WEBVTT

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Because it's Women's
History Month,

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I'm going to end with a
poem that focuses on women.

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Some people would say everything
I do focuses on women.

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But obviously, I'm
interested in the ways

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that men and women
can come together

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to make this a more just world.

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I will tell you parenthetically
that when Beacon sent out

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the manuscript for review, some
dear soul wrote back and said

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that this was an example of
what isn't poetry, because--

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I think what they were
saying is that they thought

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it was a little political.

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I don't think when you hear it--

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I write a lot that's
political, but I

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don't know that I would
think of this this way.

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But I think what I'm trying to
say is one of my real interests

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is in how we redefine what
art is and what poetry is

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and what art's work
is in this world.

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"Let Us Hold Hands."

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"Let us hold hands with
the Iroquois woman who

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slipped berries
into children's lips

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while her sisters planted
stars with a wooden hoe,

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with the woman who rubbed warm
oil into her neighbor's feet

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when Plymouth's winter prowled
and howled outside their doors.

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With the woman who sewed
faith into each stitch,

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cloth comforts pieced to the
rhythm of Español for babies

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born al silencio del desierto.

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With the woman
who seasoned soups

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with pepper and hope as her days
took her further from the trees

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she loved.

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With the woman who
parted her parched lips

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and sang for her mother
when they staggered

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onto these shores in chains.

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With the woman who trained
her stubborn tongue

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to wrap around that
spiny language, English,

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to place her child in school.

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Let us now hold
hands with the woman

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who croons to the newborn
left amid orange rinds

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and newspaper, who teaches
grandmothers to knit letters

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into a word--

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a word.

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Who whispers to the woman
dying with one breast.

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Who holds a wife whose face
is more broken than any bone.

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Who bathes the woman found
sleeping in black snow.

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Let us hold hands with the woman
who holds her sister in Bosnia,

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Detroit, Somalia,
Jacksonville, Guatemala, Burma,

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Juarez, and Cincinnati.

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With the woman who confronts the
glare of eyes and gun barrels,

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yet rises to protest in Yoruba,
English, Polish, Spanish,

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Chinese, Urdu.

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Let us hold hands
with the woman who

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cooks, with the
woman who builds,

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with the woman who cries,
with the woman who laughs.

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With the woman who heals.

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With the woman who prays.

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With the woman who plants.

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With the woman who harvests.

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With the woman who sings.

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With the woman
whose spirits rise.

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In this time that fears
faith, let us hold hands.

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In this time that fears the
unwashed, let us hold hands.

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In this time that fears
age, let us hold hands.

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In this time that fears
touch, let us hold hands.

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Brown hands.

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Trembling hands.

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Calloused hands.

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Frail hands.

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White hands.

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Tired hands.

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Angry hands.

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New hands.

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Cold hands.

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Black hands.

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Bold hands.

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In towns and cities
and villages.

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Mano a mano, hand in
hand, in mountains

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and valleys and plains.

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A ring of women circling
the world, the ring

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strong in our joining around
our petalled home, this Earth.

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Let us hold hands."

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[APPLAUSE]

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