[Applause]
my great-great great-grandfather
remember it when he was kidnapped from
his mother’s hole stacked on a ship near
the West African coast and forced the
tribal back seat to leader in the fields
of Perdita on the day he was taken a
group of men broke into the home
disrupting the swarm of women his mother
moved quickly to protect her son and
wrapped it in fabric guiding his small
body where is he they demanded the slave
traders had told the men to take
children and so they knew she had a son
his mother held firm refusing to speak
they asked again just time adding their
fists and feet they beat and kicked her
until her body could no longer and take
the pain broken down by torture she said
looking there pointing to the fabric
that boy survived and passed that memory
bonds with his children he passed it on
to their children
until they reach all the way down to
meet without the art of storytelling and
without my family’s need to speak his
truth I don’t have such an intimate and
personal account of the transatlantic
slave trade and because the memory about
my lineage has been so violently
disrupted it’s really a treasure to have
a split of history of course back cases
where the story faith in and health for
instance I don’t know the name of his
come
me or his people but I know that he
lives with his mother he had a river
that opened up unto the sea I know that
until the day he died he spoke English
with a heavy accent that his tongue
never forgot the music of his whole life
as a writer who is compelled like a
history of my ancestors I’m always
working between not knowing and knowing
I work between the memories with shadows
and wavering Rex is attempting to
reconstruct a tangible experience one
that you could feel between your
fingertips writing from the past can be
painful some frankly want to hide from
the past but the past is always with us
refusing to be hidden this January
expect the new year with my family in
Trinidad where I was born I was with my
parents at my parents home and I have a
lot of beautiful memories here
it’s at the southernmost point of the
island where you can look across the
ocean and view Venezuelan I need to race
with my brothers and my cousins along
the beach and after that little gold
digging in the sirens for Chip chick
which is a tiny shellfish I’ve got care
once my parents would cook back and
curry itself with it this time when I
was there I noticed that there was a
pots in all I got a little returning in
the grass and I’ve seen them before but
I’ve never really hated much
until my parents told me that at very
hot that clears you that very hot to
work changes into molasses to make sugar
and rock and in that moment it struck me
that this land that for so many of my
most joyous memories also pulls a lot of
violence and grief all of it is there
the trials right next to the triads
whether we want to believe it or not
even when we aren’t looking for the past
the past is looking for us
as a writer I sit at the crossroads of
the past and present and I believe this
was crucial for and auditioning a better
future when I studied the plantations
way through system and also seen
parallels between back and the prison
industrial complex how it grips families
apart and forces families some of mom or
dad our son to leave in terrible
conditions were little or little money
and I think my god you have to imagine a
more effective and unique system when I
write about runaway slaves I’m praising
the refugees will to survive and I want
us to be more empathetic global
favorites to open our doors to those in
need
I used to be afraid of writing the
stories I used to worry when people said
why are you resurrecting the past
why are you so obsessed with slavery
then that happened a long time ago
and my favorite that has nothing to do
but who aware activate these questions
you scare me and what my abilities right
until I realized that fear as a vestige
from
those ideas are meant to cycle to be
humanized and to confess if I don’t
write the times I’ll never write
anything in telling my great-great-great
grandfather’s history I’m recognizing
both his humanity I might I’m honoring
those who came before who made
sacrifices to ensure my existence and my
future for all of that pains and
struggles the least I can do is to speak
and write a story to tribute to say
thank you to say even if I don’t know
your name on the scent of your hair I
have not forgotten I have a poem that’s
inspired by the stands of history and
the kind of honoring those who came
before it’s called a retrograde and I
need it with you as a parting gift she
crashed into my room took me outside
into the must be told right fit with the
gutter tons of fishermen’s wives peering
the flesh of a sweet walking sky she
taught me that complex dynamics were
spirits a thumb along the way to rest
their weary is enough of a threat of a
cook
we almost touched one in those days
ability to throw eggs wedge itself deep
into the throats of mountains where
horses could infect where footsteps
could see Eric’s memory onto peeling
rolls
dear mama the orchids have teeth the
machete the ornaments rusting up on the
wall I want to build you a temple of
teeth but my hands are too tender
my hands are stringing the rice grains
of gold wreath dear mama on the ocean
roams its shadow of splinters the fish
are hurling them fell them to the shore
the shawl of break-ins birds of dust the
scale of Meredith climbing the Sun on
the ocean roams a shadow of splinters
help will I swim for you when the day is done
my great-great great-grandfather
