Stop it.
You make me uncomfortable.
All right.
I'm going to do one or two more things
and then we will go to the Q&A section.
Now that we've gone through the T&A. (EXCITEDLY)
[LAUGHTER]
We're going to go to the Q&A.
So I'm going to do three more things.
Because I want to this is a poem called, "Well Hung."
Well hung means having a large phallus.
[CLAPPING]
[LAUGHTER]
It's also the quality control stamp
that goes after a lynching.
This actually brings me to a question
that I had had about performing certain kinds of poems.
Ones in which you look at it and you're like, what the hell?
Where do I start?
Now typically when I performed poems like this
from my last book, The Black Automaton,
which what we're going to do before we do "Well Hung,"
those poems look like this, for example.
They make it bigger.
Let me fluff it.
Here we go.
All right.
So I'm going to do that a second.
I just want to show you the other one too.
I'm going to do--
Oh yeah, that one's over here.
All right.
Let's see.
I think-- There we are.
We're going to do these two poems from The Black Automaton.
Now what I was saying was that typically when
I've done these poems I have members of the audience
actually dictate how these poems will be read.
In other words, they sequence the order
of how they would read it and then I perform that sequence.
Even when I was working on these in my little old room
by myself, I never read them aloud
because I wanted to avoid creating a master reading.
A right way to read it.
So I've never performed one of these
without being guided by audience members.
And so that is where we are going to go today.
These are readings brought to us by Danielle and Renee.
So I'm going to start off with The Black Automaton,
"In De Despair Ub Existence # Three, How Can I Be Down?"
And it samples a few different people.
It samples "Speech" from the hip hop group Arrested Development.
It samples Ultramagnetic MC's, "By Way of the Roots."
It samples "Poison" by Bell Biv DeVoe, a really important song.
And then at the bottom it samples again,
"Speech" from Arrested Development.
So I'm just going to look at this again just real quick so I
don't fuck up in the middle.
All right.
The Black Automaton, "In De Despair Ub Existence # Three."
"Another (SINGING) place.
Another man.
Another place.
Another land.
E.g. (SPEAKING) Can't get grown sands busted chew cherry.
It bees W.E.B. dubious.
The simple back and forth.
The same, oh, it bees W.E.B dubious.
Another (SINGING) place.
Another land.
All that hurts.
Let it understand.
And (SPEAKING) then all the crows circling.
It axes the first question.
The simple back and forth.
The same, oh, it is round.
It likes it or not.
It's round whether it likes it or not.
It knows the world.
Another (SINGING) place.
Another land.
It (SPEAKING) won't just look away.
Look away.
Hurts (SPEAKING ROBOTICALLY) it.
All that hurts it.
Let it understand.
Just (SPEAKING) clocking.
To look away and look away is to be a ninny.
To look is to be a masochist.
Keeping one eye open.
Then all the crows circling.
And then all the crows circling.
And then all the crows circling."
The Black Automaton, (EXCITEDLY) "In De Despair Ub Existence
Number Three, How Can I Be Down?"
All right.