WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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Let's read a few more poems.

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So I'm going to
shift a little bit.

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I've been talking about language
a lot over the last two days

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with students, both community
folks as well as students today.

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And so in the spirit of
language and the beauty and joy

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of language, I want to
read a poem for which--

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where I'm really thinking
about how do we take hip hop

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and play with citationality
that hip hop brings to us.

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I think about this
line from a DMX song.

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Right, DMX has this
moment where he says,

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I like a girl with
5411, size 7 in girls.

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The reason 5411, you would
have to know that these--

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what he's saying is there was a
type of Reebok that cost $49.99

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in the late '80s, early '90s.

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And with the New York sales
tax, it would have been $54.11.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So and it became a way of
knowing this type of Reebok.

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Like, oh, she got the 5411s on.

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And he's saying size 7 in girl.

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That's his idea.

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And I always love this
bit of elusiveness.

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You don't have to
know what 5411s are,

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but you understand that that's
like saying something about

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the type of woman
he's interested in.

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And so I always think of that
elusive practice in relationship

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to being a poet who has a PhD.

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And people,
sometimes, my students

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are always like, this poem is
throwing me outside of itself

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because of its elusiveness.

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And I'll be like, but y'all
be listening to hip hop.

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Y'all don't understand every
allusion happening in hip hop.

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I don't understand every
Bob Seger allusion.

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You know what I mean?

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We don't understand
every allusion,

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but we can just rock with
it because of the sound.

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And so what I wanted to do was
play in the spirit of sound,

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letting sound move.

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Like what happens if we
just give ourselves over

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to sound as a poet in the poem?

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And so there's this line
that is the sort of mechanism

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of the poem where
there's a rapper.

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Is this on YouTube?

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Are we streaming?

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OK.

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Cuss words is all right?

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We going to bleep it out later?

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OK.

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And so there is a
rapper named Future.

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Y'all may have heard of Future.

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Some people may
have heard of him,

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southern rapper out of Atlanta.

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And he has this song that was
like a club banger, which means

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it was played a lot in clubs.

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And there's a line
where he says,

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we're about to fuck
up some commas, yeah.

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Fuck up some commas, yeah.

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And it's all about--

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the hook really
is about learning

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how to take a little bit of
money and make a lot of money.

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So you buy a little bit.

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You buy a little
pack of something.

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And you resell that.

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And you get more.

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It's about drugs.

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I'm trying to say it nicely.

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But I was thinking about
this moment where he says,

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we're going to fuck
up some commas.

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Particularly because I think
this idea of fucking up commas

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is really interesting.

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If we think of-- like, I
think it could be subversive.

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Here's what I mean.

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How did Black folks
come to the Americas?

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On the bottom of ships,
huddled spoon fashion.

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So we came over as commodities.

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So we came as commas.

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So what would we think
about fucking up commas?

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Like, to me, I was
like, oh, I think

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I could flip that differently.

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I think I could turn--

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So there's that allusion.

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And I only do this because I
always think about this moment

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where e e cummings had to teach
his audience how to read him.

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I'm not teaching
you how to read me.

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I'm just playing with y'all.

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I'm trying to just say there's
a method to the madness.

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There's another
moment that I have

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to give an elusive allusion
explaining the allusion,

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not because you need to know it.

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You actually don't need this.

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You could read the poem,
be fine without it.

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But I just think it's fun.

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We had a reading.

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We get to do some
different shit.

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So there's a moment where Jack
Johnson, famous boxer, Arizona,

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right?

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Didn't he get arrested?

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I think it was Arizona.

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McCain was the Senator
out here, right?

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OK, yes.

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He was arrested here.

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Yes, OK.

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This is the first time
I get to tell this.

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This is awesome.

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So Jack Johnson was arrested
in the 1920s quote unquote,

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"for trafficking white
women across state lines."

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Because he was married to a
white woman in the 1920s when it

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was illegal for
interracial marriages.

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And so he was eventually
exonerated, actually,

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by John McCain.

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John McCain abdicated
the sentence later

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because he was
arrested out here.

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So that's a little
Arizona history for you.

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But Jack Johnson once
was asked by a reporter

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a very stupid question.

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Why do white women
love Black men so much?

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That's a dumb ass question.

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And so his answer was,
because we eat cold eels

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and think distant thoughts,
which is not an answer.

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[LAUGHTER]

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It's a perfect way
of saying fuck you.

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And so I love that.

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To me, that's a nascent
moment of hip hop.

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We might say that's very bluesy.

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And so that is in the poem.

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There's other allusions.

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But I just thought, I don't want
y'all to think I came up with

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that line.

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That's Jack Johnson.

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It's a great line.

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"Future, from Beyond
the Voice of God."

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What shall be done with the
demand for more selfies?

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Selfies of the crow in the wheat

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And the wheat knocking
against the window.

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Selfies of my daughter
hooting like an owl

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And beating the back of her
cage, the back of her bones.

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Selfies of Wittgenstein's eyes

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Settling on the back of a crow,

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Which is the shadow of a boy

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Delivering milk to
the door of his mother

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Where language began, begins

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Gertrude Stein over
the Steinbauerggasse

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Eating salt fish and conk
fritters with Aimé Césaire.

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More selfies of Negroes
from Niger and New Orleans,

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Blue-black and the blue-black
buck and canter of summer.

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In Yves Saint Laurent glasses

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And pinafores of light
pinned to the eyes.

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No church in the wild,

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But more selfies of
Susie Asado buck-dancing

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On balustrades near
the nigger cemeteries

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Where the chariot swung so low,

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We just called them commas.

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We 'bout to fuck up
some commas, yeah

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Gerrymander and Jack Johnson
the shit out of shit.

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Why do white women
love Black men?

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Because we eat cold eels
and think distant thoughts.

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Jack Johnson, we
need more selfies,

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Selfies of Frederick
Douglass' pen

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Removed from the
gashes in his feet

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And writing hot checks
for Rolexes and rivers

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Our bodies just can't cash.

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Wade in the water, wade
in the water, children.

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We 'bout to fuck up
some trauma, yeah.

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Selfie and holler, yeah.

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Instagram at the ashram with
Lil' Weezy and Wardell Curry,

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Junior

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Not Senior, busting
3-pointers, yeah.

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On behalf of a local
charity that sends

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a mosquito nets to children

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In Africa, the Sudan,
Niger, I don't know.

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Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,

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Tyger, Tyger hanging
from the streetlight.

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Distant thought, I'm so
in time, I'm out of time.

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So selfie, I'm healthy.

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I mean, I'm saying though,

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You know what I'm saying?

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[APPLAUSE]

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