WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.830 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.830 --> 00:00:07.870 align:middle line:84% So when I turned this book in, it was a few days 00:00:07.870 --> 00:00:10.150 align:middle line:90% before Michael Jackson died. 00:00:10.150 --> 00:00:12.655 align:middle line:84% And I was writing about skin and race. 00:00:12.655 --> 00:00:14.570 align:middle line:90% Then Michael Jackson died. 00:00:14.570 --> 00:00:16.540 align:middle line:84% And though I wasn't a Michael Jackson fan, 00:00:16.540 --> 00:00:20.620 align:middle line:84% I mean he was really quite a study in skin and identity 00:00:20.620 --> 00:00:23.980 align:middle line:84% repair, and identity destruction, and talent, 00:00:23.980 --> 00:00:25.600 align:middle line:90% and the journey from soul. 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:28.240 align:middle line:84% Just everything that happened to him 00:00:28.240 --> 00:00:32.470 align:middle line:84% actually contains a whole lot of tropes and ways 00:00:32.470 --> 00:00:35.140 align:middle line:84% of either mythologizing or not mythologizing 00:00:35.140 --> 00:00:39.610 align:middle line:84% hate and odd behavorial self-love or eccentrics. 00:00:39.610 --> 00:00:43.540 align:middle line:84% So I begged the press if I could write a Michael Jackson 00:00:43.540 --> 00:00:46.090 align:middle line:90% poem for the end of this book. 00:00:46.090 --> 00:00:47.410 align:middle line:90% And they let me. 00:00:47.410 --> 00:00:48.970 align:middle line:90% And once I started-- 00:00:48.970 --> 00:00:51.100 align:middle line:84% I had maybe six or seven months when 00:00:51.100 --> 00:00:52.300 align:middle line:90% the book was in production-- 00:00:52.300 --> 00:00:54.172 align:middle line:90% I couldn't stop. 00:00:54.172 --> 00:00:56.380 align:middle line:84% And I might have seen him perform twice, three times. 00:00:56.380 --> 00:00:59.110 align:middle line:84% Twice as the brothers-- you know, the kids, 00:00:59.110 --> 00:01:00.730 align:middle line:90% because I was that age-- 00:01:00.730 --> 00:01:05.200 align:middle line:84% and once as post-Jackson 5 The Jacksons. 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:09.287 align:middle line:84% And so I pretty much had some feeling, if someone asked me 00:01:09.287 --> 00:01:10.870 align:middle line:84% what did I love about Michael Jackson, 00:01:10.870 --> 00:01:13.360 align:middle line:84% I would say something like, he made 00:01:13.360 --> 00:01:16.060 align:middle line:84% me want to dress up and dance with my brothers. 00:01:16.060 --> 00:01:18.220 align:middle line:84% And I didn't have but one brother. 00:01:18.220 --> 00:01:20.170 align:middle line:84% So why can't I have four more brothers? 00:01:20.170 --> 00:01:21.490 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:21.490 --> 00:01:23.950 align:middle line:90% To my mother. 00:01:23.950 --> 00:01:24.880 align:middle line:90% So this poem is long. 00:01:24.880 --> 00:01:27.010 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read few sections from it. 00:01:27.010 --> 00:01:30.050 align:middle line:84% Tend to reading and see what it feels like I 00:01:30.050 --> 00:01:31.300 align:middle line:90% haven't heard the whole thing. 00:01:31.300 --> 00:01:33.370 align:middle line:90% But it's called "Gone Pop." 00:01:33.370 --> 00:01:35.472 align:middle line:84% And I was in a poetry reading when I got the news. 00:01:35.472 --> 00:01:37.180 align:middle line:84% And I walked out of the reading and wrote 00:01:37.180 --> 00:01:39.320 align:middle line:90% that title, "Gone Pop." 00:01:39.320 --> 00:01:41.560 align:middle line:84% So I'm going to begin section one. 00:01:41.560 --> 00:01:46.450 align:middle line:84% This is called falco berigora, and that means brown falcon. 