Response to Sam Hamill's Essay

Josh Tate
Cline
ENG 102
2/4/11
Sam Hamill’s “The Necessity to Speak” is a very strongly opinionated essay. He consistently refers back to violence and battering and things of that sort to relate and get his points across. Hamill starts off his essay by talking about people in prison and how society doesn’t want to see and know the reality in this world. He then talks about writing and how it is used as a form of communication throughout the orison systems today. He talks about how the writer is the one responsible for all the emotions that any reader might feel throughout the process of reading their work. I agree with Hamill’s ideas that people who are raised in abusive homes often end up becoming abusive adults and that unless people speak up and take responsibility for their actions this will continue to be the case.
Hamill goes through the idea that people tend to turn their back to the ugly and violent side of this world and that unless there is a change this will continue to be the case, and that can not happen. When victims of domestic violence and rape cry out desperately for help we tend to turn our backs of freeze up and do not know what to do. Hamill repeatedly uses the term that “we can’t bear very much reality” and I completely one hundred percent agree with him. Our society has become one that only goes after pleasure and the first sign of something bad or inhumane we turn our backs.
 Hamill talks about how he believes poetry is not about emotion. I disagree with this I think one of the things that makes a great poet great is his ability to openly communicate emotion through their work. He believes that the true poet gives up the “I” factor and I agree and disagree with this. Some poets are good at giving up the “I” from their poetry and it is still great, but others include their own feelings, attitudes and emotions and that’s what makes “them” great. I think Hamill has good ideas and is a very interesting writer.

http://www.washingtonpoets.org/lifetime_award.php

Sam Hamill

Here is a link that gives more information about Sam Hamill and his work as a writer/poet.