WEBVTT

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Evie, thanks.

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I really enjoyed your reading.

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You know, I wonder
in semiautomatic.

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I mean, there are a number of
longer poems and poems that

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deal with the general theme of
violence against black bodies,

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and then, Alison was talking
about a number of other poems

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that deal with language
in different forms

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and a variety of other topics.

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And they're scattered in
throughout, and I wonder,

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did you consider, say, grouping
them all thematically together

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and keeping the ones that
were on theme in sections

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by themselves and putting
the others in sections?

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Or, obviously, you
made a conscious choice

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to mix it all up, and I wondered
about your process for that.

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Can you all hear me?

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Yeah?

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So thank you, I
mean, for thinking

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about the book and this
organization with such care.

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You're right.

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The organization,
threading the poems that

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were on similar themes
through the sections

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rather than collecting them
together was very purposeful.

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Part of what I was thinking
about with semiautomatic

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was how the various forms of
violence that I was working

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with, violence to Black bodies,
particularly police brutality,

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but also, violence to women,
violence to the planet,

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the violence of war, that
they are inseparable,

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that we're not going to
solve one of these problems

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without solving the others.

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So that was very much
going through my head

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and informing my decision to
mix the themes so to speak.

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The individual poems
are meant to show

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some of those
connections, but I hope

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that threading them
together through the book

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would also kind of
highlight that aspect of it,

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that you would
see ideas surface.

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Not just in other
poems that were

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on the same immediate
topic, but across topics.

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Thanks.

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I have tons of
questions, but Patrick,

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can you talk a
little bit about how

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you kind of came into your own
in terms of how you perform?

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There's a lot of poet--

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you know, people talk about
how poets present their work.

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And you have a very distinct
way of presenting your work,

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and I just want to know if
you kind of were born that way

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or how that evolved know.

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Because it's very
powerful, so if you

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could just share a
little bit about that.

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Sure, my father was
a Catholic priest.

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He left-- my mom and him
had an affair in Chicago.

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Out of shame, my
mom fled to Canada

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and gave birth to my
brother pretty much alone,

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mostly homeless.

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They eventually-- well,
they were still in touch.

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And my father would
visit her there,

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and they continued their affair.

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She got pregnant,
again, with me,

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and that's when my father,
finally, left the priesthood.

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But my father sort of--

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he had the rhetorical power
of the pulpit as complicated

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of a man as he was.

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And then I grew up with that
power, the power of the pulpit.

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I grew up with the power
of hip-hop and soul music.

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I grew up with the
power of storytellers.

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When I went back home
to the Philippines,

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I remember my uncle Charlie.

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This is just so deeply
ingrained in my head.

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I bought him a machete.

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He's a farmer, and
the day that I left,

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he was sharpening his
machete on his wet stone.

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And he was telling me stories
about my grandfather and World

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War II, as he was sharpening his
machete, so that's my poetry,

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you know?

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Like all this stuff that I
do with books, Guggenheim,

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everything like that,
that's a translation.

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My poetry is the body.

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My poetry is
gathering with folks.

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My poetry is singing, and
dancing, and laughing,

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and cussing.

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[APPLAUSE]

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I was wondering if
each of you could

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speak to how you thought about
approaching the work that you

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read tonight, where these
projects that you were already

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thinking about before
taking the commission,

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and it seems like, perhaps,
a daunting task to be given

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a topic and say, OK,
now, go write something.

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So anything you wanted
to share about how

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you arrived at what you
read tonight would be great.

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So I don't know if
you were a plant.

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We have two diametrically
opposed answers.

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I took the commission
thinking, well, yes, I'm

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already thinking about these
issues in a certain way.

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I'll just keep writing poems
on the subject, and you know,

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it's a year from now.

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Sure, and pretty
quickly realized,

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oh, it's a very different thing
to set out with an expectation

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that I'm going to have something
to say that I didn't say

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already, first of all, and to
fulfill that goal that I always

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have for my poetry, which
is to learn something

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in the process of writing it.

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You know, I really--

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it was much harder to come
up with a series of poems

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on a very, in some ways,
particularly defined topic.

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Although, there's so much
in it at the same time,

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I still have now
thousands of poems

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that I want to write for
this commission that are not

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necessarily going to be a
part of this commission,

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but that I'll be writing
for years to come

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on a much gentler time pace.

