 Again, thank you all for being here tonight and this is part of our on the same page collection. This is a bi monthly read that the library has been doing for 17 years. And if you can believe this is the first time we've had a book of poetry as one of the selections. And so every, every two months our readers advisory committee and we plan way in advance so we're done until the new year picking our books. We order many, many copies and you can find the books at all of your branch locations you should be able to walk in and pick up the book. So, please take note of this. If you didn't know that we have this. It's an amazing read. And we have a book club, my first book club of poetry and I was amazed it was such a great group so check out the book club come to the author event. And it happens every bi month. All right, our library would like to acknowledge that we occupy the unseeded ancestral homeland of the Ram Yutush alone peoples, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco peninsula. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland, and as uninvited guests we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ram Yutush community. And I'm going to go ahead and throw in the chat box right now a great, you know, us librarians we love making reading lists. So here is a great resource where you can find books and websites on indigenous culture, particularly in our Bay Area. And if you don't know what territory you're joining is from you can use this great map that is very interactive and talks about any treaties that are in place or were in place. And then in news this week. The Sigourte Land Trust, all women led group in Berkeley has received a gift of a parcel of land from the Berkeley Community Garden, it is. We have a really amazing system set up called the Shumi tax, but this was a great straight up gift given to their land trust. So check out Sigourte Land Trust they're an amazing group of women. Tomorrow night in the virtual library we have author Emily St. John Mandel in conversation with Anna Lee Newitz, and they'll be talking about St. John Mandel's new books Sea of Tranquility. And she is the author of Stations 11, the very popular book and HBO TV series. So come check that out. And then on the same page, right after Natalie Diaz comes Melinda Lowe, and this will be part of our celebration for A-A-N-H-P-I month. We changed it up a little. And part of Pride in June. So Melinda Lowe will be in Combo in June, and we'll have the Book Club in June. It's a very great book. It is a young adult book, which is also a new pick for us too. We don't do too many of those, but it is so good. Very San Francisco, check it out. May 20th at our latest newest bookstore, Medicine for Nightmares, we feature nomadic press and their new tarot deck, pandemic and revolution, lots of artists, lots of poets. May 12th, commemoration to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kim Schacht, our poet laureate, will be doing this. And that's going to be in person. Yeah, we're doing it. We are having in person. Come see us. This is in our main Latino community room in the lower level of the main library. All right. Thank you again all for being here. I'm very excited tonight to have these two amazing badass women amongst us. Thank you so much, both of you for joining us. Tonight we are here to celebrate the work of Pulitzer Prize winning poet Natalie Diaz, and she's going to be in conversation with educator and author Michelle Cruz Gonzalez. The Colonial Love Poem is the winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize, is a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award, and a finalist for the 2020 Forward Prize for Best Collection, among others. Natalie Diaz was born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, on the banks of the Colorado River. She was born and raised in the Fort Mojave and enrolled member of the Gila River Indian tribe. Her first poetry collection, when my brother was an Aztec was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2012. She is the 2018 MacArthur Foundation fellow, a Lannan literary fellow and a Native Arts Council Foundation artist fellow. She is the Red Lowe Fellowship, the Holmes National Poetry Prize, a Hoder Fellowship, and a pin to the Telly Rennerie Foundation residency, as well as being awarded a US Artist Ford Fellowship. Diaz teaches at the Arizona State University in the Creative Writing and MFA program. Michelle Cruz Gonzalez is our Bay Area representative. Yay. And she is an English professor and author of the memoir, The Spit Boy Rule, Tales of Chicana, Tales of a Chicana in a Female Pump Band, which is taught in colleges and universities all over the United States. She has essays and fiction in anthologies by Putnam, Pia Press, Seal Press, and Literary Kitchen, and has published in long reads, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Latino Rebels, and Me Too. She's recently completed a satirical novel about near future California that secedes from the US and forces intermarriage between whites and Mexicanos for the purpose of creating a race of beautiful intelligent hardworking people. She's currently working on a screenplay, which I cannot wait to read both of those. All right, I am going to go ahead and stop sharing and turn it over to our amazing humans. Take it away. Hi everybody. Hi Natalie. And welcome to this event and welcome to San Francisco Natalie. So virtually right. First of all, I want to say, Salud and congratulations I know you have a little drinky shink over there so let's click to the screen. Salud. Salud. This is amazing so I think the best way to start off while you got a drink after you say Salud right. The best way to start off. I think what I want to point out a poll surprise winning collection poetry is to hear a little bit about it but I do want to point out first that you're the first Latina to win this prize. And the first Latinx person since William Carlos Williams won in 1963. I mean, he was Latino. People don't realize he was Latino like, I know. So, you know, and I was, I was thinking about him because you know I teach American literature and I've taught his work and he's kind of a white semi white passing guy to so it's easy to forget that he's that he's Latino. But that was 1963 people. So that's our 2022. And finally, a Latina wins close price so we got to hear a little bit of this so let's let's let's hear what you chose. Start off with. Okay. I'm just coming off of COVID so my voice is a little strange. But I think especially because