I want to read some older poems, and some that--
I'm working on a book, I say, but I seem to be slow about it.
So some newer poems.
I used to be poet laureate of Maryland.
I was for a number of years.
And I think I was for a number of years
because they forgot about me.
[LAUGHTER]
They knew somebody was poet laureate.
Oh, yeah, that colored woman over there, at that time.
And I recently did a chapbook with two older poems.
And I made a chapbook.
And then some newer poems.
I'd like to read them.
I'm going to borrow a line from, do you know the movie
The Temptations, I think.
Not the singers.
The Fighting Temptations or something.
And there's a line in there that says, "turn off
your cell phone, young man.
Unless it's God."
You know.
And if you're not expecting he/she to call,
turn off the thing.
Anyway, the first poem in this is an older one.
I was asked to-- because when I was appointed, I said,
I don't write to direction or anything.
I'm just going to try to be a decent poet.
But I thought for the 350th anniversary
of the state of Maryland, I should do something.
It seemed right.
But then I realized that the theme for the poem was to be,
and for the celebration was to be, "Our Happy Colonial Days."
[LAUGHTER]
I'm so glad you get it.
[LAUGHTER]
Because I thought, now I had one.
I think people that looked like me had one, around Christmas.
But I don't think it even lasted all day.
So what am I to do?
So I wrote a poem that wasn't bad.
I don't remember it at all.
And then I wrote another little poem for me,
because I wanted to be true to myself, as well as others.
The poem is called, "why some people be mad at me sometimes."
They ask me to remember.
But they want me to remember their memories.
And I keep on remembering mine.
This chapbook is sort of like that.