WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.340 align:middle line:84% And now, I would like to turn to poetry. 00:00:02.340 --> 00:00:06.030 align:middle line:84% And someone gave me what she called a last-minute request, 00:00:06.030 --> 00:00:08.430 align:middle line:90% Ila from the Poetry Center. 00:00:08.430 --> 00:00:11.790 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to read that poem for her because I don't have it 00:00:11.790 --> 00:00:14.370 align:middle line:84% on my list, and I definitely don't want to forget it. 00:00:14.370 --> 00:00:18.990 align:middle line:84% She asked me to read Quinceañera. 00:00:18.990 --> 00:00:22.990 align:middle line:84% Terms of Survival, it's a dictionary for myself. 00:00:22.990 --> 00:00:26.820 align:middle line:84% I wrote this book because I was losing my Spanish. 00:00:26.820 --> 00:00:29.520 align:middle line:90% And I was misplacing words. 00:00:29.520 --> 00:00:31.980 align:middle line:84% I could no longer talk intimately 00:00:31.980 --> 00:00:35.170 align:middle line:84% about concepts that should have been very important to me. 00:00:35.170 --> 00:00:37.140 align:middle line:84% And so I went back to Puerto Rico 00:00:37.140 --> 00:00:39.480 align:middle line:84% and bugged my mother to tell me about things, 00:00:39.480 --> 00:00:42.030 align:middle line:84% listen to her gossiping, which is a great way 00:00:42.030 --> 00:00:45.210 align:middle line:84% to get back to the language, because especially 00:00:45.210 --> 00:00:48.060 align:middle line:84% in the Latino cultures, when women talk-- 00:00:48.060 --> 00:00:49.080 align:middle line:90% I don't know about men. 00:00:49.080 --> 00:00:53.130 align:middle line:84% But when women talk, they have all this nonverbal stuff 00:00:53.130 --> 00:00:55.950 align:middle line:90% going on in codes. 00:00:55.950 --> 00:00:58.800 align:middle line:84% And so you learn a lot about what words really 00:00:58.800 --> 00:01:02.800 align:middle line:84% mean from watching them talk, not just listening. 00:01:02.800 --> 00:01:05.590 align:middle line:84% And so I made a list of words I wanted to write about. 00:01:05.590 --> 00:01:09.330 align:middle line:84% And then I wrote a book in which most of the titles 00:01:09.330 --> 00:01:11.700 align:middle line:84% are in Spanish, and the poem that follows 00:01:11.700 --> 00:01:13.450 align:middle line:90% is my own definition. 00:01:13.450 --> 00:01:14.940 align:middle line:84% But it's not really a definition. 00:01:14.940 --> 00:01:18.120 align:middle line:90% Sometimes it's a dramatization. 00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:19.770 align:middle line:84% And I called it Terms of Survival, 00:01:19.770 --> 00:01:23.520 align:middle line:84% because they were the terms that were important to my survival. 00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:25.860 align:middle line:84% And it was an interesting thing, because the publisher 00:01:25.860 --> 00:01:29.910 align:middle line:84% chose to put a glossary for non-native Spanish speakers 00:01:29.910 --> 00:01:33.630 align:middle line:84% in the back, which I like, because it 00:01:33.630 --> 00:01:37.950 align:middle line:84% fits with my idea of this book being a lexicon of terms. 00:01:37.950 --> 00:01:41.410 align:middle line:84% So quinceañera was a term I wanted to write about. 00:01:41.410 --> 00:01:44.010 align:middle line:84% And I don't need to explain it too much to you, 00:01:44.010 --> 00:01:46.860 align:middle line:84% because you live in a society where you've heard this. 00:01:46.860 --> 00:01:52.050 align:middle line:84% In the Latin cultures, there is a coming out for girls called 00:01:52.050 --> 00:01:53.190 align:middle line:90% the quinceañera. 00:01:53.190 --> 00:01:57.660 align:middle line:84% Most people think that it's a debut, or like the Sweet 16. 00:01:57.660 --> 00:01:59.910 align:middle line:84% And it may have turned into that now, 00:01:59.910 --> 00:02:02.880 align:middle line:84% but in my mother's generation, it actually 00:02:02.880 --> 00:02:04.650 align:middle line:84% meant an announcement to the world 00:02:04.650 --> 00:02:07.140 align:middle line:84% that this girl was now ready for marriage. 