 Okay, well, I'm gonna start by thanking the Headland Center for the Arts where as Samantha said I'm currently an artist in residence and also the San Francisco Public Library for this opportunity to be able to read to you Day, so thank you and I'm gonna read from each of my Three books, so I'm gonna start with a poem from my first book American Dreams And I'll start I'm just gonna read one poem from there, so try to make that one a good one I'm gonna read a wild thing and Wild thing was written in 1989 and It was a poem written after a group of young African-American and Hispanic males were Running through the park and they were Engaged in just some kind of homicidal behavior and they allegedly attacked a Female jogger a white woman in Central Park and this and also evidently raped her and this really at that time divided the city and of course everybody was really shocked by this This crime and the youth of the Perpetrators of course since then there's been Littleton and Arkansas and even Younger people and more horrendous crimes in this poem. I take on the persona of the young male Young male wild thing and I'm running Running wild running free like soldiers down the beach like somebody just threw me the ball My thighs pumped through the iron My thighs pumped through the air like tires rolling down the highway big and round eating up the ground of America But I've never been any further than 42nd Street below that is as unfamiliar as my father's face Foreign as the smell of white girls pussy white girls on TV white girls on the bus My whole world is black and brown and closed till I open it with a rock Crissing it with blood Bop bop the music pops through me like electric shocks my sweat is a river running through my liver green with hate My veins bulge out like tomorrow my dick is the Empire State Building I eat your fear like a chimpanzee. Ah, we My sneakers glide off the cement like white dreams looking out at the world through a cage a cabbage and my mother's fat Holler and don't do this and don't do that. I Scream against the restraint of her big ass sitting on my face drowning my dreams and sameness I'm scared to go it hurts me to stay She sits cross-legged in front the TV telling me no Feeding me clothing me bathing me in her ugliness high high in the sky 18th floor of the projects her welfare check buys me $85 sneakers, but can't buy me a father She makes cornbread from jiffy box mix buys me a coat $400 leather like everybody else's I wear the best man 14 karat gold chain. I take off before I go wild and fuck you nigga. Nobody touches my goal. My name is Leroy L-e-r-o-y bold gold I got the goods to make the ladies young and old sign your name across my heart I want you to be my baby Rapper D rapper G rapper I my name is lightning across the sky so what I can't read you supposed to teach me you the teacher um the ape Black ape and white sneakers ha ha ha rape rape rape. I do the wild thing. I do the wild thing My teacher asked me what would I do if I had six months to live? I tell I'd fuck herself dope and do the wild thing My thighs are locomotives hurling me through the underbrush of Central Park the jungle I either want to be a cop or the biggest dope dealer in Harlem when I grow up. I feel good It's a man's world my sound is king. I am the black man sound get off my face wine and bitch No, I didn't go to school today, and I ain't going tomorrow. I like how the sky looks when I'm running My clothes are new and shiny my tooth gleams goal. I'm fast as a wolf I need a rabbit the sky is falling calling my name Leroy Leroy. I look up But blood busting blood busting my throat, and it's my homeboys LD CK and bean but hey man. What's up? I got the moon in my throat I remember when Christ sucked my dick behind the pulpit. I was six years old He made me promise not to tell no one I eat cornbread and collard greens. I only wear adidas I'm my own man. They can wear a new balance a Nike if they want I wear adidas I'm LD lover move a man with the money all the girls know me I'm classified as mildly retarded, but I'm not at least I don't think I am Special education classes eat up my brain like last week's greens rotting in plastic containers My mother never throws away anything I could kill her I could kill her all those years all those years I sat I sat in classes for the mentally retarded so she could get the extra money welfare gives her retarded kids So she could get some motherfucking money that bitch I Could kill her all the years I sat next to kids who shitted on themselves dreaming amid rooms of dull eyes That one day my rhymes would break open the sky and my name would be written across the marquee at the Apollo and Bogo me bigger than run DMC rapper G rapper old rapper me. Let's go ice cream My dick is a locomotive my sister eats it like a 50 cent hot dog. I scream. I said let's go It's 40 of us a Black wall of sin The god of our fathers descends down and blesses us. I'd say thank you Jesus now. Let's do the wild thing. I Pop off the cement like toast out of toaster Hot hard crumbling running running the park is green combat operation lost soul looking for Lieutenant Callie Jim Jones anybody who could direct this spurt of this spurt of semen rising to the sky Soldiers flying through the rhythm. Oh man nigga, please nigga nigga nigga. I know who I am My soul sinks to its knees and howls under the moon rising full Let's get a female jogger. I shout into the twilight Looking at the middle-class thighs pumping past me Cadres of bitches who deserve to die for thinking they better than me. You ain't better than nobody bitch The rock begs my hand to hold it. It says come on man TW pit bull JD and me grabbed the bitch ugly big nose white bitch, but she's beautiful cuz she's white She's beautiful cuz she's skinny. She's beautiful cuz she's gonna die cuz her daddy's gonna cry bitch I bring the rock down on her head Sounds dull and flat like the time I busted the kittens head. The blood is real and red My dick rises. I tear off her bra feel her perfect pink breasts like Brooke Shields like bitches and playboy Shit, I come all over myself. I bring the rock down the sound has rhythm hip-hop ain't gonna stop till your face Sees what I see every day walls of blood She's wriggling like a pig in the mud. I've never seen a pig or a cow step on TV Her nipples are like hard strawberries. My mouth tastes like pesticide. I fart you self-slam to her across the face with a pipe My dick won't get hard no more. I bring the rock down removing what she looks like forever ugly bitch ugly bitch I get up blood on my hands semen in my jeans The sky is black the trees are green. I feel good, baby. I just did the wild thing That book of poems American dreams ends with a group of poems called the breaking karma poems poems that I wrote about my Relationship with my mother or really about my lack of a relationship with my mother and so American dreams ends with the breaking karma poems one two three and four and my new book of poetry black wings and blind angels begins with breaking karma number five six seven eight and nine which ends that sequence of poems about my mother and There there's seats all down here For people who want to sit down and seats over there So this is a breaking karma number