So we're just going to play--
How's everybody doing?
Whoa, there's a lot of people out there.
Hey, what's happening?
And so what's happening is, I'm going to--
so I have this memoir that I wrote, and part of it
is, it's in epistolary form.
And there's these letters that go back and forth between me
and a woman that was incarcerated at the time.
Her name is Linda Perez.
In the book she goes by Lxxxx.
And so what I wanted to do to pay homage to her
and some of the women, these silent voices,
we just was talking about this tonight,
I want to start off with her reading an excerpt.
And I'll read just a smidgen after that,
and we'll begin with some of these poems
that Arts for Justice, so graciously funded
and supported, and with the support of the Poetry Center,
Tyler, and really appreciate that.
I received the books, the Genealogy of Morals,
and dictionary, and thesaurus you sent,
as well as your excerpt.
I managed to read about 20 pages and I
can see how you got sucked into the drug game.
Money is everybody's mistress, and yet this part of the drug
game is something I cannot relate to, because I
didn't come up smoking crack.
But I can relate to chasing a dream.
We all do that one way or another.
I always wondered what went on at Howard.
I never learned much about Black colleges
growing up in the Bronx.
Sounds like a lot of classism to me,
that whole W.E.B. Du Bois, double consciousness debate
playing out among students.
I wanted to be a painter, so Margaret Boland
can capture that with a brush.
On Monday, I finished reading Paula by Isabel Allende.
It's a memoir written in epistle form
to her daughter Paula, who became ill, fell into coma
and never woke up.
She died within a year.
The story travels back and forth to the time,
as Isabel examines the history of their family
and the political ties they had in Chile
after it was taken over by the military coup.
I believe it's the best book Allende has ever written.
She has also written In the House
of Spirits, Eva Luna and a few other works of fiction.
However I am much fonder of this biography,
because it shows how Allende developed
the ideas to write these books.
Paula shows the journey of the writer
and provides an inside look on how novels are created.
It's a very spiritual and enlightened piece of work.
You should definitely read it when you have some downtime.
Allende said something interesting
that has stayed with me.
She was writing-- she was teaching a writing
class at a university in California,
and did not know how to make the class interesting.
She decided to tell the students to write a bad book,
an awful piece of writing.
This allowed the students the freedom
to let their thoughts flow without focusing on errors.
The students edited throughout the course, and by the end,
one of them even got published.
Any writer can write a bad story.
The objective is to get the story out,
and I agree with that concept.
Allende also mentioned how novels
are born beyond the thought process,
that there is a deeper connection with the divine
that ordain stories to come to life on paper.
She would save newspaper articles
of tragedies for years at a time without understanding why.
Eventually Allende used those clippings
to support the ideas and characters in her stories.
Every writer has a greater purpose to serve.
Allende said people would often tell her their life story.
She would eventually use these stories
as characters in her books.
Randall, we all go through things in life
and there are stories to be told everywhere.
I also discovered Don Quixote was written by Miguel Cervantes
while he was in prison.
Very interesting.
Sharing your story with me lets me
know almost anything can be overcome.
I want to take that leap of faith you took.
I want to believe in my dreams and myself,
and you are helping me.
I spoke to my lawyer and things are still up in the air.
But I'm learning how to make the most of my time.
I have also been wrapped up in Luis Rodriguez's memoir, Always
Running.
It is phenomenal, and I can't believe I never heard of it
before.
Rodriguez moves swiftly through the pages.
I never considered any writer a graceful gangster,
but he earned that title, for sure.
I'm going to get into the Genealogy of Morality
soon because I'm eager to see the parallelisms regarding
the fallacy of color and on skin construction, as you put it.
It's interesting how Rodriguez touches on race
issues, but really focuses on class struggle
and how we, meaning all of us people of color,
deal with being the underdog in America.
But these issues always make me wonder
about America's majority.
I mean the White America no one dialogues on.
The ones Dorothy Allison depicted
in Bastard out of Carolina.
Class struggle should be an issue
involving all of us who live below the invisible medium.
These labels and divisions and subdivisions only
further cloud the real issues.
These problems are older than both of us put together.
So how can literature tackle these issues?
How do we touch the average person
who doesn't care to read books because they are too busy
trying to work and survive?
How can short stories address serious issues
without losing significance?
That's why I like House on Mango Street
so much because Sandra Cisneros managed
to do this with her vignettes.
I think I was drawn to you as a friend
because we shared a common difference.
Not too many people in the Writing Center at SUNY Albany
understood.
It was our secret, our past.
And we were the only two people of color.
I was cool with the other folks, but it wasn't the same.
I felt connected to you because we spoke the same language.
I loved how you didn't try to assimilate.
You wore your difference and celebrated it.
Those people in the Writing Center
were all blown away by your swag.
You really impressed me, and still do.
You're doing everything I dreamed of doing.
You made it happen.
Having tunnel vision only helped speed your progress
and get you close to your goals.
Nothing and no one got in your way.
I couldn't do that.
I stumbled and fell.
And now I'm back at square one.
The funny thing is, it wasn't that I wasn't smart enough.
I just couldn't like all the dumb shit like you did.
I felt drawn to the life, compelled
to straddle two worlds, because only then did I feel normal.
If I gave up that side 100%, I always
found myself feeling displaced.
Does that make any sense?
You always make me think, and I love you for it.
I finally got a chance to read Nietzsche,
although the first half is interesting,
I jumped to the second and I'm amazed at how easily
this guy confuses me.
I love it.
He takes reading and interpretations
to a whole other level.
Nietzsche makes me question the morals imposed by Christianity,
society, and the difference between the moral values
throughout the Americas.
You know, White America, Latin America and the Caribbean,
as well in contrast with Europe and the rest
of the Christian world.
I've never been more certain of my own curiosities,
and now the questions I've been pondering
make a lot more sense.
Everything I have read throughout this period
of my life has led to the same question.
What is man's search for meaning and life's purpose,
which is guided by the divine?
It is amazing how even mistakes can
help map and shape who we are, and who
we are destined to become.
Randall, each of us has a mission
that we are uncertain of.
How often do we really get to understand and know
our true selves?
I know I kind of rushed that, let up on my past, et cetera,
but didn't explain much.
Those things are hard to talk about,
but I'm trying to get them out.
I've been waiting for a reason to write about them for years.
Actually I've never been able to write about my suicide attempt,
and 20 years later I'm telling you.
I don't feel so vulnerable now that you
are sharing your story with me.
You got me all in.
Send me more when you can.
Thank you for helping me find my voice again,
by bringing the darkness out.
It's helping me heal, and somehow your story
is shining a light on the past and helping
me see things clearly.
I'm figuring out answers to a question I didn't even
understand back then.
Tonight I finished the excerpt.
I'm sorry about Jesse.
That's got to be some hard shit.
Lxxxx.