Dear Penn,

As you may know from my articles, I am an English major. I’m one of those dorks who you see sitting on the grass reading Paradise Lost with a look of eager thirst in her eyes, and laughing out loud at the hilarious bits of Miltonian genius, such as when Adam asks the angels how they have sex (It’s in there, trust me). And quite frankly, I’m proud of it. I think many of us forget what an effect words can have on us – physically as well as emotionally – especially when they are strung together in eloquent and unexpected ways. They can pull at your proverbial and literal heart strings, and they can bring you to tears before you even consciously realize you’ve heard them.

Last night, I saw the Excelano Project’s spring show, “Alchemy.” I’ve never been to an Excelano show before, and while I knew that they are wildly popular, I didn’t know I was about to witness one of the most moving, stimulating, and intellectually heightened events I’ve seen at Penn. The poems were deep and striking to the core, and the poets were talented and full of palpable emotion. I literally felt their words in my lungs and in my ribcage as I struggled to keep myself from crying at times over subjects and issues I’ve never experienced, and found myself understanding the lives and souls of people I’ve never met, with pasts I’ve never had.

Now, I said I was going to speak about the English language. While this letter is partly a raving review of Excelano, it’s also meant to be a plea to my fellow students to take their example and their lesson, and know that the language we speak and write every day has multitudes of secrets and realities locked within it. Those dorks over in Fisher Bennett are trying their best to get in on that secret all the time. We’ve felt words get inside us, and we’ve felt them move us to the point of sheer joy or sadness. We’ve felt the pain and anguish of writers from centuries ago, writers who would have been the Excelano performers of their own times, who said something to their peers in new and exciting ways, and lifted and pummeled spirits with their rhymes and perfectly placed enjambments.

To be honest, I never really liked poetry classes. I hate learning the technicalities and the rules. But when you get to see and hear something as inspiring as that show last night, you’re reminded of what can happen when you place words on the pages and lips of experts. I’ve heard that one of the things that makes us human is our speech. I’m not so sure animals don’t have their own conversations, but something tells me they never take the time to stop and appreciate the effect language can have. So, let’s all be English major dorks for a moment, and remember that our words could have deep powers within, if only we all knew how to use them.

Sincerely,

Shira Bender

Editor in chief