five one It is like a scene in a play His bald spot shines upward between dark tufts of hair We are sitting in a pool of light on the plastic covered couch Ernestine his last live-in ended up with but that is the end We are sitting in the beginning of our lives now looking at our father upright in his black reclining chair It's four of us then children new to Los Angeles drugs sex Watts burning Aretha Michael Jackson the murder of King Haven't happened yet. He is explaining how things will be which one will cook which one will clean Your mama he announces is not coming 2000 miles away in the yellow linoleum light of her kitchen My mother is sitting in the easy tan colored man's lap Kissing him her perfect legs golden like whiskey his white shirt rolled up arms that surround her like the smell of cake baking Forget about her. My father's voice drops like a curtain. She doesn't want you She never did to Holding the photograph by its serrated edges staring I know the dark gray of her lips is jubilee red her face brown silk I start with the slick corner of the photograph put it in my mouth like it's pizza or something I close my eyes Chew swallow, and this is breaking Carmen number eight in that series came One I Haven't seen her in 10 11 years. I'm 24 25 years old my grandmother and aunt have heard I moved to San Francisco They call all the L's in the book the conversation is simple working. Where going to school where chemistry. Yeah chemistry I want to be a doctor. I remember them heavy coffee cream colored women Doily's food church. I don't remember passion or being loved There are hills in San Francisco steep stairways of cement trolley cars 1975 The city is it nice there nice How can I say nice doesn't describe the way my blood gushes how I bead my hair with tiny red beads hundreds of them beauty bleeding Yeah, it's nice here. I answer What do they want now after the rubber hose the tenderloin tube down my nose and throat? What do they want with me now? What do I need a grandmother and aunt for now after him after my father? But I am polite launder my life promise to call to Why didn't I call? After all I had the number their tongues wag at me as if I put myself on an airplane at 13 and said goodbye Well, your mother tried to call my grandmother and sister she did I counter she sent letters my grandmother's search I never got them your father probably tore them up. No, he tore us up No, he would be at work when the wet mailman came he I don't like him, but I can't let this pass He didn't tear up. No letters. She never sent one none You never answered our letters are called. No, I admit trolley cars here for the first time I have a room of my own think you'll be coming up here anytime soon For what oh sure. Oh well by now we love you to My grandmother and aunt call again awkward. How are you church? How do I tell her who she knows is gone? I do tell her he beat me and I want to tell her you slapped me twisted my ear rage But I don't because it wasn't the same he cast me out you found me My grandmother says I want you to talk with someone or did she say I have someone here who wants to talk to you? Hello, the voice is thin cold and in retrospect. I will realize drunk It's your mother the voice says I realized she probably got handed the same I have someone here who wants to talk to you lime that I got I Chat on a moment about college my job at the phone company say alright I can't feel nothing from her side except sinking it feels like a stone sinking in endless water I tell her again. I'll write and send her a picture Because my sister hates to take pictures and my brother already is getting hard to find I only have one picture of us together A color photo of three smiling radiantly young people This time when they call I hear the behind the scene machinations Violet a steel hiss from my grandmother the sound of the receiver dropping my aunt someone wants to talk to you I wonder who hi mommy. I say sapphire. She asked no, it's Donald Duck. Yeah, it's me Then I remember did you get the letter I asked excited? Yes She says her voice sounds like it's been ironed and frozen But I don't stop. Did you get the picture? I asked yes. Yes. She assures me you look very nice But who were those other two people? It's me now being laid out on some big board being ironed and folded Frozen to a small red speck that turns black in my chest, which is a box closing Breath where to find breath putting the phone down Everything seems so still and coming apart at the same time a box in my brain opens and the one that's in my chest closes and This this next poem is called she asked about my mother in Therapy she asked about my mother I Tell her about the moment at the airport for children one mother in a skirt holding a piece of tissue Child by child. We passed through a turnstile to the plane the last I turn and asked when are you coming? She says she doesn't know when she is coming. I was 13 I would not see my mother again until I was 26 the last time. We are all together is in 1963 at the airport even then of course our father is not there she is through with him I walk in the kitchen and a man is holding her. She is in his lap Once she must have been holding me like that in her lap me drinking her her who is not coming who did not come never came Who was through being our mother? 23 years later. We will assemble at train stations and airports to pay as they say our last Respects to a little woman who by the last or in the end was hard to respect Holding on to this weight depression and train stations at the airport I am afraid the person sent to meet me is not coming I was 26 when I went to find my mother in therapy. I passed through the turnstile again I am through running at last. I'm willing to look at this mother to look at my uterus holding It's hard tumors It was me who was coming in a pink dress ponytail 13 alone at the airport with my brothers and sisters my brother at the airport Did you notice him watch him pass through you a second time? I told him you were not coming. That's the last you'll see of that boy He will not prove good at holding on neither will you mother the therapist even the stranger at the airport asked Where was your mother? It is hard to explain not coming a mother being through or me Holding on to my uterus swollen with these tumors to the very last This next poem is called ghost. I actually wrote this while I was I was actually living in Brooklyn in a In a Brownstone in a garden apartment, which is which is actually a euphemism for living in the basement Yeah, and so then I went away for the summer I was at at Yaddo and they put me in this room which had 13 13 windows and so actually that's not what this poem is about but The windows are mentioned in here. So I thought I'd explain that to you ghost There are 13 windows in this room I see the tops of trees and sky my parents run through my mind My father scurrying like a mouse my mother is sitting Why have I come here and what do their ghosts want with me? I know I'm not writing poetry, but trying to build a bridge back to poetry I will go home to a hot stuffy room I have lived with their ghost the black haired mother her parents on her back We had all all but one come to bury her 12 years ago My father died