WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.437 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.437 --> 00:00:05.500 align:middle line:90% So thank you, so beautiful. 00:00:05.500 --> 00:00:06.000 align:middle line:90% Oh, no. 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:06.500 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:00:06.500 --> 00:00:07.420 align:middle line:90% Thanks for listening. 00:00:07.420 --> 00:00:08.480 align:middle line:90% I appreciate it. 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:10.290 align:middle line:84% Can I lean on you a little bit to talk 00:00:10.290 --> 00:00:11.930 align:middle line:90% about why it's complicated? 00:00:11.930 --> 00:00:12.430 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:12.430 --> 00:00:14.500 align:middle line:90% Yeah, no, absolutely. 00:00:14.500 --> 00:00:16.500 align:middle line:84% I mean, this is going to sound kind of esoteric. 00:00:16.500 --> 00:00:20.310 align:middle line:84% But the great joy in this book for me 00:00:20.310 --> 00:00:24.240 align:middle line:84% and seeing the positive response it's gotten, 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:25.890 align:middle line:90% is because it's not me. 00:00:25.890 --> 00:00:27.660 align:middle line:90% And it's not my story. 00:00:27.660 --> 00:00:33.630 align:middle line:84% And it's hard to carry a story of that gravity sometimes. 00:00:33.630 --> 00:00:36.750 align:middle line:84% And so, sometimes it's easier than others. 00:00:36.750 --> 00:00:38.910 align:middle line:84% And I was sitting there, I was like, my God. 00:00:38.910 --> 00:00:40.680 align:middle line:90% This is hard today. 00:00:40.680 --> 00:00:41.670 align:middle line:90% It's a really-- 00:00:41.670 --> 00:00:42.545 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry, I'm sorry. 00:00:42.545 --> 00:00:44.587 align:middle line:84% I mean, they're going to be like, they were like, 00:00:44.587 --> 00:00:46.980 align:middle line:84% oh, you know, oh, I think I'm going to go take a nap. 00:00:46.980 --> 00:00:48.990 align:middle line:84% It's just-- but sometimes, I mean, 00:00:48.990 --> 00:00:51.210 align:middle line:84% I think there are times when I can be in the poems 00:00:51.210 --> 00:00:52.640 align:middle line:90% and carry them. 00:00:52.640 --> 00:00:55.140 align:middle line:84% And then, there are other times where the poems really like, 00:00:55.140 --> 00:00:57.340 align:middle line:90% they pull me down in some ways. 00:00:57.340 --> 00:00:59.340 align:middle line:84% And so, when I was reading some of them tonight, 00:00:59.340 --> 00:01:01.980 align:middle line:84% I could feel them holding me in that way. 00:01:01.980 --> 00:01:04.530 align:middle line:84% Maybe it's because we talked about them quite a bit today. 00:01:04.530 --> 00:01:07.890 align:middle line:84% And so, I've been thinking a lot about what legacy 00:01:07.890 --> 00:01:09.600 align:middle line:90% means and what history means. 00:01:09.600 --> 00:01:13.920 align:middle line:84% And for me, the whole exercise of this project 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:17.970 align:middle line:84% and the graphic novel, were to try to reclaim this story. 00:01:17.970 --> 00:01:19.890 align:middle line:84% Because it had been stilted and distorted 00:01:19.890 --> 00:01:22.780 align:middle line:90% in so many different ways. 00:01:22.780 --> 00:01:26.870 align:middle line:84% And I feel really lucky that I was trusted with it. 00:01:26.870 --> 00:01:28.740 align:middle line:84% I don't want to get tin foil hat about it, 00:01:28.740 --> 00:01:33.082 align:middle line:84% but I feel very fortunate that I was trusted with it. 00:01:33.082 --> 00:01:35.040 align:middle line:84% How many of you have seen The Great White Hope? 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:36.832 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's a different generation, right? 00:01:36.832 --> 00:01:37.830 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:01:37.830 --> 00:01:41.887 align:middle line:84% So that is like the worst most bastardized version 00:01:41.887 --> 00:01:42.720 align:middle line:90% of his story, right? 