 Here in America, we can actually respond when someone says hello. It's legal now. So I'll try that again. Hello everybody. Okay, alright. So hello, my name is Toussaint Saint-Nagretud. I work with Vermont Humanities. And on behalf of Vermont Humanities and the Kellogg Hubbard Library, I welcome you to our Snapshot event as a part of Poem City for an evening with poet Portia Olaiwola. We extend our thanks to the generous underwriters who make it possible for us to offer such rich and robust programming and Orca media for providing this live stream of the event. The sponsor of our entire Snapshot series is the Vermont Department of Libraries, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Alma Gibbs Donchian Foundation. Tonight's event is sponsored by the Montpelier Community Fund. Tonight we come together from across the state to listen, to learn, and to be inspired in community. Before we begin, I have a few brief housekeeping items. If you need to use the restroom, there are restrooms through these doors downstairs. That's where the restrooms are. Please turn off all phones. Turn them off. We will call the cops if we hear a phone. And our next Snapshot event is hosted by the Rutland Free Library. And it's entitled Every Problem is Now a Technology Problem with Jessamine West at 7 p.m. Please be sure to register online to receive a link to the live stream. And now it is my pleasure to introduce you to our next speaker tonight. Portia Olayuola is a native of Chicago who writes, lives, and loves in Boston. I love that. Olayuola is a writer, performer, educator, and curator who uses Afrofuturism and surrealism to examine historical and current issues in the Black, women's, and queer diasporas. She is an individual world poetry slam champion and the founder of the Roxbury Poetry Festival. Olayuola is Brown University's 2019 high mark artist in residence, as well as the 2021 artist in residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She is a 2020 poet laureate fellow with the Academy of American Poets. Olayuola earned her MFA in poetry from Emerson College and is the author of I Shimmer Sometimes. I'm sorry, I Shimmer Sometimes too. Yes. Olayuola is the current poet laureate of the city of Boston. Okay. All right. You can clap on that. Her work can be found in or forthcoming from the Tricorderly magazine, Black Warrior Review, the Boston Globe, Essence Magazine, Redivider, the Academy of American Poets, Netflix, Wilderness Press, the Museum of Fine Arts, and elsewhere. And now I give you Portia Olayuola. Good afternoon, evening everybody. How's it going? I'm super excited to be here. So grateful that one, all of you all showed up. And two, to also just be in a city that celebrates poetry in this way. It's really exciting, refreshing to see. I was just walking on Main Street, and I could see poems everywhere, and it's just really exciting and quite revolutionary. I've been dealing with some kind of cough situation, so I'm going to do my best. I'm going to do my best, but if you see me coughing, just stay away. Listen, Ars Poetica. I want to write a poem, and it could be about anything. But I'm sure, no matter what I write, it will be about Gaza. It will be about an olive tree, sliced at the stump. I want to write about the merciless red of an apple, how it listens in the light like blood. But I'm sure it'll just be a poem about Congo. Did you know? There are children singing and dancing in poems, but none in this life. I'd try to write, but I'm sure it'd be about Sudan or Chicago. I want to write a poem about the time I raced the sidewalk, or the double rainbow I saw with my lover one afternoon, arched over Boston like a prayer. But I'm sure the poem would unravel and rewrite itself. I bet it'd be about politics, politicking about taxes or the election, damn the election, or the mass unmarked graves with bodies like mine, re-remembered and forgotten, to be unmarked. To be unmarked, and then to be, to be marked, to be a marker. I want to write about the moon. And the night she left the ocean for a river down south, sweet, sweet waters drowning up my page, but instead it's about the deluge. Instead it's about the crisis of housing and the crisis of the police and the health crisis. Oh my, I want to write something beautiful, something devastatingly breathtaking, like maybe about the time my mother met my lover's mother, my two mothers, and they smiled, held hands, and gossiped in the corner of the room like they were building a new world without worry, teasing like two pigtails' schoolgirls on the playground up to the best kind of good. I love the giggles, it's like the schoolgirls, you know? So I've been working on a manuscript that is at the intersection of water and the black diaspora by way of a historical lens, as well as queer intimacy. So I think that's where we'll go today. And I guess that is just a content warning for stories that deal with trauma and violence around black folks, and then lots of history lessons. So we're on this ride. I am that nerdy, so. A couple of years ago I went to see my father who lives in Lagos, Nigeria, speaking of being a history nerd. I asked him to drive me two hours to the coast so that I could see a slave port. It was in Badagery, Nigeria, and all of the folks who were captured there end up in Brazil, just for context. But on the tour there was a well, and the tour guide was telling me that they fixed the well. They had African root workers put a spell, slave captives, had African root workers put a spell on the well, and so if folks drank the water, then they would forget their memory, or they would have short-term memory loss for three months so that they would forget the way home. And so this poem is about that, but kind of a re-imagination or a suggestion that maybe they fixed the well so that people would not have to survive that trauma of being on the middle passage. It's called, We Drink at the Atonation Well. It begins with an epigraph from psychologist Amy N. Dalton and Lee Hong, and it reads, Forgetting is a Psychological Defense Mechanism, whereby people cope with threatening and unwanted memories by suppressing them from consciousness. In pedagogy, there is a hungry well of water and memory