at 75 a stroke my father myself or me myself Where is poetry the feeling I used to have will it come in the middle of exercises? Finally, I have a room with windows finally my my parents are dead our ghost How they beat me left me laughed at me our ghost. I see him frozen hurrying in a picture my father I sell them saw my parents together My mother never mentioned my father's poetry. I found it after he died I was in his room before his funeral I had come from New York to bury this father come to throw dirt on the recovered ghost of memory Willing to believe as I lay down in his room I was a liar then my sister says he got me while I was in diapers in his poetry He talks of sunsets and doesn't mention his parents. My mother said he was ashamed of his parents When it is my time who will come I have no children except this poetry that isn't poetry Our father's penis is the ghost we suck in our dreams still I miss that father Raise him from photographs to come sit in my room Here at the writers colony. I attempt poetry in a room I see my mother and father at the top of the sky my parents have come here home to help me ghost It's called an ordinary evening My sister tells me it was just an ordinary evening, but evening is never ordinary Is it once the Sun has started to climb down the sky things change? You and she were sitting in the den the olive green vinyl couch sports trophies new color TV Pictures of Kennedy and King we keep turning to the wall Plate glass door concrete steps to the backyard you were sitting in the den by the tone of your voice You could have been asking are there any more hot dogs left or saying let's go get hot Let's go get high. She said you just turned around and looked at her and said let's kill him. Let's kill the old man and This next poem Interesting they're side by side with each other So this next one is called blood on the tracks or I'm so lonesome I could die and blood on the tracks is from the is the title of a old Bob Dylan album And I'm so lonesome. I could die as a country in in Western song and in this particular poem I take on their persona. There's some references in here. So you can I want you to understand them I take on the persona of the young man Actually a couple of them, but the young man who killed John Lennon said that whole Kind of psychopathic personality and also there's a couple references in here to also to Hinckley who was another Murderer who focused on famous people Okay, blood on the tracks or I'm so lonesome. I could die Train yards uniform stations like flags and steel bathrooms. I ride close to the rail with what I can carry Coffee light over the long grass that is my country Rolling with that easy feeling that dark pop top of light fizzing like a razor blade over the eyeballs of yellow Leaning out the direction of nowhere backwards rolling with the music that is my time loneliness Chrome flicker in the bright boxes of ending briefly and it was in the 70s I have all moved on up and no longer thought about killing every day Old people or babies or somebody famous like John Lennon I understand why he had to die the damn Dakota that Japanese bitch all dressed in black all that dope food fame studio time I dream Fantasize something as American as credit cards and cancer. I fantasize shooting the famous My wheels rolling fugitive across the life that is a train of losers Xerox back to back Plastic-colored heavy water wrapping around the axle of light breaking like a bullet through the gray chemical smell of the steel Shitholes blue water in the black of the bus Registered like a holster of discomfort slung on the torn negligee of dried grief and this old bitch who we did the favor of killing Doesn't have shit to steal. We don't want silverware crystal. We don't want mahogany furniture. Where's the money bitch? She can't talk pit bull. She's dead The bottom of the base is thick crystal grapes. I break pull up the old bitch's nightgown What you gonna do spooky is 1962 fuck this whole up. I jam her wrinkled ass with the glass dick It won't go in but she bleeds until 1992 words like borderline psychopath loser in blue jeans green light off the cape of dead Kennedy's white water a bridge collapses And I'm homeless down to a screwdriver and a dream and the memory of Annette Funicello in a white sweater black skirt in a Mousketeer cap. I know I'm stupid. I know I'm worthless, but I could have been a star a stupid worthless star What I can't be I kill Turned to trains to the man snoring in the seat next to me wake up motherfucker and die I got a suitcase a hormone sparkle plenty and blonde love bones and I want was born to kill What I can't get a look can't get over is we never had a chance and now the dance is over lying on his back Like a disemboweled dog having seizures in the crater of its missing penis There's a full moon on Main Street and this pot of liars going in somebody's eyes strawberry feels forever my ass I hate you you see how Lana Turner went down and that bitch that used to play kitty on gun smoke America does not take care of its own swimming pool of packaged cheeseburgers broken five bone of a dog eating in the red light of a train track And if I had it to do all over I would have murdered my mother and ate that bitch's heart Then rammed a lamp up her pussy so the world could see the knife cut of a tear rolling through cattle yards and remembered music I remember music. I couldn't make and I want to kill Snakes poem is entitled sestina and And when I when I was in graduate school, I studied with Alan Ginsberg and I just knew we were gonna do the wild thing and So but when I got into his class, he said though We all had to we had he made us write sonnets and sestinas and villanelles and count this and rhyme that and everything So anyway, this was my my response to Going home at night and having to learn this thing Sestina Last night after school I finally got around to looking at the formula for a sestina and thought of crazy horse dancing in the desert And I asked is God gonna appear here. I want God a blue light so dark it stains everything for centuries Radiative hallucinatory rude smelling like urine and frankincense One hip has always been higher one breast longer and my thighs and belly at midlife like stupid teenagers are totally out of control Like Billy and Bessie and diamond black Big Maybell Body ballad red dirt rooster throat cut in the sign of the cross Sodomized with a black cat bone full moon cross was live Road sign turned around early death gunshot untreated TB HIV roach wings floating in the semi circular canal a White boy in the workshop hip downtown run shaves his prematurely bald head tattoos. You know the whole bit Wonders allowed if roaches get in poor people's ears when they sleep and a girl says, yeah Yeah, they do Running like roads out of nowhere out of lines and I fall back 25 years before most of these kids were born and I whispered to Chris It didn't make any difference which side of the line you're on did it when the wheel hit that dip and the Motorcycle flipped in the air in the light of a cervical vertebra snapped in infinitun Electron spinning like wheels around a dying nucleus of light scurrying under cracks and some linoleum and queens and Sometimes under the concrete the