00:01:42.720 --> 00:01:45.150 align:middle line:84% James Earl Jones is great in it, Jane Alexander 00:01:45.150 --> 00:01:45.960 align:middle line:90% is amazing in it. 00:01:45.960 --> 00:01:48.600 align:middle line:84% But it pretends to be a biography 00:01:48.600 --> 00:01:50.040 align:middle line:90% of Jack Johnson that is-- 00:01:50.040 --> 00:01:52.710 align:middle line:84% just takes the most salacious, the moment 00:01:52.710 --> 00:01:55.590 align:middle line:84% of biggest spectacle, really, in his biography 00:01:55.590 --> 00:01:57.330 align:middle line:90% and turns that into the story. 00:01:57.330 --> 00:01:59.850 align:middle line:84% It's like this cut-- for those of you who haven't seen it, 00:01:59.850 --> 00:02:02.190 align:middle line:84% it's this country fried fighter who's 00:02:02.190 --> 00:02:03.960 align:middle line:84% got this thing for this white woman. 00:02:03.960 --> 00:02:07.830 align:middle line:84% And he just, I don't know-- it's nothing like what happened, 00:02:07.830 --> 00:02:10.922 align:middle line:84% minus the very basic details that this man was 00:02:10.922 --> 00:02:11.880 align:middle line:90% a heavyweight champion. 00:02:11.880 --> 00:02:14.910 align:middle line:84% And he was involved in an interracial relationship. 00:02:14.910 --> 00:02:18.360 align:middle line:84% You take that part of it out, and The Great White Hope 00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:20.557 align:middle line:90% is completely erroneous. 00:02:20.557 --> 00:02:22.140 align:middle line:84% And there are so many people who think 00:02:22.140 --> 00:02:23.760 align:middle line:84% that's the story of Jack Johnson. 00:02:23.760 --> 00:02:25.710 align:middle line:84% The crazy thing is, Howard Sackler, 00:02:25.710 --> 00:02:28.440 align:middle line:84% the guy that wrote The Great White Hope as a play won 00:02:28.440 --> 00:02:30.102 align:middle line:90% the Pulitzer Prize for it. 00:02:30.102 --> 00:02:31.560 align:middle line:84% And so, I sit around, I'm like, OK. 00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:36.430 align:middle line:84% So he won the Pulitzer for a broke down version 00:02:36.430 --> 00:02:38.460 align:middle line:90% of Jack Johnson's story, right? 00:02:38.460 --> 00:02:39.870 align:middle line:90% A bastardized version of it. 00:02:39.870 --> 00:02:42.870 align:middle line:90% I almost won with my thing. 00:02:42.870 --> 00:02:46.100 align:middle line:84% I think it's safe to say it's his story, right? 00:02:46.100 --> 00:02:48.330 align:middle line:84% It's nothing that Sackler did has done that I did, 00:02:48.330 --> 00:02:49.680 align:middle line:90% it's Jack Johnson's story. 00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:55.860 align:middle line:84% It's the life that he lived and how it emotes still. 00:02:55.860 --> 00:02:57.780 align:middle line:84% I mean, I guess, in 1970, it would 00:02:57.780 --> 00:03:00.660 align:middle line:84% have been really salacious, this interracial relationship. 00:03:00.660 --> 00:03:01.875 align:middle line:90% And now, it's like, eh. 00:03:01.875 --> 00:03:03.750 align:middle line:84% Unless you're in Indiana, it doesn't really-- 00:03:03.750 --> 00:03:05.190 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:05.190 --> 00:03:06.690 align:middle line:84% --doesn't make that much difference. 00:03:06.690 --> 00:03:09.930 align:middle line:84% So yeah, that's why it just is-- it's a big thing. 00:03:09.930 --> 00:03:12.430 align:middle line:84% I can't imagine what it had been like to live that way. 00:03:12.430 --> 00:03:13.290 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:03:13.290 --> 00:03:15.810 align:middle line:84% It's fun to imagine but not to exist there. 00:03:15.810 --> 00:03:16.430 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:03:16.430 --> 00:03:19.890 align:middle line:90% Did what your mother said-- 00:03:19.890 --> 00:03:22.320 align:middle line:84% did what your mother said to you "don't 00:03:22.320 --> 00:03:25.470 align:middle line:84% make a spectacle of yourself" ever keep you 00:03:25.470 --> 00:03:30.060 align:middle line:84% from going full head on into writing this story? 00:03:30.060 --> 00:03:31.800 align:middle line:90% Because he is larger than life. 00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:32.340 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:03:32.340 --> 00:03:33.268 align:middle line:90% You know, it didn't. 00:03:33.268 --> 00:03:35.060 align:middle line:84% Because I didn't-- that's a great question. 