 I'd like to thank Orca Media for filming tonight's event, and I'd like to let you know that you can sign up for our newsletter. There's a list going around. You can also follow us on Twitter or Facebook to learn about upcoming author events at Bear Pond Books. Our next event is Tuesday, October 29th. We will be hosting farmer and author Kristen Kimball for her new book Good Husbandy, Growing Food, Love and Family on Essex Farm. And also please save the date for November 1st. We will be hosting a party called Gin Austin. It's a literary costume and cocktail party with Bar Hill Distillery. They will be here with specialty cocktails from a book called Gin Austin, which is 50 cocktails of the novels of Gin Austin. It's so funny. If you come, though, you have to be in front of us. Local author NT Anderson will be hosting that event. I think he's going to be wearing a suit from 1770. Thank you for coming tonight for the reading and book signing with our dear friend Ruben Jackson. He'll host Ruben to celebrate the release of his much-anticipated second book of poetry, Scattered Clouds. This collection of new and selected poems is a breath of fresh air. A celebrated jazz scholar and black man in America tells it like it is. And with such rhythm and blues, you might be moved to mm-hmm. Or if it's more your fancy, amen. Poems as attributes to Trayvon Martin and Frank Sinatra grace these pages. As do odes to cancer and Miles Davis's kind of blue. But it's not all blue, though, as Ruben's heart and wit shine through. What I love most of all is his final poem in the collection, This African American Life. It's, as I mentioned earlier, a breath of fresh air. And I hope you all enjoy his reading tonight and, more importantly, support this poet by buying his book. Ruben will sign copies after the reading and Q&A. A little true story about Ruben. After graduating from Goddard College in Plainfield just a few years ago, right? He came to work at Bearpond Books. He wanted to work at Bearpond Books. But unfortunately, his mother didn't approve. And Ruben went into teaching. I think ultimately this was a good path for him. But we're happy to have him back at Bearpond Books now. This time on the other side of the books that are counting. Which is where he truly belongs. Ruben Jackson was born in Augusta, Georgia and grew up in Washington, D.C. A music scholar and critic of national reputation, he was archivist and curator with the Smithsonian's Duke Ellington collection from 1989 to 2009. His music reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Jazz Times, Jazz Is, and a National Public Radio. He was host, as most of us probably know, a Friday Night Jazz on Vermont Public Radio from 2012 to 2018. And he makes frequent appearances on WPFW, Washington, D.C.'s publicly supported radio station dedicated to jazz and justice. Please help me welcome the poet Ruben Jackson. Thank you all so, so very much for coming. I've said this to a couple of people here beforehand, but I don't know if you had this experience. Like, I liked summer camp because it got me out of the city for a while. And my parents would get the brochures around March. Some of the camp was like June. So I would be thinking, can I curse a little bit? It won't be too bad. I'd be like, damn, it's only March. When is June coming? And then April would sort of come by. Damn, it's April. I mean, I was just anxious. And my point is that I was so anxious for this event. So this summer I'd be like, oh, okay, nine weeks, you know, seven weeks and a week. The only president not to start me crap. Because if it's like 4-1-3, I can't make it. I got to get to Montpelier and do this. So I'm so thankful to be here. I'll tell you just a little bit more about the bear pond thing. When I graduated, I did tell my parents, like, I want to stay here and work at Bear Pond Books. And my mother was, she was more equation than my dad. But I said it, and there was what I call the great silence. And I knew that this is not good. And she put her hands on her hips like this and she said nothing from it. And then she said, baby, you know how much your college education costs. And that was it. It was like the silence was the ellipses. And I knew that meant I wasn't going to do this. But, you know, she thinks about like, it's a wonderful life. One decision can change everything. It could have happened, these books might not have happened. I probably wouldn't have met many of you. So I'm thankful for what is. And just one thing about Vermont and, you know, reading some poems, I was here seven years. And with all the challenges, I cannot, you all are like, also like my family. And you can't stay in the place seven years and not be impacted. So I, you know, like I go to work. There was an opening at the university. And I said, I'm getting dressed nicely for this thing. And I look in the mirror and I get like a car-hard jacket on. And people at D.C. did that said, I won't use the actual word. He said, damn, you're verminas. Yeah, so I'm probably more, you know, seven years here. Like I'm glad to be home because I miss seeing myself. But I also lost a step. So I miss space. And I miss seeing so many of you. But I'm glad that you're here with me tonight. And it sounds mortgage, but you're