WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:03.900 align:middle line:90% This will be my last one. 00:00:03.900 --> 00:00:10.990 align:middle line:90% 00:00:10.990 --> 00:00:15.940 align:middle line:84% "I flee to the edge of this country in the two-stag dark, 00:00:15.940 --> 00:00:20.770 align:middle line:84% stand on an escarpment undoing itself in ash. 00:00:20.770 --> 00:00:24.790 align:middle line:84% Not yet a boy, I eat still the figs that 00:00:24.790 --> 00:00:27.040 align:middle line:90% bloat with inverted blossoms. 00:00:27.040 --> 00:00:30.370 align:middle line:84% When halved, sometimes a blond wasp 00:00:30.370 --> 00:00:33.740 align:middle line:90% encauled in its violet lobe. 00:00:33.740 --> 00:00:37.670 align:middle line:84% This, of course, is the dream body eating its omen. 00:00:37.670 --> 00:00:39.170 align:middle line:90% "California moons. 00:00:39.170 --> 00:00:41.540 align:middle line:90% A coast breathing oranges. 00:00:41.540 --> 00:00:43.550 align:middle line:90% A fire fast as horses. 00:00:43.550 --> 00:00:45.140 align:middle line:90% Duplicitous husband. 00:00:45.140 --> 00:00:49.820 align:middle line:84% A steel grate border, extending its long law into the ocean. 00:00:49.820 --> 00:00:52.500 align:middle line:90% A wave halved. 00:00:52.500 --> 00:00:57.370 align:middle line:84% Never trust beauty to represent brutality. 00:00:57.370 --> 00:00:59.140 align:middle line:84% "I can give you no language that will 00:00:59.140 --> 00:01:02.440 align:middle line:84% free the child from her cage, make no meaning that unfloods 00:01:02.440 --> 00:01:06.570 align:middle line:84% the world, no verse that can unfire a bullet. 00:01:06.570 --> 00:01:11.250 align:middle line:84% "I eat the spine of God to stay alive. 00:01:11.250 --> 00:01:14.940 align:middle line:84% "Eldest daughter to an eldest daughter of an eldest daughter, 00:01:14.940 --> 00:01:19.830 align:middle line:84% I citizen three child mothers at the river's door-- 00:01:19.830 --> 00:01:26.380 align:middle line:84% obedient bruiseroot, rebel virgin, doomed bride. 00:01:26.380 --> 00:01:28.090 align:middle line:90% "Translate passage. 00:01:28.090 --> 00:01:30.910 align:middle line:84% The girl abandoned in a sinking marshland 00:01:30.910 --> 00:01:33.950 align:middle line:90% will never be named in America. 00:01:33.950 --> 00:01:37.070 align:middle line:84% America is just another boy with bad intentions, 00:01:37.070 --> 00:01:39.500 align:middle line:84% another flooding plot of discovery 00:01:39.500 --> 00:01:43.000 align:middle line:84% drowning its ever lousier yellows. 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:46.330 align:middle line:84% How many daughters have been paid to the ship? 00:01:46.330 --> 00:01:51.180 align:middle line:84% Dissolution to witness my own water burial. 00:01:51.180 --> 00:01:54.210 align:middle line:84% "At the cutbank, knife the rope and split the dress, 00:01:54.210 --> 00:01:57.630 align:middle line:84% made in myself taut as an elm bow drawn, 00:01:57.630 --> 00:02:01.470 align:middle line:84% thighs seized red holding a dormant knot. 00:02:01.470 --> 00:02:04.080 align:middle line:84% In every father's cruelty to his daughter 00:02:04.080 --> 00:02:08.810 align:middle line:84% is a husband recognizing the danger of himself-- 00:02:08.810 --> 00:02:15.770 align:middle line:84% every man a heat-trapped rancor, every promise a demon's gem. 00:02:15.770 --> 00:02:18.080 align:middle line:84% "Mirrorborn, the wolfgirl will learn 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:21.890 align:middle line:84% two names in the twinned land, tense with bloodmemory. 00:02:21.890 --> 00:02:26.720 align:middle line:84% Checkpoint-- border patrol asks place of birth. 00:02:26.720 --> 00:02:28.610 align:middle line:90% I speak. 00:02:28.610 --> 00:02:32.790 align:middle line:90% Exit the vehicle, legs open. 00:02:32.790 --> 00:02:35.190 align:middle line:84% "The moon enthroned in oaks shines 00:02:35.190 --> 00:02:37.740 align:middle line:84% through the woodlace over the state. 00:02:37.740 --> 00:02:39.750 align:middle line:90% A father in the grasses. 00:02:39.750 --> 00:02:42.750 align:middle line:84% A headlight cleaves mother and boy. 00:02:42.750 --> 00:02:45.790 align:middle line:84% Another child at the edge of this country. 00:02:45.790 --> 00:02:48.600 align:middle line:90% Another body denied a metaphor. 