Keeping with our discussion of being strategic about what is left unsaid, I found Layli Long Soldier’s use of strikethrough to be particularly powerful. For example, she employed this technique on p. 36, crossing out the word “through” to say “all experience is the body” rather than “all experience is through the body.” The revised version is a much more powerful statement, but rather than simply stating her line this way, Long Soldier uses the strikethrough to draw attention to her conscious artistic choice. I thought this was a nice ode to the intentionality behind every decision a writer makes, and it allowed me to notice some of her choices that I’m not sure if I would’ve picked up on otherwise. She shows readers that what writers elect to omit is just as important as what they choose to include.

Overall, I think Long Soldier’s poetry leading up to Part 2 of the book (“Whereas”) all works to make the reader especially sensitive of the consequences of even the smallest decisions regarding language, punctuation, and form. This makes her critique of specific documents/writings in “Whereas” particularly salient, and helps readers understand the gravity of the modifications she makes and language she picks apart. I found Long Soldier’s response to the fourteen-year-old girl on p. 84 to be particularly poignant and effective. She is very specific about the word choice of the girl and highlights why it is inadequate or not representative of reality.