WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.560 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:04.360 align:middle line:90%
How are we doing on time?

00:00:04.360 --> 00:00:05.720 align:middle line:90%
Two more?

00:00:05.720 --> 00:00:06.600 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:00:06.600 --> 00:00:07.700 align:middle line:90%
Two more poems.

00:00:07.700 --> 00:00:10.600 align:middle line:90%


00:00:10.600 --> 00:00:11.420 align:middle line:90%
I want to end.

00:00:11.420 --> 00:00:12.640 align:middle line:90%
How to end?

00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:14.980 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:00:14.980 --> 00:00:17.940 align:middle line:84%
This is a poem that
is a golden shovel.

00:00:17.940 --> 00:00:20.880 align:middle line:84%
Some of you may know that
a golden shovel is a poem

00:00:20.880 --> 00:00:26.000 align:middle line:84%
that if you read down the
poem like the last word

00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.520 align:middle line:84%
of each line, that is a
line from another poem that

00:00:29.520 --> 00:00:30.882 align:middle line:90%
is being quoted.

00:00:30.882 --> 00:00:32.340 align:middle line:84%
Anyway, if you're
interested later,

00:00:32.340 --> 00:00:35.600 align:middle line:84%
come, and I'll show you what
this poem is doing on the page.

00:00:35.600 --> 00:00:36.520 align:middle line:90%
Oops.

00:00:36.520 --> 00:00:38.240 align:middle line:84%
And it's a golden
shovel after one

00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:42.640 align:middle line:84%
of my poetry heroes,
Suheir Hammad.

00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:45.920 align:middle line:90%
Slipshape.

00:00:45.920 --> 00:00:50.040 align:middle line:84%
A hummingbird lavishes the
lilac on the first morning

00:00:50.040 --> 00:00:51.840 align:middle line:90%
I am by myself.

00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:55.720 align:middle line:84%
And the open window ushers
in decanted perfume.

00:00:55.720 --> 00:01:00.270 align:middle line:84%
The sea rain on the
brink of falling.

00:01:00.270 --> 00:01:05.190 align:middle line:84%
What slipshape prayers a
woman must make of her body.

00:01:05.190 --> 00:01:09.710 align:middle line:84%
To write my way out of the
stories of war, I wrote the war.

00:01:09.710 --> 00:01:13.870 align:middle line:84%
Again and again, I
wrote its wounds.

00:01:13.870 --> 00:01:18.110 align:middle line:84%
May arrives, frenzied
with questions--

00:01:18.110 --> 00:01:21.550 align:middle line:84%
whose children will
we lose at the border?

00:01:21.550 --> 00:01:23.630 align:middle line:90%
What use is it to remember?

00:01:23.630 --> 00:01:25.910 align:middle line:90%
What has never ended?

00:01:25.910 --> 00:01:30.350 align:middle line:84%
To wax elegiac for how
ardently we believed.

00:01:30.350 --> 00:01:35.550 align:middle line:84%
"This is not who we are" becomes
anthem and divine decree,

00:01:35.550 --> 00:01:38.110 align:middle line:90%
armor against the living.

00:01:38.110 --> 00:01:41.430 align:middle line:84%
Here, we remain
human and failing

00:01:41.430 --> 00:01:46.790 align:middle line:84%
in our florid excess, our
national torpor, beings

00:01:46.790 --> 00:01:49.390 align:middle line:90%
so fragile, we might break.

00:01:49.390 --> 00:01:52.230 align:middle line:90%
Can we finally?

00:01:52.230 --> 00:01:57.060 align:middle line:84%
And can we imagine what
our new shapes might be?

00:01:57.060 --> 00:01:59.000 align:middle line:90%