loss. In pedagogy, there was a well of people lost across a haven of water. In pedagogy, there was a port overwhelmed and unreturned. To omit within the mind is to ebb heavenward. Memory is a wealth choking the brain and unresponsibility. Violence in the mind and the mind forgets in order to remember the self before the violence begot. In pedagogy, trauma washes ungodly memory heavenward. In pedagogy, there is an alternation well meant to wish away a passage, meant to unhaven a people. Violence is underwhelming in return what the body eats. The mind waters. Responsible is the memory for unremittal. Royal is the body for return. God is the mind for wafting. Forgetting is a port homework. In pedagogy, hungry memory grows angry. In pedagogy, the memories unchoke, unhunger, trauma uneats. In pedagogy, there is a heaven of people responsible for the wealth of unremembering, for the well of us across a haven of water overwhelmed and unreturned. I have a new, is this new? Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. I was going to say I have a new poem, but this is not, or rather a new favorite book, but it's not my new favorite book. It's been my favorite book for the last several years. I've read it probably four times in the last few years, but it's called In the Wake. Have people read that by Christina Sharp? As you can see, it's like a snap. It's one of my favorite books. It's so good. It's nonfiction, and kind of like memoir meets historical account. So, but I do recommend it. In any case, she theorizes Christina Sharp that black folks are living in the wake of slavery, right, or in the aftermath of slavery, and she considers the wake and three of its definitions, right, the first of which is the wake in terms of the shape a ship makes when it moves. The other is the wake as in a funeral, right, or the celebration of life is how she conceptualizes it. And then the third is the wake as in being woke, as in being aware of what we're doing and continuing irregardless. So this poem is a contrapuntal. I know there are quite a few writers here. Are people familiar with the contrapuntal? Yes, and it's okay to yell things out here, no. So contrapuntal is a poem that is essentially written in three parts, right? So there is the left side that reads down and then the right side that reads down and then you read them across and ideally get a third voice. So this is my attempt at the contrapuntal with the three definitions of the wake. And so part one in the wake. A ship sets sail across a body of water and turbulence occurs beneath the glutted belly. Even the ocean bursts waves and places unfamiliar. The bow pierces forward. A trail restructures the gods of the Atlantic once a vast portal. Now an atlas unmade. A wake where it hadn't been. Objects in motion, never mourn what was killed in order to be born. Instead, crossing continues with the wreckage of sea. Sainted ocean, keep in memory the self who breathed formed gills of Elantians. A sopping procession, silting the silk of water yet tied still running over what tried to sever a saline reflection. And two, a slave ship hauls bodies as cargo and both the surface and ocean floor rifts. Even the clouds break open and sobs. Trauma welts, swells the earth. The past is not past, but vessel. People emerge from the bow, but never the ship. Now a grave, cast unto the back. A wake where we have been. We never mourn ourselves. Instead, we feast. Instead, we ritualize the evasion of death and the death itself, how holy. Us who have not drowned when they drowned us. With the resurrection of bones along our mouths. Us grinning steel, what tried to grind us into sand, failed and cannot keep us from surging. And three, a cross in the shape of the wake. When a ship sets sail, a slave ship hauls across a body of water, bodies as cargo and turbulence occurs beneath both the surface and ocean floor. The glutted belly rifts. Even the clouds break. Even the ocean bursts waves open and sobs. Trauma in places unfamiliar welts, swells the earth. The bow pierces forward. The past is not past, but vessel. A trail restructures the gods. People emerge from the bow of the Atlantic, but never the ship. Once a vast portal, now a grave. Now an atlas unmade, cast unto the back. A wake where it hadn't been. A wake where we have been. We, objects in motion, never mourn ourselves. Never mourn what was killed. Instead, we feast. In order to be born. Instead, we ritualize. Instead, crossing continues with the evasion of death. The wreckage of sea and the death itself. How holy, sainted ocean. Keep in memory us who have not drowned the self. Who breathe when they drowned us. Formed gills of Elantians with the resurrection of bones. A sopping procession along our mouths. Silting the silk of water, yet us grinning steel. Still running over what tried to grind. What tried to sever us into sand. Failed in a salient reflection. Cannot keep us from surging. Um, in the context, really allows me to catch my breath when you guys clap. So thank you. I'm like struggling. I don't know what it is, but I've also started taking, what is it called? Mullen leaves? So now, by accident, all of the mucus is coming up. I shouldn't. Sometimes I feel like mucus is such a bad word. Yeah, I keep. Yeah, thank you. Keep feeling bad for saying it. In any case, I've been slightly obsessed with the poet, Phyllis Wheatley-Peters. Obviously, as a person who's serving as the poet laureate for the city of Boston and Phyllis Wheatley-Peters writing and living in Boston, it just naturally feels like we're constantly in conversation. But this poem is about the poet Phyllis Wheatley-Peters. And more specifically, I've been hunted by the fact that she was named after the ship, right, that she came in on. And so I've been just struggling with that and talking to her about it by way of poems. But this is called The Phyllis, 1761. And it begins with an epigraph from the poet Phyllis Wheatley-Peters that reads, by what sweet name and in what tuneful sound would thou be praised? A vessel can be a shipped prison to which her purpose is to haul pretty cargo. A girl, however prison, can be ship and cargo. A vessel can be a shipped person to which her purpose is to haul precious