WEBVTT

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And I will close with my kind
of love letter to June Jordan.

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My thank-you letter
to June Jordan,

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a poet who means a lot to me.

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This was written
many years ago, but I

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think you'll see why it's
a little bit haunting

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to read it now.

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"Letter to June
Jordan in September."

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"I cannot pass the anniversary
of that first news event

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of childhood without
returning to your poem:

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How from my house I watched,

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And watching, watched my
grief-stricken parents

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unable to speak.

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How I leaned into the screen,
the chords of the cries,

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searching for what was
recognizable of fingers

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and thighs, of
bracelets and mustaches,

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Macabre arrangement of bodies
with names like our own.

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I cannot pass
without your words:

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Something about
witnessing twice removed,

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About distances magnified
by the shift into language,

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Of dailiness and my own
children's vernacular

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and the machine

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Grinding us all in its jaws.

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I met a girl from the camp
at a reading in Beirut.

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She asked if we could talk
about the life of poetry.

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Our families are hauled off to
the world of the dead and every

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day, it is on screen:

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In Gaza, we're watching
Ferguson and in Atlanta, we're

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watching Jerusalem, watching
Minneapolis, watching,

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Their weapons and their training
programs indistinguishable.

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The word almost flickers
for a nanosecond.

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Here, I note the shelf
life of self-censorship,

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legacy of our era.

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Some days, poems are scrawled
on pieces of cardboard

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and carried on our shoulders
at the protest like martyrs.

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Here, I should say
something about hope.

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Here, I should say
something about living."

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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