always in my heart. I'm a quirky M.F. But you are. You end my quirky heart, you know. Okay. This book, Stattered Clouds, it consists of my first book, Fingering the Keys, which came out 28 years ago. Like, you know, darker hair, no balls by the go. My family's alive, you know, all that. And you realize when you're putting a book together, so there's Fingering the Keys and newer poems, that a lot of life goes between poems. Which is, you know, my mom would say, even men always speak the obvious. But it's true. And I look at the landscape, it's so different now. But what I'll do is read a bit from the, as a kid, say, the old joints, and then some newer things. But I want to talk to you all and with you all. So I'm really looking forward to the Q&A. And I really hope you like the book. It is, I guess, like my life in general, flaws and all, it's, you know, it's from here. Okay. I'm going to start, forget the chronology stuff. It's like when you do the, back when they still hit jukeboxes, you're just like pushing songs because you love them. So one would be like 1957, 2003, whatever. This poem is called April 1975. And it's based upon something which happened, well we all know like C.P. Dudley's in East Montpelier. You know, the student that got her. And I'm going to tell you, I mean, you all know this. When I was at God, like in the 70s, if I saw another person of color, I called every relative I knew. I was like, damn. I saw a black man in berries. And I'm thinking, well maybe it'll be on the news. But it was news to me. So this poem is based upon that thing. I don't, that hasn't changed. There was a, I was in Julio's as a black waitress. She smiled at me first and I said, damn, you beat me too. I'm not mad at y'all, but you know. Okay. Oh my southern Baptist has come out tonight. All right. April 1975. Should my black flatlander eyes lock on the other brother in the general store? The first brother I've seen since what seems like I can't count that high. Do I pretend I don't see other people pretending not to see us? Two brothers buying triskets and peanut butter, respectively, is revolution on a Sunday afternoon. Now, I'll take you to my neighborhood, which if you've been to D.C. recently, you know, it's like gentrification on steroids. So this is kind of, there was an essay, Alan Ginsberg wrote for the book, Visions of Cody, Jack Heroic, which came out after Jack Heroic died. And the first sentence, and Ginsberg essay read, Mortal America is here. So this is like Old Black D.C. is here, because it's, you know, it's fading like landlines. But I come from that. And when I lived here and shit was bad, I tell people, I'm not from here. And they say, no, you're from D.C. I said, no, you don't know what I mean. I wasn't talking about geography. I was talking about, you know, that which, as the Baptist say, that which raised you up. So this is white flight, watching in D.C. 1958. When we moved to D.C., my mom was a teacher. And so like people start coming up from like the Carolinas, Georgia. And my friends and I called it the Weekend of Moving Vans, because white people go, pfft, pfft. They say, oh, remember so, we need somebody else for basketball. Oh, they moved last week. But thinking about it from the perspective of a child, and you know, like you're, I forget the comedian who said first I was a child, and then I was black. So that's a bit of a fuel in this gas tank. White flight, watching in D.C. 1958. No more densely freckled girls looking dreamily at the leaves passing by the window. No more playmates staring quizzically at the Negroes on my father's album covers. Sarah Goldfarb reminded me of a girl I saw in an old MGM movie, even though her father said that that, like my crush on her, was impossible. Cosani was a dead ringer for Fabian. Who and where was I? When, I taught high school in Burlington for two years. And you know, you get to school early and you get not just desks right now, but you're trying to get your head into the game to come. You know, the first block is 805. And I would think about guys I grew up with, some of whom are still here, many of whom are not. And I think, what would they think about me being here? You know, someone would say, like, damn, Roop. I don't know. But this was a kid grew up on my block and I don't know if you all had nicknames in your neighborhood during that, but this was Little Man. You see, we had Little Man, we had Likeskin Man, who was, you know, Likeskin. There was Big Man, who was big. But before you need specificity, you know. And you realize that when you hear the president speak, like, damn, there's no specificity. Right? Little Man, September 1953. There's a cloud in your head you try and conceal. A cloud just like the kid up the street who lives on the porch and brews like a seven-year-old Jeremiah. The occasional domestic fistfight punctuates the weighty sentence he has become. One day he calls you over and asks about the books you always carry. He wants to know if you know what people are whispering. Are you lonely, he asks? As if he didn't know the answer. He knows you know the lyrics to his song. All right. This is a kid. Why do I say, you know, okay. Jimi Hendrix is now considered you know he's like an icon like one of the architects