cargo. A girl, however precious, can be shipwrecked. A shipped person can also be a vessel to which her purpose is to haul petty cargo. A girl, however priced, can be both ship and cargo. A ship can also be a prison vessel to which her purpose is to hide her pretty. A girl, however wrecked, can be a vessel. The next, yeah, thank you for giving me the space. It's like your claps are like wind coming into my chest. No, I'm sorry. Okay, the next three, four poems are American Sonnets. And I say that because I am an American? No, I say that because I mean, if you know anything about the American Sonnet, it's like actually very much so American in that it drops all of the rules with the exception of the Volta, right? I think the only things that it keeps is it's a love poem. It has the Volta or the change at the end and then, oh, 14 lines, right? And then for those who don't know, the American Sonnet was invented by a black woman named Wanda Coleman and then made famous or revitalized by the poet Terence Hayes. And I realized it's just about American politics, really. And maybe this is about that. But in any case, have folks heard of Lake Lanier? Yeah, it's like, so I love this. It's been trending recently and primarily because there have been a lot of drownings. It's a lake outside of Atlanta or rather in Georgia and there have been a lot of drownings. I think it's like the highest rated number of disappearances. And people have theorized it's cursed, right? It used to be an all-black town and then for reasons associated with racism, they ran black folks out of the town and eventually filled it in with water. And I was watching TikTok, which is where I get most of my information these days. Unfortunately, yeah. It depends on which talk you're on, you know? If you're like on book talk or whatever. Anyway, but there was a TikTok-er saying that sometimes the tie gets so low, you can see the steeple. And that obviously has haunted me. And also we're in this beautiful space, what a gorgeous steeple. And so maybe this is an ode to steeples. It's called Lake Lanier. It's going to be edited. That's why I'm doing this. Nothing burns more radiant than the Bible of a hell-bent preacher. The gleaming Sunday shoes of a little girl and a cross pitched on the lawn. Martin and Malcolm could tell you playing from the apertures in their chests. You gut the sanctuary first. Pray away apostles. Salt the tongue to sever the wings. Blaspheme the Orishas. God is always the most necessary to destroy. Crucify and become history's cursed lover. Drowned town hex. The night riders reaping. Man-made lakes belong to their holy ghosts. Vengeful deities understand. The spire of the church is just the good Lord's dagger. Another American sonnet. You guys are awesome. Another one entitled, Before he was deported, My father taught me to fish like a man. Good man. Jacob is. Thank you so much. You guys are so supportive. Before he was deported. I'm in Palm City. No place I'd rather be, honestly. Before he was deported, My father taught me to fish like a man. Good man. My father was. He could catch the best God had to offer and the worst. Like devout fishermen, we were religious at the lake. My image swimming in my father's reflection. Girl learning man. Man girl learning to eat, to cast a line like how the country did. Split a border between my father and I. Half like a filet, croakers flopping onto the beach of our mother countries. It took years to learn how to unlearn anger. I wanted only to lie in the blood of my father. Cast away body bones, swallowed up how hunger never allows you to keep who it is you love. Another sonnet. I just haven't too many, too much fun. Just like, you know, I'm like known for abrupt endings. And it's, it's hilarious to me. No, I'm sorry. But this, this poem is after the poet Nicole Sealy, who's just an incredible poet. But she wrote a sonnet. I think it's called legendary. And every word except the last ends with the word white. And so every word here ends in black. And it's called legend heavy. I want to be married in church in black. Not like tradition. No, it must be black. Black dress, black suit, black roses and cake, black wife. View of us. Pretty skin, smiling, black. And let the chorus come. Witness this black love down the aisle. Each piano key black. Each note of song lifted black. Black like promise. I want three, no four. Small black Jubilee kid. Safe sound behind a black picket fence. Grandmother, my mother. Black in a rocking chair. Cooing, hey there black child. Be careful. Take those school clothes off. Black don't clean easy. It stains. Moonrise stays black till sunrise. Sometimes white never shines through. I got some really great news today. Oh, maybe you guys will be the first people I tell it to, but I just got offered tenure track, assistant professorship at a school. And I'm very excited about it. I have to be here all the time. I'm doing my readings, all of my readings here. I'm bringing you guys with me, no. But maybe they'll retract this after they hear this poem. But I like teach poetry currently. And, you know, I had a really great class. I mean, like there are so many incredible young writers that I just get to spend time with. And this particular student, I think I just really loved their poems. I was fascinated with their poems. But in any case, they were giving a very in-depth presentation. And they said one thing, and I just kind of started writing in the middle of their presentations. I felt so bad, but they were a stellar student, you know. This is also a sonnet about them. Or not about them, but about that moment. I assign my students final presentations. The poet says, skinny black trees. And all I think is black. Skinny black kids. Skinny black legs dangling off the side of lips like lollipops. Skinny black limbs. Skinned knees. Black with hope. Skinned black hope. So thin it vanishes on the line. It vanishes like a line lynched on the horizon. What's right with me? Am I wired to think lack? A gravekeeper? Paul Barrow? Whose child rancid with morbidity am I? Do I belong to God? Is God bound back to black like this? All rope and a loose neck. All cross and clean hands. No skinny blood spilled and still grief coffles my