WEBVTT

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Of course, that core family--

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the one that
supposedly always has

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to take you in no matter what?

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That core family
has been, for me,

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a real source of
love and contention

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and all of those things.

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But one thing we
did agree on was

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that for all of the
picnic holidays,

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like Labor Day and
Memorial Day, that we

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would get together and eat.

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Food-- food was the
connecting force.

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And so I grew up in--

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as many of you may know,
I grew up in the Midwest.

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And you could probably
hear that, and yet--

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in Akron, Ohio.

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And because of the
politics of this nation,

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most of my neighbors
and most of my relatives

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came from the South, looking
for jobs, in the '20s.

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And so there's a curious
and interesting sense

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of moving that Southern cuisine
and language all the way up

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into the Midwest.

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"Family Reunion"-- "30
seconds into the barbecue,

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my Cleveland cousins have
everyone speaking Southern,

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broadened vowels and dropped
consonants, whoops and caws.

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It's more osmosis than magic,
a sliding thrall back to a time

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when working the tire factories
meant entire neighborhoods

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coming up from
Georgia or Tennessee,

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accents helplessly intact, while
their children, inflections

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flattened to match the field
they thought they were playing

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on, knew without asking when it
was safe to roll out a drawl,

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just as it's understood
"potluck" means resurrecting

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the food we've abandoned along
the way for the sake of sleeker

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thighs.

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I look over the
yard to the porch

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with its battalion of
aunts, the wavering

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ranks of uncles at the grill.

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Everywhere else, hordes
of progeny are swirling,

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and my cousins
yakking on as if they

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were waist-deep in quicksand
but, like the books recommend,

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aren't moving until
someone hauls them free.

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Who are all these children?

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Who had them, and with whom?

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Through the general
coffee tones,

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the shame genetics
cut a creamy swath.

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Cherokee's burnt umber
transposed onto generous lips,

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a glance flares gray above
the crushed nose we label

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'Anonymous African.'

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It's all here, the beautiful
geometry of Mendel's peas

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and their grim logic.

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And though we remain clearly
divided on the merits of okra,

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there's still time to
demolish the cheese grits

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and tear into slow-cooked
ribs so tender

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we agree they're worth the
extra pound or two our menfolk

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swear we'll always
bring them home.

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Pity the poor soul
who lives a life

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without butter, those pinched
knees and tennis shoulders

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and hatchety smiles."

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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You don't have to
clap after each poem,

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though I must say I'm on
the side of not liking okra.

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My husband loves it.

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We have this argument
all the time.

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It's a consistency
thing, you know?

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