remember it when he was kidnapped from
his mother’s hole stacked on a ship near
the West African coast and forced the
tribal back seat to leader in the fields
of Perdita on the day he was taken a
group of men broke into the home
disrupting the swarm of women his mother
moved quickly to protect her son and
wrapped it in fabric guiding his small
body where is he they demanded the slave
traders had told the men to take
children and so they knew she had a son
his mother held firm refusing to speak
they asked again just time adding their
fists and feet they beat and kicked her
until her body could no longer and take
the pain broken down by torture she said
looking there pointing to the fabric
that boy survived and passed that memory
bonds with his children he passed it on
to their children
until they reach all the way down to
meet without the art of storytelling and
without my family’s need to speak his
truth I don’t have such an intimate and
personal account of the transatlantic
slave trade and because the memory about
my lineage has been so violently
disrupted it’s really a treasure to have
a split of history of course back cases
where the story faith in and health for
instance I don’t know the name of his
come
me or his people but I know that he
lives with his mother he had a river
that opened up unto the sea I know that
until the day he died he spoke English
with a heavy accent that his tongue
never forgot the music of his whole life
as a writer who is compelled like a
history of my ancestors I’m always
working between not knowing and knowing
I work between the memories with shadows
and wavering Rex is attempting to
reconstruct a tangible experience one
that you could feel between your
fingertips writing from the past can be
painful some frankly want to hide from
the past but the past is always with us
refusing to be hidden this January
expect the new year with my family in
Trinidad where I was born I was with my
parents at my parents home and I have a
lot of beautiful memories here
it’s at the southernmost point of the
island where you can look across the
ocean and view Venezuelan I need to race
with my brothers and my cousins along
the beach and after that little gold
digging in the sirens for Chip chick
which is a tiny shellfish I’ve got care
once my parents would cook back and
curry itself with it this time when I
was there I noticed that there was a
pots in all I got a little returning in
the grass and I’ve seen them before but
I’ve never really hated much
until my parents told me that at very
hot that clears you that very hot to
work changes into molasses to make sugar
and rock and in that moment it struck me
that this land that for so many of my
most joyous memories also pulls a lot of
violence and grief all of it is there
the trials right next to the triads
whether we want to believe it or not
even when we aren’t looking for the past
the past is looking for us
as a writer I sit at the crossroads of
the past and present and I believe this
was crucial for and auditioning a better
future when I studied the plantations
way through system and also seen
parallels between back and the prison
industrial complex how it grips families
apart and forces families some of mom or
dad our son to leave in terrible
conditions were little or little money
and I think my god you have to imagine a
more effective and unique system when I
write about runaway slaves I’m praising
the refugees will to survive and I want
us to be more empathetic global
favorites to open our doors to those in
need
I used to be afraid of writing the
stories I used to worry when people said
why are you resurrecting the past
why are you so obsessed with slavery
then that happened a long time ago
and my favorite that has nothing to do
but who aware activate these questions
you scare me and what my abilities right
until I realized that fear as a vestige
from
those ideas are meant to cycle to be
humanized and to confess if I don’t
write the times I’ll never write
anything in telling my great-great-great
grandfather’s history I’m recognizing
both his humanity I might I’m honoring
those who came before who made
sacrifices to ensure my existence and my
future for all of that pains and
struggles the least I can do is to speak
and write a story to tribute to say
thank you to say even if I don’t know
your name on the scent of your hair I
have not forgotten I have a poem that’s
inspired by the stands of history and
the kind of honoring those who came
before it’s called a retrograde and I
need it with you as a parting gift she
crashed into my room took me outside
into the must be told right fit with the
gutter tons of fishermen’s wives peering
the flesh of a sweet walking sky she
taught me that complex dynamics were
spirits a thumb along the way to rest
their weary is enough of a threat of a
cook
we almost touched one in those days
ability to throw eggs wedge itself deep
into the throats of mountains where
horses could infect where footsteps
could see Eric’s memory onto peeling
rolls
dear mama the orchids have teeth the
machete the ornaments rusting up on the
wall I want to build you a temple of
teeth but my hands are too tender
my hands are stringing the rice grains
of gold wreath dear mama on the ocean
roams its shadow of splinters the fish
are hurling them fell them to the shore
the shawl of break-ins birds of dust the
scale of Meredith climbing the Sun on
the ocean roams a shadow of splinters
help will I swim for you when the day is done
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