[Music]
my wife and I both have very different
ideas of just how involved a human being
should be on social media for instance
my wife has 40 Facebook friends I have
4,000 this talk started about a year and
a half ago lying back in bed with my
wife we both had our laptops in front of
us both of us were on Facebook when my
wife turned to me and she said ooh
joaquin what is this notification mean
that I got I leaned over look at the
screen and I said that is a Facebook
message request she said what’s that
I said that’s when someone who’s not
your friend
on Facebook is asking you for permission
to simply send you a message you don’t
even have to open that thing you can
just hit decline on that sucker she said
I’ve never gotten one I’m going to
accept it and I’m going to open it and
she did and then she read the message
and then her face contorted into an
expression that I’ve never seen in all
of our years of marriage and she turned
to me and she said Joaquin this message
isn’t for me it’s someone trying to get
a hold of you you need to read this now
she handed me your laptop and that’s
when I read it 23 words
23 words that would change my life
forever 23 words that would inspire a
book 23 words that would give me
something I’ve been searching for my
entire life
the ability to forgive the message read
you don’t know me not really and I hate
to tell you like this but my father I
mean our Father has died and that’s how
I found out but the man who left my
mother and me when I was 1 year old had
passed away from a Facebook message from
a stranger who shared half of my blood
at this point in my life I was halfway
through my MFA that’s a master in Fine
Arts with a concentration in poetry I
was studying the Institute of American
Indian arts in Santa Fe New Mexico and
to the professors I was studying under
sherwin but Suey and Santi Frazer
instructed us to tack our manuscript up
on our office wall or bedroom wall and
tack new revisions of existing poems on
top of the older one so you could see
the book grow in depth and in length
before your eyes I was halfway through
my book my manuscript at this time I
walked into my office that night after
reading that message because I couldn’t
sleep and I looked at these 36 pages of
a book
my halfway point and I ripped them all
down and I sat at my desk and I wrote
down on a piece of paper one question
Joaquin how did your father’s absence
make you feel as a young person I wrote
down one word degraded and then I opened
my my laptop again and I typed into the
search engine the word degradation and
it sent me to a scientific article on
the top ten causes of degradation for
topsoil or earth landmass and I looked
at these ten bold words these large
destructive words and I asked myself
could I write a poem using these ten
words to my father and that night I
wrote this this is called causes of
degradation
air pollution she left the photos up for
a while
you hung over us like sulfur dioxide
visible and invisible my smile on your
face in the Polaroids I took them down
one night as she slept hid them from her
and a boys desperate attempt to clear
the air a son will do anything to help
his mother breathe easier fires so many
nights she pulled the lid unfiltered
camel from between your lips she told me
more than once you almost burned us to
the ground as we slept when you leave
something unattended negligently discard
cigarettes sons and all smudge they such
all such small things you turn flesh
into debris the ultimate goal of the
arsonist is to destroy wholly or in part
over-exploitation you tried so hard to
ruin us with your carelessness hands
covered in paint above a once blank
canvas and over abstraction just a fancy
word for prolonged periods of drought
logging you uprooted sapling pinyon no
gallito Jesus stripped it and left it
bare there was no way to hold the soil
in place
insects surely you must know
encroachment of any kind can contribute
to the loss of something small and rare
pests and vegetation diseases eventually
I poured gasoline on the photos set them
ablaze cleansing by fire I watched our
faces blackened in the flame any poison
meant to kill the predator will
eventually destroy the prey firewood
scavenging in the darkest part of the
forest moss grow so deep that walking
makes no sound this is how you slipped
away into the ink shoes in one hand
Flint in the other silently searching
for cattails fungus compressed flower
tops to catch the spark when you apply
heat but starving a breath the Ember
becomes highly combustible animal
foraging if given the choice we would
rather freeze than starve even in winter
we would
seek farther Forge longer than our
fathers we came to know intense
shivering and slurred speech in in an
intimate way pasturing and over grazing
it is uncertain how long the recovery
period will last we should have known
something wild and non-native would
refuse to take root in such an arid
place industrialization there was
nothing natural about the rhythm we
created there was never a homeland to be
lost
urbanization fatherless boys find each
other become brothers bound to one
another by the want of blood though
shifting variables make predictions
about future growth next to impossible
some things were certain natural causes
included earthquakes storms and wildboy
setting photos on fire economic impact
was a child-support check that bounced
over population was three brothers
sleeping on a fold-out couch in the
living room
extinction was a cop car parked near the
corner beneath the boulevard at mañana
Avenue it was also close so far away I
can remember as a young person feeling
degraded by my father’s absence but
writing these poems got me thinking a
lot about my father and yes my father