city is walking on. I see the cotton fields My daddy ran away from and his face the love pulls me like an eclipse to the worn Envelope of poems I found in his drawer when he died Lines crossed in gasoline burning and you know those old niggers back then had about as much a chance of making it as Butterflies at all switch. Is that why he did it and now time is a light Dimming as it burns brighter Turning me toward the dark then the light again. I hope See or in this side of the auditorium. I have the serious follow-along set Those of you I'm on page 85 Okay So the the next form I'm going to read is a prose poem and it's called my father meets God or the dream of forgiveness and So this is a poem exactly about what it what it says my father meets God or the dream of forgiveness Such a godly thing this forgiveness. It's like that scene and cabin in the sky You are at the pearly gates and like Lewis Armstrong or somebody with st. Peter. He's out the picture But there you are knobby knees denting your blue and white striped pajamas ashy feet no to pay You are talking to God She is as we didn't know she would be an overweight Samoan woman She was born in San Francisco Hung out with African-American people talks like she's black. So this I guess is how she gets in cabin in the sky That is a question not an explanation One thing you can see is she has my mouth Jesus. She is me maybe a past life or some shit Anyway, she is God and she is talking to you She is telling you God is telling you She loves you She is thanking you for the burst of white light that was the sperm that began her life She thanks you She thanks you for the money daddy She says she paid off the school loans quit that sun up to sundown job that you ran Barefoot on a dirt road away from when you were 14 years old in 1929 3rd second generation out of slavery Running from a crazy man who beat you with his foot on your neck till your nose bled God says when she got the money she bought some records pizza with pepperoni some clothes like always like a nigga a Leather kurt a leather coat arming me against insolvency bad credit bounce checks run away debt a mattress on the floor Roaches, but I pay them back daddy. I stop haggle and haggle from garnishing my check Get off the hot coals. They're dragging me across get them off my back No, I sent many a princess to prep school with that $2,000 principle that rose like generations in ignorance to $12,000 in lawyers fees fuck it I just give them back their fucking money call it restitution if I ever harmed you America slavery didn't take enough take it motherfucker Daddy God knew you would want her to go back to school knew you did not believe we were Genetically inferior and that we could learn and get a good job She knew you would want her to join a penny her host be pearl perfume middle class despite everything You believed in denial as a survival mechanism that every day was a new day What was past was past they talked about Jesus Christ didn't they that you told me when I told you they talked about you I remember when you said Michael could turn his life around Plenty of men get out of prison and go on to do something with their lives He could make it today if he wanted you had said look Do you have much of a chance to talk to him now? Well, maybe after you've been around a while So daddy I cut the mustard you were always talking about though. I never quite understood where that expression came from I Made my mark my first one at least make your mark. You would always say I remembered what you said all that stuff A man could walk out of prison out the past and turn his life around. I Knew you weren't talking about me, but but I remembered what you said and it I Decided not to let it hold me back. I walked away from it by walking into it Look look daddy God is showing a movie It's your life. She's playing it back for you. See There's your mother's thin legs cocked open your head is breaking her apart for the last time You the seven son of a son of a gun Aries born to rule born to rise look daddy There you are the brightest the tallest the youngest boy Look at you running. Look how you strive. Look look see daddy See the flag red white and blue see you in a uniform Defending it see the woman her legs open like your mother giving birth the nurse says it's a girl Sergeant Lofton is a girl. You are happy a girl is great almost as good as a boy She can't play football, but she can be a nurse a teacher be a cheerleader and go to mills or spellmen She's not gonna be light, but she's not gonna be too dark or have a big nose She has no excuse for being fat. You will tell her neither her parents are this is your girl She is properly dressed and plays with plastic dolls. She loves them like you do Polaroid Daddy daddy come quick. You're 40. It's 40 the film starts to go faster Same life, but it's slipping by you even as you rise to the top daddy daddy God is talking Very gently, but she's talking look look she turns your head toward the movie screen your life She says only God and she is God can change it She says what Emanuel Millard like your mama called you. She says Billy like your daddy calls you She says Michael like you named yourself or Mike like you asked the fellas to call you she says Is there anything you'd like to change this? Is your last chance and you tell her stop stop go back There's a night a day nights days my daughter daughters lie about make my daughter especially Ramona sapphire I like that name actually her mama named a Ramona. I didn't have no say in it Change it you hiss change it make my girl stop lying change it or or can you? erase that God says what would you give to change that you say I'd go back back? All the way back under the ocean beyond the middle passage I'd go to the land of cut Achilles amputated clitoris is mules and men with no tongues I go to where all the tongues that have been cut off go where blind eyes go I'd go to grass I'd go to be I'd go to being a one-celled organism I'd do anything to stop the lying or or change what I did if I did anything like that God God I'm talking to you God looks at him looks around it's more like the Johnny Otis show now than cabin in the sky Yes, the Phillips is up there singing. I'm going to Chicago and I'm sorry, and but I can't take you God always sat at the table with the white folks I never could understand why the colored boys in the service always sat together Me I would go get my tray and sit at the table with the white soldiers. You know, I'm surprised I'm so happy you're colored. What are you colored? Well, whatever you look black sort of I'm happy Is it because you want forgiveness God asked? No, no, it's because you're so pretty God his voice is pleading now. Can you change it? Yes, she says it is changed. Are you sure? Yes says God. I know you're God, but give me some proof Oh Lord you men she says then snaps. What year is it year? Yes, what year is it? Why? It's the day I died. It's November 20 of 1990 Okay, you want proof? Yes, God you I believed in you and Jesus. I still believe in you even though you are Look different So what did you want proof of exactly that? That night those days that that something has changed Well, you know, even though I'm God. I can't change the past. What what