WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.430 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:02.430 --> 00:00:04.980 align:middle line:84% The first one I'm going to read is-- can you hear me? 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:07.840 align:middle line:84% People in the back, with the hat, you can hear me. 00:00:07.840 --> 00:00:08.340 align:middle line:90% Word. 00:00:08.340 --> 00:00:10.500 align:middle line:84% You can hear me, all the way, near the brick wall. 00:00:10.500 --> 00:00:13.200 align:middle line:90% Great, OK. 00:00:13.200 --> 00:00:16.800 align:middle line:84% So the first one I'm going to read is a ghazal, "guh-zall," 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:17.910 align:middle line:90% as I say. 00:00:17.910 --> 00:00:19.710 align:middle line:90% [MAKES GUTTURAL SOUND] 00:00:19.710 --> 00:00:27.990 align:middle line:84% And it's like a deeply, ancient Turkish and Persian tradition. 00:00:27.990 --> 00:00:30.810 align:middle line:84% Structured form-- just on some nerd shit. 00:00:30.810 --> 00:00:34.800 align:middle line:84% It's in couplets, usually, about five. 00:00:34.800 --> 00:00:36.600 align:middle line:90% But, I truly said, fuck that. 00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:38.220 align:middle line:90% I'm going to do whatever I want. 00:00:38.220 --> 00:00:39.030 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:39.030 --> 00:00:44.610 align:middle line:84% Rhyming word-- so same word at the end of each couplet. 00:00:44.610 --> 00:00:47.430 align:middle line:84% Rhyming word before that same word. 00:00:47.430 --> 00:00:50.400 align:middle line:90% And I think the notion is-- 00:00:50.400 --> 00:00:52.650 align:middle line:90% first of all, it's rap. 00:00:52.650 --> 00:00:53.850 align:middle line:90% Actually, it's just bars. 00:00:53.850 --> 00:00:56.640 align:middle line:90% It's just like Persian bars. 00:00:56.640 --> 00:00:57.930 align:middle line:90% That's just what that is. 00:00:57.930 --> 00:01:05.850 align:middle line:84% But it's also a way to consider a word, which is the repeated 00:01:05.850 --> 00:01:07.920 align:middle line:90% word, and implode it. 00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:09.040 align:middle line:90% Think about what it means. 00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:10.470 align:middle line:84% Think about what it means when it looks like this. 00:01:10.470 --> 00:01:11.820 align:middle line:84% Think about what it means when it looks like that. 00:01:11.820 --> 00:01:12.660 align:middle line:84% Think about what it means when it 00:01:12.660 --> 00:01:14.580 align:middle line:84% looks like that, this, this-- and turn it 00:01:14.580 --> 00:01:15.780 align:middle line:90% over a bunch of times. 00:01:15.780 --> 00:01:20.610 align:middle line:84% And as I was doing research and interviews with this project-- 00:01:20.610 --> 00:01:22.860 align:middle line:84% talking to folks who've been incarcerated, 00:01:22.860 --> 00:01:26.460 align:middle line:84% who have family members, fathers, sons, brothers, lovers 00:01:26.460 --> 00:01:29.160 align:middle line:90% who've been incarcerated-- 00:01:29.160 --> 00:01:32.085 align:middle line:84% the word that kept coming up was "how." 00:01:32.085 --> 00:01:33.870 align:middle line:90% Like how are we-- 00:01:33.870 --> 00:01:35.610 align:middle line:84% I mean, they're literally kidnapping us. 00:01:35.610 --> 00:01:37.170 align:middle line:90% It's kidnap. 