we're talking about Latina's Latinx. I'm going to read a poem called Ode to the Beloved's hips, just for all our ancestors and their hips. Oh, to the Beloved's hips. Bells are they shaped on the eighth day, silver percussion in the morning are the morning swing switch sway hold the day away a little longer, a little slower, a little easy. Call to me I want to rock I want to rock I want to rock right now so to them I come struck dumb chime blind tolling with a throatful of Hosanna. How many hours bowed against this infinity of blessed Trinity communion of pelvis sacrum femur my mouth terrible angel everlasting novena ecstatic devour. Oh, the places I have laid them knelt and scooped the amber fast honey from their openness a musin cobs hidden temple of Tulum licked smooth the sticky of her hip heat thrummed also coxie lamb and slave to Ilium and ishium I never tire to shake this wild hive split with thumb the sweet dripped calm hot hexagonal hole dark diamond to its nectar dervished queen may not tongue come drunk come trans honey puller for her hips I am strummed song and succubus they are the sign hip and the cosine a great book the body's Bible opened up to its good news gospel. Alleluia's Ave Maria's mother in me as I I eyes I Dios me as in hip hip hooray. Cult of Cossack's culto de cadera oracle of orgasm Rorschach's riddle what do I see hips in nominate bone wishbone orpheus bone trans substantiation bone hips of bread wine wet thighs say the word and healed I shall be bone butterfly bone wings bone ferris wheel bone basin bone thrown bone lamp apparition in the bone grotto. Six mystery slick rosary bead de me la gracia of a decade in this garden of Carmine flower exile me to the enormous orchard of Alcina spiced fruit laden tree in paradise me because God I am guilty I am sin frenzied and full of teeth for pair upon apple upon fig more than all that are your hips. They are a city they are kingdom Troy the hallowed horse and army of desire 30 soldiers in the belly to in the mouth beloved your hips are the war at night your legs love our boulevards leading me beggar and hungry to your candy house your Baroque mansion even when I am late and the tables have been cleared in the kitchen of your hips let me eat cake. Oh constellation of pelvic glide every curve a luster or star more infinite still your hips are cosmic our universe galactic carousel of burning comets and big big bangs millennium Falcon let me be your solo oh hot planet let me circumambulate oh spiral galaxy I am coming for your dark matter. Along las caes de tus muslos I wander follow the parade of pulse like a drumline descend into your placer de toros hands throbbing miura bulls dark isleros your arched hips I mitolera down the long corridor your wet walls lead me like a traje de luces all glitter glowed I am the animal born to rush your rich red mulletas each breath each sigh each groan a hooked horn of want. My mouth at your inner thigh here I must enter you me pobre manolete press and part you like a wound make the crowd pounding in the grandstand of your iliac crest rise up in you and cheer. Gracias gracias for having me and gracias and it's also for all the things librarians do so like my library at home save me and it was the one place with air conditioning so right yeah. Speaking of that speaking of air conditioning I'm really glad I have my dice and pan on me right now because whoa. That was that was spicy that was hot that was really hot so I'm really glad you started with that piece because it sets up a lot of things that I want to talk about I want to talk about the code machine in your writing I want to talk about the sensuality want to talk about the word choice and. And. I also want to just talk about the love part i'm going to say this for the end because it's more upbeat I want to talk about the love part about as a post colonial love poem in particular I want to end there but so so we'll we'll circle back to this and. But um. I want to start just by starting off our discussion by talking about the combination of references that you choose your pieces and and how poetry is to me like the best poetry is the poetry that makes use of words and references references and images that feel like surprises like when you read it you go. I've never thought of it that way that's perfect words like surprises that that just jump off the page that really take your breath away and. Um, I, you know, early in the collection when I started reading it in preparation. I got my first copy from the San Francisco public library they sent me this I had read. Your first collection. Before, and I hadn't had this one yet so they sent this to me so when I first started reading it one of the very early poems in the piece and blood light. Does that thing for me. Of surprising me with language and references and so. And I kind of want to use this discussion here to also get into a little bit a little discussion we don't want to need to go too far about talking about literary devices as well. You can use assonance in this in this particular piece blood light you use assonance a lot consonance cacophony. You know cacophony is unmelodious sharpies are kind of like literary you know lit nerd, nerd devices and you know these are probably things that you you can learn them through the definitions right and we as writing teachers we teach the definitions to students but. The definitions I remember when I was learning these don't really stick that well right like they're better when you learn them when you read writing that uses these devices over and over again and that's when you really start to kind of internalize how to use them and what they mean and what they can do for your writing. So I, the first point in this collection where I literally like caught my breath was in blood light where where you say. And I'd like you to read some of this I weep a lot of a lot of the scorpions clatter to the floor, like yellow metallic scissors, and I, I, I almost fell on floor when I read that so just maybe you could just talk about literary devices and you know read us read a section of this however you want to do it just take it away. So it said yes me to they almost fell on the floor. I'll read up until there and then I, I appreciate you opening the door for me to walk through that blood light. My brother has a knife in his hand. He has decided to stab my father. This could be a story from the Bible. If it wasn't already a story about stars. I weep a la cranes the scorpions clatter to the floor like yellow metallic scissors they