mouth like a chain gang. The student finishes. A. No, A plus. I've been obsessed with contrapuntals. You guys tell me if I'm going too far with them. So I'm going to do a couple more. But this one in particular is about resistance, really. But it's more specifically about the... I'm going to take my shoes off. This is like when you should keep things to yourself. But you guys can't see my shoes, so I'm like, ah, should be comfortable. But it is about Margaret Garner. Have folks heard of Margaret Garner? I know you're like, stop asking us. Have we heard of these things? But if you've read Beloved, which a lot of us have, I assume, Toni Morrison's Beloved is based off this woman named Margaret Garner. And Margaret Garner was an enslaved woman in the American South. And she had a family. She had a husband and she had four kids. And if you look at the records, you'll note that the first child was dark and the other three were lighter shade, right? Which we can assume, you know, she had been assaulted by the master, right? But her and her family, her husband, her four kids, and her in-laws, her two in-laws, they run away by way of the Ohio River. They wait until it freezes over. They cross the Ohio River. Slave catchers catch up with them once they cross over. And in an order to avoid going back into slavery, she begins to kill her children in like this daring moment of resistance. She only kills one and then has to stand trial for destruction of property. And then is found guilty and is sold further down south on the Mississippi River, which is supposed to be a harsher life is the story. And I told you I was writing about black folks at the intersection of water, which is how I found my way here. But in any case, this is a contrapuntal about that moment of resistance for Margaret Garner. And the first is called Margaret Garner crosses the Ohio River in the voice of the Ohio River. Folk stay gunning toward me like I'm the second coming, like every Medea ain't a God with purpose. Cross me like a crucifix and I will lay Ohio bare. There is no word for a mother who has lost just an unjust law rotting sweetly. Blighting a fetus into the property of somebody willing to break a woman into a hollow harvest. Ascend up yonder, child. Wade threw me like a hymn, a prayer, a river of Jordan, a gateway fleeing the Dixie. I, the chariot, freezing up, heartening myself in your quest. Two, Margaret Garner crosses the Ohio River only to get caught and sold down the Mississippi in the voice of the Mississippi River. Like I'm some type of pistol, folk stay running from me. Mercy me. I thin the bloodline. I devein the country with a kitchen sink. Mississippi. Sell them down river. There is no sympathy for a child gone to queen sugar cotton stock, crowning the bones, cane fields, cankering the mouth, split the family into quarters with a slip of sail, big muddy old man river, steamboat. I may be a womb of water, but can as easily be a rope, a tree, poplar or dollwood, the soil of the south, the blood on my hands, a bomb. And three, Margaret Garner crosses the Ohio River only to get caught and sold down the Mississippi or the mother stands trial for murdering her children in the voice of Margaret Garner. Folk stay gunning toward me. Like I'm some type of pistol. Like I'm the second coming. Folk stay running from me like every Medea ain't a God. Mercy me. I thin the bloodline with purpose. Cross me like a crucifix and I devein the country with a kitchen sink. I will lay Ohio bare. There is no Mississippi. Sell them down river. I will lay the word for a mother who has lost sympathy for a child gone to clean sugar, just an unjust law rotting sweetly, cotton stalk crowning the bones, blighting a fetus into the property, canfields cankering the mouth of somebody willing to break, split the family into quarters, a woman into a hollow harvest with a slip of sail, big muddy, up yonder child, wade, old man river, steamboat through me like a hem. I may be a womb of water, a prayer, a river of Jordan, but can as easily be a rope, a gateway fleeing the Dixie. I, a tree, popular or dogwood, the chariot freezing up the soil of the south, heartening myself in your quest, the blood on my hands a bomb. Also, I've been thinking a lot about pleasure. Yeah, it's about that time. No. And we really have been theorizing, you know that everybody, I mean, folks are human, right? Even under the institution of slavery. People still had joyous moments. And so I guess these are theories. This poem is kind of like a transition to my own exploration of joy, but theorizing around folks who were under the institution of slavery and still exercising joy. Right now it's called Run Away Love. Amid crisis, there exists no sanctuary better than us. Me and my baby moisten the sheets. Our salt spray asterisks, making the risk of loving, living worth it. We north star our bed. Ancient maroon in heat. I've heard many make the case. The revolution is the time to fuck shit up and not fuck each other. Liminal. God is a ruthless lover. Black is a limitless being. We are always opportune. Name a mutiny that has not been moist in its end. Reader, what did you think? Solves did not fornicate. Did not enjoy the moonlight salivating the skin. You think there was no uprising every night. Slave shack, shack up, heavy painting, Wade and wet, Wade and want. I aim to be that thirsty. I ache to be that thirsty after. My girl and me a sweet escape. An ecstasy of sweat. We this free. Every break of dawn. Super excited. I'm like getting married later this year. Yeah, I think it's going to be a good time, you know, and hopefully a long lasting marriage, right? Because, you know, the wedding is the wedding, but... Yeah, very excited. I mean, I could go on and on, but I won't stop here. In any case, this has been a poem that has changed forms, like over the last probably like five or six years. I still am not decided upon it. I don't know what it wants to be. But today, it's masquerading as an apsadaren, which is, you know, the poem that follows A-B-C-D-E-F and et cetera. It's called, Apsadaren for the Runway, My Fiance and I Turn the Sidewalk Into. Because we are so undeniably stunning, Chrysanthemum says we end homophobia. Darling and