[Music]
[Applause]
i
have two questions for you one
whose shoulders do you stand on and
two what do you stand for
these are two questions that i always
begin my poetry workshops with students
because at times
poetry can seem like this dead art form
for like old
white men who just seem like they were
born to be old like you know
benjamin button or something and i asked
my students these two questions
and then i share how i answer them which
is in these three sentences that go
i am the daughter of black writers were
descended from freedom fighters who
broke their chains and changed the world
they call me and these are words i
repeat in a mantra before
every single poetry performance in fact
i was like doing it in the corner over
there i was like making faces um
and so i repeat them to myself as a way
to gather myself because i'm not sure if
you know
but public speaking is pretty terrifying
um i know i'm on stage and i have my
heels
i look all glam but i'm horrified um
and the way in which i kind of
strengthen myself
is by having this mantra most of my life
i was particularly terrified of speaking
up because i had a speech impediment
which made it difficult to pronounce
certain letters
sounds and i felt like i was fine
writing on the page
once i got on stage i was worried my
words might jumble and stumble what was
the point
in trying not to mumble these thoughts
in my head if everything's already been
said
before but finally i had a moment of
realization
where i thought if i choose not to speak
out of fear
then there's no one that my silence is
standing for
and so i came to realize that i cannot
stand standing to the side
standing silent i must find the strength
to speak
up and one of the ways i do that is
through this mantra where i call back to
what i call
honorary ancestors these are people who
might not be related to you by blood
or by birth but who are more than worth
saying their names
because you stand on the shoulders all
the same and it's only from the height
of these shoulders that we might have
the sight to see the mighty power
of poetry the power of language made
accessible accessible poetry
is interesting because not everyone is
going to become
a great poet but anyone can be and
anyone can enjoy poetry
and it's this openness this
accessibility of poetry that
makes it the language people poetry has
never been the language barriers it's
always been
the language of bridges and it's this
connection making that makes
poetry yes powerful but also makes it
political one of the things that
irritates me to no end is when i get
that phone call and it's usually from a
white man
and he's like man amanda we love your
poetry we'd love to get you to write a
poem about this subject but don't
make it political which to me
sounds like i have to draw a square but
not make it a rectangle
or like build a car and not make it a
vehicle it doesn't make much sense
because all art is political
the decision to create the artistic
choice to have a voice
the choice to be heard is the most
political act of all
and by political i mean poetry is
political at least
three ways one what stories we tell
when we're telling them how we're
telling them if we're telling them
why we're telling them so so much about
the political beliefs we have about
what types of stories matter secondly
who gets to have those stories told i'm
talking who is legally allowed to read
who has the resources to be able to
write who are we reading in our
classrooms
says a lot about the political and
educational systems
that all these stories and storytellers
exist in
lastly poetry is political because it's
preoccupied with people
if you look in history notice that
tyrants often go after the poets and the
creatives first they burn
books they try to get rid of poetry in
the language arts
because they're terrified of them poets
have this
phenomenal potential to connect the
beliefs of the
private individual with the cause of
change of the public
the population the polity the political
movement and when you leave here i
really want you to try to hear
the ways in which poetry is actually at
the center
on our most political questions about
what it means to be a democracy
maybe later you're going to be at a
protest and someone's gonna have a
poster that says
they buried us but they didn't know we
were seeds
that's poetry you might be in your u.s
history class and your teacher may play
a video
of martin luther king jr saying we will
be able to hew
out of this mountain of despair a stone
of hope
that's poetry or maybe even here in new
york city you're going to go visit the
statue of liberty where there's a sonnet
that declares as americans
give us you're tired you're poor your
huddled masses
yearning to be free so you see when
someone asks me to write a poem
that's not political what they're really
asking me is to not ask
charged and challenging questions in my
poetic work
and that does not work because poetry is
always at the pulse
of the most dangerous and the most
daring questions that a nation
or world might face what path
do we stand on as a people and what
future
as a people do we stand for and the
thing about
poetry is that it's not really about
having the right answers it's about
asking
these right questions about what it
means to be
a writer doing right by your words and
your actions
and my reaction is to pay honor to those
shoulders of people who use those pens
to roll over boulder so i might have a
mountain of hope
on which to stand so that i might
understand the power of telling stories
that matter no matter what
so that i might realize that if i choose
not out of fear
but out of courage to speak then there's
something unique that my words can
become
and all of a sudden that fear that my
words my jumble and stumble
go away as i'm humbled by the thoughts
of thousands of stories a long time
coming that i know
are strumming inside me as i celebrate
those people in their time who stood up
so this little black girl could vine
as i celebrate and call their names all
the same these people
who seemed like they were just born to
be bold
maya angelou and ozaki shanghai phyllis
wheatley
lucille clifton gwendolyn brooks joan
wicks audrey lord and so
many more it might feel like every story
has been told before but the truth is
no one's ever told my story in the way i
would tell it
as the daughter of black writers who
were descended from freedom fighters who
broke their chains and changed the world
they call me i call them and one day
i'll write a story right
by writing it into tomorrow on this
earth
more than worth standing for