WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.780 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.780 --> 00:00:06.145 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read a poem that starts with a-- 00:00:06.145 --> 00:00:07.770 align:middle line:84% this is actually one of the first poems 00:00:07.770 --> 00:00:09.810 align:middle line:90% I wrote as a student. 00:00:09.810 --> 00:00:13.800 align:middle line:84% I wrote this for one of Peter Wild's prosody classes, 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:16.059 align:middle line:84% and this was about my grandmother. 00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:22.710 align:middle line:84% And when I came here, when I first turned in poems, 00:00:22.710 --> 00:00:29.640 align:middle line:84% I turned them in Spanish because I didn't know how else to hide. 00:00:29.640 --> 00:00:34.500 align:middle line:84% And I didn't find my way into literature through books. 00:00:34.500 --> 00:00:36.630 align:middle line:84% I came from an oral culture, a tradition 00:00:36.630 --> 00:00:40.980 align:middle line:84% of family storytelling, and my literature 00:00:40.980 --> 00:00:42.520 align:middle line:90% came from somewhere else. 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:44.268 align:middle line:84% So that when I started to read books 00:00:44.268 --> 00:00:45.810 align:middle line:84% and started to be introduced to them, 00:00:45.810 --> 00:00:50.250 align:middle line:84% it was thrilling that you could take ideas, the imagination, 00:00:50.250 --> 00:00:52.980 align:middle line:84% and turn it into words and colors 00:00:52.980 --> 00:00:58.200 align:middle line:84% and other things like that that had meaning. 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:00.810 align:middle line:90% It was literally thrilling. 00:01:00.810 --> 00:01:04.830 align:middle line:84% This is a poem in terms of my sensibility 00:01:04.830 --> 00:01:07.770 align:middle line:84% about having potentially lost some of that 00:01:07.770 --> 00:01:09.420 align:middle line:90% or come close to it. 00:01:09.420 --> 00:01:12.540 align:middle line:84% When I was growing up, we were punished for speaking Spanish. 00:01:12.540 --> 00:01:16.110 align:middle line:84% By the time I was in junior high school, 00:01:16.110 --> 00:01:17.980 align:middle line:84% I thought I couldn't speak Spanish anymore. 00:01:17.980 --> 00:01:18.720 align:middle line:90% It wasn't true. 00:01:18.720 --> 00:01:20.380 align:middle line:90% It all came back. 00:01:20.380 --> 00:01:22.000 align:middle line:90% It hadn't gone anywhere. 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:26.440 align:middle line:84% But for a while, I thought I couldn't. 00:01:26.440 --> 00:01:28.930 align:middle line:84% And I was still going to my grandmother's house, at least 00:01:28.930 --> 00:01:30.250 align:middle line:90% once a week, for lunch. 00:01:30.250 --> 00:01:35.040 align:middle line:84% And my grandmother only spoke Spanish. 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:37.140 align:middle line:90% I thought I only spoke English. 00:01:37.140 --> 00:01:39.360 align:middle line:84% You would think we had a problem. 00:01:39.360 --> 00:01:41.870 align:middle line:90% 00:01:41.870 --> 00:01:45.650 align:middle line:84% But a grandmother and a grandson sitting down for lunch, 00:01:45.650 --> 00:01:48.200 align:middle line:90% that's not a problem. 00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:51.740 align:middle line:84% And what we ended up doing was inventing for ourselves 00:01:51.740 --> 00:01:54.920 align:middle line:84% a third language, a better language. 00:01:54.920 --> 00:01:58.160 align:middle line:84% One we concocted together, and it's one I think so many of you 00:01:58.160 --> 00:02:00.020 align:middle line:90% will understand. 00:02:00.020 --> 00:02:03.650 align:middle line:90% She would cook, and I would eat. 00:02:03.650 --> 00:02:05.370 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:05.370 --> 00:02:09.100 align:middle line:84% But no joke, I remember it to this day. 00:02:09.100 --> 00:02:10.259 align:middle line:90% This is called "Nani." 00:02:10.259 --> 00:02:15.192 align:middle line:84% This is the diminutive of Nana, which if you go to Mars 00:02:15.192 --> 00:02:16.650 align:middle line:84% and ask where the nanas are they're 00:02:16.650 --> 00:02:17.970 align:middle line:84% going to point you to the grandmothers. 00:02:17.970 --> 00:02:19.710 align:middle line:84% I don't know how that's a universal word 00:02:19.710 --> 00:02:20.850 align:middle line:90% in so many languages. 00:02:20.850 --> 00:02:21.750 align:middle line:90% Nani. 00:02:21.750 --> 00:02:25.920 align:middle line:84% Sitting at her table, she serves the sopa de arroz to me 00:02:25.920 --> 00:02:27.850 align:middle line:90% instinctively. 