Rodney, I don't know why you did this.
Rodney told me to read this piece
and then he read this piece.
[LAUGHTER]
Rodney specifically requested this piece and then he read it.
I've known Rodney for a long time,
but I've never seen this side of him.
[LAUGHTER]
But I'll read it again, though.
It's called "Ulysses."
I read this in the juvie hall today.
Before I went in, this great guy who brought me in
told me-- he said something about stuffy poets, about
classics, and things like that, And that wouldn't go over
with the juvie kids.
And he was saying, that's why he brought me
in because I'm not stuffy.
And then I decided to read Ulysses first.
I don't know why.
Just to be ordinary.
And I said I'm going to read a piece called "Ulysses."
That I went back into the archetypes of lost
fathers and one is Ulysses.
And does anyone know who Ulysses is?
And this one kid in the back raised his hand and goes,
isn't it Odysseus?
And I was like, whoa, yes, that's the Greek pronunciation.
And a lot of them knew.
They all knew this, like, oh, yeah, we know that.
So there you go.
"Ulysses."
"Many fathers"-- and the book, I'll just tell you,
it deals with-- just in case you don't know, it's a memoir.
I worked with the homeless for six years in Boston
and my father got evicted from where he lived after I'd
been there for three years.
I didn't know my father.
And he ended up being homeless for five years in Boston.
And he ended up at the shelter where I
worked at for part of the time.
And the book traces the trajectory of my life
and the trajectory of his life and how
we both ended up in the same place at the same time.
That's the short story.
And then I write a whole book about it.
It's called, "Ulysses."
"Many fathers are gone.
Some leave, some are left, some return unknown and hungry.
Only the dog remembers.
Even if around, most disappear all day to jobs
their children only slightly understand.
Gone to office, gone to shop.
Men in suits hiding behind closed
doors yelling into phones.
Men in coveralls reading pornography in pickup trucks.
The carpenter, the electrician, they
drive to strangers' houses.
A woman in a robe answers the door.
They sit at the table with her.
She offers coffee and cake.
They talk about the day ahead.
By nightfall, you won't recognize the bathroom,
he promises.
Monday we start in on the roof.
Many end up sitting around the house all day
sneaking sips in the woodshed.
Many drive to other towns, make love
to a woman they've been making love to for years.
Some continue to yell at their sons from the grave.
Some are less than a tattered photograph.
Some sons need to exhume the body.
Some need to see a name written in a ledger.
Some drive past a house the father once
lived in as a child, park across from it.
Some swear that if they could gaze into his face
just once their hearts would settle.
One friend inherited some money and hired
a private investigator to track down his lost father.
Paid $1000 to find out his father was dead.
All my life my father had been manifest
as an absence, a non-presence, a name without a body.
The three of us sat around the table.
My mother, brother, and I, all carrying his name.
Some part of me knew he would show up.
That if I stood in one place long enough, he would find me.
Like you're taught to do when you're lost.
But they never taught us what to do if both of you are lost
and you both end up in the same place waiting."
Mr. Flynn.
Yes, a question.
Has Penelope read this poem?
[CHUCKLES] Has Penelope read that piece?
You would have to ask Penelope, I think, yeah.
You'd have to find Penelope.
You're talking about the old Penelope.
I can't even see who's talking.
[LAUGHTER]
The Flynn Penelope.
The Flynn-- Penelope Flynn?
Your mother.
Oh, my mother, that Penelope.
[LAUGHTER]
[CHUCKLES] Wow!
She hasn't, no.
I don't think so.
Yeah, yeah.
But a good question.
I encourage more.