A Suburb’s Lasting Impression

The reason I chose “Jesus Of Suburbia” written by Green Day was simply because I wanted to pick the wordiest song I knew start to finish. I didn’t realize the song was so repetitive until I started playing around with it, which I now find to be perfectly representative of life in the suburbs. I broke the song up into sections to compare my life before and after leaving for college. The song’s original meaning is just one big build up where the protagonist realizes he hates everything about his home and his life, and at the end of the song he decides to run away. When finding new meaning to the song, I didn’t have to try. It’s new meaning from my point of view was evident, and I think that a lot of new college students could probably relate as well. Though I didn’t hate my life at home, and I didn’t really want to leave it, over time I realized this change was necessary for my personal growth. The constant monotony of my suburb was a deterrent to my life. While I think it was important for me to leave, I also think that growing up the way I did made a huge impression on my character. My found poem is composed less of the specific experiences of my transition and more of the feelings which came from those experiences. I think that creating my own found poem helped me understand M. NourbeSe Philip’s thought process while creating Zong!.