Summary Of 'The God Who Embraced Me When Daddy Scared,'

The speech that spoke to me the most was ‘The God Who Embraced Me When Daddy Disappeared’ by John Fountain. He speaks of the time the cops took his abusive father away in handcuffs after his mother feared being hit by him again and the life that he led growing up without a father.
This appealed to me because I grew up in a similar situation and could relate to the void that is present when a parent leaves a child’s life, the struggles that are left for the family trying to make it on one income, and not having the support of both a mom and a dad.
He is very descriptive when talking about various scenes of his life, making me not only picture what is happening, but also feeling it. Towards the end of the speech, I can hear the pain and emotion
he is feeling as he talks about finally seeing his dead father. His voice cracks as he relives some of those bad memories and faces his father one last time.
I could relate from experience, however, I believe that a good speaker allows the reader to feel what the speaker is feeling regardless of the readers’ experiences. For example, in ‘I Will Take My Voice Back’, Quique Aviles talks about his life of drug addiction. He describes not eating, not sleeping, and needing to constantly pump the poison to his brain to keep his high. One does not need to be a drug addict to feel his anguish.
Being able to put a reader front and center of the speakers pain, happiness, experience, whatever it is they are trying to convey, that is what makes a speech memorable.