WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.570 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.570 --> 00:00:04.140 align:middle line:84% So that was written at the end of 2007. 00:00:04.140 --> 00:00:08.370 align:middle line:84% At the end of 2019, I was invited 00:00:08.370 --> 00:00:12.420 align:middle line:84% to honor the poet, Bob Kaufman, on the release of Collected 00:00:12.420 --> 00:00:15.450 align:middle line:84% Poems of Bob Kaufman by City Lights Publishers. 00:00:15.450 --> 00:00:19.710 align:middle line:84% And I thought the best way to honor him was with a poem. 00:00:19.710 --> 00:00:23.100 align:middle line:84% In that poem, I adopted language that, to some extent, 00:00:23.100 --> 00:00:25.710 align:middle line:90% is not my own. 00:00:25.710 --> 00:00:29.730 align:middle line:84% I did this not as a plagiarist, but as an explorer seeking 00:00:29.730 --> 00:00:33.720 align:middle line:84% language that fits the purpose of the poem. 00:00:33.720 --> 00:00:38.670 align:middle line:84% I was born in 1955, the year that Allen Ginsberg read Howl 00:00:38.670 --> 00:00:42.600 align:middle line:84% at Six Gallery in North Beach and in San Francisco. 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:46.320 align:middle line:84% And although my journey as a poet began in San Francisco, 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:50.220 align:middle line:84% I was not directly influenced by Lawrence Ferlinghetti 00:00:50.220 --> 00:00:51.090 align:middle line:90% and the Beats. 00:00:51.090 --> 00:00:54.990 align:middle line:84% I was, however, radicalized as a teen 00:00:54.990 --> 00:00:59.250 align:middle line:84% during the Black Power, the anti-war, the American Indian, 00:00:59.250 --> 00:01:01.290 align:middle line:84% the Raza, and the feminist movements. 00:01:01.290 --> 00:01:05.099 align:middle line:84% And I assumed that those movements and the Beats 00:01:05.099 --> 00:01:08.040 align:middle line:90% indirectly influenced my poetry. 00:01:08.040 --> 00:01:11.130 align:middle line:84% Kaufman was among the poets in the anthology, 00:01:11.130 --> 00:01:15.720 align:middle line:84% 3,000 Years of Black Poetry, which I stole as a teenager. 00:01:15.720 --> 00:01:18.720 align:middle line:84% And I credit many of the poets in that collection 00:01:18.720 --> 00:01:23.460 align:middle line:84% for my adolescent audacity to claim myself as a poet. 00:01:23.460 --> 00:01:26.430 align:middle line:84% And I allowed Kaufman's unique style 00:01:26.430 --> 00:01:30.780 align:middle line:84% to possess me as I wrote a praise poem to him. 00:01:30.780 --> 00:01:35.370 align:middle line:84% And I was writing in a form that was atypical for me. 00:01:35.370 --> 00:01:39.460 align:middle line:84% And I only knew Kaufman through the wizardry of his words, 00:01:39.460 --> 00:01:45.330 align:middle line:84% which is why my poem is entitled "Searching for Bob Kaufman." 00:01:45.330 --> 00:01:49.770 align:middle line:84% Hieroglyphic petals illuminate an adolescent trek 00:01:49.770 --> 00:01:53.760 align:middle line:84% through the paper fields, flat plains, and edited savannahs 00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:56.970 align:middle line:90% of 3,000 Years of Black Poetry. 00:01:56.970 --> 00:02:01.080 align:middle line:84% The traveling Trickster emerges centuries of chapters away 00:02:01.080 --> 00:02:03.090 align:middle line:90% from Africa's ancient poets-- 00:02:03.090 --> 00:02:07.170 align:middle line:84% anonymous, spine-to-spine with those known-- 00:02:07.170 --> 00:02:13.200 align:middle line:84% Wheatley, Dunbar, Brown, Hughes, Brooks, King, Jones, Evans, 00:02:13.200 --> 00:02:15.270 align:middle line:90% Giovanni, and Cruz-- 00:02:15.270 --> 00:02:18.330 align:middle line:84% bound to the sticky fingers of this Black boy, 00:02:18.330 --> 00:02:22.320 align:middle line:84% seeking non-mystical space between liberation 00:02:22.320 --> 00:02:23.910 align:middle line:90% and Ecclesiastes. 00:02:23.910 --> 00:02:26.550 align:middle line:84% He never knew this-- sometimes, speaking-in-tongues, 00:02:26.550 --> 00:02:30.600 align:middle line:84% saxophonius poet, except in sorcery, etched in ether, 00:02:30.600 --> 00:02:33.870 align:middle line:84% in improbable perfect, juxtapositions, 00:02:33.870 --> 00:02:36.210 align:middle line:84% in mind-bending visions manifest, 00:02:36.210 --> 00:02:40.530 align:middle line:84% in maddening unmarked stone, and gravity-defying language 00:02:40.530 --> 00:02:43.350 align:middle line:84% turning the underground upside down, 00:02:43.350 --> 00:02:46.530 align:middle line:84% in silence deafening to those who want to listen, 00:02:46.530 --> 00:02:49.920 align:middle line:84% in sonic waves of syllables soothing the soul 00:02:49.920 --> 00:02:54.240 align:middle line:84% of blue whales, in explosive lines fueled by heavy water, 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:57.990 align:middle line:84% in inaudible beats drowning out fascistic love-ins, 00:02:57.990 --> 00:03:01.950 align:middle line:84% in inescapable jailbreaks from forced criminality, 00:03:01.950 --> 00:03:06.360 align:middle line:84% in masses of massive solitude out in the open, 00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:09.930 align:middle line:84% in iterations blocking unblocked iterations, 00:03:09.930 --> 00:03:13.590 align:middle line:84% in revelatory secret acts of resistance. 00:03:13.590 --> 00:03:18.180 align:middle line:84% Inside the mind of a Milky Way, a black hole 00:03:18.180 --> 00:03:22.520 align:middle line:84% absorbs our light to be enlightened.