land upside down on their backs. And eyes, but writhe and flip to their segmented bellies. And I mean, so some of the language you're talking about like. I mean, for me, it's very much body right like we dislocate sensuality and we turn it into the senses which become like the mind's eye so very ocular centric and this kind of intellectual like. I'm really interested in like the craft like you were saying like sometimes those those terms don't stick. Because they're they're happening up here but like if we can if we can recognize that that a poem actually happens in the body. Right like everything happens in the body or thoughts happen in the body. And I think that's something I trust like I talk a lot with my students and you know, and my students are adult they mean they're adults I think there's something that kind of turned back downward on them but they're adults they're writers they're they're imaginers they're the makers of what will come next. We talk a lot about like son like the sonic I could I tell them like, you don't you don't have to worry about the sonic if you trust your body. And I think because I think sonic again it's rolling what is like the mind and also it's it's pretending the ear is the center of that sensuality and of course like we know that people have many different sensualities like you know people who are deaf or or who who just read the world and sense the world differently. But I think for me that is something I trust like, you know, I weep a la cranes the scorpions clatter to the floor like yellow metallic scissors. And what I was trying to to think about was like the the tenuousness that I feel when my real life brother is in a crisis or when my family is in a state of emergency or when I know there is a danger it's a feeling I've known since I was little growing up where I did and the family I did. And like, you're so attuned and alert and it's not just your ear, it's your eye, it's your skin sometimes your skin tells you the danger is coming before you know. And of course I also play basketball so like for me like thinking about periphery like I have incredible periphery like vision. But I think my body also reads it like I feel like my back reads things. And so for me, I think that's something I think a lot about is like, I didn't have to think about the sounds because I was thinking about how my body was alert and sensual to what was happening. So the verbs come, the actions come, the images come and I just I trust that and I mean I know that might sound trivial because I think trust is a weird word I think. But I guess like I have a very different body sensuality because I grew up in the desert because I grew up in a big family because I play basketball. But I think if we can relocate or refined all the things our body knows and you know whether they're pleasures or fears I think they have the same kind of sensuality. So I guess that's where I'll join you with that that I think about it in that way and you had mentioned surprise. And I think the real joy and luck of a poem or even a sentence language in general is that it doesn't happen linearly. I think I think when surprise happens it's because we realize that the trajectory doesn't exist that knowledge is actually happening everywhere outside of the line. And so what that does is it sparks these things that that become like the unknown. And I think maybe that's what we're all chasing. And sometimes we mess it up, we eff it up by by knowing, but it's the unknown I think that, which again periphery thinking about that sensuality. I'll stop there I mean it what you're you're making me like want to write so I appreciate the question. Well, I want to talk about how we fuck it up I mean academia fucks it up by going okay here's the list of literary devices, you know, take a test on this. Remember these, and they're like, here's an example, you know here's a list of examples of, you know, metonymy or cacophony or whatever. And then, you know, make sure you put these in your poem, and we, we say you know five sentence senses yada yada yada but we don't allow. We teach writing from this, this word, this like a kind of white word academic ivory tower space right and so that that divorces us from from, yeah someone said knowledge isn't linear right first of all, and it divorces people from their bodies and from the feelings and from trusting their that their stories matter, and that their positionalities are everything in a lot of ways and in in terms of what they can bring to the table and in the ways in which they can be unique. And I mean, I think to like thinking about like linearity, right, like, when knowledge is linear, it means it's silencing all of us who are not out who are outside of whatever like the controlled like this means this means this, this is currency. And what's interesting to me about a line, especially in poetry is, you know, I think the poem happens far off the page. And, and I think something that's interesting to me is that is that the line becomes currency. Again, it's so ocular centric it it's. Yeah, and I mean I guess, I guess something that I will like kind of join you in in thinking about about this and in terms of, of, you know, what we say is writing is, I mean I'm really interested in the page. Like, I would just wonder what what this world would be like if the page wasn't white. You know, the white space. Oh my God. Yeah, because it's true though right because white is always good enough. Like, you know, it's imprecise it's so imprecise drives me crazy when it's like the white space or the silence and it's like, what, like, what, what do you mean, you know, like, and so I try to like tell my students like it's a, it's a body. Like it's not, it's not flat and two dimensional but we let it be because of course white light goodness, God all the white things we've been told are like, you know, legit humanity, for example. But I think there's something interesting about that about about how we make and then the mediums, which, which manifest as having made. I mean, isn't it. This is this is a side problem I have but I'm just so confounded by the fact that the only time we ever see an 8.5 by 11 inch page is in when my students have to turn things in. It's crazy like I've never read an 8.5 by 11 inch book and it's like why, why do we keep anyway I will go sideways quickly on that but I guess I guess I'm interested in in that in like what what what we tell ourselves and what we reify about about knowledge that keeps the rest of us out or keeps true about knowledge