you lying wench Why did you say you could if you couldn't? Well, because being God, I couldn't did double talk could what did what either you can or you can't either you did or you did Versus yeah, yeah, anything you want now. It's this funny stuff. Even though I'm God. I can't change the past So why did you say you could if you couldn't? Well, because being God. I did did what change it. I changed it for you Huh, how the way you change the past look look daddy. I'm gonna roll the film forward Look look daddy. See your girl run. Look look daddy. See your girl deposit that big check Look at your girl lift up the people. She's the nurse teacher poet healer. You always wanted to be look look See sapphire shine shine She changed it for you the past. That's what children are for look. Look. She's walking Where it looks like? Yeah, that's 14th Street in New York. She's singing. She can't sing. Why not? Well, I can't sing It runs in the family Well, what could she do? You know, I wanted to be a poet. Yes, I know Well, she's singing and how come I can't hear if you can hear don't be silly I'm God and her of course. I can hear and you're uh, you know, you're dead. I Didn't mean that the way it sounded Anyway, she's singing that Billie Holiday song, you know, I saw Billie Holiday at the Apollo Count Basie Ella all of them What's my daughter singing and where's she going? She's singing Mama may have Papa may have but God bless the child that's got his own and where's she going? She's on her way to the bank my bank where I used to work You know, I was personnel manager for 20 years. I know I got a pension from the army and the bank I own my house. Is that the one you put her out of? I'm sorry That's the one they'll sell and she'll pay off her student loans and go back to school. I'm glad I know you are Where's she going God? She going to work. No right now. She's going to the bank to cash in she works for me now You know you she ain't dead. No, I ain't dead. I'm God. You're dead daddy and your girl works for me God What she do? She talks with the cut off tongue you gave her she comes with the amputated Clitoris she runs on the severed Achilles. She flies man. She's a poet what she doing I can't see so clear. She's still saying what a new stone something different different from the past Yeah, I told you the past is changed But then you said you can't change the past she changed it look see how the past changes Advances into the future see, you know, I went blind before I died I know but you ain't blind no more shucks may as well be I'm dead You're dead, but now you can see you can see what you did and what you didn't do She's all right. Your girl is all right. You hurt her hurt her bad, but you didn't kill her Slowed her down some but you didn't stop her. Thank God. Oh, thank God You're welcome So I'm gonna turn to the last page in the book now 124 and This is a poem called today Today is a day you've been waiting for When you would finally begin to live when you would at last open the door This is the what the circumstance the more you have been withholding saving to give Today is the day you've been waiting for When you could sit down to your desk for hours take pride time find out what work is When you would at last open the door to your own self development what God has for you Today is the day you come out of prison live Today is the day you've been waiting for the tomorrow you pined away yesterday for I think love rhymes in a way with give You at last open the door to the possibility of now the core of life is the moment now how you live Today is the day I've been waiting for when you would at last open the door Okay, I'm not gonna read from my first novel push and Push was published in 1996. It's the story of a young African-american girl in Harlem. She's 16 years old and the book begins She's pregnant and she's actually pregnant for the second time and Our protagonist has fallen through all the proverbial safety nets they just have not existed for her and Not only she pregnant. She can't read. She can't write. You know, she's a big ball of statistics but a Let her tell you about it. So the most of the story is written in the first person and I'm gonna begin at the beginning with her Telling you a little bit about herself. I was left back when I was 12 because I because I had a baby for my father That was in 1983. I was out of school for a year. This gonna be my second baby My daughter got down sender. She's retarded. I Had got left back in the second grade to when I was seven because I couldn't read and I still peed on myself I should be in the 11th grade getting ready to go into the 12th grade so I can go on and graduate But I'm not I'm in the ninth grade. I Got suspended from school because I'm pregnant, which I don't think is fair. I ain't did nothing My name is Clarice Precious Jones, I don't know why I'm telling you that Guess cuz I don't know how far I'm gonna go with this story or whether it's even a story or why I'm talking Whether I'm gonna start from the beginning or right from here or two weeks from now two weeks from now Sure, you can do anything when you talk on the right and it's not like living when you can only do what you're doing Some people tell a story and it don't make no sense to be true But I'm gonna try to make sense and tell the truth else. What's the fucking news ain't there enough lies and shit out there already? So, okay It's Thursday September 24 1987 and I'm walking down the hall Look good smell good clean fresh is hot But I do not take off my leather jacket even though it's hot it might get stolen a loss Indian summer Mr. Which is saying I don't know why I call it that what he means is it's hot 90 degrees like summer days And there is no none. I mean none air conditioning in this motherfucking building the building I'm talking about is of course intermediate school 1 4 6 on 134th Street between Lenox Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell Junior Boulevard I'm walking down the whole hall from homeroom to first period math. Now. Why they put some shit like math first period I do not know Maybe to go on and get it over with I actually don't mind math as much as I had thought I would I just fall in mr. Which is class sit down. We don't have assigned seats in mr. Which is class We can sit anywhere we want I sit in the same seat every day in the back last row next To the door even though I know that back door be locked. I don't say nothing to him He don't say nothing to me now. That is first day. He say class Turn the book pages to page 122 I don't move. He said miss Jones. I said turn the book pages to page 122 I say motherfucker ain't death The whole class lab he turned red. He slammed his hand down on the book and say try to have some discipline He is skinny little white man about five feet four inches of peckerwood as my mother would say I'll look at him and say I can slam to you want to slam and I pick up my book and slam it down on the desk Hard the class laughs some more. He say miss Jones I would appreciate it if you leave the room right now. I say I ain't going nowhere motherfucker till the bell ring I came here to learn math and you're gonna teach me He looked like a bitch just got a train pulled on her. He don't know what