WEBVTT

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So I wanted to first
of all, thank you all,

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and thank the
Poetry Center there

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at the University of Arizona.

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And then it turns out that
these are all my friends here,

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and I really appreciate that.

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Each one of you
mean a lot to me.

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And people will say, like
with Luivette and Michael,

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and Peter, that I
publish my friends.

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Well, here's the truth.

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I don't.

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Most of Tia Chucha Press
publish people I don't know.

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But it just so happens that
I have great poet friends,

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and Diana, you're one
too, you're a good friend.

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I remember the walks
we did and talked

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we did in San Antonio,
when we were in Macondo.

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And you're amazing poet.

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So it just so
happens that I happen

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to have friends who
are great poets.

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Just to be clear I've
had a lot of friends

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send me manuscripts
who I don't publish.

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Because they're just, for
me, not where they should be.

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That's just the way it goes.

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But I do feel like
the friends who

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are great poets
include Luivette,

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and Michael, and Peter,
who are amazing poets.

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Their poetry just-- all of them
different, powerful, moving,

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deep, and encompassing.

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So I just wanted to mention
that to everybody in case

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people have any other
ideas about the stuff.

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I wanted to share
though two new poems.

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Well, at least, one new
poem, because I don't think I

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want to share the other one.

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But one new poem is--

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one of the things that I
missed because of the pandemic

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I've been teaching poetry in
prisons, and juvenile halls,

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and jails for 40 years
in one form or the other.

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Usually I do one time poetry
readings, or talks, or healing

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circles, but I've also been
doing these several weeks,

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several months, and even years
of creative writing classes.

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And since 2007, I have been
teaching at Lancaster State

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Prison in California, which
is a high level prison,

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high security level prison.

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And because of the pandemic, we
don't get a chance to go back.

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They don't allow any
more instructors,

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and they don't really allow us
to get in touch with anybody.

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And so I'm hearing from people
that people are getting sick,

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the COVID has killed
close to 60 people,

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and in the state of California,
and hundreds and hundreds

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have been sick and a lot
of families that we know

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don't know what's going on.

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They don't communicate.

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There's a lot of
problems going on here.

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And so I really miss
these guys, and women,

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because I also went to the
women's prison as well.

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So I wrote a poem
for them as well.

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And just so you know,
just so people understand,

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I also published a new book.

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I don't mind sharing it.

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You can get this
at my bookstore,

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TiaChucha.org/bookstore along
with all my books and other Tia

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Chucha Press books, all the
books from these poets are

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there.

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But Make a Poem
Cry just came out,

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and it's in creative writing
from California's Lancaster

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Prison.

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These are guys in my
classes that we published.

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We wanted to honor their
voices and came out

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during the pandemic.

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And it's edited by
myself and Kenneth E.

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Hartman who did 38 years in
the California prison system.

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So I'm going to read the
poem that I wrote based

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on this title, and it's
called Make A Poem Cry,

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and it starts with
a excerpt of a poem

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by one of the poets,
Jimmy McMillan, who

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is still incarcerated in the
prison system in California.

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And it starts with
this one line--

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"I can't see him
coming from my eye.

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So I had to make this poem cry.

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You can chain the body, the
face, the eyes, the way hands

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move coarsely over
cement or deftly

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on tattooed skin with needle.

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You can cage the
withered membrane,

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the withered dreams, the
way razor wire shouts,

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yells, and batons
can wither spirit.

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But how can you imprison a poem?

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How can a melody be
locked up, locked down?

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Yes, even caged birds sing.

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Even grass sprouts
through asphalt.

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Even a flower
blooms in a desert.

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And the gardens of trauma
we call the incarcerated,

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can also spring with the
vitality of a deep thought,

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and emotion buried
beneath the facades

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deep as rage, deep as grief,
the grief beneath all rages.

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The blood of such poems,
songs, emotions, thoughts,

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dances are what flow in all
art, stages, films, books.

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The keys to liberation are
in the heart and the mind,

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behind the cranial sky.

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The imagination is boundless.

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The inexhaustible in
any imprisoned system.

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And remember, we are all
in some kind of prison.

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If only the contrived
freedom society professes

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can flow from such water."

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