WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.820 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.820 --> 00:00:01.870 align:middle line:90%
How y'all doing so far?

00:00:01.870 --> 00:00:02.370 align:middle line:90%
All right.

00:00:02.370 --> 00:00:03.040 align:middle line:90%
All right?

00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:03.540 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:00:03.540 --> 00:00:23.090 align:middle line:90%


00:00:23.090 --> 00:00:26.120 align:middle line:84%
A couple of the
poems I'm reading,

00:00:26.120 --> 00:00:29.065 align:middle line:84%
you all are really
guinea pigging on them.

00:00:29.065 --> 00:00:29.690 align:middle line:90%
You're welcome.

00:00:29.690 --> 00:00:30.470 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:00:30.470 --> 00:00:37.910 align:middle line:84%
And so this is a
fairly very, very new.

00:00:37.910 --> 00:00:40.880 align:middle line:90%


00:00:40.880 --> 00:00:44.030 align:middle line:90%
As in like, a couple of weeks.

00:00:44.030 --> 00:00:44.765 align:middle line:90%
First draft.

00:00:44.765 --> 00:00:54.100 align:middle line:90%


00:00:54.100 --> 00:00:59.920 align:middle line:84%
"Roger, nine, pens a note for
his adult self Winnipeg, 1977."

00:00:59.920 --> 00:01:02.170 align:middle line:84%
When I was about nine, my
parents moved to Winnipeg

00:01:02.170 --> 00:01:03.760 align:middle line:90%
for a short while.

00:01:03.760 --> 00:01:04.690 align:middle line:90%
Great idea.

00:01:04.690 --> 00:01:09.900 align:middle line:84%
And you know, I was the only
Black child in school there,

00:01:09.900 --> 00:01:12.280 align:middle line:90%
yo, straight from Trinidad.

00:01:12.280 --> 00:01:13.600 align:middle line:90%
It was a great time anyway.

00:01:13.600 --> 00:01:14.440 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:01:14.440 --> 00:01:16.660 align:middle line:84%
"Roger, nine, pens
a note for his adult

00:01:16.660 --> 00:01:22.030 align:middle line:84%
self Winnipeg, 1977,"
after Jimmy Santiago Baca.

00:01:22.030 --> 00:01:26.440 align:middle line:84%
They have taken your friends,
so you will make new ones.

00:01:26.440 --> 00:01:29.530 align:middle line:84%
They have taken to calling
you outside of your name,

00:01:29.530 --> 00:01:31.900 align:middle line:90%
so you will become a stone.

00:01:31.900 --> 00:01:35.950 align:middle line:84%
They have insulted your
ability with books and words,

00:01:35.950 --> 00:01:38.620 align:middle line:84%
so you will
cultivate aggression.

00:01:38.620 --> 00:01:42.650 align:middle line:84%
They have isolated you amidst
a snarling sea of other,

00:01:42.650 --> 00:01:45.640 align:middle line:84%
so you will learn
how to be alone.

00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:50.020 align:middle line:84%
They have attacked your body, so
you have become a massive wind

00:01:50.020 --> 00:01:52.930 align:middle line:90%
chime of fists.

00:01:52.930 --> 00:01:56.440 align:middle line:84%
Who is to tell you
this is not love?

00:01:56.440 --> 00:01:59.860 align:middle line:84%
Your mother's face,
beautiful in its anguish,

00:01:59.860 --> 00:02:02.890 align:middle line:84%
as she drives the
strange city to find you.

00:02:02.890 --> 00:02:07.330 align:middle line:84%
And you are not lost, just
gone and alone for hours.

00:02:07.330 --> 00:02:11.080 align:middle line:84%
The way you have learned that
what is foreign and savage

00:02:11.080 --> 00:02:12.790 align:middle line:90%
is also gorgeous.

00:02:12.790 --> 00:02:15.250 align:middle line:84%
The way in these
short months, you

00:02:15.250 --> 00:02:17.920 align:middle line:84%
garnish from the
harsh white winter

00:02:17.920 --> 00:02:22.450 align:middle line:84%
entire manuals for living out
your destiny as a phenomenon

00:02:22.450 --> 00:02:26.260 align:middle line:90%
amidst unspeakable hostility.

00:02:26.260 --> 00:02:29.290 align:middle line:84%
You have learned to be
faster than the other boys.

00:02:29.290 --> 00:02:31.510 align:middle line:84%
You have learned to
lower your shoulder

00:02:31.510 --> 00:02:33.550 align:middle line:90%
and become a bull on the field.

00:02:33.550 --> 00:02:36.670 align:middle line:84%
You have learned a
slow lidded callousness

00:02:36.670 --> 00:02:40.300 align:middle line:84%
in which to crawl before you
bring blood to another body

00:02:40.300 --> 00:02:41.110 align:middle line:90%
is a surface.

00:02:41.110 --> 00:02:45.250 align:middle line:84%
You have learned the value
of your open, exposed cage.

00:02:45.250 --> 00:02:48.340 align:middle line:90%
It's alone, alone, alone.

00:02:48.340 --> 00:02:50.830 align:middle line:84%
You will turn this
into currency.

00:02:50.830 --> 00:02:56.520 align:middle line:84%
Everything in you is
already right and humming.

00:02:56.520 --> 00:03:02.160 align:middle line:84%
You will need to remember
this in the darkest of hours,

00:03:02.160 --> 00:03:07.240 align:middle line:84%
even with a blade gathering
light in your hands,

00:03:07.240 --> 00:03:09.550 align:middle line:90%
you are beautiful.

00:03:09.550 --> 00:03:12.280 align:middle line:90%
You are beautiful.

00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:15.330 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:03:15.330 --> 00:03:19.403 align:middle line:90%