Translator: David Hsu Reviewer: Denise RQ
Friends, our subject this afternoon is risk.
What art, I ask you, could be riskier than poetry?
(Laughter)
Not only your skill, yourself, and your soul are out there to be judged.
Many of the speakers today have spoken to you about risk.
I myself will take a risk and present you a few of my poems.
The first poem I am going to read is the title poem of my latest collection
that it was released this March; It's entitled "Dothead."
It opens in a high school cafeteria,
and it ends with the Hindu god Nataraja
dancing the dance of destruction in his sphere of fire, at the end of time.
And we'll get there from here if you stick with me.
(Laughter)
"Dothead."
(Reading starts)
"Well, yes," I said, "my mother wears a dot."
I know they said "third eye" in class,
but it's not an "eye" eye, not like that.
It's not some freak third eye
that opens on your forehead like on some Chernobyl baby.
What it means is, what it's showing is
there's this unseen eye on the inside.
And she's marking it.
It's how the X that says where treasure's at
is not the treasure but as good as treasure.
Alright.
What I said wasn't half so measured. In fact, I didn't say a thing.
Their laughter had made my mouth go dry.
Lunch was after World History;
that week was India -
myths, caste system, Sati, all the greatest hits.
The white kids I was sitting with were friends;
at least as I defined a friend back then.
"So wait," said Nick, "does your mom wear a dot?"
I nodded, and I caught a smirk on Todd
- "She wears it to the shower? And to bed?" -
while Jesse sucked his chocolate milk,
and Brad was getting ready for another stab.
I said, "Hand me that ketchup packet there."
And Nick said, "What?"
I snatched it, twitched the tear, and squeezed a dollop on my thumb
and worked circles till the red planet entered the house of war.
And on my forehead, for the world to see,
my third eye burned those schoolboys in their seats,
their flesh in little puddles underneath,
pale pools where Nataraja cooled his feet.
(Reading ends)
Thank you.
(Applause)
The next risk I will take,
the next poem I will read
is something that I wrote when I was much younger.
This poem first appeared in print over 12 years ago,
and it's also very personal.
It's entitled "The Miscarriage."
(Reading starts)
Some species can crack pavement with their shoots
to get their share of sun.
Some species lay a purple froth of eggs and leave it there
to sprinkle tidepools with tadpole confetti.
Some species, though, you stomp them in the carpet
have already stashed away the families that will inherit every floor at midnight.
But others don't go forth and multiply as boldly.
Male and female peeling the bamboo;
they are keepers watching in despair.
Or those endangered species numbered individually
and mapped from perch to oblivious perch.
For weeks, the world it seemed was plagued with babies.
Forests dwindling into cradles, rows of women hissing for an obstetrician.
babies no one can feed,
babies received by accident like misdirected mail from God.
So many babies - people hired women to hold them;
babies, babies everywhere but not a one to name.
When we got home,
the local news showed us a mother with quintuplets;
she was suckling them in shifts.
A mountain of sheets universally admired;
her smile could persuade the skies to rain.
Her litter slept ointment-eyed in pink wool caps,
while Dad ran his hand through his hair,
thinking - maybe of money -
as he stood surveying his crowded living room,
his wealth of heartbeats.
Pizza and pop that night.
And there, unasked inside the bottle cap
was, "Sorry. Try again."
You set it down and did not speak of it,
The Moon flanked by her brood of stars that night.
A chaste distracted kiss goodnight that night;
your body quiet, having spilled its secret;
your palms flat on your belly, holding, holding.
Forgive me if I had no words that night,
but I was wondering in the silence still begetting silence
whether to console you;
if I consoled you it would make the loss your loss,
and so, we laid beside ourselves a while
because I had no words until our bodies folded shut.
Our bodies closed around hope like a book preserving petals,
a book we did not open till the morning when we found hope -
dry and brittle but intact.
(Reading ends)
Thank you.
(Applause)
This last poem is a little unusual.
It's never appeared in any of my collections yet;
and it's the first and only poem that I was commissioned to write.
I was commissioned to write it for the 2017 Inaugural Ceremony
of this country's first federally-funded Civil Rights' Museum.
I considered that my greatest poetic honor to date.
The poem structure plays with the US military alert levels,
DEFCON 5 up through DEFCON 1.
To commemorate the Civil Rights struggle,
I thought it fitting to write about a Civil Rights issue
that is still alive in our own day.
So, this is "DEFCON 1."
(Reading starts)
Breathe America. We are alive.
On sidewalks, in suburbs,
citizen husbands promenade with citizen wives.
There is cash in the box, and jam in the cupboard,
and I could walk with my dog or drive black in a black car
and never elicit a shudder;
The nukes are at bay, and the submarines dive.
God's in His Heaven, and I am at DEFCON 5.
Relax. Because I'm relaxed.
Yeah, sure, what's there is there, but it can be ignored;
the enemy is hardly invading our shores.
The enemy -
I'd meet at the convenience store; that's all, that's all.
And muttered how our families ruined the mall
and claimed that bumper sticker Dixie flag had
"Nothing to do with the Civil War,"
and called a homosexual, "Fag."
Nothing more, nothing more.
I am hardly reaching for my nuclear codes; you needn't reach for yours.
It's hunky-dory here at DEFCON 4.
But see,
when I see the way some people look at me, not that I am looking for an enemy,
but sometimes, I can sense the chitchats music startled
as if my color wore the one disharmony.
Start up again,
but half an octave darker and in a minor key.
Worst things have happened, let this be.
OK, relax, let sleeping warheads sleep.
I don't mean to be mean, but I mean to be me,
and do-re-mi, I am up the scale to DEFCON 3.
And then, they do the things they do;
and a slave's great-grandson feels like a slave
though a free man home in the land of the brave.
And I feel them arming,
feel the warheads aching in the silo of my forehead.
And the young man's holding still, and still, they shoot.
And they deny the bond though the love is true.
They do, they do!
And I am walking on a sidewalk in a suburb,
when screamed, from a pickup truck,
an abrupt slur hits me out of the blue.
And it's OK.
I know it wasn't you,
but you'll forgive me if we aren't through,
if we are stuck awhile at DEFCON 2.
Know what? I'm done. I said I'm done!
Man stoppers pointed at a black boy playing by a see-saw with a plastic gun.
We saw, we saw!
Oh, say, can you see that body bag no bigger than a duffel?
They zipped it shut, they muffled the rising sun.
So, me? I'm done.
I said I'm done.
Don't be fooled because my rage is sung.
Be sharp, my tongue, be sharp!
My ear is stung by words that reek louder than actions:
some inactions cannot be undone.
Look at me, your song and dance, man,
singing lullabies for dead boys, all in good fun.
This is me, in key, in tears, in rage, and stunned.
America, America!
This is me at DEFCON 1.
And I'm done. I'm done. I'm done!
(Reading ends)
(Applause)