Sarah Kay’s TedTalk was a poem to her future daughter. It was beautifully written, keeping it real, and leaves you hooked. She starts her presentation talking about how she would treat her daughter if she’d have one. She says she’d want her daughter to call her “Point B”, so she could always find her way back home to her.
Sarah Kay’s using her symbol of a mother as a teacher. She wants her daughter to know that she can always go to her, and her mother is her rock. After she finishes reciting her poem, she starts talking about why she started poetry. Kay talked about her first performance. Her poem was about injustice of females seen as unfeminine. After her performance, the audience was cheering for her, and a big, eight foot tall girl hugged her and thanked her for her poem. Then, she become more comfortable in a bigger and older crowd. She started adding her own taste to her poems.
At age 14, Sarah Kay went to a poetry bar, and it became her safe haven, despite the people in the bar being decades older than her. She kept going there, and the people at the bar started encouraging her. At high school, Kay and her friend Phill Kay, (no relation) started Project V.O.I.C.E, which was a way to encourage her friends to do spoken words with her. However, they decided to change up Project V.O.I.C.E and made it a way to use spoken words as a way to entertain, educate, and inspire. In between their education, they taught elementary schoolers to high schoolers, from state to state.
Sarah Kay uses spoken words to help her students “rediscover wonder, to fight their instincts to be cool and unfazed,” so they can create something from it. She uses spoken words to teach kids to use their voice, because it’s accessible. She teaches kids to be unlimited, learn from performances, and opportunities. She tells her students to take risks, to do what they want to do, to tell themselves “I can.”
Sarah Kay says “To express yourself, you need to grow and explore, take risks, and challenge yourself.” I believe everyone that wants to take a risk should watch this, because it inspires you to do the impossible, share your story, and do what you want.
Danya Aljebory
Middle School Journalist