Is It Me, Or Is It You? The Politics of Being "Loud"
Day 6/100. What my family, my culture, and my grandmother's hearing aid taught me about volume.
What Does it Mean to Get Loud?
Is it like Jennifer Lopez’s song:
“LET’S GET LOUD! LET’S GET LOU-UD!!”
Or is it Mexican dramatic
like when I tell my mom it’s raining outside,
she sits up suddenly from the couch
on her phone call and says:
“YA ESTA LLOVIENDO!!” with a gasp,
like she’s been startled by a ghost.
Is it the way some people find
BAGGY PANTS WITH BAGGY SHIRTS
CORTEZ’S and BIG HAIR?
Or maybe it’s the volume of my voice
after I’ve had a few and I make the people
I’m with go:
SSHHHH!!
Could it also be my Mexican-NESS?
Showing up in the way I pronounce my words.
Or in how I express my distaste with some
of SCOTUS’s recent rulings.
AM I BEING TOO LOUD THEN TOO!?
I’M STILL AMERICAN, YOU KNOW!
Maybe LOUDNESS is in the eye of the beholder,
if I am seeming too loud for you
Did it ever occur to you that it’s YOU
WHO COULD BE BOTHERING YOU!?
Copyright © 2025 by Carla Monroy
Day 6 Prompt: Write a very LOUD poem with lots of caps and exclamations!
All Too Aware of Being Loud
Being loud is something I am all too aware of being. Noisiness has been very prevalent in my life. I can recall many holidays growing up when the cousins would get together while the uncles and aunties cooked. The living room was an open concept so it was also the dining room, the television room, and the kitchen.
Getting together was always a good time measured by how loud we could get. The louder it got meant we were having more fun. We were always trying to watch the holiday special cartoons, and we would have to raise our voices, SSSHHHHH!!! The kids would urge. Trying to get the adults to shut up so we could listen to our cartoons in peace. It never worked. We ended up having to turn the volume up until the adults told us to turn it down. A never-ending cycle.
Questioning Why I’m Loud
I adapted the art of being loud from my environment. I hated it. In quiet public environments my rowdiness would decide to show up. Friends would sometimes have to SHUSH me when I got too excited about telling them something, and my voice would start to rise. The sheer flabbergasting of their act driving me to say what I wanted to say even louder. The anger egged on by doing something in spite.
Interpretation of the Topic
When I first pulled this topic, I wasn’t too thrilled about it and especially not when I read the part about using caps and a lot of exclamations. Overtly using punctuation was always a sign of being an amateur and considered cliché in the circle of litterati at UC Berkeley where I went to school.
I did my usual pre-writing research and poked around the internet to see what type of things researching the word loud would drum up – but the idea for the title arrived first and then the poem just flowed from there.
The topic ended up unpacking the many ways in which being loud or loudness could be interpreted. I also discovered the role that being loud has played in my life. These days I find myself sensitive to high pitched noises fearing at times that I am losing my hearing. But aren’t we all losing our hearing in the era of ear pods and noise cancelling headphones?
Is it Genetic?
My maternal grandmother wore a hearing aid in her older years. There were times when I questioned whether she really needed it. Or if her purpose for wearing it was to fool everyone into thinking she couldn’t hear anything. Maybe she switched it on and off at her convenience.
There would be times I’d be catching up with my grandma during a family gathering and she claimed not to hear a word I was saying. Yet, if I was whispering some juicy gossip to a family member across the room, she could decipher exactly what I was saying.
I’m not really sure why all of this matters, but it is what the writing drew out of me. Is there a certain family trait that you possess and aren’t very fond of? If you were asked to write something with a lot of caps and exclamations where would you start?
Enjoyed this? Share it with someone who needs to get a little LOUD today.
