WEBVTT

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So this is a letter that I got.

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I got two more.

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This is a letter I got
from Walpole prison, prison

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in Massachusetts.

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And I think I'll
read the letter,

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and then I'll turn
around and do the poem,

00:00:20.660 --> 00:00:23.180 align:middle line:90%
because it's broken up.

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Sitting in my dimly lit cell
after having my possessions

00:00:27.200 --> 00:00:30.110 align:middle line:84%
confiscated from
me, my loneliness

00:00:30.110 --> 00:00:33.860 align:middle line:84%
demanded that I disrupt my
neighbor requesting something

00:00:33.860 --> 00:00:39.320 align:middle line:84%
to read, which, in itself, is
a task in my repressive housing

00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:40.550 align:middle line:90%
condition.

00:00:40.550 --> 00:00:43.070 align:middle line:84%
To receive anything
from your neighbor,

00:00:43.070 --> 00:00:47.540 align:middle line:84%
one must attach a solid
object to a line, torn sheet,

00:00:47.540 --> 00:00:50.720 align:middle line:84%
and take direct aim
at the cell behind him

00:00:50.720 --> 00:00:54.890 align:middle line:84%
and hope the line is close
enough to the two-inch opening

00:00:54.890 --> 00:00:58.400 align:middle line:84%
at the bottom of your
door to retract his line

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and whatever else
that might be attached

00:01:00.860 --> 00:01:04.580 align:middle line:84%
to it, which, in this
instance, happens

00:01:04.580 --> 00:01:08.270 align:middle line:90%
to have been a poem by you.

00:01:08.270 --> 00:01:11.150 align:middle line:84%
I was real impressed
with your writing--

00:01:11.150 --> 00:01:15.110 align:middle line:84%
how you was able to relate
misfortunate and articulate it

00:01:15.110 --> 00:01:16.490 align:middle line:90%
on paper.

00:01:16.490 --> 00:01:18.320 align:middle line:90%
I also enjoy writing--

00:01:18.320 --> 00:01:20.900 align:middle line:84%
not particularly
poetry-- but at times

00:01:20.900 --> 00:01:25.400 align:middle line:84%
I find myself needing to
express what I am feeling.

00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:28.460 align:middle line:84%
And having no other
outlet other than my pen,

00:01:28.460 --> 00:01:32.360 align:middle line:84%
I create stories that have
a favorable scenario, which,

00:01:32.360 --> 00:01:35.960 align:middle line:84%
most of the time,
helps ease my pain.

00:01:35.960 --> 00:01:39.740 align:middle line:84%
At this time, I am indigent
and have no one that

00:01:39.740 --> 00:01:42.500 align:middle line:90%
would purchase poetry for me.

00:01:42.500 --> 00:01:46.040 align:middle line:84%
If possible, please
send me poetry.

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Sitting in my dimly lit cell
after having all my possessions

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confiscated from me.

00:01:55.285 --> 00:01:57.790 align:middle line:90%


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In some places a man owns
only what he can see.

00:02:01.990 --> 00:02:04.990 align:middle line:84%
He can own a pummeled
wall, a sheet

00:02:04.990 --> 00:02:08.470 align:middle line:84%
laundered until it is
blade, a letter groaning

00:02:08.470 --> 00:02:10.900 align:middle line:90%
at its folds and folds.

00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:13.870 align:middle line:84%
He could possess a
hoard slab of bread,

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an hoarded slab of bread,
neon wads of chewed gum,

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one curling-cornered Polaroid
of a small brown boy,

00:02:21.880 --> 00:02:25.750 align:middle line:84%
pages from an old magazine
scarred with semen, water,

00:02:25.750 --> 00:02:27.430 align:middle line:90%
and soup.

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If he's lucky, he also
owns a squat jar of oil

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he uses to grease his scalp
and shine his dusty knees.

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Even these are too many things.

00:02:39.130 --> 00:02:43.000 align:middle line:84%
What is owned by some men
is owned by other men.

00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:46.750 align:middle line:90%
Some men are owned.

00:02:46.750 --> 00:02:51.550 align:middle line:84%
My loneliness demanded
that I disrupt my neighbor.

