WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.710 align:middle line:84% So thank you, again, everyone, for amazing-- 00:00:04.710 --> 00:00:10.530 align:middle line:84% just amazing presentations of your work and just talking 00:00:10.530 --> 00:00:14.770 align:middle line:84% about the issue of mass incarceration, 00:00:14.770 --> 00:00:18.420 align:middle line:84% which just affects millions of people 00:00:18.420 --> 00:00:22.800 align:middle line:84% around the world, specifically the United States. 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:25.540 align:middle line:84% One of the things that the Art for Justice grant, 00:00:25.540 --> 00:00:30.000 align:middle line:84% which we want to also thank the Ford Foundation for granting 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:32.490 align:middle line:84% this opportunity to create spaces for poets 00:00:32.490 --> 00:00:35.940 align:middle line:84% to create new commissioned work, is 00:00:35.940 --> 00:00:38.760 align:middle line:84% that you were able to get a little bit of funding 00:00:38.760 --> 00:00:41.340 align:middle line:90% for research and books. 00:00:41.340 --> 00:00:46.530 align:middle line:84% And I don't know if any of you want to share about a book 00:00:46.530 --> 00:00:49.890 align:middle line:84% that you read that was really central to the development 00:00:49.890 --> 00:00:54.480 align:middle line:84% of the project, if that is something that you 00:00:54.480 --> 00:00:55.725 align:middle line:90% want to share or talk about. 00:00:55.725 --> 00:00:58.590 align:middle line:90% 00:00:58.590 --> 00:01:00.180 align:middle line:90% Yeah, I can grab one actually. 00:01:00.180 --> 00:01:02.190 align:middle line:84% I'm just going to grab it off my shelf. 00:01:02.190 --> 00:01:09.610 align:middle line:84% I have this really cool book called Troublemakers 00:01:09.610 --> 00:01:12.820 align:middle line:90% that I got. 00:01:12.820 --> 00:01:15.130 align:middle line:90% It's sort of visual. 00:01:15.130 --> 00:01:17.770 align:middle line:84% Like, it's kind of like an art book 00:01:17.770 --> 00:01:21.610 align:middle line:84% that documents the history of Chicago freedom 00:01:21.610 --> 00:01:25.420 align:middle line:84% struggles through a particular lens of these people who 00:01:25.420 --> 00:01:34.660 align:middle line:84% were like arrested and released and then tried to generate 00:01:34.660 --> 00:01:37.810 align:middle line:84% a civil rights movement through colleges and stuff 00:01:37.810 --> 00:01:38.800 align:middle line:90% in the '50s and '60s. 00:01:38.800 --> 00:01:41.470 align:middle line:90% 00:01:41.470 --> 00:01:43.660 align:middle line:90% So the reason why this like-- 00:01:43.660 --> 00:01:46.840 align:middle line:84% I don't know-- so much of this thinking is really interesting 00:01:46.840 --> 00:01:48.790 align:middle line:84% and relevant to me is because my father-- 00:01:48.790 --> 00:01:51.220 align:middle line:84% so I take care of my dad, who adopted me. 00:01:51.220 --> 00:01:58.240 align:middle line:84% He's 81, so he was born in 1939, raised on a farm in Indiana, 00:01:58.240 --> 00:02:02.140 align:middle line:84% and then joined the military in the '50s and '60s. 00:02:02.140 --> 00:02:06.280 align:middle line:84% And so he was unable to participate in the civil rights 00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:08.169 align:middle line:84% movement because he was in the military. 00:02:08.169 --> 00:02:10.750 align:middle line:84% And they were literally like, you can't go to a march, 00:02:10.750 --> 00:02:14.000 align:middle line:84% or else you'll be arrested by military police or whatever. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:18.070 align:middle line:84% And so talking to him about these things, and the way 00:02:18.070 --> 00:02:21.400 align:middle line:84% that he experienced or didn't experience 00:02:21.400 --> 00:02:23.800 align:middle line:84% the struggle for civil rights and pushed 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:27.550 align:middle line:84% towards like assimilating or hedging his bets in the ways 00:02:27.550 --> 00:02:28.690 align:middle line:90% that he could. 00:02:28.690 --> 00:02:31.678 align:middle line:84% And the way that I kind of am a troublemaker. 00:02:31.678 --> 00:02:32.470 align:middle line:90% I have my knuckles. 00:02:32.470 --> 00:02:34.090 align:middle line:90% I have dope on my knuckles. 00:02:34.090 --> 00:02:35.315 align:middle line:90% Like gang land landlord. 00:02:35.315 --> 00:02:36.190 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:02:36.190 --> 00:02:39.790 align:middle line:84% Like, we're so different and thinking about the ways 00:02:39.790 --> 00:02:42.670 align:middle line:84% that even though we-- like our approaches are so different, 00:02:42.670 --> 00:02:45.215 align:middle line:90% this act of troublemaking. 00:02:45.215 --> 00:02:46.090 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:02:46.090 --> 00:02:48.940 align:middle line:84% Like, trying to make trouble as a way of making 00:02:48.940 --> 00:02:51.490 align:middle line:84% a space for freedom, like shaking shit up, 00:02:51.490 --> 00:02:52.600 align:middle line:90% in the ways that we can. 00:02:52.600 --> 00:02:54.952 align:middle line:90% I think that this book really-- 00:02:54.952 --> 00:02:56.410 align:middle line:84% I don't know it kind of spoke to me 00:02:56.410 --> 00:02:58.870 align:middle line:84% and facilitated a lot of that conversation. 00:02:58.870 --> 00:03:00.520 align:middle line:84% So I was really grateful for this book, 00:03:00.520 --> 00:03:03.370 align:middle line:84% and I guess I should shout out the people who made it. 00:03:03.370 --> 00:03:10.300 align:middle line:84% Erik S. Gellman, and it comes from Chicago University Press. 00:03:10.300 --> 00:03:11.540 align:middle line:90% Thank you for sharing that. 00:03:11.540 --> 00:03:14.410 align:middle line:90% I want to check that book out. 00:03:14.410 --> 00:03:17.200 align:middle line:84% Vanessa, Raquel, was there any book that you felt, 00:03:17.200 --> 00:03:18.550 align:middle line:90% or maybe even a lack of-- 00:03:18.550 --> 00:03:21.133 align:middle line:84% I mean, some of the other things that we've been talking about 00:03:21.133 --> 00:03:25.810 align:middle line:84% is like a lack of information about some of these topics. 00:03:25.810 --> 00:03:28.750 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I mean, since most of my project 00:03:28.750 --> 00:03:32.200 align:middle line:90% is so engaged with archives. 00:03:32.200 --> 00:03:34.030 align:middle line:84% Like, in terms of theory, I would 00:03:34.030 --> 00:03:39.190 align:middle line:84% say I started with just like a theory of space. 00:03:39.190 --> 00:03:45.070 align:middle line:84% I just wanted to understand what prisons were doing with space. 00:03:45.070 --> 00:03:49.720 align:middle line:84% So I looked at Golden Gulag by Ruth Wilson Gilmore. 00:03:49.720 --> 00:03:52.720 align:middle line:84% Demonic Grounds by Katherine McKittrick 00:03:52.720 --> 00:03:57.890 align:middle line:84% is like super fundamental to my work anyway. 00:03:57.890 --> 00:04:01.360 align:middle line:84% And then I bought this book, Migrating to Prison 00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:02.800 align:middle line:90% by Jose Cuauhtémoc. 00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:04.760 align:middle line:90% I have to look it up. 00:04:04.760 --> 00:04:13.660 align:middle line:84% But that actually really cracked open immigration policy, 00:04:13.660 --> 00:04:19.240 align:middle line:84% and for-profit detention centers. 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:22.670 align:middle line:84% It's not even really an ideological issue. 