did make a choice to leave me but
writing these poems made me realize that
he made that choice when he was a very
young men and as you all know young men
will sometimes do stupid selfish things
and that does not make him a bad man
that makes him a man who did a bad thing
and there is a difference as I was
writing these poems early in the process
they were about pain but that quickly
transmuted into forgiveness it wasn’t
long into the process of writing these
poems that I wrote this next one it’s
called archetypes three
I will tell you three things about my
father and one will be a lie
my father left the year I was born my
father’s heart like mine and yours is
made up of four chambers but only three
work well my father’s left atrium broke
the day he walked away from me there
were three of us we all came from
different fathers but the same mother we
all have different colored eyes but the
same smile we’re all different but the
same we’re all different but the same
we’re all different but the same four I
think I’ve only loved four women in my
life well at some point you should take
all the money in your wallet and spend
it on the women in your life you have
loved well at this exact moment counting
the change in my pocket I currently have
just under seven dollars on me I would
buy the first woman a white peach
because she once moaned after biting
into one I would buy the second woman a
pack of sugar-free gum because she is
diabetic
I’ll buy the third woman a disposable
camera which seems insignificant but oh
can you imagine the possibilities and
those 24 exposures the fourth woman I
would give this poem as I would likely
be out of money at this point now this
part of the poem says as much about the
fourth woman’s love of money a love of
poetry as it does about my ability to
budget money well I’m writing this poem
in an airport my flight lands at 4:00
p.m. and there’s a very good chance my
phone will be dead by then when I land I
don’t want to call the four women
I’ve loved well I want to call all the
women I did not love well and tell them
just how sorry I am I’m sorry I’m sorry
I’m sorry I’m sorry seven my favorite
movie growing up as a kid was the
Magnificent Seven a remake of a classic
Japanese film the Seven Samurai in terms
of film my favorite childhood movie is
an American bastard but it’s a good one
so am I so are my brothers
you could teach a class on archetypal
symbolism from the chest that film alone
the star that film yul brenner died of
lung cancer just before he died he shot
one of the most powerful and poignant
public service announcements that PSA
ends with yul brenner staring into your
soul from inside the black and white
television repeating three words just
don’t smoke I swear it must have run
seven times a night during the prime
time of my youth and though I can’t be
certain of it I think those may have
been your Brenner’s last words when I
was seven I learned that my father
smoked unfiltered camels so did you’ll
bring er and though I can’t be certain
of it I think in the end will not be my
father’s actual broken heart no will it
be his metaphorical broken heart that
gets the best of him in the end it will
be his lungs and I his firstborn son
will not get to be there to hold his
hand when he dies
and when I get to hear his last words I
will not get to ask for or accept
forgiveness in the end there will be
only silence I forgive you I forgive you
I forgive you I forgive you
I forgive you I forgive you I forgive
you I just found out my flight is
delayed it will not land until 7:00 p.m.
well the women I did not love well
forgive me for my silence or those times
I should have been silent but was not
well they forgive me for my carelessness
with money or my carelessness with all
four chambers of the human heart when
they forgive me for loving words more
than I love them or they forgive me for
all the poems I’ve written about them or
all the poems I haven’t written about
them I want to write a collection of 28
poems seven poems for each of the four
women that I have loved well and though
I love them all I will reserve the use
of closed-form for only one of them I
will write her seven Shakespearean
sonnets no I will write her seven
villanelles no I will write her seven
epic poems written in rhyming couplets
no I will write her seven powerful
and poignant PSAs that will all end the
same with three words repeating I love
you I love you I love you I love you I
love you I love you I love you after I
wrote that poem an overwhelming sense of
calmness fell upon me and I found myself
able to forgive with greater ease after
writing that poem so much so that when I
received a follow-up message from my
half-sister containing my father’s
obituary and I discovered that I was not
in it that I had been written out of my
father’s life even in death I was not
bitter and I was not angry
yes I was hurt but I took a breath and
in that breath I came to the realization
that my father did not write his
obituary someone else did and it was
their omission not his so I wrote a poem
writing they’re wrong this is called the
breath of our disconnection or on
finding out that I was left out of my
father’s obituary he is survived by
sheets soiled crimson crumpled cold on
hospital floor survived by blood in
lungs throat and mouth hair in sink by
chemotherapy by diagnosis survived by
pain inside and shortness of breath by
calloused hands farm Jack come along
whirly jig he is survived by new family
and new priorities by Community College
art classes by beautiful Brown woman by
not so Brown boy he has survived by
pills of different colors and sizes by
PTSD by Agent Orange he has survived by
severed limbs and wells of soldiers too
young for death by Ho Chi Minh City unit