00:02:07.140 --> 00:02:10.320 align:middle line:84% When my mother turned 15, they gave her the party. 00:02:10.320 --> 00:02:14.010 align:middle line:84% But she also had to stop wearing children's clothes. 00:02:14.010 --> 00:02:17.490 align:middle line:84% She had to give up her beloved volleyball, you know, 00:02:17.490 --> 00:02:19.950 align:middle line:84% which because that was not ladylike. 00:02:19.950 --> 00:02:23.082 align:middle line:84% She had to come in the house and learn how to cook and take 00:02:23.082 --> 00:02:23.790 align:middle line:90% care of children. 00:02:23.790 --> 00:02:25.270 align:middle line:90% And she hated it. 00:02:25.270 --> 00:02:30.000 align:middle line:84% And I kept saying, when I turned 15, how come I get no respect, 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:30.600 align:middle line:90% you know? 00:02:30.600 --> 00:02:34.223 align:middle line:84% How come I'm not treated like I'm marriageable, and all that. 00:02:34.223 --> 00:02:36.390 align:middle line:84% And she says, you don't know what you're asking for. 00:02:36.390 --> 00:02:38.520 align:middle line:84% If you want that, what that means 00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:40.905 align:middle line:84% is you give up everything that is fun 00:02:40.905 --> 00:02:42.780 align:middle line:84% and start getting ready for what you're going 00:02:42.780 --> 00:02:44.590 align:middle line:90% to do the rest of your life. 00:02:44.590 --> 00:02:46.920 align:middle line:90% And once I understood that-- 00:02:46.920 --> 00:02:50.820 align:middle line:84% I didn't understand it until I was like 35-- 00:02:50.820 --> 00:02:54.780 align:middle line:84% but I wrote this poem in the voice 00:02:54.780 --> 00:02:57.150 align:middle line:84% of a girl of my mother's generation, 00:02:57.150 --> 00:02:59.790 align:middle line:90% putting away her childhood. 00:02:59.790 --> 00:03:02.100 align:middle line:90% It's called Quinceañera. 00:03:02.100 --> 00:03:05.940 align:middle line:84% My dolls have been put away like dead children, 00:03:05.940 --> 00:03:09.810 align:middle line:84% in a chest I will carry with me when I marry. 00:03:09.810 --> 00:03:14.460 align:middle line:84% I reach under my skirt to feel a satin slip bought for this day. 00:03:14.460 --> 00:03:18.150 align:middle line:84% It is soft as the inside of my thighs. 00:03:18.150 --> 00:03:22.470 align:middle line:84% My hair has been nailed back with my mother's black hairpins 00:03:22.470 --> 00:03:26.490 align:middle line:84% to my skull, her hand stretched, my eyes open, 00:03:26.490 --> 00:03:29.160 align:middle line:84% as she twisted braids into a tight circle 00:03:29.160 --> 00:03:31.150 align:middle line:90% at the nape of my neck. 00:03:31.150 --> 00:03:34.380 align:middle line:84% I am to wash my own clothes and sheets from this day 00:03:34.380 --> 00:03:38.340 align:middle line:84% on, as if the fluids of my body were poison, 00:03:38.340 --> 00:03:40.260 align:middle line:84% as if the little trickle of blood 00:03:40.260 --> 00:03:44.850 align:middle line:84% I believe travels from my heart to the world were shameful. 00:03:44.850 --> 00:03:48.720 align:middle line:84% Is not the blood of saints and men in battle beautiful? 00:03:48.720 --> 00:03:53.640 align:middle line:84% Do Christ's hands not bleed into your eyes from His cross? 00:03:53.640 --> 00:03:58.020 align:middle line:84% At night, I hear myself growing, and wake 00:03:58.020 --> 00:04:01.170 align:middle line:84% to find my hands drifting of their own 00:04:01.170 --> 00:04:05.820 align:middle line:84% will to soothe skin stretched tight over my bones. 00:04:05.820 --> 00:04:10.560 align:middle line:84% I am wound like the guts of a clock, waiting for each hour 00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:11.640 align:middle line:90% to release me. 00:04:11.640 --> 00:04:14.310 align:middle line:90% 00:04:14.310 --> 00:04:15.370 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:04:15.370 --> 00:04:16.170 align:middle line:90% Oh, thanks. 00:04:16.170 --> 00:04:19.500 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:19.500 --> 00:04:20.000 align:middle line:90%