00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:51.075 align:middle line:84% What regret can be daughtered deeper." 00:02:51.075 --> 00:02:53.620 align:middle line:90% 00:02:53.620 --> 00:02:57.440 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I'm still grappling with it. 00:02:57.440 --> 00:02:58.300 align:middle line:90% Uh-huh. 00:02:58.300 --> 00:03:05.090 align:middle line:84% I think some of the things with that, we don't forget. 00:03:05.090 --> 00:03:06.280 align:middle line:90% But I think it's also-- 00:03:06.280 --> 00:03:09.100 align:middle line:84% it's always very powerful to realize this 00:03:09.100 --> 00:03:12.400 align:middle line:90% has been going on for so long-- 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:14.410 align:middle line:90% for so long, right? 00:03:14.410 --> 00:03:17.350 align:middle line:84% Coinciding with sort of structures of power, 00:03:17.350 --> 00:03:20.500 align:middle line:84% and how those have begun, and sort of-- 00:03:20.500 --> 00:03:24.760 align:middle line:84% because those in power decided, just based on the images 00:03:24.760 --> 00:03:27.025 align:middle line:84% that you shared, these torture devices. 00:03:27.025 --> 00:03:29.858 align:middle line:90% 00:03:29.858 --> 00:03:30.358 align:middle line:90% Mm-hmm. 00:03:30.358 --> 00:03:31.300 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:03:31.300 --> 00:03:31.800 align:middle line:90% So much. 00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:34.950 align:middle line:84% If you go back and look at just the invention of race, 00:03:34.950 --> 00:03:40.080 align:middle line:84% it's like how that man is sort of depicted in the archive, 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:43.440 align:middle line:90% it's really wild. 00:03:43.440 --> 00:03:44.430 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:03:44.430 --> 00:03:45.630 align:middle line:90% But I don't know. 00:03:45.630 --> 00:03:52.500 align:middle line:84% Engaging with this has allowed me to sort of look at time 00:03:52.500 --> 00:03:57.420 align:middle line:84% in a pulled-back kind of way, and imagine another future-- 00:03:57.420 --> 00:03:59.040 align:middle line:90% a different future. 00:03:59.040 --> 00:04:04.020 align:middle line:84% And I shared some of my work with a couple of poets, 00:04:04.020 --> 00:04:06.660 align:middle line:84% [? Raquel ?] being one of them, because I was just-- 00:04:06.660 --> 00:04:08.580 align:middle line:84% I was really grappling with the ethics. 00:04:08.580 --> 00:04:11.310 align:middle line:84% I was just like, can I even speak about this? 00:04:11.310 --> 00:04:13.840 align:middle line:90% Like what am I doing? 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:18.560 align:middle line:84% And I said, I forgot that when I learned 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:23.000 align:middle line:84% that I had a half sister, she was in juvenile detention. 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:25.550 align:middle line:84% And I sent her Leaves of Grass, which 00:04:25.550 --> 00:04:28.430 align:middle line:84% is, like, I shouldn't have sent her that. 00:04:28.430 --> 00:04:32.120 align:middle line:84% And then I started remembering, all of my cousins 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:34.130 align:middle line:90% and uncles who have been-- 00:04:34.130 --> 00:04:36.860 align:middle line:84% sort of who've had brushes with the law. 00:04:36.860 --> 00:04:40.030 align:middle line:84% And I'm like, why didn't they come up first? 00:04:40.030 --> 00:04:42.850 align:middle line:84% And it was a protective instinct, right? 00:04:42.850 --> 00:04:44.360 align:middle line:84% It's not that I'm embarrassed, it's 00:04:44.360 --> 00:04:47.550 align:middle line:90% that that's not mine to tell. 00:04:47.550 --> 00:04:50.190 align:middle line:90% My strength is critique. 00:04:50.190 --> 00:04:54.860 align:middle line:84% I can speak to the institution, so. 00:04:54.860 --> 00:04:57.590 align:middle line:90% You did an amazing job. 00:04:57.590 --> 00:04:59.810 align:middle line:84% I'm really blown away, and just thankful 00:04:59.810 --> 00:05:02.840 align:middle line:84% that you were able to be part of this to contribute. 00:05:02.840 --> 00:05:06.740 align:middle line:84% We're just lucky to have you three here. 00:05:06.740 --> 00:05:08.980 align:middle line:90% So, thank you.