So much of the work that I write about
has a lot to do with intergenerational trauma.
Sifting through the silence of my family members
who have lived through quite a lot.
But so much of my work tries to reach for tenderness
and for joy, a very deep kind of joy,
because I come from a very resilient people.
I'm going to end on this poem tonight.
And I just want to say thank you so much to those of you
at the Poetry Center.
I feel very taken care of here.
And it's such an honor to be here.
''ABC for Refugees."
"Cherub-bee-dee How does a man who doesn't read English well
know that cherub-bee-dum?
Those aren't really words, BD, but birds.
Cherub-bee-dum he stumbles, reading to me
by the sliding glass door.
cherub-bee-dee through which I watch my brother
play in the dum-dum yard.
Cherub-bee-dee, cherub-bee-dum like how my father says,
fine then, leave.
My mother shouts, stupid, dumb.
We live in a small bee-dee-nest too.
One hallway to bee-dum-slam doors.
Birds?
What are birds?
Thanks to my father reading with me I have more feathers.
T H E. First word he ever taught me to pluck.
It is a word used all the time.
Cherub-cherub-bee-dum the mail, the mailbox, the school bus.
The, the.
He asks me to read the mail, not birds, mail.
If you don't read this, you will turn into birds.
And I read it to him the best I can.
The end.
A feather.
Two feathers.
The.
The end.
Mother, mother.
Repeat after me.
Cherub-bee-dee, cherub-bee-dum We read together before
bedtime'."
Thank you.