00:04:22.670 --> 00:04:26.260 align:middle line:84% It's just a way of bringing labor 00:04:26.260 --> 00:04:31.160 align:middle line:90% into an institutionalized space. 00:04:31.160 --> 00:04:36.400 align:middle line:84% And so the rhetoric enables this extraction of free labor 00:04:36.400 --> 00:04:38.390 align:middle line:90% essentially. 00:04:38.390 --> 00:04:41.800 align:middle line:90% And, yeah, I don't know. 00:04:41.800 --> 00:04:47.080 align:middle line:84% The whole like system of capital underneath the prisons 00:04:47.080 --> 00:04:48.880 align:middle line:90% became really clear. 00:04:48.880 --> 00:04:52.240 align:middle line:84% Carceral Capitalism by Jackie Wang. 00:04:52.240 --> 00:04:54.880 align:middle line:84% That one, I read through it really quickly. 00:04:54.880 --> 00:04:57.100 align:middle line:84% I didn't expect because like, the title, 00:04:57.100 --> 00:04:58.370 align:middle line:90% you're just like, oh, OK. 00:04:58.370 --> 00:05:01.810 align:middle line:90% 00:05:01.810 --> 00:05:05.380 align:middle line:84% But I actually was just super engaged and energized 00:05:05.380 --> 00:05:08.020 align:middle line:84% by that book because it was just-- 00:05:08.020 --> 00:05:09.520 align:middle line:84% that's actually the one that gave me 00:05:09.520 --> 00:05:17.530 align:middle line:84% the idea for the graphs because she was able to create or set 00:05:17.530 --> 00:05:23.020 align:middle line:84% the stage for how capitalism co-opts 00:05:23.020 --> 00:05:26.740 align:middle line:84% different identity for extraction 00:05:26.740 --> 00:05:31.720 align:middle line:84% and also targets difference in identity for predatory lending. 00:05:31.720 --> 00:05:34.510 align:middle line:84% And if you're in debt, then that sets you up. 00:05:34.510 --> 00:05:36.860 align:middle line:84% That makes you vulnerable to incarceration. 00:05:36.860 --> 00:05:39.130 align:middle line:90% So it's like a whole-- 00:05:39.130 --> 00:05:43.900 align:middle line:90% and I love a conspiracy theory. 00:05:43.900 --> 00:05:47.200 align:middle line:90% Not like the QAnon stuff. 00:05:47.200 --> 00:05:53.140 align:middle line:84% I just really like the bare bones of the system. 00:05:53.140 --> 00:05:54.530 align:middle line:90% Yeah, no, not that other one. 00:05:54.530 --> 00:05:55.030 align:middle line:90% I know. 00:05:55.030 --> 00:05:58.960 align:middle line:84% All of us were like, no, but we knew what you meant. 00:05:58.960 --> 00:06:02.410 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah, no, I just like-- 00:06:02.410 --> 00:06:05.860 align:middle line:84% I don't know, just exposing the inner workings 00:06:05.860 --> 00:06:11.810 align:middle line:84% of things that are just up in the ideological space. 00:06:11.810 --> 00:06:15.080 align:middle line:84% So those were the texts that really got me through. 00:06:15.080 --> 00:06:18.030 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:06:18.030 --> 00:06:22.320 align:middle line:84% We got to screen share a text that was very central to this. 00:06:22.320 --> 00:06:27.670 align:middle line:90% 00:06:27.670 --> 00:06:31.000 align:middle line:84% Wait, does this allow me to do screensharing? 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:33.115 align:middle line:90% You should be able to. 00:06:33.115 --> 00:06:34.105 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:06:34.105 --> 00:06:38.070 align:middle line:90% 00:06:38.070 --> 00:06:42.390 align:middle line:84% If it's minimized, it won't like read the file. 00:06:42.390 --> 00:06:45.540 align:middle line:90% You have to have the file open. 00:06:45.540 --> 00:06:52.200 align:middle line:84% So, yeah, basically, since this is being weird, 00:06:52.200 --> 00:07:01.920 align:middle line:84% it's an ethnographic study called, [NON-ENGLISH],, 00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:03.450 align:middle line:90% which is how everyone knew it. 00:07:03.450 --> 00:07:09.540 align:middle line:84% And it's put together by [? Maria ?] Macoso Aribia. 00:07:09.540 --> 00:07:15.220 align:middle line:84% And [NON-ENGLISH],, and and it's very detailed. 00:07:15.220 --> 00:07:20.160 align:middle line:84% It doesn't have any of the emotional anything that 00:07:20.160 --> 00:07:21.810 align:middle line:90% would make-- 00:07:21.810 --> 00:07:24.660 align:middle line:84% that goes into the poetry obviously. 00:07:24.660 --> 00:07:27.900 align:middle line:84% So in that sense, it is what it is. 00:07:27.900 --> 00:07:30.900 align:middle line:84% It's an ethnographic study, but it's very detailed specifically 00:07:30.900 --> 00:07:33.312 align:middle line:90% about [NON-ENGLISH]. 00:07:33.312 --> 00:07:35.910 align:middle line:90% 00:07:35.910 --> 00:07:37.980 align:middle line:84% The problem in general with Puerto Rico 00:07:37.980 --> 00:07:42.660 align:middle line:84% is that the books that exist, one of them very important, 00:07:42.660 --> 00:07:48.465 align:middle line:84% is a sort of memoir by Fernando Pico, who's 00:07:48.465 --> 00:07:50.310 align:middle line:90% a very important a historian. 00:07:50.310 --> 00:07:54.310 align:middle line:84% He's kind of an official historian in Puerto Rico, 00:07:54.310 --> 00:07:58.630 align:middle line:84% and so I was very reticent to read this because I was like, 00:07:58.630 --> 00:08:03.690 align:middle line:84% oh, he's kind of like bound up with the formation 00:08:03.690 --> 00:08:06.330 align:middle line:84% of [NON-ENGLISH] in the way it's historicized. 00:08:06.330 --> 00:08:09.390 align:middle line:84% He's like the historian they teach in schools type thing. 00:08:09.390 --> 00:08:11.580 align:middle line:84% So I always was like, oh, but actually, 00:08:11.580 --> 00:08:13.770 align:middle line:84% he spent many years teaching in prisons, 00:08:13.770 --> 00:08:16.860 align:middle line:90% and it's a very useful resource. 00:08:16.860 --> 00:08:18.810 align:middle line:84% And then there are some other books, 00:08:18.810 --> 00:08:22.830 align:middle line:90% but I found them not as useful. 00:08:22.830 --> 00:08:26.250 align:middle line:84% And of course, Jackie Wang's Carceral Capitalism 00:08:26.250 --> 00:08:28.980 align:middle line:84% is an incredible book, and some of these 00:08:28.980 --> 00:08:32.400 align:middle line:84% helped me frame my thinking and my approach. 00:08:32.400 --> 00:08:37.380 align:middle line:84% But I wanted as much as I could to be close to the context 00:08:37.380 --> 00:08:38.169 align:middle line:90% here. 00:08:38.169 --> 00:08:42.150 align:middle line:84% So although that helped me understand a lot, 00:08:42.150 --> 00:08:48.660 align:middle line:84% I wanted to think about also the ways in which things were very 00:08:48.660 --> 00:08:52.350 align:middle line:84% much marked by colonialism in terms of circulation 00:08:52.350 --> 00:08:57.780 align:middle line:84% and framing and how the prison system here was very 00:08:57.780 --> 00:09:01.950 align:middle line:84% tied into the way the city was built, into the way San 00:09:01.950 --> 00:09:05.490 align:middle line:84% Juan was built. And so the things that were similar, 00:09:05.490 --> 00:09:09.060 align:middle line:84% and the things that were also different, and that I felt 00:09:09.060 --> 00:09:13.560 align:middle line:84% required a very specific research 00:09:13.560 --> 00:09:14.770 align:middle line:90% that other people had done. 00:09:14.770 --> 00:09:17.570 align:middle line:84% And I took from and wrote poems about. 00:09:17.570 --> 00:09:20.560 align:middle line:90% Well, you did an amazing job. 00:09:20.560 --> 00:09:23.910 align:middle line:84% I'm going to do something a bit different here. 00:09:23.910 --> 00:09:27.760 align:middle line:84% Normally, I ask questions to kind of spur the conversation. 