It's a multimedia experience here.
I saw a book, I saw a laptop, I saw a phone.
[LAUGHTER]
Poetry lives everywhere.
I mean, right?
Right, Max?
[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]
Thank you, Max.
Wow.
Our next poet is Halee Kirkwood.
And Halee, I first met in Minneapolis,
where they were a regional fellow.
And I think, Halee, you were in the first fellows group, right?
One of our inaugural fellows.
And so were you, Max.
So Halee and Max are both our returning fellows this evening.
But I'm so excited to get a chance to know them
this week because Halee--
I've been so impressed by the insightfulness and clarity
of thought that they bring to their really spectacular poetry,
but also to the feedback to the way
they show up in community, to the way, often,
Halee will say the very thing that I
was thinking about three seconds before I
realized I was thinking it.
That's just how in touch and insightful
they are, so thank you for that.
Halee Kirkwood is a direct descendant of the Fond Du Lac
band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.
Their debut poetry collection, To Think Of A Match,
is forthcoming from TriQuarterly Press in March 2027.
That is not that far away.
So give it up for Halee Kirkwood.
[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]
Bonjour.
Thank you, everyone, for coming here today.
I apologize.
I'm not that shiny in real life, but here we are.
It's my anti-Edward-Curtis photo.
It is a tintype.
So if you know who Edward Curtis is, you know that reference.
So the first poem I'm going to read tonight
is based off of a prompt from my niiji, my close,
close friend Anthony Ceballos-- there you are--
who asked the most beautiful prompt,
to ask us to think about what is the sound of a poem.
So all throughout our retreat at Amerind,
I was taking in the beautiful landscape, all of the living
beings, all the plant beings and animals that were there,
and trying to listen to them in their poem sounds.
So many of you might recognize some of the references in this
poem, which is titled "The Sound of a Poem."
Wind sweeping birdsong down the canyon
Soaking bobcat fur
The sound of stilled prickly pear
beneath breath-tussled trees
The water hushed, pulled up through stone
A crackling in thumbprint grooves
Laughter rising in freshly shaped pots
The sound of water we hope is drank for generations
The sound of a poem is not bird sound
But the size of rattlesnakes, who they play above
While they rest in their ancestral shade
Their ears pinned to earth for sounds of far off mountains
That is the sound of a poem
Lands gossip
Who has visited?
When and why?
Thank you.
Thanks.
[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]
Yeah.