Corps God and country act one of Hamlet
by paint-by-numbers survived by amniotic
fluid in lungs throat and mouth by
unbuckle belt and floral print dress on
floor board of a Chevy by young man and
younger woman Swain and time in
small-town Texas dancehall he is
survived by I’m so lonesome I could cry
playing on the jukebox
but these poems taught me anything
they taught me that yes my father did
leave me all those years ago but I don’t
think he meant to and that’s enough
that’s enough to forgive him I struggled
a great deal with the title of my new
book originally was gonna call it causes
of degradation after that first poem
that I wrote that night after receiving
the message but there’s a lot of fire
imagery in the book so I was starting to
be drawn to the word arsonist I had a
conversation with another one of my
professors James along Yoda Stevens
who’s just as gentle and lovely as he is
brilliant and he said to me it has to be
arsonist
it has the word Sun in it and he said it
also contains the phrase our Sun is
inside the word and then I knew that it
had to be that I want to close with a
poem that’s very near the end of the
book and I think it sums up this TED
talk perfectly and sums up the book that
I’ve written it’s called arsonist and
sums up maybe my entire life it’s called
for better or worse almost a year now
what I’ve learned is this my dead father
is not in the dirt nor is he and the
poems he is in me my name is Joaquin see
what the nail I’m a poet and a teacher
and I am my father’s son and I have an
idea worth spreading and that idea is
the not so simple act of forgiveness
thank you so very much
[Applause]
[Music]
my wife and I both have very different
ideas of just how involved a human being
should be on social media for instance
my wife has 40 Facebook friends I have
4,000 this talk started about a year and
a half ago lying back in bed with my
wife we both had our laptops in front of
us both of us were on Facebook when my
wife turned to me and she said ooh
joaquin what is this notification mean
that I got I leaned over look at the
screen and I said that is a Facebook
message request she said what’s that
I said that’s when someone who’s not
your friend
on Facebook is asking you for permission
to simply send you a message you don’t
even have to open that thing you can
just hit decline on that sucker she said
I’ve never gotten one I’m going to
accept it and I’m going to open it and
she did and then she read the message
and then her face contorted into an
expression that I’ve never seen in all
of our years of marriage and she turned
to me and she said Joaquin this message
isn’t for me it’s someone trying to get
a hold of you you need to read this now
she handed me your laptop and that’s
when I read it 23 words
23 words that would change my life
forever 23 words that would inspire a
book 23 words that would give me
something I’ve been searching for my
entire life
the ability to forgive the message read
you don’t know me not really and I hate
to tell you like this but my father I
mean our Father has died and that’s how
I found out but the man who left my
mother and me when I was 1 year old had
passed away from a Facebook message from
a stranger who shared half of my blood
at this point in my life I was halfway
through my MFA that’s a master in Fine
Arts with a concentration in poetry I
was studying the Institute of American
Indian arts in Santa Fe New Mexico and
to the professors I was studying under
sherwin but Suey and Santi Frazer
instructed us to tack our manuscript up
on our office wall or bedroom wall and
tack new revisions of existing poems on
top of the older one so you could see
the book grow in depth and in length
before your eyes I was halfway through
my book my manuscript at this time I
walked into my office that night after
reading that message because I couldn’t
sleep and I looked at these 36 pages of
a book
my halfway point and I ripped them all
down and I sat at my desk and I wrote
down on a piece of paper one question
Joaquin how did your father’s absence
make you feel as a young person I wrote
down one word degraded and then I opened
my my laptop again and I typed into the
search engine the word degradation and
it sent me to a scientific article on
the top ten causes of degradation for
topsoil or earth landmass and I looked
at these ten bold words these large
destructive words and I asked myself
could I write a poem using these ten
words to my father and that night I
wrote this this is called causes of
degradation
air pollution she left the photos up for
a while
you hung over us like sulfur dioxide
visible and invisible my smile on your
face in the Polaroids I took them down
one night as she slept hid them from her
and a boys desperate attempt to clear
the air a son will do anything to help
his mother breathe easier fires so many
nights she pulled the lid unfiltered
camel from between your lips she told me
more than once you almost burned us to
the ground as we slept when you leave
something unattended negligently discard
cigarettes sons and all smudge they such
all such small things you turn flesh
into debris the ultimate goal of the
arsonist is to destroy wholly or in part
over-exploitation you tried so hard to
ruin us with your carelessness hands
covered in paint above a once blank
canvas and over abstraction just a fancy
word for prolonged periods of drought
logging you uprooted sapling pinyon no
gallito Jesus stripped it and left it
bare there was no way to hold the soil
in place
insects surely you must know
encroachment of any kind can contribute
to the loss of something small and rare
pests and vegetation diseases eventually
I poured gasoline on the photos set them
ablaze cleansing by fire I watched our