00:09:27.760 --> 00:09:30.930 align:middle line:84% But I think you all had a great deal of interest and sort 00:09:30.930 --> 00:09:32.670 align:middle line:84% of questions about each other's work. 00:09:32.670 --> 00:09:34.500 align:middle line:84% So I just want to welcome the opportunity 00:09:34.500 --> 00:09:36.450 align:middle line:84% if there's somebody, one or two people that 00:09:36.450 --> 00:09:39.240 align:middle line:84% wanted to ask about someone else's project 00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:41.040 align:middle line:90% or what they read. 00:09:41.040 --> 00:09:42.570 align:middle line:84% I obviously have a lot of questions, 00:09:42.570 --> 00:09:45.240 align:middle line:84% but I also want this to be beneficial for you 00:09:45.240 --> 00:09:47.820 align:middle line:84% all if you feel that there's something that you want 00:09:47.820 --> 00:09:50.985 align:middle line:90% to bring up to another poet. 00:09:50.985 --> 00:09:54.510 align:middle line:90% 00:09:54.510 --> 00:09:59.820 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I mean, y'all know I already fuck with y'all a ton. 00:09:59.820 --> 00:10:03.510 align:middle line:84% So I'm like over here so excited about this, 00:10:03.510 --> 00:10:05.070 align:middle line:84% but I mean, so one of the things-- 00:10:05.070 --> 00:10:06.180 align:middle line:84% I don't know if you were sitting down, 00:10:06.180 --> 00:10:07.800 align:middle line:84% Vanessa, but I was talking to Raquel 00:10:07.800 --> 00:10:08.910 align:middle line:90% about how they just like-- 00:10:08.910 --> 00:10:11.610 align:middle line:84% I got like a nice history lesson from them 00:10:11.610 --> 00:10:13.920 align:middle line:84% right now, like a lot of new information 00:10:13.920 --> 00:10:15.130 align:middle line:90% that was really exciting. 00:10:15.130 --> 00:10:20.070 align:middle line:84% And I think as Raquel just said, like the closeness of context 00:10:20.070 --> 00:10:22.650 align:middle line:84% that we all had really, I think was 00:10:22.650 --> 00:10:29.265 align:middle line:84% so dope because it shows how the roots of this network are so-- 00:10:29.265 --> 00:10:31.890 align:middle line:84% Like no matter what, like you go deep through a personal level, 00:10:31.890 --> 00:10:35.370 align:middle line:84% and you will get to a common shared root 00:10:35.370 --> 00:10:37.872 align:middle line:90% if that makes sense. 00:10:37.872 --> 00:10:39.330 align:middle line:84% And one of the things that really I 00:10:39.330 --> 00:10:42.780 align:middle line:84% felt like in yours, Vanessa, was I learned so much 00:10:42.780 --> 00:10:44.910 align:middle line:90% about a system that even like-- 00:10:44.910 --> 00:10:46.170 align:middle line:90% there's always so much more. 00:10:46.170 --> 00:10:49.117 align:middle line:84% But I mean, the American carceral system and its impact 00:10:49.117 --> 00:10:51.450 align:middle line:84% on Black people, I feel like that's a thing that I know. 00:10:51.450 --> 00:10:53.970 align:middle line:84% And the way that you connected that first prisoner 00:10:53.970 --> 00:10:58.172 align:middle line:90% to [? Kalif, ?] that was like-- 00:10:58.172 --> 00:10:58.880 align:middle line:90% and I don't know. 00:10:58.880 --> 00:11:00.547 align:middle line:84% I just kind of wanted to ask about that. 00:11:00.547 --> 00:11:05.030 align:middle line:84% Like, obviously, you sort of talked about having challenges 00:11:05.030 --> 00:11:07.640 align:middle line:84% in terms of negotiating what you can talk about 00:11:07.640 --> 00:11:09.560 align:middle line:84% and what you felt comfortable speaking about. 00:11:09.560 --> 00:11:11.102 align:middle line:84% And I mean, I'll just be transparent. 00:11:11.102 --> 00:11:13.730 align:middle line:84% I thought that it was done really well, 00:11:13.730 --> 00:11:16.670 align:middle line:84% but I'm just like, that must have been such 00:11:16.670 --> 00:11:17.600 align:middle line:90% like a wild thing. 00:11:17.600 --> 00:11:19.700 align:middle line:84% One, to discover and uncover and to try to 00:11:19.700 --> 00:11:23.357 align:middle line:84% think about how to share this with other folks. 00:11:23.357 --> 00:11:24.440 align:middle line:90% It was so impactful to me. 00:11:24.440 --> 00:11:25.850 align:middle line:90% I'd just love to ask about it. 00:11:25.850 --> 00:11:28.280 align:middle line:90% Oh, thank you. 00:11:28.280 --> 00:11:31.490 align:middle line:84% You can't really talk about carcerality 00:11:31.490 --> 00:11:34.190 align:middle line:84% without engaging Blackness because it's 00:11:34.190 --> 00:11:38.300 align:middle line:84% so central to the issue and the problem. 00:11:38.300 --> 00:11:42.500 align:middle line:84% But also as a non-Black person, there's 00:11:42.500 --> 00:11:49.010 align:middle line:84% a way that you have to approach the subject without doing 00:11:49.010 --> 00:11:50.930 align:middle line:84% that thing that you talked about when 00:11:50.930 --> 00:11:54.320 align:middle line:84% you were introducing your poems, like starting with the trauma 00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:55.220 align:middle line:90% first. 00:11:55.220 --> 00:11:59.360 align:middle line:84% And I sent one of the graphs, or actually two of the graphs 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:04.670 align:middle line:84% to Keith Wilson, and he was like, you're doing it. 00:12:04.670 --> 00:12:07.400 align:middle line:84% Like, whether you are aware of it or not, 00:12:07.400 --> 00:12:11.030 align:middle line:84% it's still a disembodied Black body. 00:12:11.030 --> 00:12:12.710 align:middle line:84% And I was like, oh, shit, he's right. 00:12:12.710 --> 00:12:17.600 align:middle line:90% 00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:19.670 align:middle line:90% I think we're meant to do that. 00:12:19.670 --> 00:12:22.490 align:middle line:84% The system sets up that estrangement, 00:12:22.490 --> 00:12:25.490 align:middle line:84% and it sets up that distance, and so 00:12:25.490 --> 00:12:27.890 align:middle line:84% engaging the topic of carcerality 00:12:27.890 --> 00:12:31.130 align:middle line:84% is to get up close with Blackness 00:12:31.130 --> 00:12:38.450 align:middle line:84% and really engage it in a way that's not making it 00:12:38.450 --> 00:12:41.420 align:middle line:90% a spectacle. 00:12:41.420 --> 00:12:43.430 align:middle line:84% It's already so central to my work, 00:12:43.430 --> 00:12:49.610 align:middle line:84% but in terms of carcerality, I was just like, none of this 00:12:49.610 --> 00:12:50.850 align:middle line:90% feels right to me. 00:12:50.850 --> 00:12:56.750 align:middle line:84% So as I was doing research and really just super interrogating 00:12:56.750 --> 00:12:59.690 align:middle line:84% and just beating myself up like, how 00:12:59.690 --> 00:13:04.820 align:middle line:84% am I even going to do this, I encountered the Eastern State 00:13:04.820 --> 00:13:05.870 align:middle line:90% Penitentiary. 00:13:05.870 --> 00:13:09.350 align:middle line:84% And in reading about that prisoner, that first prisoner, 00:13:09.350 --> 00:13:12.410 align:middle line:84% and like some of their tactics, [? Kalif ?] 00:13:12.410 --> 00:13:17.120 align:middle line:84% was already so front of mind that I was like this is just 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:19.590 align:middle line:90% a looping system. 00:13:19.590 --> 00:13:24.380 align:middle line:84% And it just felt like one of the central things 00:13:24.380 --> 00:13:28.520 align:middle line:90% I wanted to address was time. 00:13:28.520 --> 00:13:32.690 align:middle line:84% The construct of time in that we think it's like progress, 00:13:32.690 --> 00:13:35.750 align:middle line:84% and it's measured the same all the time. 00:13:35.750 --> 00:13:39.710 align:middle line:84% But Trump was just impeached yesterday. 