 I only had one birthday party in my life and I never went to birthday party so and when I came home from my 11th birthday party I was so excited I had a nosebleed. So I'm hoping this birthday party goes better. I'm gonna read some poems honoring some people who have helped shaped my life and I think it's important to write about them because we don't learn about our ancestors in school. We hardly ever learn about them just hanging out with our pals so I figure if I put them in a poem you'll get curious and then you'll try to find out more about them. The first person I'm going to to read about I mean read a poem for is Angelina Weld Grimke. She's the niece biracial niece of the abolitionist Grimke sisters who were notorious for their abolitionist views and activism and Angelina was a poet she moved to New York was kind of part of the Harlem Renaissance but she really suffered a lot because as a lesbian she felt like she had to be closeted all the time and I think some of her writing just never blossomed the way it could so I'm going to read a poem that I wrote kind of honoring the one poem I had first read of hers in which if you read the poem you could see she was talking about a woman because most of her work did not kind of reveal that she was very alluring looking as you can see so this poem is called the kiss 1930 and I use some of the language that she used in a poem and one of her lines is who will ever find me under the days Angelina was lived 1880 to 1958 there is no darkness like a closed door ornate panels thick with filigree soundproof denying time your fair pen finds its mark in the coal black circle of Boston society sheaves of paper thin custom threatened to bury you fashion father negritude slips steadily from the pile of demands to land on your breast to press you more firmly into their muting foals behind the door you dare to leave whispers of your precious stolen breath desire for her of the cruel lips a fragment revealed evidence of unruly passion and wild sadness in the strain to press your mouth to the hem of her skirt who decides which mouth speaks truth whose lips deserve to sense the yield of another's it is 1920 uptown bands are playing women are dancing in starched shirt fronts and top hats laughing out loud with painted faces abolition the obsession of your family has come home to Harlem every shape and shade builds to cacophony in the newness of freedom many are reborn into the singing glorious hints of redress and burnished futures you imprint your legacy crying want in muted tones saffron and lilac evocation of crimson secrets the soft rustle of days passing like crisp fiery leaves tumbling around our feet evoke the final soil dropping darkly onto sturdy pine still you do not write of your heart pounding except in solitude the soft scratch of pen on paper is your earth cracking open pages feet filled become a lock turning light falls on dark dark bodies you under those days primrose and dusk demure glistening with hunger the dewy orchid taste of your full lips a thick scent in the air a look of surprise mouths finally touch for all to see I like to give people happy endings Audrey Audrey Lord most of you probably already know her lived and taught in New York I took her writing classes she was a wonderful mentor for me she's the one who told me that the Gilda stories weren't just a collection of short stories but really was a novel and and she was so kind because she read them even though she told me she did not like short stories and she didn't care for vampires so I've been eternally grateful to her and she both as a mentor in my writing but as an example of how to be a lesbian feminist activist and she always insisted that all of her identities came together lesbian feminist poet activist mother Audrey when she passed away was the poet laureate of the state of New York she lived from 1934 to 1992 she wrote a book called Cole and the poem Cole I read when I was young I had no idea what it was about it was really intense and it was so dense I just I hadn't a clue but it kept me it kept me going so this is Cole for Audrey Lord I think of you as a diamond emerging from the compression of carbon shining and sharp both dark and light it's a stone that has come to mean both delight and death making it difficult to enjoy this gift from earth it's not possible to see the gleam of adorning it's not possible to see the gleam adorning soft skin without thinking of sweat glistening on black backs scarred for someone else's pleasure apartheid and murder cling to the stones as tightly as a necklace yet it is transubstantiation more important than that of myth earth's fiber wrapped tightly around itself friction and time until it shines like the sun so to our words simply letters and sounds draped and packaged around each other to unexpectedly emerge with meaning often far beyond their size or taste in your mouth your words are those diamonds from the earth but you are the one who toiled sweat and shaped gifting them wrapped in a prayer a plea that you'll be heard you aimed each like a scented spear meant to pry me open make my earth fertile enough to grow more words diamond bright diamond hard sweat drenched light through a desperate time and the final this is called we are everywhere and i wrote it for astronaut sally ride on the occasion of the 44th anniversary of landing on the moon sally ride was the first woman to land on the moon and we didn't really hear about her being a lesbian until she died she lived 1951 to 2012 being first can be a drag overwhelming the accomplishment itself the talk is of firstness as if that is the secret ingredient to your success first woman first queer or first left-handed first native first black first catholic first buddhist the path that led to stepping into light is obliterated the dust of rejection the well-worn ruts repeatedly broached the slam of closed doors and skeptical glances are ignored the quality of first becomes a crown whose glitter blinds all to the toil and heartbreak the secrets and soul searching but it is those impediments which need to be highlighted that mirror you consulted before writing your bio or smiling into the camera it knows the harsh trick of light that reveals only a profile still now we now that we know something of the secret you held i want to see you in your gear again youngest woman first known lesbian in space i want you to be able to take all of yourself out there into the vacuumed silence that is the universe this time your suit will be purple there's a portrait of your lover painted on the helmet stars may still look distant from where you float in the cosmos but they are blinking and glimmering right at you thrilled they lie at the perfect perspective to see all that you've endured to rest you in their embrace where i can see you by their light thank you