WEBVTT

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I'm at work on a couple of
projects and one of them

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is a historical memoir.

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And so that brings
up a question,

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well, memoir is about
memory and how can you

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write a historical memoir
if it's historical?

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But historical
memoir lives in us,

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DNA, it's a spiral of stories.

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I mean, where do our
dreams come from?

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Where does the stuff
of our poems come from?

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Where do our thoughts come from?

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There's the thoughts and dreams
of the land and the stones

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and so on, all of
the life around us

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that moves through us.

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And some of that, the
history of our voices,

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the voices of our ancestors
and those who went way forward

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and even those who were
following us because time

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is a continuum without time.

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And recently while I
wound up in Knoxville

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and I told him during
my interview, yeah,

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there's family history here.

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My grandfather of
Harjo generations,

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Monahwee, used to come up
here and steal horses, that's

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how he got his warrior
name, from stealing horses

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right here in Knoxville.

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[AUDIENCE LAUGHING]

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But he didn't think
of Knox, it wasn't--

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this was his home.

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I mean, he was only
claiming property

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because the Muskogee
Creek Nation was all over,

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from Eastern Tennessee
down into Georgia,

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which is now known as Georgia
Alabama or Northern Florida,

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and so on.

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And so going there has
been really important.

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I've been on a journey
going home, it took a lot,

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went through a lot of stories.

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We all learn and we help
each other along the way.

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And so Knoxville, it's
been perfect to start

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to work on a historical
memoir and right now I

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don't know where
it's going to go.

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Whether it's going to be poetry,
stories or mixed I've got,

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but the next two
poems are part of it.

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And this one I could only
write until last weekend we

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went down, my husband
Owen and I went down

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into Columbus, Georgia.

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And we saw the house that one
of my great uncles lived in,

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he was a historical figure.

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We went along the Chattahoochee
River where we used to fish

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and saw where the Tie
Snake lived or still lives

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in that river.

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We saw all these places that
had come through in stories

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to our people and it was--

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I've been walking around with
a heaviness because it's very

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heavy in me and yet there's
such brightness and it's.

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And I told the
people, I told the--

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I said, yes, we lived
and we have children

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and there's grandchildren
and, you know, we're here.

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And so it's about-- that's
a story of this country,

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It's not just, it's a
story of this country.

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What an incredible experiment
that we're all right here

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together but at some point, we
all have to sit at the table

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together and hear the
voices of this place

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and acknowledge who
we are here together.

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So this was a difficult
poem to write,

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it's called Last Stop
on the Trail of Tears.

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And there were difficult times
in life but all of it in a way

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was necessary to
understand and, you know,

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ultimately there's no
judgment, there's only love.

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Last Stop On The Trail of Tears.

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"It was closing time.

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Violence is my boyfriend
with a cross to bear,

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hoisted on by the church
he wore it everywhere.

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There are no female
deities in the Trinity.

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'I don't know how I'm
going to get out of here'

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said the flying
fish to the tree.

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Last call, we've all
had it with history,

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we who look for vision here
in the Indian and poetry bar

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somewhere to the left of hell.

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Now I have to find my way
when there's a river to cross

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and no boat to get me
there, when there appears

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to be no home at
all, my father gone,

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chased by the stepfather's
gun, get out of here.

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I found my father at the
bar, his ghost at least,

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some piece of him
in this sorry place.

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Violence is
convincing to a crowd.

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He's the spell of attraction.

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What stories he makes
of hilarious tragedy.

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In the fog of thin hope
I wander this sad world

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we've made with
the enemy's words.

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The lights quiver like
they do when the power is

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dwindling to a dangling string.

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It's time to go home.

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We are herded like stone cattle,
like children for the bombing

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drill, out the door
into the dark street

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of this old Indian town.

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I was afraid of the dark
because I could see everything.

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The truth with its eyes
staring back at me,

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the mouth of the dark
with its shiny moon teeth,

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no words just a hiss and a snap.

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I could hear my heart hurting
with my in the dark ears.

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We thought we could take it.

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Where was the party?

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It's been a century
since we left home

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with the American
soldiers at our backs.

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The party had long started
up in the parking lot,

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violence broke --flew
through the dark,

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broke my stride with a punch.

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I went down and came up.

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I thought I could take
being a girl with her heart

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in her arms, I carried
it for justice,

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for the rights of all of us.

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We all had that cross to bear.

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Those old ones followed
me, the quiet girl

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with the long dark
hair, in the back

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of the back, the daughter of a
warrior who wouldn't give up.

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How do any of us fleeing free
the cross of ruthless history?

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I ran and ran through
the 2:00 AM streets,

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I ran with through the
deluge of ancestor tears,

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I ran through all
their lost sunrises

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when we made it back home,
I gave it back to the trees,

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I became the wind."

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