00:13:39.710 --> 00:13:41.660 align:middle line:84% Nancy Pelosi wore the same dress. 00:13:41.660 --> 00:13:44.930 align:middle line:84% It's like, we're back at that day. 00:13:44.930 --> 00:13:46.490 align:middle line:90% Oh God, I didn't even-- 00:13:46.490 --> 00:13:48.260 align:middle line:90% I didn't-- I've been like so-- 00:13:48.260 --> 00:13:50.600 align:middle line:84% check in to make sure that there's not 00:13:50.600 --> 00:13:56.300 align:middle line:84% a fucking actual revolution happening, and then I'd be out. 00:13:56.300 --> 00:13:59.750 align:middle line:84% I feel you, but it was so wild because she 00:13:59.750 --> 00:14:01.587 align:middle line:90% wore the same dress. 00:14:01.587 --> 00:14:03.920 align:middle line:84% The only thing that's different is she's wearing a mask, 00:14:03.920 --> 00:14:09.650 align:middle line:84% and it's like, so this is like another construct of time, 00:14:09.650 --> 00:14:13.190 align:middle line:84% and what time feels like in the prison. 00:14:13.190 --> 00:14:15.080 align:middle line:84% So I wanted to engage all of that stuff. 00:14:15.080 --> 00:14:19.220 align:middle line:84% I still feel like it's not right, but thank you for-- 00:14:19.220 --> 00:14:23.240 align:middle line:84% Yeah, no, I think there's this thing that people-- 00:14:23.240 --> 00:14:27.110 align:middle line:84% I went to a talk maybe like three years ago, two years ago. 00:14:27.110 --> 00:14:35.030 align:middle line:84% It was [? Denise ?] and Don Lundy Martin and Morgan Parker, 00:14:35.030 --> 00:14:38.390 align:middle line:84% and they were talking about Black bodies. 00:14:38.390 --> 00:14:41.000 align:middle line:84% And this is the thing that [? Denise ?] and Morgan 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:44.870 align:middle line:84% like all of them were like Black people, 00:14:44.870 --> 00:14:47.330 align:middle line:84% and it's like this thing that I think especially what 00:14:47.330 --> 00:14:47.997 align:middle line:90% you were saying. 00:14:47.997 --> 00:14:52.040 align:middle line:84% We're conditioned to talk about the bodies in prisons. 00:14:52.040 --> 00:14:54.770 align:middle line:84% Not people in prisons, which is the power of [INAUDIBLE],, 00:14:54.770 --> 00:14:56.330 align:middle line:90% and the power of [? Kalif. ?] 00:14:56.330 --> 00:14:58.880 align:middle line:84% It's the story, and that's what you said too 00:14:58.880 --> 00:15:00.702 align:middle line:84% about the people in the detention facility. 00:15:00.702 --> 00:15:01.910 align:middle line:90% That's the first thing that-- 00:15:01.910 --> 00:15:03.470 align:middle line:90% it was like really striking. 00:15:03.470 --> 00:15:05.803 align:middle line:84% It's like when we say in terms of the Black Lives Matter 00:15:05.803 --> 00:15:07.762 align:middle line:84% movement, all the problems that come with these 00:15:07.762 --> 00:15:08.900 align:middle line:90% like protest movements. 00:15:08.900 --> 00:15:12.410 align:middle line:84% We have Say Her Name, Say His Name, we have names, 00:15:12.410 --> 00:15:13.820 align:middle line:90% we have lives. 00:15:13.820 --> 00:15:15.020 align:middle line:90% It's so important. 00:15:15.020 --> 00:15:16.760 align:middle line:90% It's so important. 00:15:16.760 --> 00:15:20.120 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I think that spreadsheet, the accumulation 00:15:20.120 --> 00:15:23.630 align:middle line:90% of where these names. 00:15:23.630 --> 00:15:24.950 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah, for sure. 00:15:24.950 --> 00:15:25.580 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:15:25.580 --> 00:15:27.530 align:middle line:84% Thank you for that question, and then 00:15:27.530 --> 00:15:30.890 align:middle line:84% for your response, Vanessa, because help me also learn 00:15:30.890 --> 00:15:34.190 align:middle line:84% a little bit more about some of the challenges that I know 00:15:34.190 --> 00:15:37.460 align:middle line:84% came about when individuals were engaging 00:15:37.460 --> 00:15:42.020 align:middle line:84% with this idea and the work behind it. 00:15:42.020 --> 00:15:45.080 align:middle line:84% Raquel, did you have something that you wanted to ask? 00:15:45.080 --> 00:15:47.030 align:middle line:84% I saw you a little bit before the question 00:15:47.030 --> 00:15:47.972 align:middle line:90% was asked by Frank. 00:15:47.972 --> 00:15:50.750 align:middle line:90% 00:15:50.750 --> 00:15:52.370 align:middle line:90% Yeah, I was really interested. 00:15:52.370 --> 00:15:55.310 align:middle line:84% Frank, you mentioned a great deal of these 00:15:55.310 --> 00:15:58.070 align:middle line:84% came from a previous manuscript, and I 00:15:58.070 --> 00:16:02.480 align:middle line:90% was curious as to what changed. 00:16:02.480 --> 00:16:04.490 align:middle line:84% What changed in relation to this project? 00:16:04.490 --> 00:16:07.670 align:middle line:90% 00:16:07.670 --> 00:16:09.450 align:middle line:84% Obviously, that's a great question. 00:16:09.450 --> 00:16:11.303 align:middle line:84% So I mean, the manuscript that I started 00:16:11.303 --> 00:16:13.220 align:middle line:84% with was actually like the MFA manuscript that 00:16:13.220 --> 00:16:14.750 align:middle line:90% was mentioned in my bio. 00:16:14.750 --> 00:16:17.330 align:middle line:90% So I kind of finished that. 00:16:17.330 --> 00:16:18.260 align:middle line:90% It's so crazy. 00:16:18.260 --> 00:16:20.390 align:middle line:84% You get to feel like, oh, I'm finished, 00:16:20.390 --> 00:16:23.300 align:middle line:84% but that was in like 2019, right? 00:16:23.300 --> 00:16:26.720 align:middle line:84% And so I had what I thought was something 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:31.370 align:middle line:84% that I was going to go take to shop around and maybe publish, 00:16:31.370 --> 00:16:35.210 align:middle line:84% and I felt like I got advice from people 00:16:35.210 --> 00:16:36.680 align:middle line:90% that I was at that place. 00:16:36.680 --> 00:16:39.860 align:middle line:84% But then a lot of things changed for me, 00:16:39.860 --> 00:16:42.840 align:middle line:84% and I mean just to be like entirely transparent, 00:16:42.840 --> 00:16:46.310 align:middle line:84% I entered therapy for the first time. 00:16:46.310 --> 00:16:50.930 align:middle line:84% I've been now in weekly therapy for a little over a year. 00:16:50.930 --> 00:16:51.837 align:middle line:90% Nah, for real. 00:16:51.837 --> 00:16:53.420 align:middle line:84% Best thing I've ever done for my life. 00:16:53.420 --> 00:16:57.170 align:middle line:84% 100%, you know, but it changed a lot about how 00:16:57.170 --> 00:16:58.730 align:middle line:90% I related to my poetry. 00:16:58.730 --> 00:17:01.850 align:middle line:84% It changed a lot about how I related to my entire life. 00:17:01.850 --> 00:17:05.569 align:middle line:84% I wrote this thing about how when 00:17:05.569 --> 00:17:08.270 align:middle line:84% trauma is telling you your story, 00:17:08.270 --> 00:17:11.300 align:middle line:84% revision is your way to the truth. 00:17:11.300 --> 00:17:15.932 align:middle line:84% It's like, I needed to revise my understanding of my life 00:17:15.932 --> 00:17:18.140 align:middle line:84% so that I could have a true understanding of my life, 00:17:18.140 --> 00:17:22.109 align:middle line:84% and that meant also revising a lot of the book. 00:17:22.109 --> 00:17:25.640 align:middle line:84% And so in some ways, it was the literal text of the poems. 00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:27.859 align:middle line:84% Some of the poems are entirely different. 00:17:27.859 --> 00:17:28.880 align:middle line:90% They have the title. 