00:03:35.060 --> 00:03:36.230 align:middle line:90% I didn't think about it. 00:03:36.230 --> 00:03:37.980 align:middle line:84% I mean, I really-- until I was doing this, 00:03:37.980 --> 00:03:39.605 align:middle line:84% I had forgotten that my mom said that. 00:03:39.605 --> 00:03:43.470 align:middle line:84% I think I ingrained it as a pattern of behavior. 00:03:43.470 --> 00:03:48.090 align:middle line:84% Like, we're lucky to be here, right? 00:03:48.090 --> 00:03:51.060 align:middle line:84% So pretending that it's anything else but luck 00:03:51.060 --> 00:03:52.230 align:middle line:90% seems presumptuous. 00:03:52.230 --> 00:03:53.880 align:middle line:90% And that's my mom's idea. 00:03:53.880 --> 00:03:56.730 align:middle line:84% And she'd say that, "Boy, you're lucky to be here. 00:03:56.730 --> 00:03:59.317 align:middle line:84% You're lucky I kept you," this kind of thing. 00:03:59.317 --> 00:04:01.650 align:middle line:84% Not that she was going to give me up, but there's this-- 00:04:01.650 --> 00:04:04.200 align:middle line:84% there was always this thing that was like, look, you know, 00:04:04.200 --> 00:04:07.230 align:middle line:90% you're here by the grace of me. 00:04:07.230 --> 00:04:09.150 align:middle line:84% And I'm here by the grace of somebody else. 00:04:09.150 --> 00:04:11.760 align:middle line:84% So don't pretend that you're bigger than those things. 00:04:11.760 --> 00:04:13.320 align:middle line:90% And it always made sense to me. 00:04:13.320 --> 00:04:15.870 align:middle line:84% Particularly, in the face of my biological father 00:04:15.870 --> 00:04:19.680 align:middle line:84% who was a dancer on Soul Train and was very ostentatious. 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:23.910 align:middle line:90% So that thing was-- 00:04:23.910 --> 00:04:26.130 align:middle line:84% so that didn't keep me from going into it. 00:04:26.130 --> 00:04:28.680 align:middle line:84% I think, if anything, the challenges 00:04:28.680 --> 00:04:30.630 align:middle line:84% for me, when I was working on the book, 00:04:30.630 --> 00:04:33.030 align:middle line:84% were how to write about something 00:04:33.030 --> 00:04:36.240 align:middle line:84% that was so complicated and confusing to me, right? 00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:41.760 align:middle line:84% To write about this man who put his wife in a coma, 00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:45.870 align:middle line:84% and supposedly brought one of his girlfriends 00:04:45.870 --> 00:04:49.500 align:middle line:84% there to see her and was like, look, if you don't act right, 00:04:49.500 --> 00:04:51.250 align:middle line:90% this is what happens to you. 00:04:51.250 --> 00:04:54.910 align:middle line:84% So I mean, I found these things once I got into the story. 00:04:54.910 --> 00:04:56.708 align:middle line:90% So what do you do with that? 00:04:56.708 --> 00:04:58.000 align:middle line:90% And I chose to push through it. 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:00.210 align:middle line:84% But it was really hard to write those poems. 00:05:00.210 --> 00:05:03.310 align:middle line:84% And I have a wonderful wife and a wonderful daughter. 00:05:03.310 --> 00:05:05.370 align:middle line:84% And I can't imagine ever wanting to do, 00:05:05.370 --> 00:05:09.295 align:middle line:84% like, we don't even get the wooden spoon out 00:05:09.295 --> 00:05:11.670 align:middle line:84% for my daughter when she does something like there's no-- 00:05:11.670 --> 00:05:13.260 align:middle line:90% it's all hands off, right? 00:05:13.260 --> 00:05:15.600 align:middle line:84% And so, I can't imagine what would-- 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:18.900 align:middle line:84% but it wasn't a motivation that was based in these women. 00:05:18.900 --> 00:05:23.422 align:middle line:84% It's a systemic behavior that was so messed up. 00:05:23.422 --> 00:05:25.380 align:middle line:84% And then when people start to think about that, 00:05:25.380 --> 00:05:27.270 align:middle line:84% it's really complicated things that your grandfather, 00:05:27.270 --> 00:05:28.645 align:middle line:84% your great grandfather might have 00:05:28.645 --> 00:05:30.570 align:middle line:84% treated your great great grandmother that way. 00:05:30.570 --> 00:05:32.820 align:middle line:84% Then it becomes much more personal, right? 