Other questions that appear in this poem,
and it may be useful for me to read this poem to you.
It's called "Poem of Disconnected Parts."
I hope it's not unrelated parts.
But it will be the poem that is most
like the series of distractions that then
become one walk, that Alison Deming described
in the introduction.
Of the things I'm going to read to you tonight,
this is the one that is most given to that,
and it has to do with the political stresses
of that decade.
And to deal with them, I needed to deal with them on the one
hand and the other hand, not pretend
that because I can make words sound good when I fit them
together, I know everything, that I can tell you
what is right politically.
The only thing I'm an expert on is
the sounds of words in English.
I do.
I know I'm a pretty good expert at that.
"Poem of Disconnected Parts.
At Robben Island, the political prisoner studied.
They coined the motto 'Each one, Teach one.'
In Argentina, the torturers demanded
that the prisoners address them always as Profesor.
Many of my friends are moved by guilt,
but I am a creature of shame, I am ashamed to say.
Culture the lock, culture the key.
Imagination that calls the boiled sheep
heads for sale in the market Smileys.
The first year at Guantánamo, Abdul Rahim Dost
incised his Pashto poems into styrofoam cups.
Quote, 'The Sangomo says, in our Zulu culture,
we do not worship our ancestors--
we consult them," end quote.
Becky is abandoned in 1902, and Rose dies giving birth in 1924.
And Sylvia falls in 1951.
Still falling, still dying, still abandoned in 2006,
still nothing finished among us descendants.
I support the war, says the comic.
I support the war.
It's just the troops I'm against--
can't stand those young people.
Proud of the fallen, proud of her son the bomber.
Ashamed of the government.
Skeptical.
After the Klansman was found not guilty,
one juror said she just couldn't vote to convict a pastor.
Who do you write for, Robert?
I write for dead people.
For Emily Dickinson, for my grandfather.
Quote, 'The ancestors say the problem with your knees
began in your feet.
It could move up your back,' end quote.
But later, the Americans gave Ibrahim Dost
not only paper and pen, but books.
Hemingway, Dickens.
Old Aegyptius in the Odyssey says,
whoever has called this assembly for whatever reason,
that is a good in itself.
O thirsty shades who regard the offering, o stained earth.
There are many fake Sangomos.
This one is real.
At Robben Island, colored principles got different meals
and could wear long pants and underwear.
Blacks got only shorts.
No, he says.
I cannot regret those three years in prison.
Otherwise, he would not have written those poems incised
in the styrofoam cups.
I have a small-town mind, like the Greeks and Trojans.
Shame.
Pride.
Importance of looking bad or good.
Did he see anything like the prisoner on a leash?
Yes, in Afghanistan.
In Guantánamo, he was isolated.
Our enemies, quote, 'disassemble,' end quote,
says the president.
Not that anyone at all might not mis-speak.
The profesores created nicknames for torture devices--
The Airplane, The Frog, Burping the Baby.
Not that those who behead the helpless in the name of God
or tradition don't also write poetry.
Guilts, metaphors, traditions.
Hunger strikes.
Culture the penalty.
Culture the escape.
What could your children boast about you?
What will your father say, down among the shades?
The Sangomo told Marvin, 'You are crushed by some weight.
Only your own ancestors can help you.'"
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
I did feel that when I was in Africa--
and the Zulu man who took me to the Sangomo,
when he told me that we don't worship our ancestors, we
consult them, I felt that I had heard
in very few words my belief and my practice.