00:01:37.170 --> 00:01:38.258 align:middle line:90% And I was like, how? 00:01:38.258 --> 00:01:40.050 align:middle line:84% I mean, you're, like, in the Twilight Zone. 00:01:40.050 --> 00:01:44.070 align:middle line:84% You know it's true, but the more you dig, the more you're like, 00:01:44.070 --> 00:01:48.120 align:middle line:90% I understand less. 00:01:48.120 --> 00:01:52.170 align:middle line:84% And I started with this poet, Nazim Hikmet, 00:01:52.170 --> 00:01:54.540 align:middle line:84% who's a Turkish poet-- who was a Turkish poet-- who 00:01:54.540 --> 00:01:57.307 align:middle line:84% was imprisoned, actually, for his radical beliefs 00:01:57.307 --> 00:01:57.890 align:middle line:90% in his poetry. 00:01:57.890 --> 00:02:00.780 align:middle line:90% 00:02:00.780 --> 00:02:02.360 align:middle line:90% "Ghazal to Open Cages." 00:02:02.360 --> 00:02:05.862 align:middle line:90% 00:02:05.862 --> 00:02:08.690 align:middle line:90% This begins with a quote by him. 00:02:08.690 --> 00:02:12.920 align:middle line:84% '"We'll still live with the outside, 00:02:12.920 --> 00:02:18.410 align:middle line:84% with its people and animals and struggle and wind.' 00:02:18.410 --> 00:02:19.250 align:middle line:90% Nazim Hikmet. 00:02:19.250 --> 00:02:22.000 align:middle line:90% 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:28.510 align:middle line:84% If my trifling mouth might call you, brother, my travel, 00:02:28.510 --> 00:02:33.610 align:middle line:84% creaky, bitten black of it, the telephone line of a poem 00:02:33.610 --> 00:02:36.100 align:middle line:90% will show how. 00:02:36.100 --> 00:02:40.150 align:middle line:84% Relentless teacher, ghost I chose. 00:02:40.150 --> 00:02:45.100 align:middle line:84% No parent, no province, no poem can erase you. 00:02:45.100 --> 00:02:48.620 align:middle line:84% What fire's afraid of its own glow? 00:02:48.620 --> 00:02:50.140 align:middle line:90% How? 00:02:50.140 --> 00:02:57.280 align:middle line:84% Beneath bloom, beneath wing, under a God-shucked sky, 00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:00.790 align:middle line:84% your freedom is a fragrance even below. 00:03:00.790 --> 00:03:02.260 align:middle line:90% How? 00:03:02.260 --> 00:03:03.550 align:middle line:90% Oh. 00:03:03.550 --> 00:03:07.030 align:middle line:84% I must close my eyes to say this, brother, 00:03:07.030 --> 00:03:12.460 align:middle line:84% but the breast, the heat, and long reign of a woman 00:03:12.460 --> 00:03:16.060 align:middle line:90% will find you no how. 00:03:16.060 --> 00:03:20.410 align:middle line:84% Blessed brain, harvest of the captive, 00:03:20.410 --> 00:03:23.020 align:middle line:90% makes a way out of none. 00:03:23.020 --> 00:03:28.300 align:middle line:84% When I say a universe thrums in here, do not go. 00:03:28.300 --> 00:03:30.140 align:middle line:90% How? 00:03:30.140 --> 00:03:33.560 align:middle line:84% A filth rises above the floorboards. 00:03:33.560 --> 00:03:37.160 align:middle line:84% If steel knows you like the pit knows the plum, 00:03:37.160 --> 00:03:38.630 align:middle line:90% then be the song. 00:03:38.630 --> 00:03:39.890 align:middle line:90% Be the crow. 00:03:39.890 --> 00:03:42.250 align:middle line:90% Be the how. 00:03:42.250 --> 00:03:47.760 align:middle line:84% How could I love you right but fasten no roses to your name? 00:03:47.760 --> 00:03:53.250 align:middle line:84% Your spirit, your heart, afraid reed that knows how. 00:03:53.250 --> 00:03:59.950 align:middle line:84% Nazim, show us a room dying can't enter. 00:03:59.950 --> 00:04:00.900 align:middle line:90% [FINGERS SNAPPING] 00:04:00.900 --> 00:04:06.360 align:middle line:84% Past grave and flesh, they imprisoned a poet? 00:04:06.360 --> 00:04:09.870 align:middle line:90% They stopped a river's flow. 00:04:09.870 --> 00:04:11.070 align:middle line:90% How?" 00:04:11.070 --> 00:04:12.270 align:middle line:90% [CHEERS] 00:04:12.270 --> 00:04:15.320 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:15.320 --> 00:04:17.000 align:middle line:90%