I'm going to read a little old, a little new.
And I thought I had to start with a poem
that I wrote in Iowa while surrounded
by a lot of negativity but a few positive forces, many of whom
are in this room right now--
my colleagues, my compadres.
Joy, Sandra, Mary Jane, and Jeff--
thank you for being who you are.
And I thank all of you for believing
that poetry can change the world because it can,
but only if you believe it.
Only if you believe it.
This poem was written at Iowa.
It was one of the first ones that I wrote that I finally saw
the path that I wanted to take.
And I remember when I read it in workshop--
an early version of it--
one of my classmates said "I'd rather have an apple,
and you've given me castor oil."
That was Iowa.
How did we survive that sucker?
I don't know.
I really don't know.
"The House Slave".
"The first horn lifts its arm over the dew-lit grass.
And in the slave quarters there is a rustling.
Children are bundled into aprons.
Cornbread and water gourds grabbed.
A salt pork breakfast taken.
I watched them driven into the vague before dawn,
while their mistress sleeps like an ivory
toothpick, and Massa dreams of asses, rum, and slave funk.
I cannot fall asleep again.
At the second horn, the whip curls across the backs
of the laggards.
Sometimes my sister's voice, unmistaken, among them.
'Oh pray,' she cries.
'Oh pray.' Those days, I lie on my cot shivering in the early
heat.
And as the fields unfold to whiteness,
and they spill like bees among the fat flowers, I weep.
It is not yet daylight."