WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.838 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:02.838 --> 00:00:05.210 align:middle line:90% 00:00:05.210 --> 00:00:08.150 align:middle line:90% One more piece? 00:00:08.150 --> 00:00:11.350 align:middle line:90% Two more pieces? 00:00:11.350 --> 00:00:13.730 align:middle line:90% [EXHALES DEEPLY] 00:00:13.730 --> 00:00:14.260 align:middle line:90% Y'all OK? 00:00:14.260 --> 00:00:14.760 align:middle line:90% 00:00:14.760 --> 00:00:16.070 align:middle line:90% [CHUCKLES] 00:00:16.070 --> 00:00:17.610 align:middle line:90% Do you understand English? 00:00:17.610 --> 00:00:18.145 align:middle line:90% Are you OK? 00:00:18.145 --> 00:00:19.790 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:19.790 --> 00:00:22.800 align:middle line:84% Hey, we were just talking about this four days ago. 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:25.560 align:middle line:84% English has become, by executive order, 00:00:25.560 --> 00:00:29.865 align:middle line:84% the official language of the United States of America. 00:00:29.865 --> 00:00:32.600 align:middle line:90% [CHUCKLING] 00:00:32.600 --> 00:00:36.560 align:middle line:84% I did for a long while this afternoon, briefly-- 00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:37.760 align:middle line:90% well, long while, briefly. 00:00:37.760 --> 00:00:40.310 align:middle line:84% For a long while this afternoon, consider 00:00:40.310 --> 00:00:43.915 align:middle line:84% quite sincerely delivering this in Tamil, this entire reading. 00:00:43.915 --> 00:00:46.735 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:46.735 --> 00:00:50.570 align:middle line:90% 00:00:50.570 --> 00:00:54.830 align:middle line:84% India has more than 20 official languages and hundreds 00:00:54.830 --> 00:00:57.240 align:middle line:84% and hundreds of recognized languages, 00:00:57.240 --> 00:01:01.760 align:middle line:84% and it is a great democracy still, we hope. 00:01:01.760 --> 00:01:06.010 align:middle line:84% Monolingualism is a great threat to democracy. 00:01:06.010 --> 00:01:08.435 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:01:08.435 --> 00:01:14.270 align:middle line:90% 00:01:14.270 --> 00:01:19.012 align:middle line:84% Oh, speaking of monolingualism, I got a segue. 00:01:19.012 --> 00:01:20.360 align:middle line:90% [CHUCKLES] 00:01:20.360 --> 00:01:24.240 align:middle line:84% So the child who was born in Singapore is now seven. 00:01:24.240 --> 00:01:27.890 align:middle line:84% And a few years ago when I was writing this book, 00:01:27.890 --> 00:01:31.490 align:middle line:84% I saw her across an oval mahogany table, our dining 00:01:31.490 --> 00:01:34.050 align:middle line:84% table, sitting across from her great grandmother, 00:01:34.050 --> 00:01:41.780 align:middle line:84% my grandmother Helen, and they were singing a song 00:01:41.780 --> 00:01:43.650 align:middle line:90% which many of you might know. 00:01:43.650 --> 00:01:45.440 align:middle line:90% It's a real hit. 00:01:45.440 --> 00:01:51.350 align:middle line:90% It goes A, B, C, D, E, F-- 00:01:51.350 --> 00:01:54.500 align:middle line:90% Very good, everyone's literate. 00:01:54.500 --> 00:01:57.830 align:middle line:84% Yeah, and I was very curious about the letter that 00:01:57.830 --> 00:01:59.765 align:middle line:90% comes after G, which is-- 00:01:59.765 --> 00:02:00.950 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: H. 00:02:00.950 --> 00:02:02.510 align:middle line:90% DIVYA VICTOR: Good job. 00:02:02.510 --> 00:02:03.440 align:middle line:90% Very good job. 00:02:03.440 --> 00:02:08.960 align:middle line:84% Aitch. And I was really struck by how different-- 00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:11.990 align:middle line:84% how differently they each pronounced the 00:02:11.990 --> 00:02:19.190 align:middle line:84% haitch. And Zameen, our daughter, says aitch. How do you say your haitch? 