of I think great expression. But he was controversial, you know and in the late 60s growing up where I did, you know stuff was going on in this country in the late 60s not like the sort of virtual revolution we have on Facebook when people say this is unacceptable. I mean shit was being burned, right? So there was this kid named Frank who really loved Hendrix and he sat in with his band and this is like what happened Frank. Frank was fired from the El Diablos for inserting Hendrix licks into their celebrated James Brown medley. There was silence as he bent to unplug his wah-wah pedal tongue banished from their world of matching suits and wrote precision choreography. One year later the ghetto was teeming with posthumous interest. Frank's door was bruised from all the knocking. With that Friday, the El Diablos stood waiting for his skyline of amps to come down. I work for the University of District of Columbia as an archivist and I see young people I could not be every day. A young man came in and did some research the other day and he had like a Nirvana teacher at all. UDC is a historically black college university and so I'm seeing this young this young brother and I said man, you know when I was growing up if you had like a Hendrix album you put Hendrix album under like the sofa so you could get home without people teasing you. And I said, you know, I'm your Jackie Robinson because like I took shit so you could wear that t-shirt. But he didn't know what I meant which made me cry because things are a little better. You don't have to be as guarded as we were, you know. I see not just people of color but young black people on the subway like nerdy, geeky, geeky dudes talking about like did you see the new Marvel blah blah blah blah and they get like high waters on them and they're like my god, did I hit your butt kick so fast? But their hearts are so open and it's just you know I put my head in a book so I don't get all like crazy emotional. But it's a serious thing you know and I think these days to measure any degree of social progress or positivity as we used to say is good. Anyway, now you know who I am. This is another Vermont based poem. My first slow dance, well I did a lot of slow dancing with myself before the basement happened here and it was at a party and I thought wow you know I would come to Goddard and people would ask me, they'd say well what's how do you like school? I'd say it's alright. But I was able to talk to people fellow students about things which really mattered to me which you didn't like say to your boy. So we you know people in the dorm we stay up late reading the Mealsola novel excerpts to ourselves I mean I was like I bloomed but I always had to put it back when I came back home which is it's not good to live your life like an accordion you know like this and I didn't say you know oh yeah my first slow dance was here but it's this so this is based upon that event Privilege Year 1912 should just get something general store, slow dance with Dr. Phil okay no it's alright 1975 it was a long way to go for a party 90 minutes from Canada moon just above my right hand it was winter she was a school teacher who smelled of jazz Stevie Wonder sang looking for another pure love while Jeff Beck spun gorgeous fills and solos we danced as well as our cumbersome boots would allow I bought a pair what they call them Timbs now I bought a pair of Timberlands here I forget they have a store down here on Main Street when I started and I went home for like a week in this quote spring I went to the barbers out and people I walked in and they looked at my feet and said what are you wearing those are the ugliest boots I ever saw in my life well you look at now people wear Timbs like 24-7 all year rappers and stuff and I tell people when I did after school work in DC I used to tell kids I was the first black man in DC to wear Timbs and they were like no and I said no I was people weren't this before all those people know and not just because I'm older you know so people sacrifices have to be made you're a producer called Timberland see that's what I mean I just sit in the house and shake my hand here's the only news alright my the older I get the more I guess we're all like variations on the theme as far as you know parental influence goes but I'm more like my mom every day and I think I hear things pop out my mouth and I go oh my gosh my mother was much more loquacious than my dad and she had definite ideas about things like not working in bookstores after you graduate college and she also she's very middle class she grew up in like a brownstone you know back when she was born in 1924 there weren't many black people I knew of like that and sometimes you want to go play ball outside no Ruben you have to learn which forks to use for the dinner we're having but she also thought she believed in social change but she thought you should look nice when you do it this is like my mother in the afterlife you probably was never in GQ magazine my mother in the afterlife it's 1970 again my mother is shaking her head at the sight of my clothing she never abandoned her dream of a world without denim now there's no escaping her critique you can't have coffee with God looking like that she rolls her eyes