00:02:51.550 --> 00:02:54.850 align:middle line:84%
How to tell if a
Black man is lonely--

00:02:54.850 --> 00:03:00.070 align:middle line:84%
he stumbles into a lyric
and never comes out.

00:03:00.070 --> 00:03:03.250 align:middle line:90%
Requesting something to read.

00:03:03.250 --> 00:03:06.940 align:middle line:84%
The words he didn't know
came back to him in dreams,

00:03:06.940 --> 00:03:08.890 align:middle line:90%
letters tumbled and coaxed.

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If he remembered the sounds,
he clicked and hissed them

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in his sleep, desperate to cram
the wayward rhythms into place.

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When he awoke, his mouth
was ripe and wounded--

00:03:19.930 --> 00:03:22.750 align:middle line:84%
and always gaping
wide, wrestling

00:03:22.750 --> 00:03:26.440 align:middle line:84%
with another song
he could not sing,

00:03:26.440 --> 00:03:30.370 align:middle line:84%
which, in itself, is a task
in my repressive housing

00:03:30.370 --> 00:03:32.290 align:middle line:90%
condition.

00:03:32.290 --> 00:03:34.630 align:middle line:84%
Sometimes he
forgets where he is.

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He opens his eyes and thinks,
I'll have my coffee first.

00:03:38.260 --> 00:03:42.400 align:middle line:84%
But then the smell of other
men rides in on a rancid wave

00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:43.570 align:middle line:90%
and dizzies him.

00:03:43.570 --> 00:03:46.570 align:middle line:84%
All those caged
bodies rising at once.

00:03:46.570 --> 00:03:50.680 align:middle line:84%
The terrible lies, they slept
inside, escaping their bodies

00:03:50.680 --> 00:03:53.260 align:middle line:90%
like smoke.

00:03:53.260 --> 00:03:55.360 align:middle line:84%
To receive anything
from your neighbor,

00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:59.740 align:middle line:84%
one must attach a solid
object to a line-torn sheet

00:03:59.740 --> 00:04:03.070 align:middle line:84%
and take direct aim
at the cell behind him

00:04:03.070 --> 00:04:06.100 align:middle line:84%
and hope and hope
the line is close

00:04:06.100 --> 00:04:09.700 align:middle line:84%
enough to the two-inch opening
at the bottom of your door

00:04:09.700 --> 00:04:13.600 align:middle line:84%
to retract his line and whatever
else that might be attached

00:04:13.600 --> 00:04:16.209 align:middle line:84%
to it, which, in this
instance, happens

00:04:16.209 --> 00:04:19.450 align:middle line:90%
to have been a poem by you.

00:04:19.450 --> 00:04:21.490 align:middle line:84%
He used to think
that poetry was all

00:04:21.490 --> 00:04:23.440 align:middle line:90%
about the longing for a woman--

00:04:23.440 --> 00:04:26.320 align:middle line:84%
trying to put into pretty
words the good wrongs

00:04:26.320 --> 00:04:27.580 align:middle line:90%
her body could do--

00:04:27.580 --> 00:04:30.760 align:middle line:84%
or maybe about purple
fields of flowers in places

00:04:30.760 --> 00:04:33.040 align:middle line:90%
he would never find himself.

00:04:33.040 --> 00:04:35.710 align:middle line:84%
No one had told him that
a line could actually

00:04:35.710 --> 00:04:37.630 align:middle line:90%
speak his name out loud--

00:04:37.630 --> 00:04:41.170 align:middle line:84%
that his sins had shape
and heft and could line up

00:04:41.170 --> 00:04:45.340 align:middle line:84%
nice on paper just
like that woman.

00:04:45.340 --> 00:04:47.740 align:middle line:84%
I was real impressed
with your writing--

00:04:47.740 --> 00:04:51.610 align:middle line:84%
how you was able to relate
misfortunate and articulate it

00:04:51.610 --> 00:04:53.800 align:middle line:90%
on paper.