to do He tried to recoup be cool say well if you want to learn calm down I'm calm. I tell him he say if you want to learn shut up and open your book His face is red. He is shaking. I back off. I have one. I guess I Didn't want to hurt him or embarrass him like that, you know But I couldn't let him anybody know page 122 look like page 152 three six five all the pages look alike to me and I really do want to learn every day. I tell myself something gonna happen some shit like on TV I'm gonna break through or somebody gonna break through to me I'm gonna learn catch up be normal change my seat to the front of the class But again, it has not been that day, but that's the first day I'm telling you about today is not the first day and like I said I was on my way to math class when Ms. Lichtenstein snatched me off the hall to her office I'm really mad cuz actually I like math even though I don't do nothing don't open my book even I Just sit there for 50 minutes. I don't cause trouble in fact some of the other natives get restless I break on them. I say shut up motherfuckers. I'm trying to learn something First they laugh like trying to pull me into fucking with mr. Witcher and disrupting the class Then I get up and say shut up motherfuckers I'm trying to learn something the Coons clowning look confused mr. Witcher look confused But I'm big five feet nine ten I weigh over 200 pounds other kids are scared of me Coon fool I tell one kid done jumped up sit down and stop acting silly Mr. Witcher look at me confused, but grateful I'm like the polices for mr. Witcher. I keep law and order. I like him Opportunity is my husband and we live together in Westchester wherever that is I Can see by his eyes Mr. Witcher like me too. I Wish I could tell him about the pages all being the same, but I can't I'm getting pretty good grades I usually do I just want to go on get the fuck out of intermediate school and go to high school and get my diploma So anyway, I'm in Miss Lichtenstein's office. She's looking at me. I'm looking at her I don't say nothing Finally, she's saying so Clarice. I see we're expecting a little visitor, but it's not like a question She's telling me I still don't say nothing. She's staring at me from behind a big wooden desk She got a white bitch hands folded together on top of desk Clarice Everybody called me precious. I got three names Clarice Precious Jones only motherfuckers. I hate call me Clarice How old are you Clarice? White cut box got my file on her desk. I see it. I ain't that late to lunch bitch You know how old I am Tina's a rather uh, she clear her throat old to still be a junior high school I still don't say nothing. She knows so much. Let her ask you to talk him Come now. You are pregnant. Aren't you Clarice? She asked me now a few seconds ago The whole just knew what I was Clarice. She trying to talk all gentle now and shit Clarice. I'm talking to you I still don't say nothing. This hole is keeping me from math class. I like math class Mr. Witcher like me in there need me to keep those rowdy niggas in check. He nice wear a dope suit every day He do not come to school looking like some of these other nasty ass teachers. Look, I Don't want to miss no more math class. I tell stupid ass miss Lichtenstein She look at me like I said I want to suck a dog's dick or some shit What's with this cunt bucket? That's what my mother called women. She don't like cunt buckets I kind of get it and I kind of don't get it, but I like the way it sounds so I say it too. I Get up to go miss Lichtenstein asked me to please sit down. She's not through with me yet, but I'm through with her That's what she don't get This is your second baby. She says I wonder what else it's saying that file with my name on it. I hate her I Think we should have a parent teacher conference Clarice meet you and your mom for what I say I ain't done nothing. I do is my work. I ain't in no trouble. My grace is very good Miss Lichtenstein looking me like I got three arms or battled out my pussy or something What my mother gonna do I want to say what is my mother gonna do, but I don't say that I just say my mother is busy Well, maybe I could arrange to come over your house To look on my face must hit her which is what I was gonna do is she said one more word Come over my house knows the ass white bitch. I don't think so We don't become in your house in Westchester where the fuck you freaks live. I'll be damned I don't hurt everything white bitch want to come visit Well, then Clarice, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to suspend you for what you're pregnant You can't suspend me for being pregnant. I got rights Your attitude Clarice is one of top I reached over the desk I was gonna yank her fat ass out that chair But she felt backwards trying to get away from me and start screaming security security I was out the door and on the street and I could still hear her stupid ass screaming security security So anyway Precious is altercation with Ms. Lichtenstein results in her getting kicked out of school And now we're gonna go to her house where her her mother Who's kind of basically is also her abuser? It has also been pretty oblivious to her her mother is now noticing that precious is pregnant for the second time and In this scene we she flashes back to the memory of when she first gave birth to her child The first child at 12 precious That's my mother calling me. I Don't say nothing She's been staring at my stomach. I know what's coming. I Keep washing dishes. We have fried chicken mashed potatoes and wonder bread for dinner. I Don't know how many months pregnant I am I don't want to stand here and hear mama call me slut holler and shout on me all day like she did the last time slut Yes, Tramp what you been doing who who who like Al and Walt Disney movie. I've seen one time who you want to know who Clarice precious Jones. I'm talking to you. I Still don't answer her. I Was standing at this sink the last time I was pregnant when them pains hit. I never felt no shit like that before Sweat was breaking out on my forehead pain like fire was eating me up I just stand in there and pain hit me then pain go sit down and then pain get up and hit me hard and She's standing there screaming at me Slut goddamn slut you fucking cow. I don't believe it right under my nose. You've been high-tailing around here pain Hit me again as she hit me I'm on the floor groaning mommy. Please mommy. Please please mommy mommy mommy And she kicked me side of my face whore whore She's screaming then miss West lived down the hall pounding on the door hollering Mary Mary. What you doing? You're gonna kill that child. She need help not no beating it. You crazy mama say she should have told me She was pregnant Jesus Mary. You didn't know I knew the whole building knew Don't tell me nothing about my own child 9-1-1 9-1-1 miss West screaming now. She called mama fool Pain walking on me now Just stomping on me. I can't see here. I just screaming mommy mommy Some men's these ambulance men's I don't see them or hear them come in But I look up from the pain and he there the Spanish guy in EMS uniform. He pushed me back on a cushion I'm like in a ball from the pain. He say relax the pain stabbing me with a knife and this spick talking