WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.660 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.660 --> 00:00:03.630 align:middle line:90%
Good evening, Tuscon.

00:00:03.630 --> 00:00:05.970 align:middle line:84%
It's my first time
here, actually.

00:00:05.970 --> 00:00:09.630 align:middle line:84%
It's a beautiful,
beautiful city.

00:00:09.630 --> 00:00:12.540 align:middle line:84%
You have wild vegetation,
which is amazing.

00:00:12.540 --> 00:00:15.090 align:middle line:84%
I grew up in LA, but
the density of LA

00:00:15.090 --> 00:00:19.060 align:middle line:84%
doesn't really show much
of the vegetation there.

00:00:19.060 --> 00:00:20.990 align:middle line:84%
So I'm really impressed
by your cacti.

00:00:20.990 --> 00:00:25.140 align:middle line:90%


00:00:25.140 --> 00:00:27.900 align:middle line:84%
Thank you to the Poetry
Center and for the Center

00:00:27.900 --> 00:00:30.660 align:middle line:84%
for Creative Photography
for bringing me here.

00:00:30.660 --> 00:00:32.970 align:middle line:84%
And it's really such
an honor to read

00:00:32.970 --> 00:00:37.740 align:middle line:84%
with both Javier, whom I
respect dearly as a friend

00:00:37.740 --> 00:00:40.555 align:middle line:90%
but also as an NYU cohort.

00:00:40.555 --> 00:00:43.950 align:middle line:84%
We both graduated from
the program, but also

00:00:43.950 --> 00:00:46.080 align:middle line:90%
Kim Addonizio.

00:00:46.080 --> 00:00:49.620 align:middle line:84%
I remember reading
Tell Me, which

00:00:49.620 --> 00:00:52.020 align:middle line:84%
was one of the
formative books for me.

00:00:52.020 --> 00:00:57.480 align:middle line:84%
And she put herself
on the cover,

00:00:57.480 --> 00:00:59.100 align:middle line:90%
which I thought was so kickass.

00:00:59.100 --> 00:01:02.260 align:middle line:84%
I thought she was the Joan
Jett of the poetry world--

00:01:02.260 --> 00:01:02.760 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:01:02.760 --> 00:01:04.935 align:middle line:90%
So I loved that.

00:01:04.935 --> 00:01:06.060 align:middle line:90%
It was like, yeah, tell me.

00:01:06.060 --> 00:01:09.030 align:middle line:90%
Tell me, Kim.

00:01:09.030 --> 00:01:11.760 align:middle line:84%
So I'm going to start
off with, again,

00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:16.500 align:middle line:84%
the poem that brought
me here, actually.

00:01:16.500 --> 00:01:22.330 align:middle line:84%
Again, if you haven't seen
the exhibition, go and see it.

00:01:22.330 --> 00:01:24.360 align:middle line:84%
And I'm sure people are
going to have questions

00:01:24.360 --> 00:01:27.420 align:middle line:84%
later on in conjunction to
that, so I'm pretty sure we all

00:01:27.420 --> 00:01:29.770 align:middle line:90%
have stories about it.

00:01:29.770 --> 00:01:32.410 align:middle line:90%
"Imago."

00:01:32.410 --> 00:01:37.850 align:middle line:84%
As soon as we became men, my
brother and I wore skirts.

00:01:37.850 --> 00:01:40.540 align:middle line:84%
We pinched our skirt
fronts into tents

00:01:40.540 --> 00:01:44.680 align:middle line:84%
for newly circumcised
penises, the incisions

00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:49.480 align:middle line:84%
prone to stick painfully
to our clothing.

00:01:49.480 --> 00:01:52.870 align:middle line:84%
I was partial to my sister's
plaid skirt, a school

00:01:52.870 --> 00:01:54.730 align:middle line:90%
uniform she outgrew.

00:01:54.730 --> 00:01:59.800 align:middle line:84%
My brother favored one belonging
to my grandmother, flowers

00:01:59.800 --> 00:02:02.810 align:middle line:90%
showering down his ankles.

00:02:02.810 --> 00:02:07.220 align:middle line:84%
By this stage, the skin
around the tips of our penises

00:02:07.220 --> 00:02:12.240 align:middle line:84%
was swollen the size
of dwarf tomatoes.

00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:15.450 align:middle line:84%
As a cure, my mother
boiled young offshoots

00:02:15.450 --> 00:02:17.010 align:middle line:90%
of guava leaves.

00:02:17.010 --> 00:02:19.860 align:middle line:84%
Behind the streamline
of hung fabric,

00:02:19.860 --> 00:02:24.630 align:middle line:84%
I sat on a stool and spread
before a tin wash basin.

00:02:24.630 --> 00:02:29.250 align:middle line:84%
My mother bathed my penis
with the warm broth,

00:02:29.250 --> 00:02:33.630 align:middle line:84%
the water trickling into
the basin like soft rain

00:02:33.630 --> 00:02:35.790 align:middle line:90%
on our roof.

00:02:35.790 --> 00:02:39.960 align:middle line:84%
She cradled my organ,
dried it with cotton,

00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:43.380 align:middle line:84%
wiping off the scabs
melted by the warmth,

00:02:43.380 --> 00:02:46.350 align:middle line:84%
and she wrapped it
in gauze, a cocoon

00:02:46.350 --> 00:02:49.610 align:middle line:90%
around my caterpillar sex.

00:02:49.610 --> 00:02:53.960 align:middle line:84%
I then thought of the others
at the verge of their manhood,

00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:59.400 align:middle line:84%
my brother to replace me on the
stool, a neighborhood of 11,

00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:05.060 align:middle line:84%
12, and 13-year-old boys wearing
the skirts of their sisters

00:03:05.060 --> 00:03:09.650 align:middle line:84%
and grandmothers, touched by
the hands of their mothers,

00:03:09.650 --> 00:03:15.290 align:middle line:84%
and baptized by green waters,
and how, by week's end,

00:03:15.290 --> 00:03:19.250 align:middle line:84%
we will shed our billowy
skirts like monarchs

00:03:19.250 --> 00:03:23.170 align:middle line:84%
and enter the
gardens of our lives.

00:03:23.170 --> 00:03:24.000 align:middle line:90%