this poem is called mama so I’m walking
down the street when a man stops me and
says hey yo sister are you from the
motherland because my skin is a shade
too dark not to have come from foreign
soil because this garment on my head
screams Africa because my body is a
beacon calling everyone to come flock to
the motherland I’m like yeah I’m from
Sudan why he said yes you is cuz you
have a little bit of flavor in you don’t
get me wrong I’m just admiring what your
mama gave you let me tell you something
about my mama she can reduce a man to
tattered flesh without so much as
blinking her words fester beneath your
skin in the whole time you won’t be able
to stop cradling her eyes cuz my mama is
the woman paulus and formidable in the
same step woman walks into a war zone
and has warriors cowering at her feet my
momma hosts all of us in her face in her
body in her blood and blood is no good
once you let it loose so she always
holds us close keeping us safe from
caving in when I was seven my mama
cradled bullets in the billows of her
robes that same night she came home and
taught me how to get gunpowder out of
cotton with a bar of soap years later
when the soldiers held her at gunpoint
and after who she was she said I am a
daughter of Adam I am a woman who the
hell are you and the last time we went
home we watched our village burn
soldiers sporting blood from civilian
skulls this day too could turn water
into wine the woman who raised me turned
and said don’t be scared I’m Your Mother
I’m here I won’t let them through my
mama gave me conviction woman like her
inherent bruised wrist tired eyes and a
titanium plated spine the daughters of
widows wearing the wings of amputees
they carry countries between their
shoulder blades now I’m not saying that
dating is a first world problem but this
trifling guys seem to be the kind who
quote Rumi but not know what he
sacrificed for war who fawn over Lupita
but turned their racial filters on who
take their politics with a lot
a when I take mine with tear gas every
guy I meet once we my introduction to
the dark side wants me to open up the
subsidiary
and let him read every tearful page
because what survivor haven’t had her
struggle made spectacle don’t talk about
the motherland unless you know that
being from Africa means waking up in
afterthought in this country don’t talk
about my flavor unless you know that my
flavors insurrection is abelian is this
since my flavor is burned and it is grit
it is compromising you know compromise
until you’ve rebuilt your home but a
third time without bricks without mortar
without any other option I turn to the
man and said my mother in I don’t walk
the streets alone back home anymore
back home there are no streets to walk
anymore
thank you so here’s what I know about
sorrow it does three things it can repel
you which means you’ll run from it it
can paralyze you which means you’ll
stand still remain silent or it can
compel you meaning it’ll move you I
choose to let it move me I use my words
to raise the alarm on the conflicts of
our time the crises that seem to have
our whole world spilling ever outwards
in the hopes that someone will hear
something that moves them I make people
care about things they wouldn’t normally
care about and I make them feel better
when the world is ending now when I say
the world is ending I don’t necessarily
mean climate change rising refugee
crisis by the nationalism everywhere you
play British superhero dying I cried for
like three days by the way what I mean
is that for most of the people that I
worked with the world has truly ended
when I was seven years old
I was hiding under the bed in the heart
of Darfur with my two cousins and my
sister looking to my mom for guidance
fifteen years after that I was the
closing speaker at my Yale graduation
[Music]
this was us in the garden before it
happens before everything happened and
the thing is we made it out on the other
side alive there really truly is another
side when my parents left Sudan way
before the genocide officially started
we didn’t know what was gonna happen
next we didn’t know what to expect we
lived in Yemen where my dad was
transferred for work
we were well-off I started school we
didn’t even know we were refugees at the
time but we couldn’t go home in
preschool in Yemen I met this girl
called Maryam and I didn’t see her again
didn’t know what to say to her about
everything that had happened in the time
that passed between when we first met
and when I was standing there in front
of her being like it’s you what but I
must have said something right because
we’re still the closest of friends that
experience with Maryam it uh instilled
this thought in me this fearing question
what would you say to your past self or
in this case what would you say to
someone who knew your past self if you
would have the chance in my word I try
to answer that question every single day
I ask myself if 15 years ago someone
could have come to me and my people and
told us what was about to happen warned
us about the cost of war what would they
say how would they teach us to lift our
voices I’m still trying to answer that
question but that’s where the poetry
comes in so after graduation I spent two
years traveling around the world doing
just that teaching people to break the
silence to use poetry to reclaim their
stories and every single place that I
went I walked across the desert for 30
days I visited countless countries and
whether I was teaching rhythm workshops
to preschoolers in Nepal or how
Muslim girls right unapologetically
about romance I found that people were
the key to healing wood had been broken
but putting their faces back in front of
everything that there is is the only way
forward
I carry those people with me every
single day and I carry their stories
with me too in March I was teaching an