I. Sweet pea and me. High stakes edging the highlight of a cheekbone. How fine and finite our fight. How gorgeous our gallantry. There is a shrine altered of our war, however hostile. Fashion is as fatal as a blood carpet. We ignore punctuality like bad timing. It's what we joke about. Entering a restaurant knowing not what the other has conquered. Lowling our own wounds. Hers separate from mine. Mine heavy in reflection. They have not been through the weight we weighed. Our fears keeping us from the joy to burrows away. The pop concert. The last brunch. Gawking questions reaching from singed eyes. We rakeish beauty. We untamed affection. Our skin. A soft shield stowed beyond this life. We toss aside apprehension. Treat the heart as a fist underneath our garments. Praise bodies raised in vain. We laugh like we are the only people. Even though we are not. We show gloriously late. Devastatingly gorgeous. Examining a room of gawking molars. Malves yearning for what keeps us living. A look in the mirror. And Zion is the glint in our teeth. The nails painted. Our hands clasped. All right. Two weird poems. Weird stuff. Weird stuff. It's written, the title allegedly is sometimes I eat, but I think it's called I Grow Obese. And you know sometimes you're like finishing a manuscript, but then secretly you start writing another one while you're finishing this one. So I think the next one is about hunger. Hunger, desire. And those two things, you know, they feel closely related. Anyway, I grow obese. Once out of anger. I told a lover I wanted to gobble her up. Devour her bones until we were born. Devour her bones until we were both dust. I am that thirsty. I thirst for a meal forged from the dainty fingers that feed me. Once just the two of us had a picnic alongside the Charles and I slurped up the whole bank of water between my cheeks. Bass, perch, newt, ill and all. I did not stop. I did not leave the city a drop of blood. In bed I say grace before I swallow. I swallow. I swallow over my prayers. The hunger is enough to forsake my God body. I cheated, confession. Sometimes I play with my food because I am enamored with the sounds. I slosh my face in her wide mouth, nape of breath, nails, toes licked. Even the eyeballs like bad apples ravished and ravished ready. Sweetie pie, you are not a turn of endearment. Starved, I want all of me consumed. Famished, I desire all of me gone. Another weird one I'm working through. Right now it's called My Therapist Says I Should Be More Vulnerable About What I Want. If I am being honest, I think about eating baked macaroni and gouda off. If I am being honest, I think about you eating baked macaroni and gouda off my boobs. I think about biting into a ham-hawk and chowing down a plate of collards and then slithering the juices between your thighs. Slide, I am black with desire. I hunger history. Hollowed thirst. Is this what she means? Open myself. I whisper, sex me like a runaway baby. Tall grass. I whimper, pool my hair. I'll eat your lips. Nibble my nipples scarlet. Open my legs. Open my mouth. Feel me. Trickle down. Tickle my lungs. There are only so many places to feel safe. Make me tender like country fried chicken. Hush pussy. But make me scream your name. I'll cry out like a feast of fried gator. Let my tongue soggy your toes. Fine painted like green beans. Like jalapeno poppers. Like safe watermelon woman. Okra slime. Slurp me up. Serve me up. I love you guys. Keep me hoppin' John. Let's fester like wet sugar. Love me like freedom baby. To the pig ears, roast crisp. You guys are so nice. I think it's telling that I start to hear you when we get to the sex poems. You guys did that. I know we probably got like five more minutes before we get to the Q&A. I know, more weird poems. I wish I was actually a stranger, but I'm not. Let me see what else is on this list. I know, right? We love love. This is kind of love. It's not kind of love. And it's being edited. It's out to a friend who's giving feedback, which is to say, you know, if you hear something, you're like, oh, I think you should change it. I'm accepting the feedback here. Also, inspired by TikTok. I was watching, I was following some drama, multi-talk drama, in which, you know, a woman was telling a story about how she, how her husband cheated on her, and she met him while he was cheating on somebody else with her, so it was really weird. But in any case, she said that he sent her a lot of flowers and he sent her so many flowers, that it made her office look like a morgue. And I was like, don't you see the problem, lady? And you know, like, you can never make these things up. You know, people just kind of give you the poem. But yeah, completely undone, but maybe when I read it out loud, I'll get closer to an ending. Right now, it's called All the Flowers He Sent Me Made My Office Look Like a Morgue. Says the woman, viral on TikTok. She's talking about her husband before he was her husband, how he was somebody else's husband, how he turned her workspace into a casket spray, and I watch, petrified, cemented to the drama or what the Greeks call tragedy. Comedy, I suppose, that my stomach hums like milk at the thought of looking to the things that make us less humane, but more human. Humbling, to think of myself at a dissent. The procession to hell is lined with pretty someone's. The path to heaven, even worse, I'm sure. I once buried myself alive in a safety net, cloaked in untruth. I once stewed the silence of the grave in my mouth like a cherry stone pit. This office bouquet makes me think about the time before the end of the end of my last relationship, before I could properly lay us to rest, before we could be considered past, take the curtains down, divide the plants, split the couch into pillows and fluff. The love story goes, I sent a new friend some new flowers for a new book, she wrote. My sweet, sweet new friend, new lover, how my soon-to-be ex-lover, former lover, found the receipt in my email inbox at 3 a.m., and she woke me, screaming, asking, how could I, hollering, midnight, like a banshee, like a sobbing lover wilting at her patrol's funeral? So yeah, feedback is open for that one. And then this will be my last, and then we'll open it up for