Suheir Hammad’s performance of “First Writing Since” was one of the most moving things that I think we have read so far in this class. She is passionate, angry, sad, and persuasive. Her entire poem is immersed in Aristotles rhetorical appeals, ethos, pathos, and logos. From the beginning, Hammad uses pathos to an extreme. I felt very emotional when she spoke the words, “Sky where once was steel, smoke where once was flesh. Please God, let it be a mistake… God please, don’t let it be anyone that looks like my brothers”(Hammad 0:28). She describes the attacks on September 11th in a way that makes the audience think of their own brothers, or sisters, or other loved ones, and the fear that they felt on that day for their family, friends, and country. She uses this poetry to draw in the audience and first make them feel her pain that she felt. She then starts in with ethos, or ethics. “A woman crying in a car parked, and stranded, and hurt, I offered comfort. A hand she did not see before she said ‘We’re gonna burn them so bad’” (Hammad 1:11), this instance angers me in that this woman would immediately jump to attacking the entire country. The citizens and children of Iraq had no part in the terrorist attacks and to want to harm them because they are associated with these awful people by race and nationality is ethically wrong.
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