pioneers of programming of a program
many of us are aware of and often
inspired by Joseph and suffer us so
Curtis couldn’t make it today she was
caught up and they are the co-founders
of backyard poetry which is an open mic
event initiative with the intent to
provide a platform for young poets to
showcase your talents and share your
stories it is also to create
multicultural community for poets and a
diverse environment where they can share
interactions with one another let’s
when the rain came pouring through our
doorsteps there was nowhere for us to go
our homes were not built to withstand
this kind of trauma so we built
sailboats from the remnants of our homes
and we tried to escape our drowning
house there were nights when we couldn’t
even see the light of the moon nights
when my mother sailboat of a heart grew
too weary to hold us above water above
the sea of Tears flooding our home there
were nights when the breeze stopped with
him stop tickling cheese and caressing
them my cold wind I learned is better
than no wind at all I know that my
mother’s emotions are like an
overflowing river I know that we both
carry our hearts on our sleeve on our
fingertips because I sleeves were not
close enough to hold everyone we touch I
know that I have more to lose than I
care to admit I know that I’m not strong
enough to mend every break in your soul
or every tear in your heart but I know
that I will kill myself trying he said
there will come men more worthy of your
love than me and I’m still waiting for
the day when your burdens and the
burdens of your heart will be too heavy
for me to carry the burdens of your soul
will never be too heavy for me to carry
my darling there will come a day when
this won’t numb your pain anymore the
candy that you crave so badly will eat
away at your sweet tooth will eat away
at your sweet tooth until it turns to
dust the remnants of our drowning home
built as a sailboat that wasn’t strong
enough to hold us above water for too
long I will always remember that you
chose your candy over this
I think that a lot of the time we tend
to underestimate ourselves in terms of
our ability to use art art forms to
express ourselves in any way or form I
think that the idea that writing or
music or poetry or art in any way is
limited to some sort of creative elite
that that idea holds us back from being
able to utilize these art forms in our
own way and I think what’s worse is that
we underestimate the importance of
self-expression itself when I was 15
years old I wrote my first poem I was in
my room and when my twin brother and my
mother were having this argument and it
was getting really heated and it was
loud and it was kind of getting
aggressive and i sat in my room I tried
to close the door I tied to shut them
out and I wrote a poem that now in
hindsight is it’s awful it’s never going
to see the light of day again but
looking back at it now I wrote this I
think it was called here we are free or
something about this like make-believe
world where you can say or do or be
whatever you want it to be and no one
would be able to stop you it was amazing
for me as a fifteen-year-old but but
when I look back at it now I see this
and I remember that this is why I wrote
this poem and these are the words I used
to kind of distract myself or try to
understand what was going on a few these
girls talking to a friend of mine and he
said when I asked him who’s audience was
he said my audience is myself I younger
me and her whole there he and I realized
that that was exactly what I used to do
as well I didn’t know that at the time
but looking back now what i realize is i
was starting to chronicle my life so now
seven years later i have a seven-year
timeline of things that i have went
through or things that I’ve experienced
and the words that i use to navigate
those things and how i chose to
understand them or how i chose to
explain them to myself
and I think what we don’t realize is
that that’s what a lot of people do once
you become a spoken word artist or
somebody who performs on stages your
poetry you start to sort of think about
what other people would want to hear or
how you want to describe this thing
that’s going on no matter what it is and
we lose we lose the the effect that it
used to have on us when we used to write
essentially for ourselves when we used
to try to explain things from our own
perspective to ourselves from a
different perspective I think it’s very
important that when you go back to your
poetry or when you go back to your
writing you can remember what you went
through at that time and so to avoid
making that same mistake again or to
learn and relearn from your experiences
that you may have forgotten when I was
17 I started writing poems for a future
non-existent daughter I called her the
Jane I give her a name and everything
and I was so sure that these this poem
was going to get to her and again
looking back as a poem and I wrote when
I was 17 it was awful I hated it I hate
it now that I would back at it but I
still do most of the time because I
still write poetry for a future
non-existent daughter I still think that
I’m gonna compile visa some sort of book
and give them to her when she turns 18
or something I don’t know where I get
these ideas from honestly but it’s just
something that it was a fun idea for me
and so I kept writing these poems and I
I apologize by the way I don’t I have a
very deep issue with memorizing my poems
dear lujayne I need you to listen to the
sound of life to the sound your heart
makes when it beats for another in the
night when you no longer have the will
to fight listen to your screaming soul