00:05:32.820 --> 00:05:35.583 align:middle line:84% And so, I mean, you mentioned that interview-- was 00:05:35.583 --> 00:05:36.750 align:middle line:90% that the thing in Nashville? 00:05:36.750 --> 00:05:37.380 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:05:37.380 --> 00:05:39.600 align:middle line:84% So one of the things that made me think about 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:43.840 align:middle line:84% is that he's a part of a bigger conversation. 00:05:43.840 --> 00:05:45.970 align:middle line:84% And so it's like a way into that conversation. 00:05:45.970 --> 00:05:49.470 align:middle line:84% And then the book came out and that horrible video of Ray Rice 00:05:49.470 --> 00:05:52.770 align:middle line:84% dragging his unconscious wife out of the elevator. 00:05:52.770 --> 00:05:56.430 align:middle line:84% Then Greg Hardy throws his girlfriend on a bed of guns 00:05:56.430 --> 00:05:58.590 align:middle line:84% and then signs a $9 million contract 00:05:58.590 --> 00:06:00.532 align:middle line:90% with the Dallas Cowboys. 00:06:00.532 --> 00:06:02.490 align:middle line:84% It just happened that those things happen right 00:06:02.490 --> 00:06:03.610 align:middle line:90% after the book came out. 00:06:03.610 --> 00:06:06.690 align:middle line:84% And so, it was really strange timing. 00:06:06.690 --> 00:06:09.180 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think it being fortuitous in a horrible way, 00:06:09.180 --> 00:06:09.720 align:middle line:90% right? 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:11.640 align:middle line:84% I would never want those things to happen to someone. 00:06:11.640 --> 00:06:13.710 align:middle line:84% But if they're going to happen, it's almost better 00:06:13.710 --> 00:06:15.002 align:middle line:90% that they happened all at once. 00:06:15.002 --> 00:06:17.340 align:middle line:84% Because then, it was an inescapable discussion. 00:06:17.340 --> 00:06:21.310 align:middle line:84% And it's been really easy to just ignore it for a long time. 00:06:21.310 --> 00:06:24.000 align:middle line:84% And so the thing was when I was trying to write those poems, 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:24.795 align:middle line:90% I couldn't do that. 00:06:24.795 --> 00:06:25.920 align:middle line:90% I couldn't write the poems. 00:06:25.920 --> 00:06:28.295 align:middle line:84% I figured out early I couldn't write the poems if my wife 00:06:28.295 --> 00:06:30.930 align:middle line:90% or daughter were in the house. 00:06:30.930 --> 00:06:34.110 align:middle line:84% It just was so stressful to me to think about those spaces 00:06:34.110 --> 00:06:36.948 align:middle line:84% and know that my kid's downstairs playing with her-- 00:06:36.948 --> 00:06:38.490 align:middle line:84% in her kitchen, she had one of those, 00:06:38.490 --> 00:06:39.520 align:middle line:84% when she was really little, she had 00:06:39.520 --> 00:06:41.280 align:middle line:84% one of those little kitchens where she'd pretend to cook 00:06:41.280 --> 00:06:41.970 align:middle line:90% or whatever. 00:06:41.970 --> 00:06:44.460 align:middle line:84% And my wife's down there doing stuff. 00:06:44.460 --> 00:06:46.290 align:middle line:84% And I'm upstairs, trying to figure out 00:06:46.290 --> 00:06:48.150 align:middle line:84% how to write a poem about domestic violence. 00:06:48.150 --> 00:06:51.790 align:middle line:84% So I waited for them to go to the park or something, 00:06:51.790 --> 00:06:53.292 align:middle line:90% or go to school, and I'd work. 00:06:53.292 --> 00:06:54.750 align:middle line:84% And that wasn't good enough either, 00:06:54.750 --> 00:06:56.300 align:middle line:84% because I knew they might come back at any time. 00:06:56.300 --> 00:06:58.080 align:middle line:84% And I was always looking over my shoulder. 00:06:58.080 --> 00:07:00.080 align:middle line:84% Because I didn't want them coming into the house 00:07:00.080 --> 00:07:01.710 align:middle line:90% with that kind of action. 00:07:01.710 --> 00:07:04.050 align:middle line:84% Even if it's up in my office, I don't want that energy 00:07:04.050 --> 00:07:04.860 align:middle line:90% around them, right? 