at Abby Hoffman and at Bill who owned the headstop near our house death has restored her mind now she's talking curfew my brother laughs behind the clouds I'm going to read this African American language this is the last poem in the book after I left Vermont February 2018 which is not a long time ago but my life has always been like dog years like a lot seems to happen in a year and a lot has happened since I left a lot happened when I was here I mean I had like seven dog years here and it's just that's the tempo for us this is how your band is going to play but I remember just kind of recuperating and really reveling in comparative anonymity there is I don't know hyper hypervisibility can be even if nobody's bothering you so these are some vignettes which popped up after I returned to DC this African American life and the title that take off on the NPR so this American life I always had one of the stuff called this African American life okay this week being pie makers from Chicago okay one I hope I live as long as the nails of the sister sitting beside me on this crowded subway two decided I'll propose to the next brother who calls me main man three if a middle aged black man enters a subway car and no one stares as if my people were new to the planet hell yeah my soul makes a sound four my late friend Joanne appeared in a dream she told me Jesus fainted when I went back to church okay okay just one more about my mom this is I didn't only dating I did in high school was when I go to Safeway and get like dates from you know I was 70 and my mother said well what's up with you you know 1973 this also refers like landline and calling the weather bureau for because I would fake it pretend like I was talking to Pam Greer or something 1973 my mother peers over my shoulder in search of answers please say you're dedicating that poem to a woman you don't seem to know any listening to Ella Fitzgerald does not count so I think of someone call her she says the wind's blowing from the south southeast at 15 miles a mile where my mother is 30.7 inches in comparison yeah I whisper wear that strapless first number see you at 8 you know I'm gonna here's another one I was like a Vermont connection I started messing with characterization and these characters or vehicles a mirror and cadiz are began to take shape and you know you're on Facebook I just kind of think I was loud on social media sometimes and it apparently these characters began to gain a follow Dan Bowles from Seven Days emailed me and said you know I'd like to do a story about these characters and I said oh but I'm just the narrator a mirror the barber would tell me write this down because he's so busy cutting heads he couldn't do this and he knew I liked words so this story was published which maybe some of you saw and after that I do it like Shaw's and people recognize you just I was at the deli counter getting like egg salad or something and this woman said well mirror cadiz have this romance you know and this woman said you know my husband doesn't like poetry but I read him some of the stuff a mirror said to cadiz and he started crying at the dinner table and she said I'm pulling for them and what I learned was you know your work can take on a life or lives of its own and I thought well I need to put I mean I could say it's not really me but the degree of I think emotional candor and tenderness was different from me I think as a writer so I'm glad I was able to capture these things so what you have is a 70 some 80 some euro barber and from Detroit and then you know he meets the CEO Padilla Rollins they fall in what can happen to people these first three poems are three haiku from Amir about Padilla and you know things are starting to sort of bubble up here three haiku who will be the first to save syllables and utter the sweet obvious I would rather be conspiring to hold her hand before the moon dies stop when Khadija smiles on a mild spring afternoon my old heart blossoms now some of these Amir would just write dearest Khadija so this is dearest Khadija to touch your face is to feel my fingers pray all this first I thank the moon for the light on her pillow then whispered her name untitled she is a buoy in the harbor at dusk dearest Khadija the other night as I was driving home I reached my free hand across the passenger seat I imagine you holding it changed then I returned both hands to the wheel I found a parking space two blocks from my apartment beneath a large maple Lord I love this city and turned to kiss you anyway and this is Khadija's not turned this was for Amir she went to a lot of conferences so you know you're out of town we share the same night even when we are distant and sold by the stars and I'm going to yeah I'll stop with this one and then I hope we can you know trade forwards right this is for trade one Martin and what I did or tried to do I was here this is my first year teaching at VHS and is an interesting challenging circumstance I was the black English teacher which for some was a description it was also I think a qualitative kind of ranking with books so this murder happens but I also I thought about that of course the fact that this murder occurred but I thought about growing up and how my friends and I would walk