about relax He touched my forehead put his other hand on the side of my belly. What's your name? He say, huh? I say your name precious. I say He say precious is almost here. I want you to push you hear me mommy unless she'd hit you again Go with it precious see-tah and push and I did and Always after that I look for someone with his face and eyes and Spanish people's he coffee cream color good hair I remember that God. I think he was God No man was never nice like that to me before I Asked if the hospital behind him where they're gonna help me they say hush girl You just had a baby, but I can't hush cuz they keep asking me questions my name precious Jones Clarice precious Jones to be exact birth date November 4 1970 Where here I say right here in Harlem Hospital 1970 the nurse say quiet confused then she say How old are you? I say 12 I Was heavy at 12 to nobody get I'm 12. Let's I tell him I'm tall. I just know I'm over 200 because the needle on the scale in the bathroom stop They don't go no further last time they want to weigh me at school. I say no why for I know I'm fat So what next topic for the day? But this not school nurse now this Harlem Hospital where I was born Where me and my baby got took it after it was born it on the kitchen floor at 444 Lenox Avenue This nurse slim but a color woman she lighter than some Spanish women's but I know she black I can tell it's something about being a nigga ain't color This nurse same as me a lot of black people with nurse cap or big car light skin same as me, but don't know I'm so tired. I just want to disappear. I wish miss butter would leave me alone But she just staring at me her eyes getting bigger and bigger She may she say she need to get some more information for the birth certificate. It's still tripping me out that I had a baby I mean, I knew I was pregnant knew how I got pregnant I've been knowing a man put his dick in you gush white stuff in your booty. You could get pregnant I'm 12 now. I've been knowing about that since I was five or six Maybe I always known about pussy and dick. I can't remember not knowing no I can't remember a time. I did not know but that's all I know. I didn't know how long it take What's happening inside? Nothing. I didn't know nothing The nurse is saying something. I don't hear I hear the kids at school boys say I'm laughing ugly He said Clarice is so ugly. She laughing ugly. His friends say no that fat bitch is crying ugly Laugh laugh why I'm thinking about those stupid boys now. I do not know Mother she say what's your mother's name? I say Mary L. Johnston Elphaliba my mother don't like Lee sound to country Where your mother born she say I say Greenwood, Mississippi nurse say you ever been there? I say no, I've never been nowhere. She say reason I asked is I'm from Greenwood, Mississippi myself I say oh cuz I know I'm supposed to say something Father she say what's your daddy's name? Carl Kenwood Jones born in the Bronx. She said what's the fault? What's the baby's father's name? I say Carl Kenwood Jones born in the same Bronx She quiet quiet say shame. That's a shame 12 years old 12 years old She say over and over like she crazy and some shock or something. She look at me butter skin light eyes I know boys love her. She say was you ever? I mean did you ever get to be a child? That's a stupid question. Did I ever get to be a child? I am a child I'm confused tired. I tell I want to go to sleep. She put the bed down. I do go to sleep Somebody else there when I wake up. It's like the police or someone asked me some question. I asked is where's my baby? I know I had one Knew somebody a nurse cap sweet smile me and say yes. Yes, Miss Jones. You surely did She moves the men in uniform suits back from my bed Say my baby is in special intense care and I will get to see her soon And won't I please answer the nice men's questions, but they ain't nice men. They pigs police. I ain't crazy I don't tell them nothing precious precious My mother hollering, but my head not here. It didn't four years ago when I had the first baby I was standing at this sink when the pain hit me and she hit me precious My hand slipped down in the dish water grabbed the butcher knife. She bet not hit me again I in line if she hit me this time. I'll stab I asked to death Precious, you don't lost your mind just standing up there staring into spaces. I'm talking to you like that's something I was thinking I say You thinking while I'm talking to you. She say this like I'm burning hundred dollar bills The buzzer ring. I wonder who it could be don't nobody ring our bell less is crack addicts trying to get in the building You know, I actually I hate crack addicts. They get a whole race a bad name Go tell them assholes to stop ringing the bell my mother say now she closer to the door than me But I mean my mother don't move unless she has to When I go to answer the buzzer, I realize I'm still grabbing the knife. I hate my mother sometimes She is ugly. I think sometimes I press talk on the intercom and holler Stop ringing the goddamn buzzer and go back to the kitchen to finish the desert dishes the buzzer ring again I go back stop bringing a goddamn buzzer. I say again the motherfucker ring again Stop it. It ring again. Stop it. I shout again. It ring again my mother jump in and say press listen stupid. I Want to say I ain't stupid, but I know I am so I don't say nothing Because also I don't want her to go hit me because I know from my hand in the dish water holding the butcher knife I am through being hit. I must stab us. You ever hit precious Jones again. I press listen It's it's Sandra Lichtenstein for Clarice Jones and Miss Mary Johnston Miss Lichtenstein what that whole want she want me to hit her for real this time who that precious my mother say I say white bitch from school what she want my mother say I don't know ask her my mother say I press talk and say what you want and I press listen listen And Miss Lichtenstein say I want to talk to you about your education This bitch crazy. I was going to school every day till a hunky ass snatched me out the hall Fuck with my mind Make me go off on her suspend me from school just cuz I'm pregnant You know end up my education now her white ass out on Lenox Avenue talking about she want to talk to me about my Education Lord where is crack addicts when you need them? All this about precious my mother asked my mother don't want no white shit like Miss Lichtenstein social worker teacher Ass nosing around here my mother don't want to get cut off welfare that is and that's what white shit like Miss Lichtenstein coming to visit resolve in now if I wasn't pregnant and having trouble with the stairs I run down and kick her ass My mother say 86 that bitch. I say is into the intercom. I still have Easter, baby That's Spanish for goodbye, but when niggas say it's like kiss my ass Ringo buzzer again. I don't believe this retarded hoe. I pressed talk say get out of here. Miss Lichtenstein for I kicked your ass The bell go ring. I pressed listen Clarice, I'm so sorry about Thursday. I had only wanted to help you. I Mr. Witcher says you one of his best students as you have an aptitude for math She paused like she's thinking what to say next and she's saying I Called a Miss McKnight at higher education