00:17:28.880 --> 00:17:31.970 align:middle line:84% They have the sort of intention or the motivation, 00:17:31.970 --> 00:17:35.630 align:middle line:84% but the content and the shape is entirely different 00:17:35.630 --> 00:17:37.760 align:middle line:90% because I think-- 00:17:37.760 --> 00:17:39.770 align:middle line:90% and I mean, no shade. 00:17:39.770 --> 00:17:42.140 align:middle line:84% I mean, all shade on my MFA program, honestly, 00:17:42.140 --> 00:17:45.290 align:middle line:84% but also like just in general, they're 00:17:45.290 --> 00:17:49.580 align:middle line:84% so easily traumatizing to writers of color. 00:17:49.580 --> 00:17:52.730 align:middle line:84% They're so-- they condition us to do this thing where, 00:17:52.730 --> 00:17:55.460 align:middle line:84% write about your suffering or don't 00:17:55.460 --> 00:17:58.380 align:middle line:84% write about your suffering at all because that's played out. 00:17:58.380 --> 00:17:59.600 align:middle line:90% And you know what I mean? 00:17:59.600 --> 00:18:01.820 align:middle line:84% And there's this way where you're not 00:18:01.820 --> 00:18:03.180 align:middle line:90% allowed to be yourself. 00:18:03.180 --> 00:18:06.920 align:middle line:84% You're not allowed to be honest and all these difficult things 00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:09.170 align:middle line:84% that like Vanessa mentioned working through. 00:18:09.170 --> 00:18:11.270 align:middle line:84% You have to work through those things 00:18:11.270 --> 00:18:14.120 align:middle line:84% and shout out and thank God for our friends who can say, 00:18:14.120 --> 00:18:16.250 align:middle line:84% you're getting there, but you're not quite there 00:18:16.250 --> 00:18:20.750 align:middle line:84% yet in terms of-- for me, I'm undoing my masculinity, 00:18:20.750 --> 00:18:24.680 align:middle line:84% unlearning this really deep-rooted systems 00:18:24.680 --> 00:18:26.685 align:middle line:90% of violence, of self betrayal. 00:18:26.685 --> 00:18:27.560 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:18:27.560 --> 00:18:28.980 align:middle line:90% These kinds of things. 00:18:28.980 --> 00:18:31.910 align:middle line:84% And so taking that and sort of revising the text 00:18:31.910 --> 00:18:35.240 align:middle line:84% to be more honest to myself, not self serving. 00:18:35.240 --> 00:18:37.323 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:18:37.323 --> 00:18:38.615 align:middle line:90% Those kinds of things for sure. 00:18:38.615 --> 00:18:41.048 align:middle line:90% 00:18:41.048 --> 00:18:42.590 align:middle line:84% That actually brings me to a question 00:18:42.590 --> 00:18:45.500 align:middle line:90% I have for both of you. 00:18:45.500 --> 00:18:48.140 align:middle line:84% Something I really picked up on in both of your work 00:18:48.140 --> 00:18:52.790 align:middle line:84% is that you were careful to always come back 00:18:52.790 --> 00:18:57.230 align:middle line:84% to a space of care and a space of humanization, 00:18:57.230 --> 00:19:01.820 align:middle line:84% a space of small moments, like narratives. 00:19:01.820 --> 00:19:07.010 align:middle line:84% Raquel, your poem about the flowers, 00:19:07.010 --> 00:19:10.340 align:middle line:84% it just really takes the brutality 00:19:10.340 --> 00:19:16.520 align:middle line:84% of an institutional space and adds this life layer. 00:19:16.520 --> 00:19:24.680 align:middle line:84% The way that you talk to the characters in your poems. 00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:27.110 align:middle line:90% I really felt their presence. 00:19:27.110 --> 00:19:30.830 align:middle line:84% I even felt God in the way that you addressed her. 00:19:30.830 --> 00:19:35.390 align:middle line:84% It just it felt like your poems are peopled, 00:19:35.390 --> 00:19:38.210 align:middle line:84% and something I struggle with is I just 00:19:38.210 --> 00:19:42.110 align:middle line:84% want to punish myself in my poems. 00:19:42.110 --> 00:19:47.150 align:middle line:84% I just want to bring the rigor and the critique, 00:19:47.150 --> 00:19:50.750 align:middle line:90% and I don't know. 00:19:50.750 --> 00:19:53.300 align:middle line:84% I just feel like poems are always 00:19:53.300 --> 00:19:58.800 align:middle line:84% the space of punishing because it's like the work that 00:19:58.800 --> 00:20:01.620 align:middle line:90% needs to be done. 00:20:01.620 --> 00:20:02.340 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:20:02.340 --> 00:20:05.790 align:middle line:90% How are you bringing in care? 00:20:05.790 --> 00:20:10.170 align:middle line:84% How are you bringing in joy and humanness, 00:20:10.170 --> 00:20:15.125 align:middle line:84% and what advice do you have for a very sad poet? 00:20:15.125 --> 00:20:18.320 align:middle line:90% 00:20:18.320 --> 00:20:20.410 align:middle line:90% Raquel, do you want to go? 00:20:20.410 --> 00:20:25.120 align:middle line:84% Yeah, it's sort of intense to think 00:20:25.120 --> 00:20:28.570 align:middle line:84% about the present in relation to the past 00:20:28.570 --> 00:20:34.060 align:middle line:84% only because the repetition that you mentioned, 00:20:34.060 --> 00:20:38.560 align:middle line:84% Vanessa, showed up in many ways for me throughout this project. 00:20:38.560 --> 00:20:41.200 align:middle line:84% One of which was that I was reading also 00:20:41.200 --> 00:20:46.870 align:middle line:84% about the tuberculosis outbreak, and the quarantine that was 00:20:46.870 --> 00:20:49.930 align:middle line:90% happening inside the prisons. 00:20:49.930 --> 00:20:54.070 align:middle line:84% And also, because I instinctively was like, 00:20:54.070 --> 00:20:55.930 align:middle line:84% oh my God, we're living in isolation 00:20:55.930 --> 00:20:58.870 align:middle line:84% and writing about the carceral system. 00:20:58.870 --> 00:21:01.030 align:middle line:84% And at the same time, there are people in prison 00:21:01.030 --> 00:21:06.460 align:middle line:84% who I can't even talk to right now, and they're being exposed. 00:21:06.460 --> 00:21:09.535 align:middle line:84% And in this way, it parallels this other temporality, 00:21:09.535 --> 00:21:12.040 align:middle line:84% and in this other way, it doesn't. 00:21:12.040 --> 00:21:17.980 align:middle line:84% And I think it was very weird for me 00:21:17.980 --> 00:21:19.750 align:middle line:84% because I wanted it instinctively 00:21:19.750 --> 00:21:22.510 align:middle line:84% to go to my own personal experience 00:21:22.510 --> 00:21:25.090 align:middle line:84% because that's what I tend to do. 00:21:25.090 --> 00:21:29.314 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] write what you know. 00:21:29.314 --> 00:21:35.050 align:middle line:84% And so I wanted to write about my father in some ways 00:21:35.050 --> 00:21:37.760 align:middle line:84% and my grandfather and all this stuff, and then I was like, 00:21:37.760 --> 00:21:41.620 align:middle line:84% no, I don't need to do that for this project. 00:21:41.620 --> 00:21:48.100 align:middle line:84% What I can do is approach from my positionality 00:21:48.100 --> 00:21:51.600 align:middle line:90% and without centering it. 00:21:51.600 --> 00:21:54.240 align:middle line:84% And I think that was a struggle for me 00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:58.540 align:middle line:84% because I don't think there's a blueprint for how to do that. 00:21:58.540 --> 00:22:01.980 align:middle line:84% I think we just kind of have to ask those questions over 00:22:01.980 --> 00:22:04.890 align:middle line:90% and over as we're writing. 