WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.100 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.100 --> 00:00:07.980 align:middle line:84%
I was talking to these really
smart undergraduate classes

00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:11.820 align:middle line:84%
earlier today, and I
told one of the classes

00:00:11.820 --> 00:00:17.070 align:middle line:84%
I would tell them the story
of this poem, "Hurricane."

00:00:17.070 --> 00:00:19.260 align:middle line:84%
The thing is, when you
write about the mother

00:00:19.260 --> 00:00:24.420 align:middle line:84%
figure in poetry,
eventually, you

00:00:24.420 --> 00:00:28.380 align:middle line:84%
have to turn that on yourself
and think about that.

00:00:28.380 --> 00:00:31.710 align:middle line:84%
So "Hurricane" is a poem
that I wrote for my daughter.

00:00:31.710 --> 00:00:33.660 align:middle line:90%
She was born in New Orleans.

00:00:33.660 --> 00:00:36.690 align:middle line:84%
But also, in Pittsburgh, there's
this little small carnival

00:00:36.690 --> 00:00:40.770 align:middle line:84%
that comes to town, and
there's a ride there

00:00:40.770 --> 00:00:42.000 align:middle line:90%
that's called the Hurricane.

00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:45.780 align:middle line:84%
And my daughter wanted
to get on that ride,

00:00:45.780 --> 00:00:48.090 align:middle line:84%
and no one else in
the family wanted to.

00:00:48.090 --> 00:00:51.060 align:middle line:84%
We're like, that
joint, it's rickety.

00:00:51.060 --> 00:00:53.830 align:middle line:84%
I don't know if the
paperwork's in order.

00:00:53.830 --> 00:00:56.190 align:middle line:84%
And so when my husband and
I were going back and forth

00:00:56.190 --> 00:00:58.890 align:middle line:84%
about it, my daughter just
put up her little hand,

00:00:58.890 --> 00:01:01.110 align:middle line:84%
and she said, just
give me the tickets.

00:01:01.110 --> 00:01:03.300 align:middle line:90%
I'll go by myself.

00:01:03.300 --> 00:01:06.690 align:middle line:90%
And we let her.

00:01:06.690 --> 00:01:09.360 align:middle line:90%
"Hurricane."

00:01:09.360 --> 00:01:20.940 align:middle line:84%
"Four tickets left, I let her
go, firstborn into a hurricane.

00:01:20.940 --> 00:01:25.410 align:middle line:84%
I thought she escaped
the floodwaters.

00:01:25.410 --> 00:01:33.840 align:middle line:84%
No, but her head is empty
of the drowned for now,

00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:40.944 align:middle line:84%
though she took her first
breath below sea level.

00:01:40.944 --> 00:01:52.350 align:middle line:84%
Ahhh, awe, and aw,
Mama, let me go.

00:01:52.350 --> 00:01:58.200 align:middle line:84%
She speaks what every
smart child knows.

00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:04.230 align:middle line:84%
To get grown, you
unlatch your hands

00:02:04.230 --> 00:02:18.910 align:middle line:84%
from the grown and up
and up and up and up.

00:02:18.910 --> 00:02:26.320 align:middle line:84%
She turns, latched in
the seat of a hurricane.

00:02:26.320 --> 00:02:30.460 align:middle line:90%
You let your girl what?

00:02:30.460 --> 00:02:34.510 align:middle line:90%
You let your girl what?

00:02:34.510 --> 00:02:41.200 align:middle line:84%
I did so she do I
did so she do so--

00:02:41.200 --> 00:02:46.480 align:middle line:90%
girl, you can ride a hurricane.

00:02:46.480 --> 00:02:55.100 align:middle line:84%
And she do and she do
and she do and she do.

00:02:55.100 --> 00:03:00.770 align:middle line:90%
She do make my river an ocean.

00:03:00.770 --> 00:03:08.390 align:middle line:84%
Memorial, Baptist,
Protestant birth--

00:03:08.390 --> 00:03:13.850 align:middle line:84%
my girl walked away
from a hurricane.

00:03:13.850 --> 00:03:19.310 align:middle line:84%
And she do and she do
and she do and she do.

00:03:19.310 --> 00:03:24.600 align:middle line:84%
She do take my hand
a while longer.

00:03:24.600 --> 00:03:30.770 align:middle line:84%
The haunts in my pocket
I'll keep to a hum.

00:03:30.770 --> 00:03:34.400 align:middle line:90%
Katrina was a woman I knew.

00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:37.880 align:middle line:84%
When you were an infant,
she rained on you.

00:03:37.880 --> 00:03:47.110 align:middle line:84%
And she do and she do
and she do and she do."

00:03:47.110 --> 00:03:48.337 align:middle line:90%