00:07:04.860 --> 00:07:07.470 align:middle line:84% So I had to write all of them when they were out of town. 00:07:07.470 --> 00:07:09.690 align:middle line:84% So they would leave town to go visit my mother-in-law 00:07:09.690 --> 00:07:11.190 align:middle line:84% or something for three or four days. 00:07:11.190 --> 00:07:12.565 align:middle line:84% And I would spend that whole four 00:07:12.565 --> 00:07:15.073 align:middle line:84% days working on the poems about domestic violence. 00:07:15.073 --> 00:07:16.490 align:middle line:84% And they'd come back, and I'd just 00:07:16.490 --> 00:07:18.840 align:middle line:84% be like, just leave me alone for a little bit, you know? 00:07:18.840 --> 00:07:22.198 align:middle line:84% And I need to reenter for a while before we talk. 00:07:22.198 --> 00:07:23.490 align:middle line:90% But that's how I got them done. 00:07:23.490 --> 00:07:26.550 align:middle line:90% And it was really uncomfortable. 00:07:26.550 --> 00:07:28.740 align:middle line:84% And it doesn't get any easier to read the poems 00:07:28.740 --> 00:07:31.420 align:middle line:90% or talk about that stuff either. 00:07:31.420 --> 00:07:31.920 align:middle line:90% So, yeah. 00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:34.890 align:middle line:84% So it was maybe just emotion more than my mom. 00:07:34.890 --> 00:07:44.830 align:middle line:90% 00:07:44.830 --> 00:07:47.727 align:middle line:84% Yeah, you guys say that is really bright, isn't it? 00:07:47.727 --> 00:07:49.560 align:middle line:84% I just realized there were people behind it. 00:07:49.560 --> 00:07:51.396 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:51.396 --> 00:07:53.140 align:middle line:90% 00:07:53.140 --> 00:07:55.080 align:middle line:90% Can I? 00:07:55.080 --> 00:07:59.520 align:middle line:84% I was wondering when you were writing your shadow poem, 00:07:59.520 --> 00:08:03.150 align:middle line:84% was there an aspect that primarily influenced 00:08:03.150 --> 00:08:05.100 align:middle line:84% these poems in the sense that you say yourself 00:08:05.100 --> 00:08:07.183 align:middle line:84% from reading this article from the New York Times, 00:08:07.183 --> 00:08:09.780 align:middle line:84% I really have a sense of this is what he's saying to a shadow, 00:08:09.780 --> 00:08:12.870 align:middle line:84% or for reading this dialogue he had with an interviewer, 00:08:12.870 --> 00:08:14.410 align:middle line:84% this is what you might be thinking-- 00:08:14.410 --> 00:08:14.910 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:08:14.910 --> 00:08:15.730 align:middle line:90% --or saying through a shadow? 00:08:15.730 --> 00:08:17.400 align:middle line:84% What were the primary influences there? 00:08:17.400 --> 00:08:18.147 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:08:18.147 --> 00:08:19.230 align:middle line:90% That's a hard thing to do. 00:08:19.230 --> 00:08:19.910 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:08:19.910 --> 00:08:20.508 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah. 00:08:20.508 --> 00:08:21.300 align:middle line:90% That's really good. 00:08:21.300 --> 00:08:24.420 align:middle line:84% We were talking about this earlier about every event 00:08:24.420 --> 00:08:27.300 align:middle line:90% in the book is accurate, right? 00:08:27.300 --> 00:08:29.190 align:middle line:84% So if he's in Chicago in a poem, he 00:08:29.190 --> 00:08:31.020 align:middle line:84% was in Chicago for real in the poem. 00:08:31.020 --> 00:08:34.260 align:middle line:84% If he was racing in Crown Point Indiana, then that happened. 00:08:34.260 --> 00:08:36.213 align:middle line:84% It's exactly as it-- and the one space 00:08:36.213 --> 00:08:38.130 align:middle line:84% where it's not like that was the shadow poems, 00:08:38.130 --> 00:08:39.672 align:middle line:84% and when he's talking back and forth. 00:08:39.672 --> 00:08:42.000 align:middle line:84% And the thing about it, and it brings it back 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:44.430 align:middle line:84% to this idea of a spectacle in my mind 00:08:44.430 --> 00:08:47.250 align:middle line:84% as being out of a sharing of some moment 00:08:47.250 --> 00:08:51.240 align:middle line:84% in some ostentatious way, is that he would have never 00:08:51.240 --> 00:08:53.670 align:middle line:90% been honest about those things. 