empathy or feeling his workshop in
Vasily camp on a UNHCR mission in Jordan
now I don’t always get to perform on a
stage to the people that I’m writing for
so it’s a special honor to be here in
Kakuma camp today you guys are amazing
it was my first time teaching poetry in
Arabic so I was terrified
especially because they’re kids and kids
can be really tough I thought feelings
workshop right you know it helps you
open up in the safest face it doesn’t
leave any room for judging because
everybody else is sharing too or so I
thought
by the end of it I was judging myself
because these kids their thoughts their
ideas their experiences were so
incredibly vast and our time was so
incredibly limited they were teaching me
to heal to love to put love first and
they could be talking about the entire
universe or a single star and I would be
lost
I’d be transformed my favorite poem that
came out of it was this race ila
when Holden mama olavo Giroud
la young and hill wa wa Jamil Avena min
letter from my mother’s arms to my
father
may the good and beautiful days come
back between us from the poet children
are defined by what they love that’s
something that constantly gets to me
when we as adults tend to let what we
fear or what we hate define us children
constantly let love define them because
it’s what they know that love is what I
choose to surround myself with it’s why
a number can mean so little and a person
can mean so much as for how do you feel
better when the world is ending you have
to surround yourself with love I carry
people with me
I carry love with me I try to remember
the spaces where I feel most safe and I
grow those spaces so I thought I would
end with a love poem today because love
is the inverse of fear and to truly
understand something you have to
understand the absence of it so here
goes how many of you remember your first
mine was a couple years ago I told my
mom about it she took it really well for
an African mama by the way but then she
was like you’re not gonna tell anyone
right and I was like uh only a couple
thousand people so this is a love poem
about a guy I don’t love anymore but
about the acts of loving itself which I
think changes us for the better it’s
called no one tells you how easy it is
to fall in love or how hard it is to
stay there please don’t tell my parents
okay
please the one you love sits across from
you at breakfast
maybe it’s your sister or your father or
the one who holds you closer than any
other person between you is the coffee
or your cell phone or the Atlantic Ocean
or a pillow covered in your mother’s
tears or your self-esteem again he says
calm down you feel the truth claw its
way out of your throat pass the butter
you say used to the part where everyone
asks how you are you say okay and they
believe it survivor’s guilt makes you
apologetic I talk a lot sorry I think
too fast sorry I count the exits in a
room as quickly as I count the exits in
a conversation sorry you try to control
it but that morning anxiety ties your
lover to the bed and says let’s play she
brings all her friends the trembling
legs the sweaty palms the indoor voice
your relationship you’ve only officially
been awake for 15 minutes and you’ve
already imagined every scenario of
things that could go wrong on this day
there are still 20 minutes left until
your alarm rings so you imagine
everything that will go wrong tomorrow
then it rings when he smiles the war
packs her things and says I’m leaving
the ceiling is an interest from your
face the walls stop closing in and
you’re back in Paris under that starless
sky you think about kissing him
but the Imam walks in dangling salvation
from the tip of his prayer beads saying
things about how God speaks softly and
carries a big stick as if his sermons
weren’t phallic enough already
then your mom brings eternal damnation
into the picture the temperature rises
and you’re not sure if it’s hell or the
way his eyes look tonight you feel like
a lie in that red dress heaven and hell
and adolescent hormones are picking you
apart in that order you kiss him anyway
and for a moment you can breathe without
a ticking time bomb on your oxygen tank
you recognize the irony of a Muslim with
a bomb metaphor and pray to God the CIA
can’t hear your thoughts the city falls
away around you the night air feels like
a summer harvest the mom the CIA and
your mother convened in the corner the
Bible starts looking at you funny you
kissed him again and sink this must be
how the Red Sea feels when she tastes
the Atlantic on a breath of wind but
fear clamps down on your throat so he
says it first too soon and too quickly
you listen anyway
bite down that thing you heard somewhere
about how those who love first are the
first to go when he looks at you
forget everything spend the next
eternity making up for not saying it
first
carry him the way the Nile carries Lake
Victoria
hold him the way a traveler hangs on to
the North Star love him the way the Dead
Sea loves Mount Everest have a enveloped
the peaks and Tros of this planet but
his best day sink into your worst your
worst days into his best make a home of
this every body of water every drop
every rain makes you think of him and
you’re both from the desert so you can’t
help but think you’ve spent your entire
life at his mercy when he leaves you
it doesn’t stop raining you’re left
drenched in the desert something you
prayed for you start to wonder if the
continents ever call for each other on
the cold nights or a Venus ever reaches
for Saturn or if the moon ever wants to
come home I tried to forget you sunk all
your memories in the river but the waves
keep tossing them back I want to believe
that I’ll see you again but we don’t
live long where I’m from Venus is
weeping in my arms the hardest part of
watching you leave is
you can anxiety ties you to the bed the war unpacks her things thank you