00:02:19.190 --> 00:02:21.060 align:middle line:90% "Hai-tch" or "ai-tch"? 00:02:21.060 --> 00:02:21.560 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Aitch. 00:02:21.560 --> 00:02:25.670 align:middle line:84% DIVYA VICTOR: Yeah, so this is a poem that considers 00:02:25.670 --> 00:02:30.170 align:middle line:84% the difference in their haitches, and what is and is not 00:02:30.170 --> 00:02:31.800 align:middle line:90% aspirated in that letter. 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:38.930 align:middle line:84% So my grandmother says it like I do, haitch, and my child says it aitch. 00:02:38.930 --> 00:02:46.160 align:middle line:84% So how is their locution located in Michigan and in India? 00:02:46.160 --> 00:02:48.008 align:middle line:84% This poem is called locution location. 00:02:48.008 --> 00:02:49.550 align:middle line:84% It'll be my penultimate poem and then 00:02:49.550 --> 00:02:51.880 align:middle line:84% I'm going to close with new work. 00:02:51.880 --> 00:02:57.620 align:middle line:90% 00:02:57.620 --> 00:03:01.850 align:middle line:84% She sings the letters to her great granddaughter. 00:03:01.850 --> 00:03:05.480 align:middle line:84% Strings them, marigolds into garlands 00:03:05.480 --> 00:03:07.880 align:middle line:90% and the order of the alphabet. 00:03:07.880 --> 00:03:17.760 align:middle line:84% E, F, G. She tugs the haitch, taut and long, far from the breast. 00:03:17.760 --> 00:03:20.370 align:middle line:90% A letter the length of a coast. 00:03:20.370 --> 00:03:23.330 align:middle line:90% The width of a gull's caw. 00:03:23.330 --> 00:03:27.890 align:middle line:84% She now carries the haitch like I will carry the gurney later. 00:03:27.890 --> 00:03:30.590 align:middle line:90% Weightless hammer of feather. 00:03:30.590 --> 00:03:33.840 align:middle line:84% The letters swim with the orange petals 00:03:33.840 --> 00:03:37.680 align:middle line:84% around and around her child and crone. 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:45.290 align:middle line:84% Milk flesh home, mouthly smelling of talc and gooseberry. 00:03:45.290 --> 00:03:51.750 align:middle line:84% When this song sills, will we bury her in the sky? 00:03:51.750 --> 00:03:54.660 align:middle line:84% Cirrus flight folded into the pleats. 00:03:54.660 --> 00:03:57.740 align:middle line:84% Cresting, riding the crest and trench 00:03:57.740 --> 00:04:00.170 align:middle line:90% of her saris weave and weft. 00:04:00.170 --> 00:04:02.830 align:middle line:90% Will we be left with her haitch? 00:04:02.830 --> 00:04:07.600 align:middle line:84% A patch of ash, just voiceless and glottal, 00:04:07.600 --> 00:04:12.790 align:middle line:84% an open casket fricative and open hatch? 00:04:12.790 --> 00:04:19.519 align:middle line:84% haitch, listen, I am asking you for her tongue wrapped in twill. 00:04:19.519 --> 00:04:22.400 align:middle line:90% Flung to its thatched edge. 00:04:22.400 --> 00:04:24.940 align:middle line:84% I'm asking for a body thrown so far, 00:04:24.940 --> 00:04:27.670 align:middle line:90% it meets itself in the mouth. 00:04:27.670 --> 00:04:29.720 align:middle line:90% How do we bury her haitch? 