WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.670 align:middle line:90% Wow. 00:00:02.670 --> 00:00:03.320 align:middle line:90% Yá'át'ééh. 00:00:03.320 --> 00:00:05.370 align:middle line:90% [SPEAKING DINÉ] 00:00:05.370 --> 00:00:23.530 align:middle line:90% 00:00:23.530 --> 00:00:24.880 align:middle line:90% So good to meet you. 00:00:24.880 --> 00:00:27.240 align:middle line:90% Good to meet everybody here. 00:00:27.240 --> 00:00:29.550 align:middle line:84% And I will just go ahead and go into the translations. 00:00:29.550 --> 00:00:33.150 align:middle line:84% They were very, very interesting. 00:00:33.150 --> 00:00:35.500 align:middle line:90% It was a great pleasure. 00:00:35.500 --> 00:00:38.610 align:middle line:84% Thank you to the Poetry Center, to Gail, to Renee, 00:00:38.610 --> 00:00:40.620 align:middle line:84% and to the whole Poetry Center family. 00:00:40.620 --> 00:00:43.500 align:middle line:84% It's good to see familiar faces in the audience, 00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:45.450 align:middle line:90% faces I haven't seen in a while. 00:00:45.450 --> 00:00:51.690 align:middle line:84% And it's a pleasure to read from my own language, 00:00:51.690 --> 00:00:55.650 align:middle line:90% the language of my family. 00:00:55.650 --> 00:01:00.390 align:middle line:84% And it was a challenge to translate into Navajo, for me, 00:01:00.390 --> 00:01:03.120 align:middle line:90% and it was a growing experience. 00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:06.520 align:middle line:84% Something I will continue after this whole process, 00:01:06.520 --> 00:01:09.300 align:middle line:84% but it was also a collaborative exercise because I also 00:01:09.300 --> 00:01:11.230 align:middle line:90% called home a lot to my mom and 00:01:11.230 --> 00:01:11.730 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:11.730 --> 00:01:12.310 align:middle line:90% my dad. 00:01:12.310 --> 00:01:12.810 align:middle line:90% You know? 00:01:12.810 --> 00:01:14.730 align:middle line:84% As he's hammering-- my dad's a carpenter. 00:01:14.730 --> 00:01:16.770 align:middle line:84% So he'd be hammering away, and then he'd 00:01:16.770 --> 00:01:19.920 align:middle line:84% pull away from his job just to help me on a translation. 00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:21.990 align:middle line:90% Or, how do you say this? 00:01:21.990 --> 00:01:25.620 align:middle line:84% Then my mom, she works at a senior center in White Cone, 00:01:25.620 --> 00:01:27.810 align:middle line:90% and she was-- 00:01:27.810 --> 00:01:29.790 align:middle line:84% Natalia sent a poem, and it's kind of cheeky. 00:01:29.790 --> 00:01:33.690 align:middle line:84% And it has this image of skeletons and these men 00:01:33.690 --> 00:01:35.970 align:middle line:84% who swing their balls over the edge-- 00:01:35.970 --> 00:01:38.580 align:middle line:84% the something fear, the heads of fear. 00:01:38.580 --> 00:01:39.120 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:41.130 align:middle line:84% So I was, like, OK, she's talking about balls, 00:01:41.130 --> 00:01:41.825 align:middle line:90% like in balls? 00:01:41.825 --> 00:01:42.825 align:middle line:90% Or something like balls. 00:01:42.825 --> 00:01:46.020 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:46.020 --> 00:01:46.520 align:middle line:90% 00:01:46.520 --> 00:01:49.460 align:middle line:84% So my mom's like, what does she mean? 00:01:49.460 --> 00:01:51.757 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:51.757 --> 00:01:53.840 align:middle line:84% Is she saying-- is she thinking what I'm thinking? 