down the street when a man stops me and
says hey yo sister are you from the
motherland because my skin is a shade
too dark not to have come from foreign
soil because this garment on my head
screams Africa because my body is a
beacon calling everyone to come flock to
the motherland I’m like yeah I’m from
Sudan why he said yes you is cuz you
have a little bit of flavor in you don’t
get me wrong I’m just admiring what your
mama gave you let me tell you something
about my mama she can reduce a man to
tattered flesh without so much as
blinking her words fester beneath your
skin in the whole time you won’t be able
to stop cradling her eyes cuz my mama is
the woman paulus and formidable in the
same step woman walks into a war zone
and has warriors cowering at her feet my
momma hosts all of us in her face in her
body in her blood and blood is no good
once you let it loose so she always
holds us close keeping us safe from
caving in when I was seven my mama
cradled bullets in the billows of her
robes that same night she came home and
taught me how to get gunpowder out of
cotton with a bar of soap years later
when the soldiers held her at gunpoint
and after who she was she said I am a
daughter of Adam I am a woman who the
hell are you and the last time we went
home we watched our village burn
soldiers sporting blood from civilian
skulls this day too could turn water
into wine the woman who raised me turned
and said don’t be scared I’m Your Mother
I’m here I won’t let them through my
mama gave me conviction woman like her
inherent bruised wrist tired eyes and a
titanium plated spine the daughters of
widows wearing the wings of amputees
they carry countries between their
shoulder blades now I’m not saying that
dating is a first world problem but this
trifling guys seem to be the kind who
quote Rumi but not know what he
sacrificed for war who fawn over Lupita
but turned their racial filters on who
take their politics with a lot
a when I take mine with tear gas every
guy I meet once we my introduction to
the dark side wants me to open up the
subsidiary
and let him read every tearful page
because what survivor haven’t had her
struggle made spectacle don’t talk about
the motherland unless you know that
being from Africa means waking up in
afterthought in this country don’t talk
about my flavor unless you know that my
flavors insurrection is abelian is this
since my flavor is burned and it is grit
it is compromising you know compromise
until you’ve rebuilt your home but a
third time without bricks without mortar
without any other option I turn to the
man and said my mother in I don’t walk
the streets alone back home anymore
back home there are no streets to walk
anymore
thank you so here’s what I know about
sorrow it does three things it can repel
you which means you’ll run from it it
can paralyze you which means you’ll
stand still remain silent or it can
compel you meaning it’ll move you I
choose to let it move me I use my words
to raise the alarm on the conflicts of
our time the crises that seem to have
our whole world spilling ever outwards
in the hopes that someone will hear
something that moves them I make people
care about things they wouldn’t normally
care about and I make them feel better
when the world is ending now when I say
the world is ending I don’t necessarily
mean climate change rising refugee
crisis by the nationalism everywhere you
play British superhero dying I cried for
like three days by the way what I mean
is that for most of the people that I
worked with the world has truly ended
when I was seven years old
I was hiding under the bed in the heart
of Darfur with my two cousins and my
sister looking to my mom for guidance
fifteen years after that I was the
closing speaker at my Yale graduation
[Music]
this was us in the garden before it
happens before everything happened and
the thing is we made it out on the other
side alive there really truly is another
side when my parents left Sudan way
before the genocide officially started
we didn’t know what was gonna happen
next we didn’t know what to expect we
lived in Yemen where my dad was
transferred for work
we were well-off I started school we
didn’t even know we were refugees at the
time but we couldn’t go home in
preschool in Yemen I met this girl
called Maryam and I didn’t see her again
didn’t know what to say to her about
everything that had happened in the time
that passed between when we first met
and when I was standing there in front
of her being like it’s you what but I
must have said something right because
we’re still the closest of friends that
experience with Maryam it uh instilled
this thought in me this fearing question
what would you say to your past self or
in this case what would you say to
someone who knew your past self if you
would have the chance in my word I try
to answer that question every single day
I ask myself if 15 years ago someone
could have come to me and my people and
told us what was about to happen warned
us about the cost of war what would they
say how would they teach us to lift our
voices I’m still trying to answer that
question but that’s where the poetry
comes in so after graduation I spent two
years traveling around the world doing
just that teaching people to break the
silence to use poetry to reclaim their
stories and every single place that I
went I walked across the desert for 30
days I visited countless countries and
whether I was teaching rhythm workshops
to preschoolers in Nepal or how
Muslim girls right unapologetically
about romance I found that people were
the key to healing wood had been broken
but putting their faces back in front of
everything that there is is the only way
forward
I carry those people with me every
single day and I carry their stories
with me too in March I was teaching an
empathy or feeling his workshop in
Vasily camp on a UNHCR mission in Jordan