each other home because that's what you did and you know the whole thing was masculinity and you care you love your friends you don't say it but it's like the action you know like people have that stereotype of like New England is being staged and no emotion we taught ourselves how to be like you know I call it the honor guard face so my fantasy about this boy and I don't mean that in a pejorative I just said damn I wish I could have walked him home like we walked each other home growing up this portray on Martin instead of sleeping I walk with him from the store no skittles thank you we do not talk much sneakers crossing the courtyard humid southern night we shake hands and hug ancient stoic tenderness I nod to the moon I'm so old school I hang until the latch clicks like an unloaded gun alright so there's some poems thank you and uh anybody a lot of people say I'm Ferris Bueller anybody anybody okay we're done we're done are there questions for Ruben? just not comments yes please I have a question how did you get into jazz can you perform or are you an influential audience or me or how does it work my family my parents love music and there was also some music in the house I mean a lot of us see one thing about I love about Vermont like the demographics it's like you don't have to explain what things like record clubs you know like my parents belong to the Columbia record club and we get classical stuff country jazz my father really loved jazz there was a little club in our neighborhood and he and his buddies would go a lot and they'd also play records in the basement and drink really cute scotch and I would sit at the top of the steps I'd hear them use it but I'd hear them talking about the artists who play which was also a great what entry into what language can do like they'd say things like oh you know like the saxophone that's Cannonball Adderley was playing that's it that stain on Cannonball Adderley's lapel I think that was like from you know like the egg who you only get from the Chinese joint blah blah blah but that's where I heard a lot of music but I would also say music music kissed me very early you know I could I could read music very early and I thought like my parents would give me hell because I shouldn't do well in math but my father would say like we could put a score in front of you and you could read it but you can't do math but it was because it was in me and it was also like if you're driving someplace you want to get like a score it's a journey to someplace but that's really where it comes from you know just the love for it. I miss you on Friday nights oh bless your heart thank you that was a great a great opportunity I used to bug my friends you know how people like we all play like they hit records back in the day and I was the one who flipped I say turn over the B side there's like a there's a cello counterline in the fifth measure they go from B flat to D flat they're like oh damn Ruben please don't start that again so the show gave me an opportunity to burn off a lot of passion I mean a lot of nerdyness a lot of passion and I still hear from people here who just tell you stuff that I don't know I could make a lot of money for Kleenex I just cry over it people would say oh yeah I count it on here you know Friday nights I used to take a broomstick as a kid and pretend I was on the radio but I never would have dreamt you know this but I'm glad it happened see I'm Southern Baptist like anybody else I I loved I do miss your show and I loved when I first moved there years ago yeah it was such a relief to like turn on the radio and I think that's a black man and I loved your your mix I I love I share the same passion I'm sorry but I I share the tears because I was living in the kingdom when I was listening to you and there would be many a day when you and I were the two black people I knew and but I love your mix was the mix I grew up with and for all the love of Dolphie or Miles yes I think particularly like in our generation you know there was also James Brown and Marvin and I love the way in a jazz format the way you would mix Marvin with Kamasi Washington which is because it's all you can't hear Kamasi without hearing the whole history which I think is so important with jazz as in poetry it's all it's a collection of voice thank you I used to say some of you probably know Kamasi Washington I did the version of W.C.'s clarity loom which became like my sign off and I said this is it was like French impressionism being the urban house party with like the low light bulb and I thought of people who would ask to really really really really really really fine sister dance people like me if you say right hell you must be crazy but it's like that yearning and what I tried to do was illustrate intersections and how even musicians who were quote call jazz musicians listen to much more than that which we consider like okay jazz starts here and stops there and then the influences as you know are so fluid because like Marvin Gaye loves Lester Young and we could go on with that all night and I will say what the artichoke who went to Goddard the saxophone has said I passed through the insipid panorama of Americana with an enormous romanticism it has never left me and so I was guilty