 We're going to start with Rosemary Catacolos, who grew up in this neighborhood. She's published several books of poetry, and she's a noted scholar, teacher, and administrator. Among other distinctions, she is the former director of the program at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. And she's also the former executive director of Gemini Inc. And most recently, she's the 2013 poet laureate of Texas. So she's going to pick things off with a poem about this neighborhood, these neighborhoods. And thank you very much for being here today. This is still the best view in the world. Give me a break. I can't tell you how many sunsets I have watched from the Hays Street Bridge. We would be here all day. But I grew up down on the corner of Chestnut and Booker Alley. And it's not there anymore. It is now the back side of the Salvation Army. Is that who's there? Salvation Army. And then we moved up to the corner of Houston and St. James. And so I have huge memories. I went to Emerson Junior High School when it was Emerson Junior High School. And I went to Fanon Elementary when it was that over on Houston Street. And one of the things that stayed with me and that I carry as a gift through my life is that this neighborhood has always been about many, many different kinds of people. We had diversity before it was a catch word. And we lived it. We shared with one another. And one of the things that I learned from being among my neighbors here and from having my grandparents close, which was wonderful, was a kind of resilience. A kind of we don't give up. And this neighborhood has always been emblematic of that. So I want to read a poem that I wrote many years ago. I grew up speaking three languages, English, Greek, and Spanish. And as if that wasn't enough, I also spoke in black idiom. Because this was all around me. And this was what I had as language. So it fed my writer's ear and it also fed my soul. Well, I had written in black idiom many times and not ever published because I felt like it wasn't my right. I didn't own this. So Maya Angelou came to town and she actually shouted at me. She said, no, no, no. You own every bit of language that's ever been given you. No, you write and you publish in whatever language you have been given. Whether it's Guahili or French or she said because, because if you don't do that, if you don't take ownership of this language, then other people who want to deny us Shakespeare will have a right to do that. And we don't want them to have that right. So that was a really interesting learning process for me. So then I published this poem, which is about not giving up, about resilience. It's called Swallowings. I've been to church, folks. I'm an East Side Mescan Greek and I've been to church. I'm here to say I grew up hearing folks sing over hard times in the key of... Our girl, it ain't nothing but letting go of this life. I grew up in a hood where every day at noon, black girls at Ralph Walter Emerson Junior High School made a sacred drum of the corner mailbox beating on it to raise the dead and make them dance. I grew up reading in the George Washington Carver Library and marbling at the white lightning gloves that top ladies of distinction use for church. I grew up where grits is indeed groceries. And a hail mountain of a woman past my house daily always saying the same thing. Your name Rosemary. My name Rosemary, too. I grew up, folks, and I've been down till I couldn't get no more down in me. And now a preacher lady come to town and calls me to paint my face and put on some good clothes and go to church. And I'm here to say I have a right to take this stone because it ain't nothing but letting go of this life. Swallows keep making their wings out to be commas on the sky. World keeps saying and, and, and, and, and. Amen. Thank you Rosemary, that was awesome.