WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.860 align:middle line:84% I, um-- [LAUGHS] what do you do in a poetry reading? 00:00:04.860 --> 00:00:07.320 align:middle line:90% I know, nobody, you know-- 00:00:07.320 --> 00:00:08.220 align:middle line:90% it's so serious. 00:00:08.220 --> 00:00:11.310 align:middle line:90% 00:00:11.310 --> 00:00:13.500 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read you one of my favorites, 00:00:13.500 --> 00:00:16.590 align:middle line:84% and I read it just about every reading. 00:00:16.590 --> 00:00:23.810 align:middle line:84% And it's to honor the creative, crazy, people in our myth. 00:00:23.810 --> 00:00:26.750 align:middle line:84% How many of you have a crazy relative in your family? 00:00:26.750 --> 00:00:28.370 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:28.370 --> 00:00:30.680 align:middle line:84% And then, of course, I always ask how many of 00:00:30.680 --> 00:00:31.910 align:middle line:90% you are the crazy relative? 00:00:31.910 --> 00:00:32.410 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:32.410 --> 00:00:33.260 align:middle line:90% Cause yeah, I know. 00:00:33.260 --> 00:00:35.840 align:middle line:90% 00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:39.410 align:middle line:84% We need to honor the crazy relatives. 00:00:39.410 --> 00:00:42.350 align:middle line:84% And I decided that, when I was going to do my press 00:00:42.350 --> 00:00:43.730 align:middle line:90% in Chicago, it's-- 00:00:43.730 --> 00:00:47.030 align:middle line:84% I was going to name it after the most creative important 00:00:47.030 --> 00:00:50.900 align:middle line:84% influence in my life, growing up, and that was my Tía Chucha. 00:00:50.900 --> 00:00:52.460 align:middle line:90% So I have Tía Chucha Press. 00:00:52.460 --> 00:00:56.870 align:middle line:84% And she was the woman who broke through the mold, who 00:00:56.870 --> 00:00:58.130 align:middle line:90% didn't accept everything. 00:00:58.130 --> 00:01:00.338 align:middle line:84% She never got married, because she never wanted a man 00:01:00.338 --> 00:01:01.850 align:middle line:90% to tell her what to do. 00:01:01.850 --> 00:01:04.190 align:middle line:84% She had a guitar, she did poetry. 00:01:04.190 --> 00:01:07.670 align:middle line:84% She went from one family household 00:01:07.670 --> 00:01:09.713 align:middle line:84% to another, because she'd have to keep moving, 00:01:09.713 --> 00:01:11.630 align:middle line:84% because eventually they want to throw her out. 00:01:11.630 --> 00:01:12.130 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:12.130 --> 00:01:15.140 align:middle line:84% But everybody talked bad about her, 00:01:15.140 --> 00:01:16.910 align:middle line:84% but, you know, I secretly loved her. 00:01:16.910 --> 00:01:18.020 align:middle line:90% I secretly admired her. 00:01:18.020 --> 00:01:19.490 align:middle line:84% I thought she was the greatest person in the world. 00:01:19.490 --> 00:01:21.890 align:middle line:84% And unfortunately, she died just as I was coming up 00:01:21.890 --> 00:01:23.570 align:middle line:90% with the name of the press. 00:01:23.570 --> 00:01:25.940 align:middle line:84% But I wrote a poem for her, and this explains to you 00:01:25.940 --> 00:01:27.680 align:middle line:84% why I think she was so important. 00:01:27.680 --> 00:01:30.790 align:middle line:90% 00:01:30.790 --> 00:01:35.650 align:middle line:84% "Every few years Tía Chucha would visit the family 00:01:35.650 --> 00:01:40.300 align:middle line:84% in a tornado of song and open us up as if we were an overripe 00:01:40.300 --> 00:01:42.750 align:middle line:90% avocado. 00:01:42.750 --> 00:01:45.000 align:middle line:84% She was a dumpy, black-haired creature 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:47.520 align:middle line:84% of upheaval, who often came unannounced 00:01:47.520 --> 00:01:51.210 align:middle line:84% with a bag of presents including homemade perfumes 00:01:51.210 --> 00:01:55.230 align:middle line:84% and colognes that smelled something like rotting fish 00:01:55.230 --> 00:01:56.850 align:middle line:84% on a hot day at the tuna cannery. 00:01:56.850 --> 00:01:58.950 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:58.950 --> 00:02:01.110 align:middle line:90% They said she was crazy. 00:02:01.110 --> 00:02:04.170 align:middle line:84% Oh sure, she once ran out naked to catch the postman 00:02:04.170 --> 00:02:07.710 align:middle line:84% with a letter that didn't belong to us. 00:02:07.710 --> 00:02:11.009 align:middle line:84% I mean, she had this annoying habit of boarding city buses 00:02:11.009 --> 00:02:13.530 align:middle line:84% and singing at the top of her voice. 00:02:13.530 --> 00:02:18.240 align:middle line:84% One bus driver even refused to go on until she got off. 00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:20.270 align:middle line:90% But crazy? 00:02:20.270 --> 00:02:23.900 align:middle line:84% To me, she was the wisp of the wind's freedom-- 00:02:23.900 --> 00:02:27.020 align:middle line:84% a music maker, who once tried to teach me guitar, 00:02:27.020 --> 00:02:29.120 align:middle line:84% but ended up singing and singing, 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:33.050 align:middle line:84% me listening, and her singing until I put the instrument down 00:02:33.050 --> 00:02:36.410 align:middle line:84% and watched the clock click the lesson time away. 00:02:36.410 --> 00:02:39.200 align:middle line:84% I didn't learn guitar, but I learned something 00:02:39.200 --> 00:02:42.290 align:middle line:84% about her craving for the new, the unbroken-- 00:02:42.290 --> 00:02:43.910 align:middle line:90% so she could break it. 00:02:43.910 --> 00:02:46.190 align:middle line:84% Periodically, she banished herself from the family 00:02:46.190 --> 00:02:48.510 align:middle line:90% and was the better for it. 00:02:48.510 --> 00:02:50.400 align:middle line:90% I secretly admired Tía Chucha. 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:54.570 align:middle line:84% She was always quick with a story, another Pepito joke, 00:02:54.570 --> 00:02:56.820 align:middle line:84% or a handwritten lyric that she would produce 00:02:56.820 --> 00:02:58.930 align:middle line:90% regardless of the occasion. 00:02:58.930 --> 00:03:00.780 align:middle line:90% She was a despot of desire-- 00:03:00.780 --> 00:03:05.190 align:middle line:84% uncontainable as a splash of water on a varnished table. 00:03:05.190 --> 00:03:07.830 align:middle line:84% I wanted to remove the layers of unnatural seeing-- 00:03:07.830 --> 00:03:11.190 align:middle line:84% the way Tía Chucha beheld the world, with first eyes, 00:03:11.190 --> 00:03:15.630 align:middle line:84% like an infant who can discern the elixir within milk. 00:03:15.630 --> 00:03:18.780 align:middle line:84% I wanted to be one of the prizes she 00:03:18.780 --> 00:03:22.914 align:middle line:90% stuffed into her rumpled bag." 00:03:22.914 --> 00:03:24.260 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:24.260 --> 00:03:26.110 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:03:26.110 --> 00:03:32.428 align:middle line:90%