WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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By the way, there's someone
here I want to say hi to.

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Hi, Patty.

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If it hadn't been
for Patty Hartman,

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my book probably would
never have been published.

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She found it in a
stack of manuscripts

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that had lain hidden
for about four years,

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and called-- found me, traced me
from San Diego to Connecticut,

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and asked if the book had been
accepted for publication yet.

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And I said, no, not yet.

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So what a thrill.

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It's great to see you.

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This next poem is the
title poem of the book

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called, "When Living was a
Labor Camp Called Montgomery."

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This is one of those poems
that has a lot of histories,

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a lot of different histories.

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On the one hand, it acknowledges
the work and the sacrifice

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that the women of my
mother's generation,

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her sisters and her
cousins, endured in order

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to give their children the kinds
of opportunities we've had.

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It acknowledges how
difficult it was

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for them to grow up in the '40s,
'30s and '40s, when glamour was

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everything, because
everyone was poor,

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and to know that if you
walked out of the fields

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wearing your older
brother's hand-me-downs,

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dirt-speckled and
soaked in sweat,

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there was no way
you were ever going

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to look like any of the women
that you saw in the movies.

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At the same time, it's
also one of those poems

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where I first
began to understand

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my own voice as a poet.

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I had been accepted to the
Squaw Valley Writing Workshop--

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Poets Workshop.

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And I remembered
trying to figure out--

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I remembered not feeling
like I belonged there,

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actually traveling towards
the workshop thinking,

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I'm not good enough.

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There are these 44 other
poets from around the country,

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and they're fantastic.

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And as I got closer,
I was thinking,

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then I'm just going
to play with form.

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Screw it.

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I'm not going to
think about how I'm

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trying to integrate politics,
and lyricism, and poetics,

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and message.

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And I'm just going to play with
form and see what comes out.

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I was lucky.

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I was blessed that on the
way up to Squaw Valley,

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I stopped at my parents' house.

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And several of those women
cousins from her girlhood

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were there with their husbands.

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And for the first
time, I got to hear

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some of those adolescent
courting stories

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that I had always been
out of the loop on.

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And this is the
poem that developed.

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It came almost fully formed
out of a one-night experience

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at Squaw Valley.

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You have to write
a new poem a day.

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And by 7:00 in the morning,
you better have it ready

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or you're not going to have
a poem for the workshop.

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Talk about putting you
under a pressure cooker.

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It's a wonderful experience.

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I discovered I really
respond to that.

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"When living was a labor
camp called Montgomery,

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you joined the family each
summer to sort dried figs.

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From Santa Maria to Gilroy,
Brawley to Stockton,

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you settled in rows
of red cabins hidden

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behind the orchards.

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You recall how the red cabin
stain came off on your fingers,

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a stain you press to your cheeks
so you looked like Dolores del

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Río, the famous Mexican actress.

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Her high-sculpted
glow stunned the boys

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who dogged you to the
theater, the coolest building

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in town, where you
forgot the San Joaquin

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heat and fruit flies.

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You wiggled on velvet-backed
chairs, split popcorn

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with your cousins.

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When the film's hero,
the rancher's son,

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rode horseback to the river and
spied Dolores washing her hair,

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you'd swoon.

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Just for a moment, a small
eternity, the hero's hacienda,

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its dark wood beams and
low-slung chandelier,

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were yours.

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You were tall and thin and
everything looked good on you.

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To tell the truth
though, you preferred

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Lauren Bacall's whistle.

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So at the packing shed you eyed
your brother's friends, not

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the pickers, the
carpenters, those

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who wanted out of the fields.

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You picked one with a
full-mouthed smile, not

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your mother's choice
but a tall man

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with papers who wanted to
join the army and live in LA.

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And perhaps, in
the end, everything

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didn't look good on you.

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Maybe your hair didn't
look good dyed auburn.

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Maybe pillow-breasted women
weren't meant to wear sheaths.

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You visit the camp
each summer reunion.

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Your sisters snatch
peeks at your husband.

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His teeth still look good.

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A cousin glides you
through a cumbia.

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You dreamt he kissed you once.

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You catch the stench of rotting
figs of two full outhouses,

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the nose closes off.

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You feel how hot it was to sleep
two to a mattress, the only

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other room a kitchen.

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You thought your arms
thickened long ago,

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lugging trays of figs.

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You thought you
had peasant ankles.

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You thought you could
die in the camp,

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and no one would
know your smell."

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