I met Nora Power and her family at the Irish American Heritage Center in Chicago a few weeks ago.
Nora is an Irish American girl who has a book of poems called Loud Silence and a Wild Soul. Nora is a teenager, but she has been writing for several years. Like many of us, Nora believes the stories we tell are important. There is even something of Saint Patrick in Nora in her poetic voice.
When you read Saint Patrick's Lorica, you can hear a sense of desperation that he had having his freedom taken away. He calls out to God to cover him on all sides.
Nora's poems are about the basic fundamental issue of beauty and goodness that is in us all. Nora has cerebral palsy, but she tells readers that she is not cerebral palsy. I think Nora desperately wants us to understand what it is like for those who have such challenges, but she also reminds us that she is not the disease from which she suffers. She suggests that we look deeper at the soul of the person in a sense.
I think Nora's poems have messages for everyone. As a teenager, she speaks to kids who have low self esteem because they are focused on what teenagers seemed to be obsessed about. The basic fundamental goodness of people and what is fundamentally "them" cannot be taken away because they are gawky, nerdy, shy, pimply or if they have something much more serious.
Nora has a feature in her book in which she writes about why she wrote each piece. So you don't need me to tell you about her thoughts and ideas, they are right there in her writing and her explanations. I think there is something very decent about Nora and her book. And I like decent.