or other older knowledge systems from happening. Yeah, one of your colleagues a salby in a way top uses that his kind of like he frames kind of some of what we're talking out about is howling your habits of white language. Everyone should look that up habits of white language and it's, it's an amazing framework and it kind of, it really does address a lot of what we're talking about here right now. So, I also wanted to talk about the use of references or visuals that are not so commonplace so like a lot of times you know as writers we use references from our environment from our positionalities are lived experiences. I wasn't surprised to see that that you're also a linguist. After I read the poetry collection because I knew there was there was like a piece that I was like where does this, there was there kind of felt like there was a subset of like words or styling that I was like I couldn't quite place and then when I, when I read that you were a linguist. Okay, I think this might might have something to do with that. And one thing that struck me was, I wanted to know how you, how you conjure, how you conjure detail like how what is that process like, and, and then I was struck by this thing of, like, I'm going to pick on literary literary circles a little bit. In different literary scenes there's like a word that becomes the popular word that all the poets use. I felt like when I was reading your poems I was like, or I wrote one down. Yeah, that one. And, oh gosh. Sinu, Sinu, Sinu was the big one in our lit scene. Oh my gosh. So I felt like you're the poet who might use the word that everyone else like when I read your poetry I was like maybe she's she's she strikes me as one of the poets who uses the word first and then everyone else starts copying. I will never use Sinu in an essay ever. So but maybe you could just talk about you know to get a little more serious like how do you conjure details what is that process like you know just a little bit about for people who are thinking about like where this where these ideas comes from and I know you know writing is also for me very spiritual process as well. Yeah, I mean, I mean I think we're all probably linguists. You know again that's like now I'm obsessed with knowledge. I teach classes about knowledge like anti knowledge or beyond knowledge. But I mean I think in some way right like, I mean who are the first linguists come on, you know, and like I think my elders are linguists, meaning like yeah, they like they live in a word, like there's a field in the words they can so the field, tend the field, harvest the field feed us through the field of a single word right. But I guess I guess for me like I think some of it is some of it I guess it's just how I was raised in the desert, and in a very big family in a very small space on the res were your neighbors or your family, you know, and playing basketball. And so for me, like, like language is physical. That's how I grew up thinking about language. It's the body, you know, land is the body water is the body. I am like, and I think there's something about and this will be this is interesting. Then you're making me think of this now so I like you've brought me into a new space of this like, is that I think that one of the lucky things is that I don't necessarily like believe in metaphor. I mean, I know I know you can make metaphor, but the ways I believe my beliefs are not actually metaphorical. And I think maybe that's something very freeing about language, you know, and so like, in order to say like I carry a river in my body, Well, everyone's like, that's a metaphor. And I'm like, it's not I don't I don't know how to explain that it's not. But it's like a closeness I have with with my land and water but it's the same way I like that closeness is the way I love, like a lover, a friend, you know, the way I come to strangers the way I arrive any place. And so I think in terms of that, like the lexicon, like I use the word lexicon a lot, we all have one it's just we've been dragged away from it. Again, because we're supposed to say things that have currency or have value, but who they have value to, you know, and so, you know, I think of the revolt of the cockroach people often where it says like, where he says like, in order to be successful, you have to go so you have to leave your family, you have to leave everything behind in order to be successful, most of us right. And, and that's I think also with language, like in order to be legible and to be understood, we have to often move so far away from the words that have meaning to us like the words that mean love, for example, even if they're scarce when you grow up, even if they're scarce in your household, there are words that mean that have like high stakes, right. Sometimes those stakes are like, life, death, violence, care, loneliness, right. But we get so far away from them in order to be heard by, by like the larger, you know, like white American imagination and like the white American ear, like in order for it to hear you and make sense of your core. And so it just feels like it's weird to, it's weird in one way to say like, it's lucky to grow up on the res, but, but we just had each other and that's who like our language had to only mean to each other, which in some ways was not great, you know, there's a lot of violence there and, and also in other ways, like, I think it's just taught me that, yeah, that I mean, there's something about not being legible. And so like, I guess the last thing I'll say, because I've heard people say this about my work in that, that my work is difficult, because I use a lot of words, a lot of like, Latin it or, but I mean, that's such a narrow, such a narrow ridiculous perspective, because one, as if I couldn't learn the English language, and as if I couldn't, you know, as if like, as if any of us couldn't learn the English language, but also like, I think there's two things I'll say and then I'll stop is that one, that the English language is not enough for the majority of us and it was designed that way, like it was designed for us not to bloom and shut us out. Yeah, and shut us up. And so like that language is like, we have to put it in excess sometimes, right. For me, that's the love poem like I need it to be in excess so that I am my beloveds can exist and then the last little tap I'll make is that I put English next to my Mojave language. And that's what that's what happens when I put English in its youngness and its limit, limitedness next to Mojave, which is immense and