certainly of that as a programmer because that romanticism was coming play another ballad but I had to you know it's tricky because you all it's not like I was making cookies for myself in the house but thank you so much I did my best I saw I saw a hand listen can you tell me about how poetry and jazz so how do they dance together for me yeah I was thinking about this the other day I think initially well the first poets I heard and I'm using poetry in a big big you know different way maybe were like the old AM DJs with that rapid you know banter ministers and there were people in my neighborhood who could take I want the other like my favorite expletive they could turn it into a sonata you know like just the beauty the fact that language can describe but it is musical so I thought about that when trying to write and of course like in fingering the keys there are more pieces about jazz musicians and their references that is still there I think in me but it's also I try to focus now on just the jazz and speech and how you've got inflections I won't use the actually but MF which is not Mezzo Forte but like butch to take it and he would say Lucinda you seen Bobby this is Bobby owe me $40 if I see that MF well that's trouble, that timbre is trouble or like my mother's musician was a guy named Cordell who had you know behind stations behind musicians chairs he had like 99,000 pictures of Sam Cook and he would say Miss Mary Sam Cook was at the Howard Theater last night and I think I thought I was going through a hell of a pause that was the way he would speak in the language so hearing and I would go with my mom because my father worked on weekends I'm this kid sitting there and it was kind of funny my mom was kind of strict Baptist in a way and I'd say Cordell really likes Sam Cook and she said yeah I think the Orioles are playing ball that one she didn't want to talk about that you know my point is the connection between what music can do instrumental music or for thinking of what's called jazz and how language can achieve the same thing in terms of emotional impact but just the sound I tell writing students to read your stuff out loud as you're working on just to hear how it sounds not just in terms of whether it makes sense but also just to revel in it like what's that old movie the sound of music I said we're like swishing around at your mom like not like the stuff we used to drink in the alleys but like good wine you know like oh there's a chablis in the third stand but that's yeah it's the quest for the musicality of speech I must be here for a while not like that yes ma'am well just to add to that subject a little bit I recently read Jorge Borghese essay in blindness and he said that his blindness led him into the oral world and caused him to go deeply into learning two new languages one was English the other was Icelandic and he said that this was a gift that caused him to hear the sound of words that he could not hear in his own native language Spanish and so I equate that a little bit with what the best poetry can do it's our language it's English but it presents that language in a form in which you hear the word you hear the sound and the rhythm besides whatever your subject is sure so it was really cool I thought good point I know we have to we can move to book signing unless there's any other questions why are you going to record this so that we can hear over and over is there an audio book in the making of oral come over to WGDR we'll fix you right up oh oh man talking about roots you know that's a great suggestion I uh do it one thing my aunt told me after this book came out was it's my father's last sister she says like my mom she starts with baby she says baby you can't wait another 28 years for another book I said yeah my math is that good that's a that's a good idea I mean I will see what happens I'm thankful that I was approached to do this I hadn't really I started kind of writing a bit more regularly when I had poems in the the voice here I feel your voice and so little by little I don't know thanks for the involved I think what Fats Waller said is to spot on one never knows do one I never knew well any of this but um okay one more whatever you want alright we'll close at midnight yes we will okay could you tell us where you came from EDC and why you came to Goddard I I grew up in northwest are you from DC well I lived there I lived in Brightwood which I think the real state people call something else now but I was east of Georgia Avenue south of Tacoma Park fifth between Ingram and Jefferson so that's yeah it was predominantly Jewish and then we looked at home by Robert Hayden which is like the synagogue became Calvary so with you know and um why came to Goddard I was at a party and in my family college was not an if it was a where it's like you were going and in the living room was a the old Saturday review books and there was I'm flipping through it because that's what you do at a party like music playing people having a good time and you looking at the damn Saturday review books but then I saw a blurb about Goddard and it sounded like a place that would like the snow would stick metaphorically speaking and so I asked the person who was throwing the party if I could just rip