WEBVTT

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You never do know with poetry,
what it's going to-- how

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it's going to--

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how it's going to
come into the world.

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Or-- and a lot of
writers talk about they

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don't think it's themselves
who does the writing,

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it's something out there
that does the writing.

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And that's true a lot of times,
although I don't think poetry

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is the only time that happens.

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I think you might
blurt something out

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to the gas station
attendant sometime and go,

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why did I say that?

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Where did that come from?

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That didn't come from me!

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So I think you may have those
moments outside of poetry,

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as well.

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Let's see.

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Two more.

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This one is called "El Villain."

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And it's one of
these occasions where

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I'm making a kind of a joke
that only poetry nerds are

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going to get in the title.

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And the joke is that
there's a poetry

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form called the villanelle.

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And so I'm inverting
that form to the title,

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which is called "El Villain".

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Har de har har.

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I know, it's really
something that--

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something that's
totally tickling to me,

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but maybe not that exciting
in the world outside my head.

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Nevertheless,
nevertheless, it does

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borrow from this traditional
form, the villanelle,

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which has phrases that
repeat throughout the poem.

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So you'll hear
repeating phrases.

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The first draft of this
poem was the first time

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I've ever actually had people
walk out of a poetry reading,

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when I read the first
draft of this poem.

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And the room was down to three
people by the time I finished.

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It was-- it really tanked.

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So you'll be happy to know
I've revised it since then.

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But the inspiration-- the
spark came from an editorial

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in the paper in northern
Utah, where I lived.

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And the editorial
was a woman saying,

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I can't believe I see all these
illegals here in northern Utah.

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I moved away from California
so I wouldn't have to see them.

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And I just kept thinking
of the Bruce Willis movie,

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I see dead people.

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Right?

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Like, she's going through
life with the sixth sense.

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I see illegals everywhere!

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You know?

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She has some
piercing vision that

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can discern whether one is
documented or undocumented

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on sight.

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And-- and of course, it
just made me furious,

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the whole enterprise.

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So the first draft, I think--

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I don't know.

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The first draft used some hits
on Google from the phrase,

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I see illegals.

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And it turns out there's
a lot of-- there's

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a whole community of white
people with a sixth sense

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out there, who can see
illegals, according to Google.

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Who knows.

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Anyway-- but I pulled
it away from that sense

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of this community of
hate in this draft,

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and I pulled it towards
kind of acknowledging

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the lived lives of
the people around me

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who are in my community
in northern Utah,

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and sort of holding
those lives up.

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The other thing
you'll need to know

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is that I'm referencing
W.E.B Du Bois,

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a well-known
African-American writer

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from the early 20th century.

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And he makes a cameo in this
poem, called "El Villain."

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"I fled the West
Coast to escape them,

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but I still see
illegals everywhere!

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Whines a letter writer
in our rural Utah paper

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applauding a local ice raid.

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How does it feel to be
a problem, everyone?

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No one wanted to ask
Du Bois, circulating

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his elegant diction
and mixed race

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face among Atlanta
glitterati, turn

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of the century, when the
White sixth sense was,

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I can smell Negroes and Jews.

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The question ices my
hair and eyelashes,

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al rasa, one family of suspects
in this age of roundups.

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Am I to breathe in
prejudice, breathe out light?

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How does it feel
to be a problem?

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Some well-meaning white
ones want a Christ of me,

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Sacred Heart on display.

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Where are your documents
naming this pain?

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They hope for a nibble of rage.

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I see Lourdes, seven years
old and sin documentos,

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embrace my daughter,
hello, goodbye,

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every day on their
school's front steps,

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the two of them giddy
with girl pacts.

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When Lourdes solves
subtraction problems,

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safe at her dim kitchen table,
how does her mother Elva

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feel as her daughter
works a language that

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will never add up to home?

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Down the street I see
Rodolfo from El Salvador,

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legal refugee, dance the glee
of a Jazz basketball victory

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in front of his big screen.

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Ask him how pupusas feel
in his mouth, corn dough

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communion with patria.

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His wife Ines is fourth
generation Mexican-American

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from Salt Lake City.

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Hell with these pedigrees,
how does it feel?

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For Rodolfo, Ines,
Elva, Lourdes,

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me to be seen as
not quite right,

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not quite us, not from
around here, are ya?

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I will not say.

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I will not display our stigmata.

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We shouldn't need papers to
cross from familia to politics.

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Ask the seer of illegals, the
maid of ethnic cleansing, how

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it feels to hold a
broken feather duster."

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