resounding like English has to fracture and be many things. So, yeah. Yeah, you're speaking my language over here because there's, you know, I'm involved in this in a movement of the Community College level. It's, it's really rather taken on a large role, and it's a linguist of justice movement and it's, it's, it's whole goal is to do deep privilege standard edited American English in academic writing and to privilege all the Englishes in academia in essays. And code machine is one of the main tool writing from your positionality, even if that means in a more standardized way, writing from your positionality using storytelling, finding your authentic voice, using a variety of languages, all the Englishes at your disposal and putting them all together to make something that's uniquely you your idiot act. And so, you know, the code message in the book is really, it was really one of my absolute favorite parts you know was just one code or two codes it was three and, and I would argue more than more than three codes. I think there are there elements of your writing that are codes that are not just words. So, I wanted to set that up to talk about the code machine but I do want to go back and say you know how we say love in my house. In my house, the way we say we love you is, I ask everybody when I see them because I wake up before everybody I say you wake it up. And that means I'm glad you're awake, and you didn't die, and I love you, you wake it up and it's a very like you know like baby talk and we are we are we wake it up yes I wake it up. So, yeah, and all families have these these ways of seeking that that is that is their own love language is very standard. And it, it speaks to what you were talking about earlier the limits of the English language you know we reinvent and we reshape it because it's it is so limited, especially for those of us who speak a variety of other languages. Like, you know, like, like, for example, in Mojave you don't say, are you hungry, you just feed somebody. But even so you just offer what you have like you feed, you feed them as soon as they come in. And even that, I think is a part of what you're saying is just like that, that the control of having to have the language voice something in a specific way, whereas love is happening and and love that's not that is many things right. And sometimes it's nourishment, you know, sometimes it's protection, sometimes it's defense, but but yeah what you just said just reminded me of that this beautiful I appreciate you sharing it. So, um, speaking of code machine and different English is, you know, in addition to the policy you also in 2018 won the MacArthur genius award and you know I've thinking about our students and the idea of genius awards and it makes me think of how so many and you hinted at this earlier. So many of our students are geniuses. It's just that they're not encouraged to access or highlight their cultural wealth to believe in the power of stories and storytelling or their positionalities, or to find they're not encouraged to find and cultivate their authentic voices and code mesh. And I believe that there's actually a direct relationship between these unfortunate last aspects of European colonization and assimilation model assimilation is model of education. Of course, and the way that mostly BIPOC writers are treated and publishing is creators of low art or novelties or exceptions. And, you know, that whole thing where it just kind of seems like there's only one only, there can only be one native writer at a time that can only be one, you know, black writer they're going to you know one Latinx writer. What can institution do to better celebrate the broad levels of talents that exist in in POC communities and those students at their institutions. That's really what I want to ask. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot about one like the problem is diversity right that the word we should just, you know, it's a gesture, it's a gesture it's an initiative, right. And we hear, we hear already. Yeah, well and also like diversity means they're keeping us to a certain number. Like what's what's fucking crazy about the math of diversity is that all of us who are not considered white. We're not considered one diverse body. I mean even being indigenous, we're so we're so different from tribe to tribe right and from people to people and like, but we're just one, like we become, you know, the melting pot right like that. But I mean, something I pressure a lot. And I'm lucky because you know issues I teach at Arizona State University it's a largest research one university it's a mammoth of a place of a machine. And, you know, and you, you wonder how much of what you're pushing back against actually fuels the machine. You know, like there's some there's, they need some they need some of us to push back right so that they can continue it's it reminds me of like how wave a wave builds. You know, there's that, there's the pressure that must come so that this can come and crest over and eventually. But I, I mean, I think a lot and I challenge like, I say challenge. Sometimes I just mean speaking up and I realize like I, I'm really lucky that some of the things that that have happened to me are legible. To to the larger like world that doesn't usually include natives and queer people and Latinx people, you know, and so I'm lucky in that in that sense but also I do feel like there's like a responsibility like my elders say, my elders say like, when you have a gift, you have to use it. Like it's not, it's not a frivolous thing. It's not, you know, it means that you have a role now and you have an energy given to you. And it doesn't mean I'm saying I'm gifted but but I have a lot. I'm lucky. This is this is like the problem with the translation gift and luck in English don't mean what they mean in my home. So I feel like one of the things I try always to do and is that I don't let people get away with saying diversity. And I try hard not to let people get away with just saying whiteness generically like I want you to be specific because like whiteness doesn't cut it because people get away with, you know, or like racist, who's a racist anymore. Like nobody is right like which is weird. But I think like for me, I try hard to pressure the idea that that diversity is not about race. It's about creative excellence. And, and like, I'm not asking you to make less white people here. I'm saying bring more excellent people here. And if you want to bring more excellent people here, they're, they're