WEBVTT

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And it means a lot to me as
many because my own relationship

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to jails and all that
but also my son who

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did 15 years in prison.

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And my son Ramiro who I
wrote the book [INAUDIBLE]

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and you mentioned him.

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The thing about
him just so people

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know he's doing really well now.

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He's been out of
prison for 10 years.

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He did all those years.

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But he-- took him a long time.

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It's very hard to [INAUDIBLE]
knows them very well.

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It's been hard for him
to be in the world.

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The reentry issue,
the reintegration

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is very difficult, but
he's been working at it

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and now he does danza.

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He does Mexika danza, and
he also writes poetry.

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He himself is a poet.

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And he's also helping
mentor people.

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We started a program at Tia
Chucha's Centro Cultural

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called From Trauma
to Transformation,

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working with the formerly
incarcerated people

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and institutions, and now
he's been helping with that,

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working with one guy who
did 28 years in prison

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and another guy
who did 10 years.

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And there's other people
that we were working with.

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So my son is doing really good.

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I want to mention that just
because his name came up.

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I want to end with this poem
to Los Angeles because it is--

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again, Los Angeles to me--

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I've lived in the
Bay Area, I've lived

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in Chicago 15 years
and the Inland Empire,

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which people don't know.

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Diana knows.

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Inland Empire's where LA
County, San Bernardino County,

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and Riverside County meet,
that area that meets there,

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and I lived there for
a couple of years.

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But LA's really my home.

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Even though I left
it for a long time,

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I consider it where
I am from, and it's

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my imagination really
grows and develops

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and where I feel
there's only belonging.

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It's LA, and LA's
a really hard place

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to belong to as
anybody knows LA.

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But I do.

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And so this is my poem
to LA and one of my poems

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that I wrote when I was
poet laureate of the city.

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I was very honored to
do that 2014 and 2016.

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And it goes like this.

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This is Los Angeles where
Santa Ana winds scatter

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dry leaves and droughts make
tinder out of the formerly

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green brush, where wildfires
are metaphor and reality

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for our internal and
external terrains,

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where the city is
music but also muscles,

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a rain dance often with no rain.

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Neon glared, smog-tint
skyline held together

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in a spiderweb of freeways.

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It's a place where even
jacarandas and palm

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trees are transplants.

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This is where the city's
buildings are bricked

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and nailed together with
survival stories, war stories,

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and love stories, the
kind of harrowing accounts

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Los Angeles unfurls at 3:00
AM when ghosts meander along

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the upturned pavement or
rumble by on vintage cars

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and all night diners
convert into summits

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for the played out,
heartsick, and suicidal.

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There's a migrant soul in
this rooted city, Skid Row

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next to the diamond
district, waves

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of foam against barnacled
piers, cafes, and boutiques

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next to botanical.

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Ravines and gullies
turn into barrios,

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rustic homes with gardens
dot bleak cityscapes,

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and suburbs burst with
world class graffiti.

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Fragmented yet
cohesive, Los Angeles

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demands reflection on ourselves
and the unstable ground

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we call home where people die
for a lack of a roof or food

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or compassion.

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As renowned LA writer
John Fante would say,

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"These persons are
songs over sidewalks,

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imaginations under inner
change, humanity that deserves

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connection, touch, breath.

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These roads, bridges, and
alleys also contain concertos.

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Breezes over the
ocean's darkest depths

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are replete with harmonies, and
a howling moon and red sunset

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serve as backdrops for
every aching interlude.

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Los Angeles is where
every step rhymes,

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where languages flit off tongues
like bows across strings.

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Skateboarders and
aerosol spray cans

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clatter in a daily percussion
and even angels intone,

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We can do better.

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We can do better while
haggling at garage sales.

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Thank you.

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[FAINT APPLAUSE]

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Thank you so much,
Luis, and I really

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appreciated you giving context
to all of the other things

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that you've been doing aside
from your most recent book, Tia

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Chucha's Cultural Center, the
books that can be found online.

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You also have a
bookstore, and you're also

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doing a lot of
transformative work

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not only about prison reform
but also just about trauma,

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trauma that is in
underrepresented communities

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everywhere.

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So I just--

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I honor the work that you do.

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We've been friends
for a long time.

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And it's just you're
such an inspiration,

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and then you have such
good friends here, too,

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who are amazing poets.

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So I'm so glad that you
were able to invite them.

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