00:08:53.670 --> 00:08:55.050 align:middle line:90% So it's twofold, right? 00:08:55.050 --> 00:09:00.780 align:middle line:84% It's the idea of what a man was and how a man behaves 00:09:00.780 --> 00:09:06.270 align:middle line:84% at the turn of the century, which is I'd go get the deer, 00:09:06.270 --> 00:09:07.800 align:middle line:90% and then I cut the deer. 00:09:07.800 --> 00:09:09.780 align:middle line:84% And then you make the meal, right? 00:09:09.780 --> 00:09:11.820 align:middle line:84% It's like this weird hunter-gatherer shit. 00:09:11.820 --> 00:09:15.120 align:middle line:84% And so he's straight up and down like that, right? 00:09:15.120 --> 00:09:18.630 align:middle line:84% But he's also a Black man who's still fighting with the idea. 00:09:18.630 --> 00:09:21.790 align:middle line:84% He's fighting people's beliefs that he's not a human being. 00:09:21.790 --> 00:09:24.030 align:middle line:84% He's the first generation after-- 00:09:24.030 --> 00:09:25.670 align:middle line:90% his parents were owned. 00:09:25.670 --> 00:09:27.670 align:middle line:84% Like, his parents were somebody else's property. 00:09:27.670 --> 00:09:29.490 align:middle line:84% So he's fighting against that, too. 00:09:29.490 --> 00:09:31.920 align:middle line:84% So to show weakness, or to show confusion, 00:09:31.920 --> 00:09:34.630 align:middle line:84% or any of those things, would be wholly unacceptable. 00:09:34.630 --> 00:09:38.070 align:middle line:84% So in all of the work I did, all of the source text, 00:09:38.070 --> 00:09:41.340 align:middle line:84% and I had 22, 23 source text for this book, 00:09:41.340 --> 00:09:43.050 align:middle line:90% it used to have a bibliography. 00:09:43.050 --> 00:09:44.670 align:middle line:84% Because I was very proud of them. 00:09:44.670 --> 00:09:45.930 align:middle line:90% Yes, I did research, right? 00:09:45.930 --> 00:09:48.673 align:middle line:84% And my editor was like, no, dude. 00:09:48.673 --> 00:09:50.340 align:middle line:84% Books of poems don't get bibliographies. 00:09:50.340 --> 00:09:55.860 align:middle line:84% [LAUGHTER] It's like, my mind does, come on, man. 00:09:55.860 --> 00:09:58.710 align:middle line:84% Yeah, so in all of this, I never found a place 00:09:58.710 --> 00:10:02.880 align:middle line:84% where he talked about being afraid or admitted to losing. 00:10:02.880 --> 00:10:04.470 align:middle line:84% Even when he lost heavyweight title, 00:10:04.470 --> 00:10:07.080 align:middle line:84% he said he threw the fight, so he could come back 00:10:07.080 --> 00:10:08.190 align:middle line:90% to the United States. 00:10:08.190 --> 00:10:10.380 align:middle line:90% So every time, he always won. 00:10:10.380 --> 00:10:13.710 align:middle line:84% There was never a place in which he showed weakness or fear. 00:10:13.710 --> 00:10:16.992 align:middle line:84% And I thought, and so the book reflected that at first. 00:10:16.992 --> 00:10:18.450 align:middle line:84% Before those shadow poems, the book 00:10:18.450 --> 00:10:21.000 align:middle line:84% reflected the fact that he was always 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:24.300 align:middle line:84% the winner, always the most gregarious, always the most 00:10:24.300 --> 00:10:26.340 align:middle line:90% elegant and eloquent, right? 00:10:26.340 --> 00:10:28.357 align:middle line:84% And so, the shadow poems I hoped at least 00:10:28.357 --> 00:10:30.690 align:middle line:84% would lend a little nuance where we would see the things 00:10:30.690 --> 00:10:33.180 align:middle line:90% that maybe he would not say. 00:10:33.180 --> 00:10:34.950 align:middle line:84% They're totally fabricated, right? 00:10:34.950 --> 00:10:37.800 align:middle line:84% But I tried to find places or events 00:10:37.800 --> 00:10:42.240 align:middle line:84% he could respond to in the poems that might tie them in, 00:10:42.240 --> 00:10:43.680 align:middle line:90% in some way. 00:10:43.680 --> 00:10:47.665 align:middle line:84% His shadow calls him out about abusing one of his girlfriends 00:10:47.665 --> 00:10:48.540 align:middle line:90% and things like that. 00:10:48.540 --> 00:10:51.090 align:middle line:84% I try to weave it in a way where we could address 00:10:51.090 --> 00:10:53.310 align:middle line:84% some of the things that the persona of Jack 00:10:53.310 --> 00:10:56.310 align:middle line:84% Johnson or the human being Jack Johnson 00:10:56.310 --> 00:10:57.555 align:middle line:90% would never address publicly. 