother
as she one day --before my English took hold--
explained to me that I did not in fact make friends
with a girl named Sorry
but we were on the playground and she hit me, fue accidente,
y me dijo "I'm sorry" and when someone says I am, you soy--
that's not how this works I remind her
when she asks if the plural of dust is dusts
she asks me to conjugate love
I love you love he loves she loved
we loved you have loved I am loving
she wants to know how a word can be both
a thing and an action like war and mistake
although I can't put into words in Spanish
how I know the difference so I tell her I have to go
and I go and she goes I haven't taught her anything
She would call me and ask for help with her homework, and having to explain these things to my mom really made me consider language and the way we come to language and come to understand it.
Teaching My Mother English over the Phone
I try to explain the difference between pant and pants
why the former isn't simply one pair
but what the lungs do with fear or excitement
why clothe isn't a singular noun
but what most do the body each morning
she calls on a Wednesday needs help
with an assignment for her third English
beginners course where she meets twice a week
her classmates from countries with names beautiful as hers
I try to make the language clear to my mother
as she one day --before my English took hold--
explained to me that I did not in fact make friends
with a girl named Sorry
but we were on the playground and she hit me, fue accidente,
y me dijo "I'm sorry" and when someone says I am, you soy--
that's not how this works I remind her
when she asks if the plural of dust is dusts
she asks me to conjugate love
I love you love he loves she loved
we loved you have loved I am loving
she wants to know how a word can be both
a thing and an action like war and mistake
although I can't put into words in Spanish
how I know the difference so I tell her I have to go
and I go and she goes I haven't taught her anything