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:55.860 align:middle line:90% I was like, ah, yeah. 00:01:55.860 --> 00:01:57.860 align:middle line:84% Then, we're trying to tell, like, is it "yęęzhi" 00:01:57.860 --> 00:02:00.500 align:middle line:90% or what do they say? 00:02:00.500 --> 00:02:05.330 align:middle line:90% But I use that word here. 00:02:05.330 --> 00:02:06.710 align:middle line:90% "Earth." 00:02:06.710 --> 00:02:09.703 align:middle line:84% This is a translation of my own poem from Shapeshift. 00:02:09.703 --> 00:02:14.450 align:middle line:90% 00:02:14.450 --> 00:02:21.090 align:middle line:90% Amá yaa nitséskees: Ałtse’ ałghaadiit’aash aado hazhóó’ógo yiit’ash doo. 00:02:21.090 --> 00:02:26.000 align:middle line:90% “T’áá’ádzaagóósh yaadeeltí ahił hwilne’ó?” nihiłné. 00:02:26.090 --> 00:02:35.000 align:middle line:90% Aadóó nihigi’deezį́į́’ígó `ahóót’įįd, `i`ii`ą́ hayííłką́ 00:02:35.001 --> 00:02:42.000 align:middle line:90% t’áá `ał sto’ bita’ doo yá’á’hót’ééh da, abíní biwoo’naaniigá’ 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:48.000 align:middle line:90% jį́į́go łeezh bee hahalkaadi doo deení’igíí bik’i’dindíín łéh, 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:50.000 align:middle line:90% t’áá `ałtso 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:55.000 align:middle line:90% tó áłch’į́į́dígó nilǫ́ǫ́ yits’ą́ą́doo’ kǫ` hadéézką́’. 00:02:58.773 --> 00:02:59.767 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:59.767 --> 00:03:01.330 align:middle line:90% I'm looking at Luci for-- 00:03:01.330 --> 00:03:02.920 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:02.920 --> 00:03:04.310 align:middle line:90% She's like, uh, maybe. 00:03:04.310 --> 00:03:08.888 align:middle line:84% A little-- and the poem is "Nahasdzáán." 00:03:08.888 --> 00:03:10.430 align:middle line:84% And it was just a partial translation 00:03:10.430 --> 00:03:15.990 align:middle line:84% because it was just very enlightening. 00:03:15.990 --> 00:03:18.080 align:middle line:84% And I just kept hitting these silent spaces 00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:21.020 align:middle line:90% between languages. 00:03:21.020 --> 00:03:25.790 align:middle line:84% And I didn't want to run with my own interpretation, 00:03:25.790 --> 00:03:29.870 align:middle line:84% but I really wanted to kind of keep to the translation 00:03:29.870 --> 00:03:30.980 align:middle line:90% as I knew it. 00:03:30.980 --> 00:03:34.820 align:middle line:90% But it required so much more. 00:03:34.820 --> 00:03:37.430 align:middle line:90% "Nahasdzáán." 00:03:37.430 --> 00:03:41.750 align:middle line:84% "Mother thought-- first we will run, then we will walk. 00:03:41.750 --> 00:03:46.040 align:middle line:84% She asked, 'Do we ramble when we speak in tongues?' 00:03:46.040 --> 00:03:49.560 align:middle line:84% Her lack of supervision made this happen. 00:03:49.560 --> 00:03:53.450 align:middle line:84% The dusk, the dawn, everything in between-- a mistake. 00:03:53.450 --> 00:03:58.400 align:middle line:84% The morning, her aching tooth, the shovel dulled in daylight-- 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:02.540 align:middle line:84% all digging fire from shallowing waters. 00:04:02.540 --> 00:04:05.540 align:middle line:90% Her plan-- one big mistake. 00:04:05.540 --> 00:04:07.670 align:middle line:84% In this language, she wasn't asked 00:04:07.670 --> 00:04:12.980 align:middle line:84% to sing because in this room, there was never a light switch 00:04:12.980 --> 00:04:15.140 align:middle line:90% never a search for memory. 00:04:15.140 --> 00:04:19.370 align:middle line:84% The memory of onyx collected against a rib. 00:04:19.370 --> 00:04:22.120 align:middle line:90% The origin-- iiná. 00:04:22.120 --> 00:04:23.000 align:middle line:90%