Q&A, yes? Okay, word. Afro-futuristic reimagination of Dorothy, a story about Dorothy Dandridge, do people know Dorothy? She played Carmen Jones. Here I go with more history questions, no. But she played Carmen Jones, and was famous black singer. People say she didn't get all of her, all of the opportunities afforded to her because she was before the Civil Rights Movement. In any case, there's this urban legend, and I call it an urban legend because a lot of folks say that it happened to them. And so there's like, you know, this historical celebrity gossip around it. But in any case, she was singing in Vegas, and she was given a tour of the hotel, and she said, oh my God, I can't wait to get in the pool. And they're like, you can't get in the pool, we'll have to drain it if a black person gets in it. So this is Afro-futuristic reimagination of that particular moment. And it's called, Dorothy dips a toe into a pool after being warned the water would be drained should a black person swim in it. 1953, Las Vegas. And all at once, without, and within, each well of wet everywhere swelled dry. The woman in the shower, shriveling, shaken bare. The cook steaming at the sink's faulty faucet, the rust keening and dragging itself through pipes. Chalices unfeel, air wilts the face, moisture abandons the flesh, the breath, the girth, water unfloves, reruns away like blood from a wound. The swimming pool, brimming moments ago, now hold mothers who hold babies dry sobbing at its base. Guests at the last frontier lay leisurely. Their bodies broiled brittle on the deck. The black spell is the yes, cascading over a no. The anti to the anti. All kept from me in spite, shall spite keep from you with force. And in another land, unpromised, the color blue opens and spreads to blanket each eye. Dorothy stands at the water's ledge. Her curls and linen lie loose. Her skin, cool and sweet, sings a song unsang but known. Dorothy, a tall tide, coaxing herself into herself. Dorothy, a good curse, moves until waves wade at her waist. The dancing wet rushes to gather at her hips. She cups the clear in her palms and splashes upward. Dorothy lifts her arms and ocean rain, urges the body to name itself religion. Dorothy splatters and ripples bring forth a sanctum. Each droplet is plenty for the city's south side. A shower gives itself to the children on 83rd playing at the hydrant. A spray fills the pot of collards on the back burner. Another flows through a school's fountain, once lined with lead. Dorothy swishes water into the sugar breeze and it lingers in air. No one thirsts. Moisture soothes a lonely throat. Dew demands a mother's seeds to grow. Dorothy raises the ocean and oh I want to tell you how her hands cradle full drops toward the sky. How the water could hardly stand to let her go. Thank you guys, you guys have been so awesome, so generous. I feel like I haven't had a reading like this in a long time, so thank you. And then you keep going, you just keep going, no. I love the laughter that I heard, the giggling. I like to laugh too at readings, so I appreciate that. But we're opening up for Q&A, folks have questions. I also like to consider this a commercial break, like if you have to leave, nobody's going to be offended. But do folks have questions about writing process or the poems? Oh yeah, work. So I got introduced to poetry by way of SLAM poetry. I'm from Chicago and we have the largest youth poetry SLAM called Louder Than a Bomb. I thought I had one of my teachers who's now a good friend, but my teacher mentor, she hosted the history team, the competitive history team, the soccer team which I was on and then she was like, oh you need to do poetry, you need to come and see these poems. And so I can remember my first time being in a room and hearing SLAM poetry. And so yeah, that's how I got started. I did it once, one year in high school with Louder Than a Bomb. I went to college, U of I, in Champaign-Urbana and we didn't have a SLAM team. There was one other person who did poems and once we drove to Indiana to compete but we didn't have enough people. So when I moved to Boston, you know, Boston has a very rich SLAM culture and it's not the city in which SLAM has founded but it is one of the four that held the first, you know, Poetry SLAM with four cities or four teams. And so that is kind of where I just, you know, I volunteered for a year after college with AmeriCorps so I didn't have money and I moved to a city where I didn't know anybody so I didn't have friends so I would just write. I would just write and then I would go and SLAM every single week with new poems and then yeah, eventually just started doing national competitions. But yeah, love SLAM. Yeah, yeah, no worries. Do folks have other questions? Yeah, I also don't want to stress you, you know, it's like okay if nobody has questions, yeah. Can we listen to what happened before they canceled you? I know, right? I don't mind saying that. I mean, cut the camera, sir? No, I'm just kidding. But I don't know if folks know what you're referring to but I'll just give a brief recap. I was set to do a commencement speech at Concord Academy in about a month and then, I mean I'll tell you it from my perspective. So I got an email that was saying oh my god, the students have elected you to be the commencement speaker, we're very excited. And then received, you know, a text message. Okay, now this is where the truth comes out. You know, I haven't told you about this part but I received a text message from folks at the school asking if I could meet with the headmaster. And, you know, one, usually when I do a gig, you know, they just send me an email and, you know, we close the case or we might meet via Zoom. Or, for example, Jacob emailed me almost a year ago to the date, right? And, you know, here I am, you know. So that's how it typically goes. And so I was a little shocked that they asked to meet in person. And then, you know, he was a really lovely guy. Great conversation. I felt moved, you know, and I felt as though he might have been and so he never really articulated what was happening. But just that, you know, when I walked away from that particular lunch meeting, I assumed that he was about to offer me a position to