00:01:46.450 --> 00:01:50.500 align:middle line:84% And all of you need to know that Joseph Jackson, who 00:01:50.500 --> 00:01:55.140 align:middle line:84% the boys called Joe, was the head of a singing group, 00:01:55.140 --> 00:01:59.770 align:middle line:90% a group called The Falcons. 00:01:59.770 --> 00:02:01.240 align:middle line:90% And Joseph has red hair, too. 00:02:01.240 --> 00:02:01.750 align:middle line:90% Green eyes. 00:02:01.750 --> 00:02:03.520 align:middle line:84% But sometimes you don't know that on TV. 00:02:03.520 --> 00:02:05.478 align:middle line:84% He's like one of the most hated men in America. 00:02:05.478 --> 00:02:08.800 align:middle line:84% You know, Joe Jackson beat his kids. 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:11.050 align:middle line:90% Anyway, here we go. 00:02:11.050 --> 00:02:13.212 align:middle line:84% How many people are Leo out there? 00:02:13.212 --> 00:02:14.170 align:middle line:90% Well, this is in retro. 00:02:14.170 --> 00:02:15.530 align:middle line:90% All Leos, raise your hand. 00:02:15.530 --> 00:02:19.000 align:middle line:84% ----Nobody is going to ask you at a poetry reading again. 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:21.020 align:middle line:90% Joseph Jackson was a Leo. 00:02:21.020 --> 00:02:21.520 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:23.620 align:middle line:84% So you got something in common with Joe Jackson. 00:02:23.620 --> 00:02:24.880 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:24.880 --> 00:02:26.395 align:middle line:90% Be nice to your little kid. 00:02:26.395 --> 00:02:27.790 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:27.790 --> 00:02:29.920 align:middle line:84% Or else they will make more money than you. 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:31.728 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:31.728 --> 00:02:33.090 align:middle line:90% 00:02:33.090 --> 00:02:37.920 align:middle line:84% Born Leo, fire, a masculine, extroverted lion. 00:02:37.920 --> 00:02:42.420 align:middle line:84% Born three months and three days before Black Tuesday. 00:02:42.420 --> 00:02:46.140 align:middle line:84% Up from that Odyssey, from fountain hill, 00:02:46.140 --> 00:02:50.460 align:middle line:84% to Oakland to East Chicago to Gary. 00:02:50.460 --> 00:02:56.520 align:middle line:84% An introverted Taurus, full of God's arrows at his side, 00:02:56.520 --> 00:03:02.190 align:middle line:84% settled in the steel trap of steel mills, operating cranes. 00:03:02.190 --> 00:03:07.350 align:middle line:84% A brown falcon with green eyes, and falcons like him 00:03:07.350 --> 00:03:08.790 align:middle line:90% did not fly. 00:03:08.790 --> 00:03:11.820 align:middle line:90% They fathered, then fought. 00:03:11.820 --> 00:03:13.320 align:middle line:90% Then provided. 00:03:13.320 --> 00:03:15.450 align:middle line:90% then managed. 00:03:15.450 --> 00:03:19.200 align:middle line:84% Favoring often the ground, not the sky's 00:03:19.200 --> 00:03:22.470 align:middle line:84% traffic of other talented talons, 00:03:22.470 --> 00:03:26.110 align:middle line:84% because the ground favored family. 00:03:26.110 --> 00:03:30.750 align:middle line:84% Poverty's abusive crossroads paved with small prey. 00:03:30.750 --> 00:03:35.490 align:middle line:84% Young sickle-shaped feathers, nine dancing offspring. 00:03:35.490 --> 00:03:39.960 align:middle line:84% Joseph wanted the little falcons and got 00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:47.060 align:middle line:84% peacocks, infinite vultures, a lonely prodigy.