00:02:27.850 --> 00:02:34.080 align:middle line:84% And I watch her, the absolute mamá, and eat words. 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:38.470 align:middle line:84% I might have had to say more out of embarrassment. 00:02:38.470 --> 00:02:42.010 align:middle line:84% To speak, now- foreign words I used to speak, 00:02:42.010 --> 00:02:47.230 align:middle line:84% too, dribble down her mouth as she serves me albóndigas. 00:02:47.230 --> 00:02:50.950 align:middle line:84% No more than a third are easy to me. 00:02:50.950 --> 00:02:54.010 align:middle line:84% By the stove, she does something with words 00:02:54.010 --> 00:02:58.870 align:middle line:84% and looks at me only with her back. 00:02:58.870 --> 00:03:00.660 align:middle line:90% I'm full. 00:03:00.660 --> 00:03:05.130 align:middle line:84% I tell her I taste the mint, and watch her speak smiles 00:03:05.130 --> 00:03:07.350 align:middle line:90% at the stove. 00:03:07.350 --> 00:03:11.300 align:middle line:90% All my words make her smile. 00:03:11.300 --> 00:03:14.450 align:middle line:90% Nani never serves herself. 00:03:14.450 --> 00:03:19.550 align:middle line:84% She only watches me with her skin, her hair. 00:03:19.550 --> 00:03:22.370 align:middle line:90% I ask for more. 00:03:22.370 --> 00:03:25.580 align:middle line:84% I watched the mamá warming more tortillas for me. 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:32.390 align:middle line:84% I watch her fingers in the flame for me. 00:03:32.390 --> 00:03:34.820 align:middle line:84% Near her mouth I see a wrinkle speak 00:03:34.820 --> 00:03:38.360 align:middle line:84% of a man whose body serves the ants like she serves me. 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:41.720 align:middle line:84% Then more words for more wrinkles about children. 00:03:41.720 --> 00:03:45.860 align:middle line:84% Words about this and that flowing more easily 00:03:45.860 --> 00:03:51.030 align:middle line:90% from these other mouths. 00:03:51.030 --> 00:03:54.500 align:middle line:84% Each serves as a tremendous string around her, 00:03:54.500 --> 00:03:57.640 align:middle line:90% holding her together. 00:03:57.640 --> 00:04:00.040 align:middle line:84% They speak Nani was this and that to me. 00:04:00.040 --> 00:04:06.410 align:middle line:84% And I wonder just how much of me will die with her? 00:04:06.410 --> 00:04:11.620 align:middle line:84% What were the words I could have been or was? 00:04:11.620 --> 00:04:14.380 align:middle line:84% Her insides speak through a hundred wrinkles, now, 00:04:14.380 --> 00:04:18.550 align:middle line:84% more than she can bear, steel around her, shouting then, 00:04:18.550 --> 00:04:23.260 align:middle line:90% what is this thing she serves? 00:04:23.260 --> 00:04:27.250 align:middle line:90% She asks me if I want more. 00:04:27.250 --> 00:04:32.770 align:middle line:90% I own no words to stop her. 00:04:32.770 --> 00:04:36.702 align:middle line:90% Even before I speak, she serves. 00:04:36.702 --> 00:04:39.160 align:middle line:84% You ever tried to tell your grandmother you don't want more 00:04:39.160 --> 00:04:43.750 align:middle line:84% to [LAUGHTER] It doesn't matter what language you speak. 00:04:43.750 --> 00:04:45.880 align:middle line:84% It teaches you a lot about language. 00:04:45.880 --> 00:04:47.030 align:middle line:90% It goes beyond that. 00:04:47.030 --> 00:04:50.260 align:middle line:84% Something I've often said is a dictionary is efficient, 00:04:50.260 --> 00:04:52.120 align:middle line:90% has all the words in the world. 00:04:52.120 --> 00:04:55.440 align:middle line:90% But a poem is effective. 00:04:55.440 --> 00:04:56.760 align:middle line:90% And there's a big difference. 00:04:56.760 --> 00:04:58.325 align:middle line:84% You just need the right words, right? 00:04:58.325 --> 00:05:01.060 align:middle line:90% 00:05:01.060 --> 00:05:04.100 align:middle line:84% I mentioned in this poem, "Nani," 00:05:04.100 --> 00:05:07.730 align:middle line:84% that she is looking at me with her back and her hair. 00:05:07.730 --> 00:05:10.640 align:middle line:90% 00:05:10.640 --> 00:05:12.290 align:middle line:90% I wrote that in the '70s. 00:05:12.290 --> 00:05:13.730 align:middle line:90% That poem in the '70s. 00:05:13.730 --> 00:05:18.530 align:middle line:84% And I came back to that because I thought all of these years 00:05:18.530 --> 00:05:24.360 align:middle line:84% that I knew everything about my grandmother. 00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:26.220 align:middle line:90% Turns out I didn't. 00:05:26.220 --> 00:05:28.650 align:middle line:84% And I didn't know why she actually 00:05:28.650 --> 00:05:32.730 align:middle line:84% wore her hair short, which was not the fashion for her. 00:05:32.730 --> 00:05:34.950 align:middle line:84% And in her pictures when she was very young 00:05:34.950 --> 00:05:37.430 align:middle line:90% her hair was very long.