work at the school. That's what I thought. And so I left the meeting feeling flattered and confused. I was like, oh, you know, I was telling one of my colleagues, like, I don't really know what's going on. He's like, oh, this guy's courting you. Like, he wants, you know, and so I was a little confused because I had never seen anything like this and also flattered. I'm like, they like my work and they want me to work with students in a more intimate capacity in addition to the commencement address, right? And so that was that. You know, I just kind of left it that and thought that I would receive something by way of email. In any case, maybe two or three weeks later I got an email from somebody at the globe saying that, oh, that's a commencement speaker. And so this is a terrible injustice. And I'm like, injustice. What's going on? And so I reached out to my booking manager who said to me that they sent him an email saying it was a mutual agreement that we wouldn't do the commencement speech and they'll send over payment. And I was like, that's so strange and I don't know exactly what's going on. But I assumed immediately that it was related to what's going on in the world. And eventually I talked to some students and, you know, I think it was the students who reached out to the globe because they were upset. You know, they were upset. And I took my own little notes from the young person who was just like, this is antithetical to what they tell us about the exchange of ideas. And I'm like, I'm sad, I'm sad for you. You know, I'm sad that this could have been a terrible moment for all of us to have a conversation and maybe like the rest of the world could also learn something from it. But instead, you guys one lied. You lied about me. Which is like terrible. And then also avoided, you know, having a difficult conversation. And so I sent that in a very elaborate email that I'm just extremely disappointed. I was, I definitely was, in my mind I was really mean but it was like actually relatively sweet. I sent them I sent them a lot of quotes from poets in particular the first opening was I think from Zora Neale Hurtson that said, if you're silent about your pain they will kill you and say you enjoyed it. And also close with something from June Jordan that is a poem that says, you know, I'm a black woman. But now I've become a Palestinian against the, I don't want to misquote it and I have it somewhere here. Let's see if this is it if I can get the internet. But in any case send them a very elaborate email and I wasn't necessarily sure of what will come of it. I'm also like kind of skeptical of journalists. No offense. But just because, you know, I assume they have a thesis. You know, they have a story that they want to tell and I didn't think the story should be about me, frankly. I thought it should be about the students that are happening in Palestine. So. But anyway, yeah, it came out this morning. I haven't heard from them since. Unfortunately, I did get an email today from two students who identify as Jewish and said this is what happened and we're so sorry and we don't agree and let us know if you want to chat. So that's kind of where it was. But really unfortunate, I think it just should have been handled differently. I just wish they would have did a better job. I had a different kind of conversation to be frank, but, you know, politics, I suppose. Yeah. Thank you for that. I hope that wasn't too much drama about my life. Well, you're not the only one. Yeah, I know. It is unfortunate. I think there was a young person from USC who was valedictorian and recently got removed from their speech. I just wish we were in better places to have conversations. It's unfortunate. Are there more questions? Not necessarily a downer, though. Yeah. What has been your most powerful moments as a laureate? Ooh. Yeah, that is a great question. And hard, too. There have been several, I think. One, just like actually working with folks and being able to like share poetry and listen to other people's poetry. The fact that I like have to read poems, which sounds ridiculous, but like, you know, like, residents, like on the way here, on the car ride here, I just spent reading poems that would go up in city hall. You know, like, and I think about that work in terms of, you know, the people who make the laws or the people who run the city get to read poetry every day and work and which poems, you know, get to be published on the walls in city hall. City hall. And so for me, that is like a joy of like, you know, doing that kind of work. I will say, you know, we helped to start the Youth Po Laureate Program in Boston and we've had some incredible young people, but this young person right now, you know, is like 15, identifies as trans and is like a writer like I've never seen before. So the fact that we get to like mentor each other is really exciting. But overall, I think it really is about, for me at least, showing up when I have the space and capacity to and just like, actually listening to other people's poems. It's really a joy. But thank you for that. It was sharing their poetry and it inspired you to write a poem. But when you, so that's like a beginning, when do you know when that poem is done? Yeah, see, I think it's easier to know when the poem is not done. And then they say that the poem is never done, right? That you might always go back and do a little but I think I guess when I read it out loud and I note that I am not cringed about a certain thing, you know, or even like I never say that the poem about my father and the fishing is, I never say it's not done but I know that I dislike the ending, you know. So it's easier to know when it's not done as opposed to when it's done, which is, I think, exciting. You know, that's kind of expansive. Yeah. I might take that one, but it's alive. I don't know if people heard that, but thank you. Yeah. Did you have your hand raised or did I make that up? No, I just saw. Okay, yeah. Yeah, so the Contrapuntal. Usually I mean, I prefer to write by hand. So I don't really, you know, start by tech and usually I have my little no lined, what is it called when there are no lines on it? Thanks. Hilarious. But I start, I buy the same