00:10:57.555 --> 00:11:00.150 align:middle line:90% 00:11:00.150 --> 00:11:02.662 align:middle line:90% Thank you for that question. 00:11:02.662 --> 00:11:04.090 align:middle line:90% We can do one more. 00:11:04.090 --> 00:11:10.290 align:middle line:90% 00:11:10.290 --> 00:11:13.110 align:middle line:84% So why or how did you choose him as a subject? 00:11:13.110 --> 00:11:13.950 align:middle line:90% What took you there? 00:11:13.950 --> 00:11:14.450 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:11:14.450 --> 00:11:19.670 align:middle line:84% You know, so I apologize to the class that heard this earlier. 00:11:19.670 --> 00:11:21.173 align:middle line:90% But my mom, here we go, right? 00:11:21.173 --> 00:11:22.340 align:middle line:90% It was my mother every time. 00:11:22.340 --> 00:11:23.960 align:middle line:84% So I was joking with Tyler, and I 00:11:23.960 --> 00:11:26.300 align:middle line:84% said that every book I've ever tried to write 00:11:26.300 --> 00:11:28.550 align:middle line:84% is just about having daddy issues. 00:11:28.550 --> 00:11:30.680 align:middle line:84% But every book I've tried to write somehow my mom 00:11:30.680 --> 00:11:33.720 align:middle line:84% got it started for me or helped me to come to terms with it. 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:36.530 align:middle line:84% And so, when I was a kid, I used to watch boxing with my mother. 00:11:36.530 --> 00:11:38.330 align:middle line:90% I mean, it wasn't my dad. 00:11:38.330 --> 00:11:40.820 align:middle line:84% She was the one that taught me about prize fighting. 00:11:40.820 --> 00:11:43.100 align:middle line:84% And so, we would sit there on this awful couch 00:11:43.100 --> 00:11:46.280 align:middle line:84% that we had in Frankfurt, Germany 00:11:46.280 --> 00:11:49.353 align:middle line:84% and watch the fights on Wide World of Sports. 00:11:49.353 --> 00:11:51.020 align:middle line:84% And what I didn't understand at the time 00:11:51.020 --> 00:11:53.150 align:middle line:84% was that she was betting on all these fights. 00:11:53.150 --> 00:11:55.640 align:middle line:84% And so she's-- so we're watching these fights. 00:11:55.640 --> 00:11:57.260 align:middle line:90% And she's really into them. 00:11:57.260 --> 00:11:59.500 align:middle line:84% Like, well, I know, my mom, she loves boxing. 00:11:59.500 --> 00:12:01.370 align:middle line:90% I guess, I love boxing, too. 00:12:01.370 --> 00:12:03.320 align:middle line:84% And I found out later that she was sometimes 00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:05.670 align:middle line:90% losing a lot of money. 00:12:05.670 --> 00:12:09.770 align:middle line:84% And when the guy that-- the fighter she was betting on 00:12:09.770 --> 00:12:13.035 align:middle line:84% didn't win, her dismissal of the other fighter 00:12:13.035 --> 00:12:14.660 align:middle line:84% would always be like, forget that dude, 00:12:14.660 --> 00:12:16.400 align:middle line:90% he's no Jack Johnson. 00:12:16.400 --> 00:12:18.380 align:middle line:84% But she never told me who Jack Johnson was. 00:12:18.380 --> 00:12:21.920 align:middle line:84% She would just use this blanket dismissal of the guy that 00:12:21.920 --> 00:12:24.050 align:middle line:90% lost her money, right? 00:12:24.050 --> 00:12:26.060 align:middle line:84% And so to this day, I don't-- she won't tell me. 00:12:26.060 --> 00:12:27.740 align:middle line:84% She just gives me this like Yoda look 00:12:27.740 --> 00:12:30.740 align:middle line:84% where she's like, we know things that you don't know. 00:12:30.740 --> 00:12:32.013 align:middle line:90% But I asked her why it is-- 00:12:32.013 --> 00:12:32.930 align:middle line:90% how did she know Jack? 00:12:32.930 --> 00:12:34.340 align:middle line:90% I mean, the ages are wrong. 00:12:34.340 --> 00:12:36.020 align:middle line:84% Jack Johnson died before she was born. 00:12:36.020 --> 00:12:39.020 align:middle line:84% So I still have no idea how she found out about this guy. 00:12:39.020 --> 00:12:42.800 align:middle line:84% But she used to invoke his name all the time when I was a kid. 00:12:42.800 --> 00:12:46.460 align:middle line:84% So I thought I was going to write an essay about watching 00:12:46.460 --> 00:12:47.480 align:middle line:90% boxing with my mother. 