alternative each one teach one. It's an alternative school She paused again say Clarice. Are you listening? I pressed talk. Yeah, I say Okay, as I was saying I've called Mrs. McKnight at each one teach one It's located on the 19th floor of the hotel Teresa on 125th Street. That's not too far from here I pressed talk. I know where the hotel Teresa is. I'd say to her bitch I say to myself I pressed listen again these crackers think you don't know nothing She say the telephone number is five five five zero eight three one I told them about you miss Lichtenstein stop call or just drop in the 19th floor I pressed talk teller. I heard heard of first time My heart is all warm half of it at least think about mr. Witcher saying I'm a good student The other half could just jump out my chest and kick miss Lichtenstein's ass No more ring. So I guess that means she got the message I Go to sleep thinking 19th floor hotel Teresa an alternative. I don't know what an alternative is but I feel I want to know 19th floor. That's the last words. I think before I go to sleep. I Dream I'm in an elevator that's going up up so far. I think I'm dying The elevator open and it's the coffee cream colored man from Spanish talk land I recognize him from when I was having my baby bleeding on the kitchen floor He put his hand on my forehead again whisper push pressures You gonna have to push Thank you very very much It's your turn now So you raise your hand and then the microphone is gonna come to you and your say your question in the microphone Could you tell could you tell us how you got published in New Yorker magazine? It's a far cry from push to New Yorker magazine. How did you get published? That's where I first read Okay, how did I get published in the New Yorker magazine? well, I Was one of one of the people I studied with was a van Boland and she was talking with Alice Quinn and she inquired about my work and I also had worked with at the New York and Poets Cafe with Bob Homan and Miss Quinn had inquired about my work several years ago and at that time I For a lot of different reasons. I didn't I was busy. I didn't send the work that she requested or wanted to see to the New Yorker and Then when I signed the contract for a push My editor at that time sent a section or the whole book actually to the New Yorker and Alice Quinn was excited about Even though she's the best. She's a poetry editor. She was Putting together the issue of working with some other editors putting together the issue of the black New Yorker and She felt that an excerpt from push would go well in that particular Edition of the New Yorker. So that is how it got into the New Yorker Thank you much props for push I'm a teacher in San Francisco's writer's core program and I understand that you've done Some teaching yourself in our city work, too How did you handle these bouts with cynicism and the overwhelming hopelessness Associated with this kind of work Okay, well, you know, I was in I was in a lot of positions where The students in in my class this so this was before Clinton ended welfare as we knew it You know, I mean and so we had there were a lot of alternative settings. There were a lot of settings for People on welfare or people who had were no longer in the mainstream School system, which there is a lot of hopelessness and cynicism. So I was really in a lot of settings that were quite hopeful and That where people really wanted to go to school in what really Despite overwhelming odds. We're really trying to do something with with their with their lives It's interesting this year. I just completed in my first year of teaching at a university And I encountered more hopelessness and cynicism among the the middle class in upper middle class white youth Then I've ever encountered in in Harlem So I don't I don't think that that's necessarily You know a character trait of The inner of inner city youth. I think that the system has Failed over and over again and that the by the time people have been teaching 15 and 20 years They're burnt out. Maybe you should go on to do something else, but they're holding on for their pension And they become very disillusioned and bitter and they pass that that feeling of low expectation and And hopelessness on to their students, you know Are you ever afraid of being so honest? well No, I mean I I you know, I'm I'm as honest as I could get but I could get more honest, so So yeah, I'm afraid to get more honest. So That's my answer to that. I Really enjoyed your reading. This is my first time hearing you my son is a writer He's trying to be a writer and he used to send me copies of things that he had written And I of course would also. Oh my god. I think your language you really need to calm down your language So he's gonna be really happy about this night What my question is Similar to what the young lady was asking how Are you ever worried about that you go too far as far as language? Is there a line between? vulgarity and Honesty. Yeah. Yeah, I think you can probably go too far. I don't think I've gone too far, you know me But I think in in we're always as artists. We're always trying to push our limits. So in my My medium is is language and so I do have a tendency to push it, you know and I'm trying often to approximate the the language that I hear around me So in and a lot of what I write is is what I've actually heard, you know, I mean I Do think that you have to Do something with that language. I mean so in in push the the violence or the So the profanity or it's not just gratuitous, you know, I'm using it for a reason I'm trying to show you this this this child, you know How how she talks the the difference between how she actually What she says and what she really feels and and and also this is the language that she has available to her She uses the language that she has that she's heard from most of her life So does that answer your question, okay, we have time for one more, okay Besides studying with Ginsburg who else would you consider to be your poetic influences? Oh I think that my poetic influences would be almost everyone. I've ever read so, you know, so that goes into You know, I'm a lot of my poetry is influenced by the novelists I've read, you know Toni Morrison Alice Walker Ernest Gaines a lot of pushes influenced by Ernest Gaines a lesson before dying So so those are a lot of influences I draw on, you know In some ways pushes a protest novel and we go back to what Richard Wright was doing in Native Sun and Read the early Not the early all of James Baldwin's novels some of which are were set in Harlem and Petrie the street all of that was set in Harlem I can't you know, I just have read so many Poets especially black ones so thinking right here in San Francisco when I was here Going to San Francisco City College who I read Sonia Sanchez Donnell Lee Nikki Giovanni Jane Cortez all all those people Then later reading Lucille Clifton I Don't know who are some of your poetic influences tell me and I'll tell you if they're the same. Who do you like? Right Well, he's the best. He's a national treasure. Yes. Yes Yes Yes Yeah, I really like the poetry a lot of Willie Predomo and Paul Beatty all of those people came out of the the New York and then have done really really fine fine work