Song by Eamon Grennan

At her Junior High School graduation,
she sings alone
in front of the lot of us--

her voice soprano, surprising,
almost a woman's. It is
the Our Father in French,

the new language
making her strange, out there,
fully fledged and

ready for anything. Sitting
together -- her separated
mother and father -- we can

hear the racket of traffic
shaking the main streets
of Jersey City as she sings

Deliver us from evil,
and I wonder can she see me
in the dark here, years

from belief, on the edge
of tears. It doesn't matter. She
doesn't miss a beat, keeps

in time, in tune, while into
our common silence I whisper,
Sing, love, sing your heart out!

In this poem, Eamon Grennan seems to use the example of a young girl singing to show someone that does something solely for enjoyment and ignores what others may say about it. From the start, it places the reader in the place of the young girl, into a situation that would typically be extremely nerve-racking. However, I became intrigued by the strength of the girl and her ability to completely block out what the people around her think and say. Immediately after reading the poem, I felt uplifted, as this young girl proves that nothing matters besides passion for what she is doing. For me, the last two stanzas evoke the most emotion, in that it shows the girl's spirit in the sense that she does not stop singing despite the fact that she is on the verge of tears. At the very end, the narrator becomes a believer in her and wants her to keep singing no matter what. Clearly, through this struggle, the author possibly tries to convey the message that it is important to do things for one's own pleasure and ignore what others may think about it. One part of the poem that is slightly difficult for me to comprehend is the purpose of her singing the Our Father in French, but it could possibly be reasons for the people around her to judge her.
Starting at the very beginning of the poem, Grennan utilizes imagery, as he sets the scene of a young girl singing in a middle school auditorium in front of her entire school. Also, this is a free verse poem, in that it has no rhyming or meter patterns. Lastly, when the author says "hear the racket of traffic shaking the main streets," he personifies the noise of the traffic in its ability to rattle the entire city.
Overall, I feel that this poem was very thought-provoking, mainly because the narrator transformed from being one of her judgmental classmates to actually rooting for the girl at the very end. This shows that if a person believes in what they are doing, no matter how strange it may seem, other people will begin to believe in it as well. Because of the very meaningful message of this poem, I would strongly recommend it to others, while I would also enjoy reading more poetry by Eamon Grennan.