00:12:47.480 --> 00:12:51.650 align:middle line:84% I thought it might be an interesting gender reversal 00:12:51.650 --> 00:12:54.170 align:middle line:84% thing, and also speak to what it means 00:12:54.170 --> 00:12:58.070 align:middle line:84% to be a single parent, a single mother with boys 00:12:58.070 --> 00:13:00.890 align:middle line:90% and how that dynamic works. 00:13:00.890 --> 00:13:02.690 align:middle line:84% But I needed to learn about Jack Johnson. 00:13:02.690 --> 00:13:04.857 align:middle line:84% And the more I learned about him, the less important 00:13:04.857 --> 00:13:07.190 align:middle line:84% my story seemed, and the more important 00:13:07.190 --> 00:13:11.300 align:middle line:84% it seemed to really pursue this other conversation about him, 00:13:11.300 --> 00:13:14.300 align:middle line:84% about history, and masculinity, and domestic violence, 00:13:14.300 --> 00:13:19.025 align:middle line:84% and spectacle, and sports, and turn of the century. 00:13:19.025 --> 00:13:21.650 align:middle line:84% You know, when Jack Johnson was heavyweight champion and nobody 00:13:21.650 --> 00:13:24.830 align:middle line:84% could beat him, President Roosevelt 00:13:24.830 --> 00:13:28.160 align:middle line:84% was so bent out of shape by it that he almost 00:13:28.160 --> 00:13:30.860 align:middle line:84% tried to ban boxing in the United States. 00:13:30.860 --> 00:13:32.720 align:middle line:84% Even though he was a huge fight fan. 00:13:32.720 --> 00:13:34.310 align:middle line:84% But nobody could beat Jack Johnson. 00:13:34.310 --> 00:13:36.020 align:middle line:84% So they're like, look, we'll just get rid of this sport, 00:13:36.020 --> 00:13:37.820 align:middle line:84% then, if nobody can beat this dude. 00:13:37.820 --> 00:13:42.500 align:middle line:84% And so, finding out these things about our presidents 00:13:42.500 --> 00:13:46.190 align:middle line:84% and people, the people who were prominent in his time 00:13:46.190 --> 00:13:49.010 align:middle line:90% is really incredible. 00:13:49.010 --> 00:13:51.110 align:middle line:84% I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose. 00:13:51.110 --> 00:13:53.000 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think the more we open up history, 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:57.530 align:middle line:84% the more we find just really how complex and awful a lot 00:13:57.530 --> 00:14:00.320 align:middle line:84% of the things that went into making this amazing country 00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:02.477 align:middle line:90% were, right? 00:14:02.477 --> 00:14:05.060 align:middle line:84% And I think if we can ever get that part right, the part where 00:14:05.060 --> 00:14:08.570 align:middle line:84% we can acknowledge like, hey, we were built on some messed up 00:14:08.570 --> 00:14:11.750 align:middle line:84% things, I think we might be able to figure out 00:14:11.750 --> 00:14:14.345 align:middle line:84% a little more clearly how to navigate what's going on now. 00:14:14.345 --> 00:14:16.220 align:middle line:84% I mean, it feels like this to me like there's 00:14:16.220 --> 00:14:19.535 align:middle line:84% a really important event happening around us. 00:14:19.535 --> 00:14:21.410 align:middle line:84% And so, anyway, yeah, and that was the thing. 00:14:21.410 --> 00:14:23.180 align:middle line:90% It was my mom. 00:14:23.180 --> 00:14:25.250 align:middle line:84% And she never lets me forget that. 00:14:25.250 --> 00:14:27.640 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:14:27.640 --> 00:14:30.503 align:middle line:84% Any time I talk to her, she's like, you know 00:14:30.503 --> 00:14:31.670 align:middle line:90% I gave you that book, right? 00:14:31.670 --> 00:14:33.041 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:14:33.041 --> 00:14:35.055 align:middle line:84% You know the one that almost won? 00:14:35.055 --> 00:14:35.930 align:middle line:90% I gave you that book. 00:14:35.930 --> 00:14:37.900 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:14:37.900 --> 00:14:41.080 align:middle line:84% But that's probably a good place to stop.