And I will close with my kind of love letter to June Jordan.
My thank-you letter to June Jordan,
a poet who means a lot to me.
This was written many years ago, but I
think you'll see why it's a little bit haunting
to read it now.
"Letter to June Jordan in September."
"I cannot pass the anniversary of that first news event
of childhood without returning to your poem:
How from my house I watched,
And watching, watched my grief-stricken parents
unable to speak.
How I leaned into the screen, the chords of the cries,
searching for what was recognizable of fingers
and thighs, of bracelets and mustaches,
Macabre arrangement of bodies with names like our own.
I cannot pass without your words:
Something about witnessing twice removed,
About distances magnified by the shift into language,
Of dailiness and my own children's vernacular
and the machine
Grinding us all in its jaws.
I met a girl from the camp at a reading in Beirut.
She asked if we could talk about the life of poetry.
Our families are hauled off to the world of the dead and every
day, it is on screen:
In Gaza, we're watching Ferguson and in Atlanta, we're
watching Jerusalem, watching Minneapolis, watching,
Their weapons and their training programs indistinguishable.
The word almost flickers for a nanosecond.
Here, I note the shelf life of self-censorship,
legacy of our era.
Some days, poems are scrawled on pieces of cardboard
and carried on our shoulders at the protest like martyrs.
Here, I should say something about hope.
Here, I should say something about living."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]