00:22:04.890 --> 00:22:09.002 align:middle line:84% And my approach was to be like, well, 00:22:09.002 --> 00:22:10.710 align:middle line:84% I don't know about a bunch of this stuff, 00:22:10.710 --> 00:22:12.502 align:middle line:84% so I'm going to learn about all this stuff, 00:22:12.502 --> 00:22:14.430 align:middle line:84% and I'm going to think about what's 00:22:14.430 --> 00:22:18.300 align:middle line:84% not being said in these texts because that's what poets do. 00:22:18.300 --> 00:22:19.770 align:middle line:84% They look at these documents that 00:22:19.770 --> 00:22:23.850 align:middle line:84% are written from this very cold, very [INAUDIBLE] course, 00:22:23.850 --> 00:22:26.370 align:middle line:90% and they see what's not there. 00:22:26.370 --> 00:22:28.320 align:middle line:84% They see what's between the lines, 00:22:28.320 --> 00:22:31.530 align:middle line:84% and so I don't necessarily have to be 00:22:31.530 --> 00:22:34.350 align:middle line:84% 100% accurate in everything, but I have 00:22:34.350 --> 00:22:36.240 align:middle line:90% to be accurate to the field. 00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:39.130 align:middle line:84% I have to be accurate to the life that is there, 00:22:39.130 --> 00:22:42.660 align:middle line:90% and so that helped. 00:22:42.660 --> 00:22:46.260 align:middle line:84% And I think it helped me feel less lonely in the process 00:22:46.260 --> 00:22:52.980 align:middle line:84% because weirdly contextualizing myself reminded me 00:22:52.980 --> 00:22:56.650 align:middle line:84% that everybody else was lonely too. 00:22:56.650 --> 00:23:01.920 align:middle line:84% And we were all lonely, and it alleviated 00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:04.140 align:middle line:84% some of that weight of the loneliness, 00:23:04.140 --> 00:23:05.500 align:middle line:90% if that makes sense. 00:23:05.500 --> 00:23:06.630 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:23:06.630 --> 00:23:08.520 align:middle line:90% I don't know if that helped. 00:23:08.520 --> 00:23:12.900 align:middle line:84% No, I mean, it was so wild writing 00:23:12.900 --> 00:23:17.400 align:middle line:84% about mass incarceration during a pandemic, 00:23:17.400 --> 00:23:20.130 align:middle line:90% like a fascist uprising or-- 00:23:20.130 --> 00:23:20.630 align:middle line:90% yeah. 00:23:20.630 --> 00:23:24.060 align:middle line:90% 00:23:24.060 --> 00:23:25.900 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:23:25.900 --> 00:23:30.710 align:middle line:84% And [? at the ?] time, very present. 00:23:30.710 --> 00:23:36.440 align:middle line:84% Just I think we don't have the necessary distance 00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:39.800 align:middle line:84% from the present moment to even begin to parse because things 00:23:39.800 --> 00:23:43.280 align:middle line:84% are happening traumatically so quickly that it 00:23:43.280 --> 00:23:45.080 align:middle line:84% feels weird to write about the present. 00:23:45.080 --> 00:23:48.110 align:middle line:84% But somehow, writing about the past, helped me deal with it. 00:23:48.110 --> 00:23:50.390 align:middle line:90% Yeah, me too. 00:23:50.390 --> 00:23:52.820 align:middle line:90% Yeah, it's been a lot of-- 00:23:52.820 --> 00:23:55.488 align:middle line:84% I mean, obviously, I think the therapy bit. 00:23:55.488 --> 00:23:56.030 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:23:56.030 --> 00:23:58.730 align:middle line:84% Like the top of the pandemic, I was like, well, OK, I 00:23:58.730 --> 00:23:59.930 align:middle line:90% got weekly therapy. 00:23:59.930 --> 00:24:01.490 align:middle line:90% I don't get to leave the house. 00:24:01.490 --> 00:24:04.380 align:middle line:84% Ramadan was like a month and a half after that. 00:24:04.380 --> 00:24:06.810 align:middle line:84% So I was like, all right, this is what I'm doing, 00:24:06.810 --> 00:24:08.330 align:middle line:84% and I'm just going to be reflecting. 00:24:08.330 --> 00:24:12.543 align:middle line:84% And I did a lot of yelling, digging through my childhood. 00:24:12.543 --> 00:24:14.210 align:middle line:84% A lot of writing about the past in order 00:24:14.210 --> 00:24:16.443 align:middle line:90% to understand the present. 00:24:16.443 --> 00:24:18.110 align:middle line:84% There is a thing that you said, Vanessa, 00:24:18.110 --> 00:24:21.410 align:middle line:84% though, like this drive to punish yourself 00:24:21.410 --> 00:24:23.000 align:middle line:90% or to want to punish. 00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:26.330 align:middle line:84% And I like fucking relate to that so heavy. 00:24:26.330 --> 00:24:28.670 align:middle line:90% So serious. 00:24:28.670 --> 00:24:30.860 align:middle line:84% One of the big things has been for me 00:24:30.860 --> 00:24:33.860 align:middle line:84% is like I'm working on trying to change 00:24:33.860 --> 00:24:38.270 align:middle line:84% like my internal dialogue because as what I've 00:24:38.270 --> 00:24:42.110 align:middle line:84% been conditioned as a man, I've latched on to these men who 00:24:42.110 --> 00:24:43.220 align:middle line:90% are like coaches. 00:24:43.220 --> 00:24:45.500 align:middle line:84% And these kinds of ways of trying 00:24:45.500 --> 00:24:48.170 align:middle line:84% to tell me to be better by telling me that I wasn't good, 00:24:48.170 --> 00:24:52.700 align:middle line:84% and it's this way that it never brought 00:24:52.700 --> 00:24:54.530 align:middle line:90% me closer to what I wanted. 00:24:54.530 --> 00:24:57.020 align:middle line:84% And in doing so, it also caused me 00:24:57.020 --> 00:25:00.680 align:middle line:84% to want to punish others and be very judgmental or angry 00:25:00.680 --> 00:25:04.010 align:middle line:84% at others for not being whatever I expected of them. 00:25:04.010 --> 00:25:07.520 align:middle line:90% And there is this thing that-- 00:25:07.520 --> 00:25:11.090 align:middle line:84% so there's this book called The Gift of Death 00:25:11.090 --> 00:25:12.680 align:middle line:90% by Jacques Derrida. 00:25:12.680 --> 00:25:13.970 align:middle line:90% It's a theory book. 00:25:13.970 --> 00:25:15.080 align:middle line:90% It's Derrida. 00:25:15.080 --> 00:25:20.060 align:middle line:84% Oh, you love-- no one ever said they love Derrida. 00:25:20.060 --> 00:25:20.870 align:middle line:90% That's my shit. 00:25:20.870 --> 00:25:25.250 align:middle line:84% Like, he-- yeah, no, he's saying that the archive will haunt us, 00:25:25.250 --> 00:25:27.740 align:middle line:84% but we can never access it because it's unreadable. 00:25:27.740 --> 00:25:29.120 align:middle line:90% I fucking love Derrida. 00:25:29.120 --> 00:25:32.240 align:middle line:84% Yeah, and the whole thing in The Gift of Death 00:25:32.240 --> 00:25:35.000 align:middle line:90% is that everything-- 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:36.740 align:middle line:84% you know, that the story of Abraham 00:25:36.740 --> 00:25:39.800 align:middle line:84% isn't about him proving his loyalty to God 00:25:39.800 --> 00:25:41.510 align:middle line:84% by being willing to kill his son. 00:25:41.510 --> 00:25:43.250 align:middle line:84% It's God trying to teach him a lesson 00:25:43.250 --> 00:25:45.710 align:middle line:84% about the fact that your death is yours, 00:25:45.710 --> 00:25:47.150 align:middle line:90% and whatever sacrifice-- 00:25:47.150 --> 00:25:50.510 align:middle line:84% every choice is a sacrifice of other options. 