begging you to let go of the pain of
shattered hopes that the Stardust in
your eyes guide you back to mine baby
girl I know that most things don’t make
a lot of sense I know the right now
you’re probably hell bent over a boy
that you think is heaven-sent but we’re
not young enough to understand
unconditional love anymore lujayne your
grandmother is afraid she’s afraid of
the dark she’s afraid of being home
alone after mother she’s afraid of
people she doesn’t know she’s afraid of
people she knows she’s afraid of cause
Dorrans but most of all she’s afraid of
God when you ask her why she fears the
dark she will say I don’t trust what
lies behind these walls I don’t trust at
these hands that I can’t see won’t
testify against me in my sleep when I
ask her why she’s afraid of closed doors
she says we are bound to be laid six
feet under will be locked in there why
do you want to be locked in so soon
ladainian I don’t want you to be afraid
of the dark I found myself behind closed
doors so I don’t want you to be afraid
of those either in my solitude life
danced around the fires of my existence
and threatened to never burn this
brightly again if I took it for granted
fear is only a roadblock sometimes a
necessary evil but always just a barrier
so don’t let it Derek 8 and shackle
every decision you make everything
around you is beautiful everything is
exactly where it needs to be so close
your eyes inhale you and I and
everything beneath this blue sky we are
one in the same variations of each other
the sooner you realize that there is
nothing
wrong with any decision you make the
sooner you realize that you can’t make
mistakes the easier it will be to
breathe thank you I wrote that um two
years ago and i remember that i wrote
this form again after a conversation or
something that is very hazy now but i
can remember enough about it to say that
this is what was going on in my life at
the time and i think the most important
thing about about writing is not to
underestimate the power that it has on
yourself a lot of a lot of people there
right self-help books they they talk
about how you should write your goals
and your dreams or any kind of
achievement that you want to make in the
future in the morning we read that list
in the morning read that list at night
and they made and they did a lot of
research and they they documented
everything and they found that when you
write these things down and you read
them over and over again to yourself you
reinforce your your motivations and it
makes you a little bit more motivated
but I don’t really like to talk about
research and things like that when it
comes to writing it’s just from personal
experience that I’ve had and it’s made
me it just made me a kind of a better
writer in a lot of ways but it’s also
helped me navigate a lot of things that
I’ve been going through and so I really
just want to encourage you all to pick
up a pen it doesn’t have to be poetry it
never starts off as poetry honestly you
won’t even know what you’re writing
until seven years down the line pole but
it’s just important to write these
things down it’s important to chronicle
what’s going on in any
a that you can and I want to end my talk
with a poem from my best friend who was
supposed to be here with me today and so
I just want to leave you guys with the
phone that you it’s called this is my
last born
this I think this is my last poem about
is my last home about you kind of no no
this is definitely probably my last poem
about you I mean this is what I hope
will be my last column about you up
because time stopped for you life
stopped for you wells run dry for you
patience war and I grew old for you and
in your aftermath tragedy SAT well in
the pit of my stomach bitterness at the
tip of my tongue emptiness filled me to
the to the rim until it spilled over
with forgiveness I still haven’t
forgiven myself for in your house their
math ink to paper became what water is
to lungs the more I spot out the better
I breathe ink to paper what language
became what language is to the deaf it
only spoke out you and in your memory
but never once did it matter ink to
paper became what ash is to fire just
the remains of something really great so
this is my last poem about you I think
see I know that I haven’t waited you out
of my system I haven’t written you out
of my veins I know that you will still
crawl under my skin whenever someone
else tries to touch it that you reside
in these bones I know that you are in
the air between you are my missing rig
and you always want it to be closer to
me than God so you’re never really
around through my mind just threw my
jugular this has to be my last poem
about you because my notebook is a
blasphemous shrine these pages live off
the worship of pain my words have to
become something other than a build-up
to your name so this is a poem about
change this is a poem about the late
night peace and I found at City am and
what’s the am feels like when you’re not
afraid of the dark we’re breathing
sounds like when you’re not afraid of
silence and what it’s like to hear
yourself and nothing
someone else’s static this is my last
forum about you see I only ever wrote
that he only ever wrote about three
things death you and the city because
you all made me feel the same way and
this this is the end of you tear stained
poetry you ballpoint heartbreak you
treasure in my stripper q1 half home
other how other half eviction letter you
tremble in my vocals you Benjamin Button
of emotion growing backwards on the
inside you got cut up you two extra
minute substitute you misery to my
company this is my last poem about you
hopefully thank you [Applause]