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But yeah, it was definitely
unlike any of my writing

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before.

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I'm going to write to this topic
by this date, so let me dive in

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and sort of make it happen.

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And it was a good
stretching of some muscles

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that I haven't usually used.

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Yeah, I've been
reading and writing

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about the intersections
between Filipinos

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and Black folks, Filipinos and
a lot of other communities, too,

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for a long, long
time, and specifically

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the role of Black soldiers in
the Philippine-American war.

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And I could talk for
another hour, which

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I won't, about
those connections,

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and this was an
opportunity to sort of make

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that research materialize.

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But also, I made the
realization last year

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that I might be having these
conversations with the dead,

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and I wanted to transcribe it.

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I wanted to--

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I don't know.

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But yet, it's something
that has been ongoing.

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It's going to go
on for a long time.

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After tonight, it
doesn't make it any less

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daunting than the fact
that I had already

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entered into something that
was related to it, you know?

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You say understanding
that music--

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I want to go back to a
little bit of process.

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And I think music and rhythm
really informs both your works,

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and I just had
more of a question

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if you could talk
about your process.

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I mean, do you write
something and then recite it

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or put the music
in and change it

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in any ways based on
the rhythm that seems

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to be very important to you?

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What is that process?

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Oh, I'm so sorry.

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I'll say, yeah, I
mean, music is--

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we talked about this
morning that it's my--

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it's really my guide, pace and
music in a technical sense.

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But I also want to just--

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there are all these-- this is a
concurrent text that runs along

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these kinds of story,
these transcriptions

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that I'm working on.

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And I just want to--

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I think that I can
recite it from memory.

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This is from the
Senate record in 1901.

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Let it be remembered that
most of these Filipinos

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are musicians, and the
character of their music

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is of the sentimental and
appealing to passion story.

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Filipinos dress flashily,
spend their money lavishly

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on the girls.

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They are just as dangerous
when given free social contact

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with women as that of a negro.

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Chief Toppenish--
sorry, I spoke to one

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of the prominent men of
Toppenish, Washington,

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where another riot against
Filipinos happened.

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I spoke to another prominent
man in Toppenish yesterday,

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and he said, if I had my way,
I would declare open season

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on all Filipinos.

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And there would be
no bag limit, which

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is to say that
music and sound were

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part of our criminality in 1902,
and I relish in making music.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Yes, OK, hmm, I'm just going
to think about that one

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for awhile.

00:11:22.470 --> 00:11:26.240 align:middle line:90%


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The music is on
shuffle in my head,

00:11:31.220 --> 00:11:38.450 align:middle line:84%
and there's a playlist
of pop songs, jazz songs,

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commercial jingles,
TV theme songs.

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Just all the things that we
hear that have rhythm are--

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my brain is full of them.

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And as I start to write, I
don't know when in that poem,

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Jury Duty, for example, I
started hearing Prufrock.

00:12:06.500 --> 00:12:08.930 align:middle line:84%
But it was something
about, and in the room,

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the women come and go,
speaking of Michelangelo.

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And the next thing I know,
I've got speaking of boys who

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are no angels, no, you know?

00:12:18.980 --> 00:12:24.110 align:middle line:84%
And it's just in
my head, and what

00:12:24.110 --> 00:12:29.060 align:middle line:84%
happens is, if I don't
get in the way of it,

00:12:29.060 --> 00:12:34.550 align:middle line:84%
it tells me something
about the ways

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that we can get
swept up in language.

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And I can either allow myself
in the poem to be swept up,

00:12:42.950 --> 00:12:48.410 align:middle line:84%
or I can hear it and
intervene, hear it and make

00:12:48.410 --> 00:12:53.150 align:middle line:90%
sure you hear it, work with it.

00:12:53.150 --> 00:12:58.700 align:middle line:84%
But that sort of
becoming conscious of it

00:12:58.700 --> 00:13:01.070 align:middle line:84%
is a defense
against my inability

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to stop hearing it
in the first place.

00:13:04.280 --> 00:13:06.710 align:middle line:90%
That's about it.

00:13:06.710 --> 00:13:10.500 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:13:10.500 --> 00:13:11.000 align:middle line:90%