00:25:50.510 --> 00:25:53.600 align:middle line:84% You can either obey God, or you can keep your son. 00:25:53.600 --> 00:25:57.050 align:middle line:84% You can't do both, and in doing so, 00:25:57.050 --> 00:25:59.600 align:middle line:84% I think that for me it started to make 00:25:59.600 --> 00:26:02.000 align:middle line:84% me think about when I do something, what am I 00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:04.800 align:middle line:90% not able to do because of that. 00:26:04.800 --> 00:26:08.030 align:middle line:84% And so when I come from a place-- 00:26:08.030 --> 00:26:10.550 align:middle line:84% when I write poems, most often, my first instinct 00:26:10.550 --> 00:26:12.470 align:middle line:90% is like anger and rage. 00:26:12.470 --> 00:26:14.540 align:middle line:84% It's like these are the people who I'm mad at. 00:26:14.540 --> 00:26:17.600 align:middle line:84% You know what I mean, and y'all should be different. 00:26:17.600 --> 00:26:21.080 align:middle line:90% 00:26:21.080 --> 00:26:23.420 align:middle line:84% But then, I'm like also, and I like shout out 00:26:23.420 --> 00:26:26.030 align:middle line:84% to the fucking banging my head against the wall in an MFA 00:26:26.030 --> 00:26:30.050 align:middle line:84% program for three years trying to write to these white people. 00:26:30.050 --> 00:26:32.240 align:middle line:84% And then also like having the illumination 00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:33.590 align:middle line:90% of being in isolation. 00:26:33.590 --> 00:26:36.110 align:middle line:84% Like that line about my cousin is real. 00:26:36.110 --> 00:26:41.690 align:middle line:84% My cousin has been locked up for years, and he can't come out. 00:26:41.690 --> 00:26:44.330 align:middle line:84% They like refuse to see his appeals, 00:26:44.330 --> 00:26:47.390 align:middle line:84% and we can't even-- they have these telenetworks 00:26:47.390 --> 00:26:49.640 align:middle line:84% that you're supposed to be able to reach them and send 00:26:49.640 --> 00:26:52.370 align:middle line:84% messages, and they've been moving people 00:26:52.370 --> 00:26:53.750 align:middle line:90% from prison to prison. 00:26:53.750 --> 00:26:56.325 align:middle line:84% And I haven't even been able to talk to him. 00:26:56.325 --> 00:26:57.200 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:26:57.200 --> 00:26:59.990 align:middle line:84% His own mother can barely get a hold of him, 00:26:59.990 --> 00:27:04.790 align:middle line:84% and knowing that I can speak to him, 00:27:04.790 --> 00:27:07.370 align:middle line:84% or I can try to speak to these other people, 00:27:07.370 --> 00:27:10.280 align:middle line:84% because I can't effectively communicate to both of them 00:27:10.280 --> 00:27:11.760 align:middle line:90% at once. 00:27:11.760 --> 00:27:14.520 align:middle line:84% And so for me, it's like, in that gift of death, 00:27:14.520 --> 00:27:17.510 align:middle line:84% it's like, OK, so who is really in need, 00:27:17.510 --> 00:27:21.140 align:middle line:84% and who do I feel like I can help, and then bring in terms 00:27:21.140 --> 00:27:24.320 align:middle line:90% of what do I need for me. 00:27:24.320 --> 00:27:27.200 align:middle line:84% I needed to get to a place where tenderness 00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:28.970 align:middle line:84% is something I'm learning, and I'm 00:27:28.970 --> 00:27:30.740 align:middle line:84% trying to learn how to be gentle. 00:27:30.740 --> 00:27:34.130 align:middle line:84% And even with people who aren't gentle with me, 00:27:34.130 --> 00:27:37.790 align:middle line:90% and that means myself. 00:27:37.790 --> 00:27:40.970 align:middle line:84% And I think that trying to build that gentility 00:27:40.970 --> 00:27:43.340 align:middle line:84% and to humanize myself in these poems, 00:27:43.340 --> 00:27:46.940 align:middle line:84% I think that's what helps me do it in these other ways 00:27:46.940 --> 00:27:50.180 align:middle line:84% because what's that pedagogy of the oppressed? 00:27:50.180 --> 00:27:53.300 align:middle line:84% It's like, you have to restore humanity to the oppressed 00:27:53.300 --> 00:27:56.180 align:middle line:84% and to give it back to the oppressor. 00:27:56.180 --> 00:28:00.050 align:middle line:84% And so I'm trying to restore my humanity and in doing so maybe 00:28:00.050 --> 00:28:01.925 align:middle line:84% can give humanity back to others. 00:28:01.925 --> 00:28:06.020 align:middle line:90% 00:28:06.020 --> 00:28:09.230 align:middle line:84% Yeah, there's a lot to think about there, 00:28:09.230 --> 00:28:13.980 align:middle line:84% and I wanted to address what you mentioned 00:28:13.980 --> 00:28:18.520 align:middle line:84% about the flowers, Vanessa, because it's interesting. 00:28:18.520 --> 00:28:22.590 align:middle line:84% I do have a tendency throughout my work 00:28:22.590 --> 00:28:28.557 align:middle line:90% to be very much the [INAUDIBLE]. 00:28:28.557 --> 00:28:30.640 align:middle line:84% I don't know how you would translate [NON-ENGLISH] 00:28:30.640 --> 00:28:33.460 align:middle line:84% because it's not quite a gesture, 00:28:33.460 --> 00:28:35.790 align:middle line:90% but there's something of-- 00:28:35.790 --> 00:28:41.080 align:middle line:90% Like a teasing playfulness. 00:28:41.080 --> 00:28:42.850 align:middle line:90% --with discourse. 00:28:42.850 --> 00:28:48.010 align:middle line:84% So I tend to incorporate a way of talking about people 00:28:48.010 --> 00:28:51.460 align:middle line:84% that's institutional and answer back in a way that sort 00:28:51.460 --> 00:28:57.310 align:middle line:84% of fucks with it or is very [? disidentifitory, ?] 00:28:57.310 --> 00:29:01.600 align:middle line:84% to borrow one of my favorite terms from [? Jose ?] Munoz. 00:29:01.600 --> 00:29:07.550 align:middle line:84% But part of why I opened it with this quote 00:29:07.550 --> 00:29:13.370 align:middle line:84% was because I think a lot about the modernization 00:29:13.370 --> 00:29:17.440 align:middle line:84% project of Puerto Rico as a beautification project as well. 00:29:17.440 --> 00:29:20.630 align:middle line:84% To be able to build this prison that's pretty that has like 00:29:20.630 --> 00:29:23.112 align:middle line:84% a [INAUDIBLE] patio, and it's like so-- 00:29:23.112 --> 00:29:24.320 align:middle line:90% you can show it to the world. 00:29:24.320 --> 00:29:28.160 align:middle line:84% It's such a pretty structure, and obviously, 00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:30.800 align:middle line:84% contrasts so much with the ruins that it is now. 00:29:30.800 --> 00:29:33.200 align:middle line:84% Like, I pass by [NON-ENGLISH] every day. 00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:41.850 align:middle line:84% And how the movement of the flowers throughout the piece 00:29:41.850 --> 00:29:45.660 align:middle line:84% have a lot to do with the difference between what 00:29:45.660 --> 00:29:50.310 align:middle line:84% something's purposed for and what people make of it. 00:29:50.310 --> 00:29:55.140 align:middle line:84% So the flowers were meant to be a beautification of something 00:29:55.140 --> 00:30:02.490 align:middle line:84% ugly, and that ended up being a space where prisoners grew food 00:30:02.490 --> 00:30:04.860 align:middle line:84% that helped them survive during the war years 00:30:04.860 --> 00:30:07.200 align:middle line:84% because they didn't have enough food coming in. 00:30:07.200 --> 00:30:10.350 align:middle line:84% And at the same time, they still kept the flowers up, 00:30:10.350 --> 00:30:12.060 align:middle line:90% and they had to keep that up. 00:30:12.060 --> 00:30:13.650 align:middle line:84% They were the ones that planted them. 00:30:13.650 --> 00:30:16.560 align:middle line:84% They were the ones that nurtured them. 00:30:16.560 --> 00:30:20.220 align:middle line:84% And especially now, one of the first things 00:30:20.220 --> 00:30:22.560 align:middle line:84% I bring to my students in classes, 00:30:22.560 --> 00:30:25.860 align:middle line:84% I ask them to go interview someone in their family that 00:30:25.860 --> 00:30:29.370 align:middle line:84% is an elder that works with plants because a lot of elders 00:30:29.370 --> 00:30:30.880 align:middle line:90% here have worked with plants. 