WEBVTT

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And I'm going to read
a poem I've never read

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but I thought I would tonight.

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I think because of Fay.

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"Poem In the Manner
of Audre Lorde."

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And this is in a
Belladonna book.

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Yeah, Belladonna
people are here.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Yay!

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They did request this,
which were my answers

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to Pablo Neruda's
questions, because you

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know I'm a woman who answers
Pablo Neruda's questions.

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So hey, he asked them.

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I'm going to answer them.

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So anyway but here
here's a "Poem

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in the Manner of Audre Lorde."

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And I think she would
be OK with this.

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Who knows?

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I know of no woman to better
wrestle death, throw her down,

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those hammer locks were bold.

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But she won.

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It may have been a La
Fortuna's kindness.

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You miss these times.

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You miss the return of
virulent Republicans

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with their fantasies of
freedom as a wealth producer.

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We have few weapons
against these gluttons.

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Materials, marble,
gold, Arctic oil

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have their glamors in place.

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And bedazzled are the populists,
murder, mayhem, plantation life

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around the way.

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Oh, these young people lacking
the power of the blues.

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They don't know the walk
with me and wait with me

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and watch for me.

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We are not we.

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Women motion forward, nails
hardened, hearts weary.

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Who has left her daughter
for the five minute

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fantasy of a perfect world.

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Who has let her son become
the man who could not be boy.

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Who has left her kin
angry at her children,

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angry for her children.

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But, we Black women have
been unheard, unseen, unknown

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before.

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We've been dazzling,
daunting, and dangerous too.

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We have women's eyes
and ears and our hearts

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full of palm wine tails.

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Our African inheritance,
and whether we sing it well

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or we sing it poorly,
our singing is crucial.

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We have a legacy that forgives
our whispers and screams.

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We make our own songs
to sing, African women

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born in the New World.

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We make our own ways to be,
African women born in the New

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World.

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We live dangerous truth, African
women born in the New World.

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We are the surprise of paradise.

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