now I don’t always get to perform on a
stage to the people that I’m writing for
so it’s a special honor to be here in
Kakuma camp today you guys are amazing
it was my first time teaching poetry in
Arabic so I was terrified
especially because they’re kids and kids
can be really tough I thought feelings
workshop right you know it helps you
open up in the safest face it doesn’t
leave any room for judging because
everybody else is sharing too or so I
thought
by the end of it I was judging myself
because these kids their thoughts their
ideas their experiences were so
incredibly vast and our time was so
incredibly limited they were teaching me
to heal to love to put love first and
they could be talking about the entire
universe or a single star and I would be
lost
I’d be transformed my favorite poem that
came out of it was this race ila
when Holden mama olavo Giroud
la young and hill wa wa Jamil Avena min
letter from my mother’s arms to my
father
may the good and beautiful days come
back between us from the poet children
are defined by what they love that’s
something that constantly gets to me
when we as adults tend to let what we
fear or what we hate define us children
constantly let love define them because
it’s what they know that love is what I
choose to surround myself with it’s why
a number can mean so little and a person
can mean so much as for how do you feel
better when the world is ending you have
to surround yourself with love I carry
people with me
I carry love with me I try to remember
the spaces where I feel most safe and I
grow those spaces so I thought I would
end with a love poem today because love
is the inverse of fear and to truly
understand something you have to
understand the absence of it so here
goes how many of you remember your first
mine was a couple years ago I told my
mom about it she took it really well for
an African mama by the way but then she
was like you’re not gonna tell anyone
right and I was like uh only a couple
thousand people so this is a love poem
about a guy I don’t love anymore but
about the acts of loving itself which I
think changes us for the better it’s
called no one tells you how easy it is
to fall in love or how hard it is to
stay there please don’t tell my parents
okay
please the one you love sits across from
you at breakfast
maybe it’s your sister or your father or
the one who holds you closer than any
other person between you is the coffee
or your cell phone or the Atlantic Ocean
or a pillow covered in your mother’s
tears or your self-esteem again he says
calm down you feel the truth claw its
way out of your throat pass the butter
you say used to the part where everyone
asks how you are you say okay and they
believe it survivor’s guilt makes you
apologetic I talk a lot sorry I think
too fast sorry I count the exits in a
room as quickly as I count the exits in
a conversation sorry you try to control
it but that morning anxiety ties your
lover to the bed and says let’s play she
brings all her friends the trembling
legs the sweaty palms the indoor voice
your relationship you’ve only officially
been awake for 15 minutes and you’ve
already imagined every scenario of
things that could go wrong on this day
there are still 20 minutes left until
your alarm rings so you imagine
everything that will go wrong tomorrow
then it rings when he smiles the war
packs her things and says I’m leaving
the ceiling is an interest from your
face the walls stop closing in and
you’re back in Paris under that starless
sky you think about kissing him
but the Imam walks in dangling salvation
from the tip of his prayer beads saying
things about how God speaks softly and
carries a big stick as if his sermons
weren’t phallic enough already
then your mom brings eternal damnation
into the picture the temperature rises
and you’re not sure if it’s hell or the
way his eyes look tonight you feel like
a lie in that red dress heaven and hell
and adolescent hormones are picking you
apart in that order you kiss him anyway
and for a moment you can breathe without
a ticking time bomb on your oxygen tank
you recognize the irony of a Muslim with
a bomb metaphor and pray to God the CIA
can’t hear your thoughts the city falls
away around you the night air feels like
a summer harvest the mom the CIA and
your mother convened in the corner the
Bible starts looking at you funny you
kissed him again and sink this must be
how the Red Sea feels when she tastes
the Atlantic on a breath of wind but
fear clamps down on your throat so he
says it first too soon and too quickly
you listen anyway
bite down that thing you heard somewhere
about how those who love first are the
first to go when he looks at you
forget everything spend the next
eternity making up for not saying it
first
carry him the way the Nile carries Lake
Victoria
hold him the way a traveler hangs on to
the North Star love him the way the Dead
Sea loves Mount Everest have a enveloped
the peaks and Tros of this planet but
his best day sink into your worst your
worst days into his best make a home of
this every body of water every drop
every rain makes you think of him and
you’re both from the desert so you can’t
help but think you’ve spent your entire
life at his mercy when he leaves you
it doesn’t stop raining you’re left
drenched in the desert something you
prayed for you start to wonder if the
continents ever call for each other on
the cold nights or a Venus ever reaches
for Saturn or if the moon ever wants to
come home I tried to forget you sunk all
your memories in the river but the waves
keep tossing them back I want to believe
that I’ll see you again but we don’t
live long where I’m from Venus is
weeping in my arms the hardest part of
watching you leave is
you can anxiety ties you to the bed the war unpacks her things thank you
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