us, like, you know, they're they're all the different ways that we can be like you're saying these languages right. Like it's it's these, like, there is no language without all the languages. You know, and so like it's this kind of status quo, this standardized this norm, which I think is why the work you're doing is really important and that that pressure you're putting, because I think, you know, like, I don't want to decolonize. I mean, maybe other people do this is just not, I don't want to decolonize the university. I don't know that it can be, but I just say like, why not let people tremble? You know, like, why not, like, you know, why not find a way that that we can figure out like how my students can be their full selves and imagine their full lives, and also recognize that the university might not ever be able to handle that. You know, because most of this country can't. And so I guess that's something that I think a lot about with with my students is that for me, the investment is in poetry is not a prize ever, which there are there are I mean, they become currency, they become very literal currency. I have a very good job and I get treated very well because of poems, which is weird. However, like what I mean by that is like you just never know who's going to who's going to value what you've said is being like up to their standard. And so like for me, like, my investment in poetry is that it makes my life different. Like I, I act different. It makes me continually rethink what I think I mean, or what I think I understand or what I think I have to offer, or you know, what is generosity. So I went on a little bit of a tangent there but yeah, it's it's tough right because like our students are in the I mean they're in those positions where like the currencies matter to them. You know, like what comes next to them is like who's on the other side of a scholarship or who's on the other side of a job app. And mostly like, unfortunately, like, mostly assholes right like mostly people who who already know and they're already projecting who our students or who haven't really done the work cheated their way the whole time. Yeah, so I mean it's yeah I think. Yeah, I think what you're asking is like it's important and like it's something that I want to always ask myself like the what the how or what next or, you know, or, you know, yeah, like what might this look like next or, or like as soon as, as soon as things start to feel comfortable, you know, you should worry right when you're in the institution, like, which is difficult because it's a, it's an emotional labor. No, no, like some people get to go home and chill and play video games or watch their shows and you're sitting here stressing like my student need surgery or like a student home to you know Puerto Rico. Why didn't this one student turn in these two stories and now I'm trying to contact him and he's like I've had anxiety this whole time and I'm like wait a minute I thought maybe I should have reached out sooner and like you know, all this yeah. Yeah, I hear you. So, a lot of us do so. So this is, this is so good so I do want to get to, I do want to talk a little bit about run and gun and I want to hear. Well, first of all, I'd actually like to hear American arithmetic, which I think is really related in a lot of ways. We do a better job of dying by police than living and I love that turn at the end of this poem. So, there, I think there's a relationship to the to the to the to the misunderstanding about language and people and to meet certain communities and so we can talk about that after after you read. Yeah, and this for me was like how to challenge the statistic, which is a large. It's like majority of the way indigenous people show up in in policy is just as a statistic. And that statistic use explain at the back of the book I love that you added. Yeah, yeah, so I'll just front load the one thing is that when I mean I say per capita so what I mean is by population, how many of us based on our population and so what that means a percentage but. American arithmetic. Native Americans make up less than 1% of the population of America 0.8% of 100% oh my efficient country. I do not remember the days before America I do not remember the days when we were all here. Native Americans more than any other race race is a funny word race implies someone will win implies I have as good a chance of winning as who wins the race that isn't a race. Native Americans make up 1.9% of all police killings higher per capita than any race. Sometimes race means run. I'm not good at math. Can you blame me? I've had an American education. We are Americans and we are less than 1% of Americans we do a better job of dying by police than we do existing when we are dying. Who should we call the police or our senator. Please someone call my mother. At the National Museum of the American Indian 68% of the collection is from the United States. I am doing my best to not become a museum of myself I am doing my best to breathe in and out I am begging let me be lonely but not invisible. But in an American room of 100 people I am Native American less than one less than whole I am less than myself only a fraction of a body let's say I am only a hand. When I slip it beneath the shirt of my lover. I disappear completely. Thank you. Thank you. So before we take some questions I just want to I just wanted to point out a couple of things and let's see. So many things that I wanted to say. So, I do I want to I'm going to circle back to this to this idea to the to the ending to the turn at the end of this poem. The line I slip beneath the shirt of my lover I disappear completely let's come back to that. I do also want to just ruminate for a second on I learned to play basketball I learned to play ball run and gun I learned to play ball in the res on outdoor courts, where the sky was our ceiling. That line just really had me reeling the sky with our ceiling I I read it over and over again and I just it brought me so many like it had so many meanings for me it was like beautiful the idea of the sky. The image of the sky is the ceiling juxtaposed with the raggedy court, knowing that there is no actual ceiling and the, the idea of basketball as a white sport that was actually, you know, kind of comes from an indigenous sport the kind of the assimilation that's all the assimilation that's going on the references to colonization. And so I wanted, I want you to talk about the turn at the last poem that's related here as we kind of go out onto the Q amp a and