the thing I said no just take it home and I shared it with my parents my mother understood well I guess both my parents understood me but my mother understood I'd start trying to write and all that stuff by then she said this is a possibility my father wanted me to go like some place like Notre Dame because he was a pragmatist and he thought you know you can do creative writing if you want to you're not coming back home to live when you graduate but this is right before 11th grade and my mother said oh don't worry I'll work on it and I ended up it was you know coming to Goddard it was the right place for me I started radio and I was a little bit like a fresh air kid in a way I also had these MGM places where you come out the house and people would try to take your money and stuff and I thought you're looking for that land and it looks like those but those train sets with the gazebos and the choir is singing outside Andy and Hope are right you know boy was I naive but anyway but most importantly I could you know I was reading stuff on the download James Joyce and the Bhagavad Gita and stuff like that and I'd hide them so I didn't have to hide in that respect at Goddard and yeah the impact profound people you know you tell people you went to Goddard and they said oh yeah you made it in basket weaving and all that this could just take some serious behind I was at a conference a few years ago talking to somebody about Yates and they said and I said Goddard and so they're waiting for the punch line and I said no I'm not different you know so that's how I got there and I was the first person on my father's side of the family to go to school so eventually when he got behind it it was just quiet but fervent okay go and do well but my mom was like the one calling Sunday and saying give her the blankets and my father's like how are you doing in classes you know he still didn't quite get how Goddard classes were okay don't fail that Dylan Thomas whatever it was but um yeah bless them both I wouldn't be here without without that one more what exactly did you start writing poetry and how did you get over the embarrassment of thinking it was really really bad you know I still have I'm sorry will you finish go ahead you know and how did you develop how did you develop poetry wow I'm still developing my 10th grade homeroom teacher was um editor of our school newspaper I never said anything about writing and one Friday she came to me and said we need a poem for the next issue of the paper so I said well who are your favorite poets I was like an assignment go and get some Dylan Thomas and bring one in and she says no you write it and I'm like what kind of setup is this but I deliberately tried to write the most malchish poem I could it was like they had typing classes back then you know sister who sat in front of me she had one of those flawless um like Roberta Fleck on the chapter 2 album you know like Angela Davis flawless afro so I wrote this poem called like oh to the sister with the most perfect afro and I thought well this is going to get me off the hook because it was it was heavy sugar so I turned it in and Miss Middlebury said this is great you're a staff poet I need a poem every moment well damn like I messed up but I began to enjoy it now the embarrassment part yeah I think it's like anything playing an instrument you fall on your butt uh you go through periods of overt imitation you know people who really strike you I wanted to be like Frank O'Hara for a long time there's a poem in the book which was an attempt to do what he called the I do this I do that poems uh I think time is like the best teacher healer whatever for that there was a teacher and daughter who was really really rough and I turned you know I shared this horrible poem in a workshop and he just like it was scalded he just scalded and I saw him on the path going to the fraction of the library and I tried to I just went the other way and the next day I saw him in the cafeteria and he said Ruben if I was ready to crack your right now I would have gone the other way but it made me fail you know so yeah I'm gonna say this very much anyway I think I'm still developing I enjoy things I hated doing in college like I enjoy revision because like you're in a room and you think well do you want the anwar here do you want it there and I'm not as hard on myself when something doesn't you know you write a draft and maybe what you got is half a decent stance I always think of it as maybe like the foundation for the house or something but uh I'm and I have friends who will tell me you think well this is you know when they hear this this is bad you know good bad yeah and they say uh Ruben and that's it and I know of me like it's not I took it out the oven too soon you know what I mean but for me the joy is just it's the exploration and if you have a day when it's not so great pick it up again I do think for me when you say tragedy I don't know losing people getting older it's helped me with perspective you know since you know this book came out my nuclear family is gone except for me and that so it makes me think it could be worse but uh it's the possibility it's the possibility like Patty Smith said to see your possibilities whew person okay thank you