00:04:29.720 --> 00:04:34.760 align:middle line:84% One glyph on either side, arm in arm, harm in harm, 00:04:34.760 --> 00:04:40.434 align:middle line:84% how will we use this twin rutted throat in an open boat home? 00:04:40.434 --> 00:04:44.800 align:middle line:84% Haitch circles her tea water sunk by cream. 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:58.480 align:middle line:90% A, B, C, D, E, F, G. 00:04:58.480 --> 00:05:03.610 align:middle line:84% haitch floats my grandmother's child body breastless 00:05:03.610 --> 00:05:09.130 align:middle line:84% buoying ankles cuffed in silver scales, sequined on its heels 00:05:09.130 --> 00:05:12.670 align:middle line:84% so it can stay and stray and swim with her 00:05:12.670 --> 00:05:18.500 align:middle line:84% when she is restless, sugar hungry, when she is 80 and 220. 00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:21.170 align:middle line:90% Heavy human cane and fist. 00:05:21.170 --> 00:05:25.390 align:middle line:84% Knife in hand in the kitchen thrumming, haitch, haitch, haitch. 00:05:25.390 --> 00:05:26.750 align:middle line:90% The percussive hinder. 00:05:26.750 --> 00:05:28.880 align:middle line:90% The fescues of coriander. 00:05:28.880 --> 00:05:33.375 align:middle line:84% Thunder haitch, haitch, haitch. Turns the lathe with each exhale. 00:05:33.375 --> 00:05:38.060 align:middle line:84% Haitch, haitch, haitch. Her belly wet with sink and soap. 00:05:38.060 --> 00:05:43.760 align:middle line:84% Its damp equatorial girth curls my mother into her mother. 00:05:43.760 --> 00:05:45.380 align:middle line:90% Hatchet to hammock. 00:05:45.380 --> 00:05:47.030 align:middle line:90% Split and swung. 00:05:47.030 --> 00:05:49.270 align:middle line:90% Haitch, the waist in two. 00:05:49.270 --> 00:05:51.460 align:middle line:90% Haitch, the lips in four. 00:05:51.460 --> 00:05:55.270 align:middle line:90% Haitch, a longitude's wretch. 00:05:55.270 --> 00:05:58.120 align:middle line:90% I chart this stretch of tongue. 00:05:58.120 --> 00:06:02.380 align:middle line:84% I listen for how her breath measures the distance. 00:06:02.380 --> 00:06:07.510 align:middle line:84% Pulls skin apart to etch the gravity of gravidity. 00:06:07.510 --> 00:06:12.080 align:middle line:84% My daughter, pouts yogurt out, plums 00:06:12.080 --> 00:06:15.440 align:middle line:84% the berries, sun smitten, filmed in milk, 00:06:15.440 --> 00:06:21.400 align:middle line:84% wades her phonemic fen, hailing her elder with bib and mitt. 00:06:21.400 --> 00:06:25.490 align:middle line:84% But when this song sills, where shall we dig? 00:06:25.490 --> 00:06:31.270 align:middle line:84% Us grand motherless fools, us rudderless, us letter 00:06:31.270 --> 00:06:34.250 align:middle line:90% poor with drum and dread. 00:06:34.250 --> 00:06:35.900 align:middle line:90% Where shall we dig 00:06:35.900 --> 00:06:42.742 align:middle line:84% haitch, haitch, haitch for this shibboleth of breath? 00:06:42.742 --> 00:06:45.580 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:06:45.580 --> 00:06:48.880 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:06:48.880 --> 00:06:51.790 align:middle line:84% My grandmother is very weirded out by the fact 00:06:51.790 --> 00:06:52.935 align:middle line:90% that I talk about her haitch. 00:06:52.935 --> 00:06:53.590 align:middle line:90% [CHUCKLING] 00:06:53.590 --> 00:06:54.890 align:middle line:90% She's like, that's private. 00:06:54.890 --> 00:06:55.973 align:middle line:90% I was like, it's a letter. 00:06:55.973 --> 00:06:56.490 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:06:56.490 --> 00:06:59.520 align:middle line:90% That-- it's a letter.