00:30:30.880 --> 00:30:32.970 align:middle line:84% And one of the things that's most beautiful to me 00:30:32.970 --> 00:30:36.920 align:middle line:84% is that happens across gender lines. 00:30:36.920 --> 00:30:39.052 align:middle line:84% You have old men tending for their plants, 00:30:39.052 --> 00:30:41.010 align:middle line:84% and you have old women tending to their plants, 00:30:41.010 --> 00:30:44.490 align:middle line:84% and no one feels that emasculates them. 00:30:44.490 --> 00:30:47.460 align:middle line:84% So for me, it makes sense as a place 00:30:47.460 --> 00:30:52.980 align:middle line:84% to go immediately to think of the ways in which connection 00:30:52.980 --> 00:30:55.440 align:middle line:84% with the Earth, especially in something 00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:59.820 align:middle line:84% like a prison where people are forced to disconnect 00:30:59.820 --> 00:31:03.720 align:middle line:84% from all things that are the Earth or nature or whatever. 00:31:03.720 --> 00:31:09.810 align:middle line:84% In this context, to be able to grow plants was very important. 00:31:09.810 --> 00:31:11.890 align:middle line:84% And originally, as part of this project, 00:31:11.890 --> 00:31:17.400 align:middle line:84% I was going to work with [? Elizabeth, ?] 00:31:17.400 --> 00:31:19.590 align:middle line:84% a very, very wonderful artists here. 00:31:19.590 --> 00:31:21.810 align:middle line:84% I can also send a link to her work, 00:31:21.810 --> 00:31:24.780 align:middle line:84% but she's been working with a women's prison in Bayamón 00:31:24.780 --> 00:31:30.450 align:middle line:84% for a long time, taking Earth and plants to the prison 00:31:30.450 --> 00:31:34.920 align:middle line:84% and working with the women to grow things. 00:31:34.920 --> 00:31:37.620 align:middle line:84% And it's actually very intense because there 00:31:37.620 --> 00:31:39.720 align:middle line:84% are certain sorts of soil and Earth 00:31:39.720 --> 00:31:44.130 align:middle line:84% that they have to check before they can go into the prison, 00:31:44.130 --> 00:31:49.050 align:middle line:84% and so a lot of this for me was like both the stark violence 00:31:49.050 --> 00:31:52.420 align:middle line:84% of the institution and also it's just 00:31:52.420 --> 00:31:57.460 align:middle line:84% something that just couldn't be repressed or contained 00:31:57.460 --> 00:32:02.380 align:middle line:84% or killed off, that is alive and is there and is right 00:32:02.380 --> 00:32:07.600 align:middle line:84% and is happening with imprisoned peoples. 00:32:07.600 --> 00:32:10.720 align:middle line:84% I was so compelled by-- what was the term? 00:32:10.720 --> 00:32:15.790 align:middle line:84% It was like penal decolonization. 00:32:15.790 --> 00:32:20.230 align:middle line:84% Do a small scale decolonization action 00:32:20.230 --> 00:32:22.870 align:middle line:84% within the space of the prison, which is like the most 00:32:22.870 --> 00:32:24.490 align:middle line:90% colonial structure. 00:32:24.490 --> 00:32:27.290 align:middle line:84% That was just a really beautiful moment. 00:32:27.290 --> 00:32:30.262 align:middle line:84% Yeah, and at the same time, I critique-- 00:32:30.262 --> 00:32:31.720 align:middle line:84% and this is probably the last thing 00:32:31.720 --> 00:32:34.137 align:middle line:84% I'll say because I feel like I'm taking up too much space, 00:32:34.137 --> 00:32:39.160 align:middle line:84% but there's this thing that happens 00:32:39.160 --> 00:32:41.170 align:middle line:84% in Puerto Rico on the left where there's 00:32:41.170 --> 00:32:43.900 align:middle line:84% a lot of advocacy for the freeing of political prisoners 00:32:43.900 --> 00:32:46.030 align:middle line:84% who fought for the independence of Puerto Rico. 00:32:46.030 --> 00:32:49.600 align:middle line:84% And a lot of distinguishing them as political prisoners as 00:32:49.600 --> 00:32:55.330 align:middle line:84% opposed to the other prisoners, which are not political. 00:32:55.330 --> 00:32:59.650 align:middle line:84% And so I really wanted to push against that notion, 00:32:59.650 --> 00:33:04.300 align:middle line:84% and there's also a play on the sort of argument 00:33:04.300 --> 00:33:07.400 align:middle line:84% that the state is the criminal or that the government is 00:33:07.400 --> 00:33:07.900 align:middle line:90% a criminal. 00:33:07.900 --> 00:33:10.840 align:middle line:84% That happens a lot in the left, where even when 00:33:10.840 --> 00:33:15.275 align:middle line:84% there were mass arrests of corrupt politicians, 00:33:15.275 --> 00:33:16.900 align:middle line:84% on the part of the federal authorities, 00:33:16.900 --> 00:33:19.450 align:middle line:84% there was a celebration of that in a way. 00:33:19.450 --> 00:33:22.400 align:middle line:84% And it was very hard for me because, on the one hand, 00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:25.120 align:middle line:84% yes, absolutely, these are horrible people that 00:33:25.120 --> 00:33:27.820 align:middle line:84% should be brought to justice but not just 00:33:27.820 --> 00:33:31.060 align:middle line:84% through the carceral system, or maybe 00:33:31.060 --> 00:33:33.520 align:middle line:90% like the Justice Mussolini guy. 00:33:33.520 --> 00:33:38.110 align:middle line:84% So my vision of Justice, I don't feel corresponds at all 00:33:38.110 --> 00:33:40.690 align:middle line:84% to the carceral system, and yet so much 00:33:40.690 --> 00:33:43.390 align:middle line:84% of our conversations in the left here are still 00:33:43.390 --> 00:33:45.640 align:middle line:90% very structured by that notion. 00:33:45.640 --> 00:33:47.740 align:middle line:84% It is through this system that we're 00:33:47.740 --> 00:33:50.410 align:middle line:84% going to reach some kind of Justice, 00:33:50.410 --> 00:33:54.390 align:middle line:84% and I couldn't really connect with that, 00:33:54.390 --> 00:33:57.430 align:middle line:90% and I wanted to push against it. 00:33:57.430 --> 00:33:58.930 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:33:58.930 --> 00:34:03.490 align:middle line:84% Thank you, Raquel, for that thoughtful response. 00:34:03.490 --> 00:34:05.330 align:middle line:84% I think we're going to end there. 00:34:05.330 --> 00:34:09.730 align:middle line:84% I feel that we could talk so much more about this topic, 00:34:09.730 --> 00:34:14.350 align:middle line:84% but I think that the key is that you brought your whole self 00:34:14.350 --> 00:34:15.400 align:middle line:90% to this project. 00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:18.460 align:middle line:84% And in doing that, you are going to inspire so many more 00:34:18.460 --> 00:34:21.520 align:middle line:84% conversations, necessary conversations, 00:34:21.520 --> 00:34:23.949 align:middle line:90% at this really challenging time. 00:34:23.949 --> 00:34:26.860 align:middle line:84% Challenging, as a euphemism for something else. 00:34:26.860 --> 00:34:30.100 align:middle line:84% Challenging time in the world, and I just 00:34:30.100 --> 00:34:31.330 align:middle line:90% want to thank you all. 00:34:31.330 --> 00:34:32.780 align:middle line:90% You've been amazing. 00:34:32.780 --> 00:34:35.770 align:middle line:84% You've inspired me with your work, your dedication, 00:34:35.770 --> 00:34:42.790 align:middle line:84% and I can't wait to get this online so that other people can 00:34:42.790 --> 00:34:46.460 align:middle line:84% enjoy it aside from us, but I'm very grateful. 00:34:46.460 --> 00:34:48.240 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:34:48.240 --> 00:34:58.000 align:middle line:90%