talk about the title of the book and the recurring post colonial love as sad that that is kind of a theme that runs throughout it's like you're it's your sauna sauna colleague as a runner. I feel. So maybe you can talk about that as we go out before questions. Sino sanas hoy sanas mania. And by that time, I'd be like, Yeah, I mean, I feel like after my first book, especially like I felt very I was very set on on love on like my capacity. Like I've said this in other talks, but like, you know, I wanted the first body at stake, because I do feel like there are stakes to language language has stakes that I wanted my body to be the first body at stake. You know, and that's like a very personal thing between me, you know, like, hey, I am capable of love, you know, I'm capable of being loved I'm capable of offering it, which are things you're not taught right because you're not you're taught that violence can exist with love, you're taught that, you know, the wound cannot exist with blooming. You know, so because like this binary, which is why again, like poetry feels like an important medium because it's out of time. It's not linear, you know, language, it's an energy that's happening across numerous planes right so like, like even for me like the surprise in a poem is that is not that the poem moves like this but that there's also a line behind it. And so like you end up with these planes that are happening in all these different directions, because it's energy and it's physical. But I think for me, like in American arithmetic, like the bottom of that poem, it's like, you know, let's say I am only a hand, because it, you can't, you can't fathom what it's like to grow up in this to wake up in the morning in the United States and to be native. And like when I first realized, I mean, I knew I grew up on the res I we were res kids like I knew it like we got bust off the res people people people when people drove us home from like basketball games. It's like, you know, oh, she lives on the res. But it didn't mean anything until I got old enough where I'm like, oh, fuck, this is what a reservation is. You know, like it just rearranges your brain like, wait, this is I'm from like, I can't even explain it like when you realize like when you start when you first realize like, oh, I'm from a res. Like this is what a res was for or like, wait, I'm like, I'm native American like what does that mean. I have a sense I have a strong sense as I grew up near a res and I was in it my mom made me go to Indian club even though I wasn't be well. Oh, she was like, you're indigenous. Yep, it's the land. It's about it's about land. Yeah. Yeah, it's a and you know, and even that right, even like who we let be indigenous, which is about relationship about laborious relationship right not like this blanket like relationality we're all related we're all human beings is like no that's not that's not it because I think actually some people are like alien to what life is. Anti life even, but, but yeah, I think for me, it was like, love is that like the love poem has become. For me it's the excess that was not imagined for me, or my beloveds or even my strangers right like I think like my strangers are sometimes the most important to me. You know, those who I don't know yet or who I always say like who I don't love yet. Like those are the those are the people exactly like where I will arrive because they'll I'll be more by the time I get there. But I guess like, you know, I mean you've been so generous and like even like you're making me think in ways I haven't so I you know, gracias me. But yeah, like that last line like and, you know, let's say I'm only a hand like because you, it's like wait a minute like what does it mean that I'm that there are that few of us. Especially for my family like especially after COVID, there are even fewer of us right like what what what that means and so, and you know like when you lose a single like elder. What you lost right and even the fact that you can't you don't even know what you've lost because you never had a chance to get there. But, you know, like that move. And when I slip it beneath the shirt of my lover I disappear completely and you know like that was that was a surprise for me that moment. And I say it was a surprise because it, I didn't have to know it, but it was a complexity that that I need to exist in that I disappear completely but but I disappear an ecstasy, perhaps, right. So to disappear an ecstasy means like I'm beyond the surveillance of this country. I'm now beyond the statistic because I've disappeared from that statistic in a space of pleasure, or in a space of the ecstatic, or in the space of like, like love that that that I know many Americans see as like clandestine right or like unlove or like whatever. But then it but then it's also like very clearly about the fact that like the illegibility right like that it does have to be a hidden kind of love or or that it like the difference between public and private or public private or private public or public intimate. But for me that that's like the great question of the book. And it's a question primarily to myself, which is like, you know, like, hey, you are capable of this like, and I mean, you know, this might seem like like a cloud like or or idealistic but I mean I have learned to love myself better in poetry. I mean I learned to love myself better playing basketball. It's like I learned the beauty of my body playing basketball. I trust my body more than I trust anything else like now I've never trust my intellect but my body. It's just been the thing I've been able to rely on, you know, and so poetry for me is that it's like a place where, you know, I love myself better in that I can write a love poem. Like how fucking lucky is that. And then I love my brother better in a poem that I have been able to in real life for a very long time, you know, so. Yeah. Wow. Thank you. Thank you so much. I know there's probably a lot of questions. This is I could I could say lots and lots more and I, I do have so much to say about that line and run and gone it took me like everywhere, but that's for another day and questions and Lisa she has some for us. I do thank you so much for a wonderful conversation. Goosebumps all around. Um, so I'll start with an easy one. Maybe, maybe. What women's basketball teams are you rooting for Natalie. Don Staley, South Carolina. That's who I was rooting for. All right. All right. And then can you talk a little bit about your love of Greek mythology. Yeah, I mean, I