00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:56.260 align:middle line:84%
It took him hours
sometimes to scrawl

00:04:56.260 --> 00:04:58.870 align:middle line:84%
that list of all the
ways he didn't fit;

00:04:58.870 --> 00:05:02.200 align:middle line:84%
turns he took that lead
him into alleys; the woman

00:05:02.200 --> 00:05:04.600 align:middle line:84%
he-- the women he
regretted leaving,

00:05:04.600 --> 00:05:08.530 align:middle line:84%
loving; that thing his mama
said he didn't listen to.

00:05:08.530 --> 00:05:10.900 align:middle line:84%
Sometimes it took him
hours, but then he

00:05:10.900 --> 00:05:12.820 align:middle line:90%
had a list of what he'd done.

00:05:12.820 --> 00:05:16.240 align:middle line:84%
And when he looked at where
he was, it all made sense.

00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:19.264 align:middle line:90%
He always heard men asking, why?

00:05:19.264 --> 00:05:20.470 align:middle line:90%
why?

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And now he knew.

00:05:23.620 --> 00:05:25.420 align:middle line:90%
I also enjoy writing--

00:05:25.420 --> 00:05:27.730 align:middle line:84%
not particularly
poetry-- but at times

00:05:27.730 --> 00:05:32.590 align:middle line:84%
I find myself needing to
express what I am feeling.

00:05:32.590 --> 00:05:34.720 align:middle line:90%
What he is feeling--

00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:41.740 align:middle line:84%
a cracked aura, deep blue
at 3:00 PM on Tuesdays,

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like drinking a
really bitter beer,

00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:52.480 align:middle line:84%
mad at that roach on his wall,
lonely as a motherfucker,

00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:55.720 align:middle line:84%
like writing the
word "headstrong,"

00:05:55.720 --> 00:06:01.270 align:middle line:84%
like any damned day in
Brooklyn, like killing someone,

00:06:01.270 --> 00:06:06.010 align:middle line:84%
like killing someone
else, like walking out,

00:06:06.010 --> 00:06:09.730 align:middle line:84%
like looking straight on
at somebody, like saying,

00:06:09.730 --> 00:06:15.460 align:middle line:84%
damn you to hell, like crying
into the cap of his hands--

00:06:15.460 --> 00:06:20.230 align:middle line:90%
in other words, like a poem.

00:06:20.230 --> 00:06:23.410 align:middle line:84%
And having no other
outlet other than my pen,

00:06:23.410 --> 00:06:27.400 align:middle line:84%
I create stories that have a
favorable scenario, which most

00:06:27.400 --> 00:06:30.790 align:middle line:90%
of the time helps ease my pain.

00:06:30.790 --> 00:06:33.190 align:middle line:84%
He thinks he'd be
good in the movies

00:06:33.190 --> 00:06:37.030 align:middle line:84%
because he writes himself
into a laughter he can't stop,

00:06:37.030 --> 00:06:40.300 align:middle line:84%
he rides a horse but
doesn't shoot a gun,

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he dances with a satin-wrapped
woman in a pouring rain

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and doesn't get wet, he
writes himself a home

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where he goes from room to
room and screeches just to hear

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nobody answer.

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He thinks he'd be that good at
life so he writes himself one.

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He always looks so sharp
when he steps inside it.

00:07:00.610 --> 00:07:05.140 align:middle line:84%
And if it's bathed in blue,
he steps outside again--

00:07:05.140 --> 00:07:08.260 align:middle line:90%
rewrites the color.

00:07:08.260 --> 00:07:11.680 align:middle line:90%
At this time I am indigent.

00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:15.640 align:middle line:84%
I am nothing but my swallow
and have no one that

00:07:15.640 --> 00:07:18.400 align:middle line:90%
would purchase poetry for me.

00:07:18.400 --> 00:07:23.230 align:middle line:84%
If possible, please-- he's
writing a face that he has

00:07:23.230 --> 00:07:27.490 align:middle line:84%
conjured, a Black girl who looks
like his sister and he wishes

00:07:27.490 --> 00:07:29.400 align:middle line:90%
she could see him--

00:07:29.400 --> 00:07:33.890 align:middle line:90%
send me poetry.

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