"Trumpets Up in Here."
The sprawl and broken crawl on the back of Basquiat's paints,
the thin cleft of villainous pigments wrapping each frame
like the syntax in somebody else's relaxed explanation
of lateness.
What had happened was below blackened crowns,
below words crossed out to remind
what is underneath-- potholes, ashy elbows, and breath
that, in the cold, comes out in red light and complaint shapes.
Three lines from miles mouth, three lines in the habit
of tardy renumerations.
All that three triggered agitation,
all that angry-fingered fruition,
like Indianapolis's three skyscrapered smile.
When the sun goes down, and even the colors themselves
start talking in the same suspicious idioms
as a brass instrument.
Thin throat like a fist, flat declarations
of pastors and teachers at Christmas in the inner city.
Shoulders back and heads up while playing in the holiday
choir of hungry paints, chins covered in red scribbles
in all of the songs.
So let me start with this.
I spent eight years researching and writing "The Big Smoke."
And during that time, I also conceived and completed
the book that preceded it, "Mixology,"
and I really like that you were holding them up.
Thank you for that.
That's it, we're representing, right?
It was part a way for me to manage my own needs
in the poems while staying on some level true to the work
that I wanted to do for Jack Johnson.
But really, what I learned from writing
"Mixology" is that all my biographies,
all my autobiographies are small things, right?
And so, "Mixology" includes a great deal
of smaller autobiography.
But it's all lived experience in the poems.
And they're frequently connected to pop
culture, Fela Kuti and Bob Coffin, for example,
or as in the poem I'm about to read,
"Tyndall Armory," where I got to see Public Enemy.
It was my favorite rap group when I was in high school.
The truest, most performative moments of the poems
are the give and take between the speaker and the object,
neither is a true spectacle by itself.
"Tyndall Armory."
Public Enemy had no idea of what to do on stage in 1987.
But we didn't know what to do as a rap crowd, either.
Attendance was mandatory, jammed into the Tyndall Armory, one
night before amateur boxing and one night after bingo.
A bunch of homeboys kenti-ed together
with African medallions, and graffiti spray-painted jeans,
all of us mad at the conspiracy of conspiracy,
staring each other down with a circular anger only Black men
can justify.
Terminator X, his one-handed power fist cut and scratch,
was the only thing keeping the revolution
from starting right there.
Bass lines and warning sirens transformed
into samples refusing The Wop like the Black maitre d'
at the Highlands Country Club, he
refused to seat Black people.
My friend, Richard, was determined
to be the first Black president.
He refused wine coolers and weed, white women
and white lines, because the man could hold anything against him
during a campaign.
As president, he would buy Highlands
and turn it into a Black thing.
Terminator X had Rich ready to--
Nat Turner, the first patch of white he saw.
And when Chuck D mugged the stage, his African medallion
swinging like left hooks, his baseball cap
pulled down so low his eyes were the idea of eyes.
The heat in that room was enough to make any Tom reconsider
his friendships.
I just-- I just messed up for a second
because I started thinking about my friend Richard.
[LAUGHTER]
And I was thinking about how he was so serious about being
the president, you know?
And at some point, he was like, you know, now, it's cool.
He can keep that.
[LAUGHTER]
I'll let him have that.