So poetry is really serious.
And there's certain things you can't do
in poetry, like, I don't know--
that.
Thank you for playing along.
So this last poem is based on a true story.
Before I get into that though, these flyers
are floating around.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you have not
checked out the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam,
it's high time that you did.
Make some noise if you're from the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam
and you're in the audience right now.
[CHEERING]
Yeah, they're out there.
They're among you.
This is amazing.
A lot of the competitors that you'll see on the stage today
will also be at the championship, which
will be held right here, on April 20, Saturday, 1:00 PM,
just like today.
We'd like to see all of you back.
Because on April 20, they will be performing their own poems
that they composed themselves.
So it's open to all youth.
If you are interested in being a part of that,
grab one of these flyers, because you
got to qualify before you can come to the championship.
We would love to have you.
It's one of my favorite things going on in Tucson,
together with Poetry Out Loud.
They're like sisters.
It's amazing.
All right.
This last poem is a true story.
I was driving out to Sells for some work, two weeks ago
with a good friend, and I for really real, really, really,
for real saw chupacabras.
[LAUGHTER]
For real.
I've lived here most of my life, and have never seen one.
And this poem is called "El Chupacabras Crosses Highway 86
on the Tohono O'odham Nation."
"It is 8:00 AM, and the chupacabras
is the only one not in a hurry.
We are trying to make it to Sells, Arizona on time.
We're trying to keep our human time.
And the chupacabras is really not
in a hurry for his appointment of cabras de chupar,
for his appointment of terror.
It lopes, slow and hairless, unafraid to be seen.
There is snow on the face of Baboquivari
and my soul rattles ribs at 8:00 AM, as the truck in front of us
does not brake for the chupacabras.
Either that, or we are seeing something
that the other drivers are not seeing.
Did you see that, I ask.
And I am so thankful when Sarita replies, [SQUEALING]..
All that is Arizona in me moves at once,
from shoulder to shoulder, as this is not a dog I am seeing.
I've seen coyote this of all kinds cross all kinds of lines.
And this is no coyote, and no kind of hurry that I recognize.
The other truck does not slow down.
We are going to a place to talk to some people about a thing.
We are driving from Tucson to Sells.
From the white city with a Native name to the Native city
with a white name.
And then there's the chupacabras.
And all that is goat in me shudders,
scared as if somebody had just said barbacoa.
And I am aware of where the water is
in my body, of what [? Hasan ?] looks like covered in snow.
And the ears are back, and the snout is forward,
and it is 8:00 AM, in winter light on the res.
Why did the chupacabras cross the road?
If I knew, don't you think I would have said so by now?
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
I think you know who.
And if I knew, what would be the point
of writing all these poems?
We are on Highway 86 going 68 when it all
slows down, and makes feel something other than sense,
makes part of me move off into the desert
on a blanket of wildflowers, barely born, still unbloomed.
And I'm no longer in the car.
I no longer believe in the agency of no la prisa que contiene.
I am other, I am roaming, I am off the grid lines.
I'm off the highway and there's no taxonomy for me,
nor any myth to be busted.
I'm a four legged legend--
a story, a movement, a warm blooded fear--
my movement inexplicable towards the wordless desert trees.
My time is other there and my name is unpronounceable.
And certain circles, like the circles
held by the arms of the clock, and scientific circles,
I am outside, books and biology outside your lines
your ideas of nomenclature and extinction, redress
and preservation.
A glance, and I knock, knock the stale hegemony of your science.
Knock, knock.
I am the butt of a joke, as the poet makes an ass of himself,
disguising his fear with cartoonish humor.
I chase no roadrunners, poet.
I am not the cabros que chupo poeta,
I am not what you've heard.
I'm crossing the pavement, late dawn in the dead of winter.
Life of living, no soy la línea entre city and reservation.
I am this wordlessness crossing into stories,
keeping kids up at night.
I am moving off the highway carrying all the lives of all
the children that La Llorona has saved from drowning
with merely her story.
I am stepping, skin and bones, knowing
that merely the story of me can scare you safe,
poeta, I am passing with the power of turning tierra
tiradita into tierra velada,
making altars to sinners on consecrated ground.
You want to take a photo of me to prove that I exist,
and yet inside, you already know that I exist inside you.
And you believe only in pictures,
and yet you yourself are made of stories, only.
I have crossed the line of human rush, a field of vision,
blue fields to cold fields to big fields to the old fields
by the Santa Cruz.
Buried under landfill, humanity under obliviousness.
Notice, poet, this uncharted desert of spines with flowers.
This place that defines you and defies you.
This thirst, it will break you, poet.
Today, in this desert, it will snow.
This is not what you think it is,
and yet you will tell this story of me
for the rest of your life.
And this is why I crossed the road, poet.
To remind you."
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you all very much.