kind of journal every time. It doesn't have lines and I usually write in that, but when I'm doing the Contrapuntal I usually take printer paper and I fold it in half and I probably start with an idea or something that is complex enough in which there need to be two distinct voices and if I know the two distinct voices that I start and usually I maybe write two lines and then another two lines and then maybe a line and then two lines and then, you know, so I kind of go back and forth between the two and then I think for me at least repetition helps, right, like whether that be or I was even analyzing what I was reading today in terms of, you know, one word, one side had fully and the other side had sainted, you know, so even if you're not repeating the words, you're repeating some kind of images or ideas between them. But there is this great essay by this poet in Cossi and Couille Luque, excuse me, I might be mispronouncing it, but the essay is a Contrapuntal which is insane. It's also a palindrome which means you can read it backwards, but in it, yeah, like I don't know what he's doing, but in it he talks about writing the Contrapuntal and he suggests starting each line with a verb and doing that all the way through and ending each one with a noun, I think. You start with a verb in with a noun and that will allow you to connect it. For me, I like to just play with repetition. Do you know the name of the essay? I think it's called Double Consciousness. Yeah. And then it has the colon in a longer title. But it is by the poet in Cossi and I can maybe email it to you. Yeah. And maybe we have time for two more, but you guys tell me. Tucson, Jacob, yeah. Also, which I had never heard of it or even thought of something like that so just hearing your reading tonight there are really incredible problems and I was just curious how I was trying to do a way to say this. I never thought of language as being layered. You know, the idea of reading it, the different meanings and the different words we're reading it. I was just curious if there's a format or a type of poem which really blew your mind in terms of what it was able to do in a different way of using language the first time that you tried it. Yeah, thank you for that. I mean, I would say Taimba Jess. I don't know if folks know this poet, maybe in the 90s, but don't quote me. It might be in the 2000s. But one, the Pulitzer with a book of contrapuntals that are also sonnets. And so I think just that notion, the fact that they were both of those and most of them were both of those was really amazing. I think the poem by Warsan Shire who's a poet who wrote for Lemonade she has this poem called Backwards. That's a palindrome, right? So it starts and then if you read it backwards, it's a whole another poem. But that one always blows my mind. You know, the bidirectionality of language and the ways in which she like actually uses directions to kind of like reverse itself. You know, and the poet Franny Choi has a poem called It Is What It Is which is also the title is a palindrome, but it's about being Asian American during a time of COVID. And so that one is a really good one too. But yeah, I just love the how poets, you know, I was like thinking about the fact that I was theorizing that all the language if language is like water and water only has the water that has ever existed, there's no new water then the language is the same, right? And so everything always the material for the poet is always there and we can reuse it and play with it and do those things. But thank you for noting that and being on the same wavelength. So embarrassing, no. Yeah. I feel like there are poets who write every day and I'm like jealous to be frank, envious. Because life, life, you know. I will say I started out the year reading the 12 week year. Have people heard of that? It's like, ridiculous. But it, you know, tries to get you to conceptualize your goals within 12 weeks or yearly quarters as opposed to the actual full year. So I have been reading that and then following a journal version of that. But in it he suggests that, you know, your long term goals, you should actually dedicate time or like dedicate a certain amount of hours each week. And so at the beginning of this year I started by doing 3 hours every Friday morning. And that was really that worked really well for me. You know, I'm in a new quarter now and so I have to reset my goals. But I do not, I have not been writing every day. I think it's really hard. But what I have been doing is reading every day. Attempting to do 30 minutes each morning. And you know, reading yields us to the writing where we need to go into writing. But yeah, you know, I think it's important to do what works for you and understand that everything's different. Everybody's different. But the morning is the best. And then we'll have this be our last question. Do you feel like the poems are ready in your head while you're asleep or while you're just going home? Like are they just kind of floating around? Yeah, sometimes actually. You know, I think, I like to think that the poems are always happening. You know, that like this, this moment at some point will accumulate into a poem. There's a poem, I don't know this like always sounds weird to say this, but there's a poem of mine that has been trending or viral because somebody said something racist and somebody stitched the poem to it in response. But it's about names and the lineage of names. But, you know, that one even though it was written not too long ago I like first thought of it in college when my roommate's boyfriend had the same last name as my mother. And I like couldn't figure out what does this mean, sir? And then maybe 10, 15 years later the poem actually comes. Every moment, everything. This is all being documented. I'll write about you all. No. You know, I used to have this prompt and maybe I'll give it to you. But I had this prompt that I give to my students which is the eavesdrop Cento. Cento is a poem composed of lines from other people but I just have them just go around eavesdropping taking notes and then make a poem from it. So have that prompt, it's National Poetry Month people should be writing. But thank you all so much.