I agree. The performances from Patricia Smith were very strong and intense, especially "Skinhead." I thought the way she performed it was amazing. I felt that her expressions and the way she handled every word was dead on. I also really liked her poems from Blood Dazzler. Hurricane Katrina has been an extremely big issue over the past few years and I thought it was really awesome that she put together an entire book with poems about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. I felt that her prologue depicted the atmosphere of New Orleans really well. I felt like she was describing the dark side of New Orleans and its toxicity. How visitors are consumed by the city. I also really liked the performances from Liza Peterson. I felt she was very animated and did a nice job at getting to what she wanted to say. I also felt her poems dealt with themes we haven't really seen yet: woman being objectified by men in "Ice Cream Cone" and an individual's origin in "Waitress." It seems ridiculous to think that a women can't even eat an ice cream cone without getting some sort of sexual comment. I think she did a nice job of getting the message across while being amusing as well. "Waitress" brought up a good point about origin. It is crazy to think that someone would ask what an individuals native tribe was when her family has been here for generations. She is American! I just think people have these romantic ideas about foreign countries. I am not going to lie. I am guilty of it too. I remember when I took African literature and our professor asked us about our presumptions of Africa. When I thought of Africa, I immediately thought of the savanna and all the wildlife, people living in huts. Of course after learning about Africa I knew otherwise, but it is really just amazing to think about how a lot of people are just ignorant. Education really is the key.