think maybe more than love right I feel like it's a really great pressure point because it's the mythology that's been accepted as knowledge right Roman and Greek mythology it's like classics we study it our students have to study it. And, and yet, everything that I've been taught from my land and like, hey, we were created here I can see my creation mountain. I know where we go when we die. That's called mythology, but in a very de escalated way. And so I think for me, you know, because I was exposed to Greek mythology also is like, it's actually like one of the first books I found in the library. Where these are those giant Greek mythology books so and like the Norse gods and stuff like, I think I read like everything in my library is such a small library. But I think it, you know, I mean, I mean, I'm looking at at the artwork behind you. Michelle like, I mean, like we've been like that's language, a story. That's heritage that's, that's ancestors. Right. But it's always been flipped right like I was told like Mojave creation myth. And this is history in my history book was like hunters and gatherers. You know, so it's like showing all I don't know where these natives were from in my history book they were very like, yeah, they were very all general the general native. And so like, I guess for me it was just a pressure point like it was something I recognized as as like, okay, like, wait a minute. There's no such thing as truth within this binary of like history and mythology. And it was actually the most generous thing I could have realized early on is that what was being called myth was the way I knew stories to be told at home. But what was history just seemed like effed up and violent and untrue, whatever, you know, so I'm sure I trip on that word myth a lot. I always trip on it. I'm like, why, why don't we, the connotations of it are just so odd to me. Yeah. All right. And we use it a lot right like we, I think people like a, it gives them space, like when you say like personal myth. It gives you, you know, whether people say permission or, you know, compels them to but so I mean I think the word does have value. Yeah. And I just like, I think it's also using a dismissive way a lot also. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, I. But I think if you go back to language, language is mythical. It's never exact. It's the most imprecise thing. But it's a close like closest I can get to you, like it closes I can get to you Michelle right now is like, I'm saying a bunch of words right, you know, or, you know, Anissa like it's like, so weird that we traffic and language right. I don't know. Very interesting. All right. And one final question for you both. What hope and guidance thoughts can you offer to the next generation of BIPOC writers. That's a big question. Oh, gosh. I mean, I always this is what I always say to my students. We're gonna let Natalie have the last word. What I always say is don't wait for some Columbus to come and discover you. And publish your own writing. You can put out a zine. You can have a blog. Don't let anyone tell you blogs aren't cool anymore. Your social media push that shit out on social media you you got all sorts of ways. There are all sorts of modern ways and there's also zines there's lower, you know, lower technology. You don't need to wait for someone to come and tell you that you're great or good you don't even need to wait until you're great or good you just want to write you have ideas. Do your thing. Get your ideas out there. Spread the good word. Yeah, I mean, I think I guess something that I think about is that. Like language is physical and it is moving. It's happening. You know, it's not set. It's it's an energy and and I think as much as like we as much as we have language yet to be imagined. I also think there's a lot of old language that that is waiting for us to come back to it or to arrive to it right this kind of with like outside of time. And I think I think something though that feels really important to me and I I've been trying to talk a lot with with my students but also like my colleagues like my people out in the world is that like this country is not inevitable. And in its its length the English language is not inevitable meaning we have it's as capacious as any other energy and like what I love to do is infuse the English language until it can't take it anymore and has to fracture or or has to bloom or has to become something else is like press my Indigenous language into you know and so I think like there's something about you know what we're and this goes back I think Michelle to what you were saying about the way we're taught like we're taught what the hierarchical knowledge is or we're taught this equals this and the product or the end or the plot right But I think there's something really important about understanding that like this these structures are not inevitable. And they're not inevitable because we're we're here. You know, like I grew up on a reservation I know what those were for and here I am. You know, and here I am incapable of love for example but also like very capable of a fight. You know, and so I think that there's something about that about that this country is not inevitable because of because we have something like language. You know, and whether that's verbal language or or the bodies from which that language will spring. You know, and so that's and it's something I have to remind myself about like I tell my students like, you know, and I say this to myself often like what is the language I need to live right now. And it seems like a vague question but when I set myself to the task of it. It makes me hold my people closer because that's the only reason why I have language. It's not to speak back against the state, but it's to find my people and to hold them close and so and to tell us about ourselves like what we're possible, because so many people have told us about ourselves for so long. It's like, how do you not how do you turn back to your people instead of just against, you know, who matters more, your people or the state. Yeah, word we shouldn't there that's the good place. Thank you so much Natalie Diaz Gonzalez for sharing your, you know, your yourself and your wisdom with the library community. I really appreciate that I know our library community does to and Michelle definitely the community college community is also big in my heart as well. Friends, library community. Love you. Thank you, Michelle, Natalie. Have a wonderful day. Thank you so much. Good night.