faces blackened in the flame any poison
meant to kill the predator will
eventually destroy the prey firewood
scavenging in the darkest part of the
forest moss grow so deep that walking
makes no sound this is how you slipped
away into the ink shoes in one hand
Flint in the other silently searching
for cattails fungus compressed flower
tops to catch the spark when you apply
heat but starving a breath the Ember
becomes highly combustible animal
foraging if given the choice we would
rather freeze than starve even in winter
we would
seek farther Forge longer than our
fathers we came to know intense
shivering and slurred speech in in an
intimate way pasturing and over grazing
it is uncertain how long the recovery
period will last we should have known
something wild and non-native would
refuse to take root in such an arid
place industrialization there was
nothing natural about the rhythm we
created there was never a homeland to be
lost
urbanization fatherless boys find each
other become brothers bound to one
another by the want of blood though
shifting variables make predictions
about future growth next to impossible
some things were certain natural causes
included earthquakes storms and wildboy
setting photos on fire economic impact
was a child-support check that bounced
over population was three brothers
sleeping on a fold-out couch in the
living room
extinction was a cop car parked near the
corner beneath the boulevard at mañana
Avenue it was also close so far away I
can remember as a young person feeling
degraded by my father’s absence but
writing these poems got me thinking a
lot about my father and yes my father
did make a choice to leave me but
writing these poems made me realize that
he made that choice when he was a very
young men and as you all know young men
will sometimes do stupid selfish things
and that does not make him a bad man
that makes him a man who did a bad thing
and there is a difference as I was
writing these poems early in the process
they were about pain but that quickly
transmuted into forgiveness it wasn’t
long into the process of writing these
poems that I wrote this next one it’s
called archetypes three
I will tell you three things about my
father and one will be a lie
my father left the year I was born my
father’s heart like mine and yours is
made up of four chambers but only three
work well my father’s left atrium broke
the day he walked away from me there
were three of us we all came from
different fathers but the same mother we
all have different colored eyes but the
same smile we’re all different but the
same we’re all different but the same
we’re all different but the same four I
think I’ve only loved four women in my
life well at some point you should take
all the money in your wallet and spend
it on the women in your life you have
loved well at this exact moment counting
the change in my pocket I currently have
just under seven dollars on me I would
buy the first woman a white peach
because she once moaned after biting
into one I would buy the second woman a
pack of sugar-free gum because she is
diabetic
I’ll buy the third woman a disposable
camera which seems insignificant but oh
can you imagine the possibilities and
those 24 exposures the fourth woman I
would give this poem as I would likely
be out of money at this point now this
part of the poem says as much about the
fourth woman’s love of money a love of
poetry as it does about my ability to
budget money well I’m writing this poem
in an airport my flight lands at 4:00
p.m. and there’s a very good chance my
phone will be dead by then when I land I
don’t want to call the four women
I’ve loved well I want to call all the
women I did not love well and tell them
just how sorry I am I’m sorry I’m sorry
I’m sorry I’m sorry seven my favorite
movie growing up as a kid was the
Magnificent Seven a remake of a classic
Japanese film the Seven Samurai in terms
of film my favorite childhood movie is
an American bastard but it’s a good one
so am I so are my brothers
you could teach a class on archetypal
symbolism from the chest that film alone
the star that film yul brenner died of
lung cancer just before he died he shot
one of the most powerful and poignant
public service announcements that PSA
ends with yul brenner staring into your
soul from inside the black and white
television repeating three words just
don’t smoke I swear it must have run
seven times a night during the prime
time of my youth and though I can’t be
certain of it I think those may have
been your Brenner’s last words when I
was seven I learned that my father
smoked unfiltered camels so did you’ll
bring er and though I can’t be certain
of it I think in the end will not be my
father’s actual broken heart no will it
be his metaphorical broken heart that
gets the best of him in the end it will
be his lungs and I his firstborn son
will not get to be there to hold his
hand when he dies
and when I get to hear his last words I
will not get to ask for or accept
forgiveness in the end there will be
only silence I forgive you I forgive you
I forgive you I forgive you
I forgive you I forgive you I forgive
you I just found out my flight is
delayed it will not land until 7:00 p.m.
well the women I did not love well
forgive me for my silence or those times
I should have been silent but was not
well they forgive me for my carelessness
with money or my carelessness with all
four chambers of the human heart when
they forgive me for loving words more
than I love them or they forgive me for
all the poems I’ve written about them or
all the poems I haven’t written about
them I want to write a collection of 28
poems seven poems for each of the four
women that I have loved well and though
I love them all I will reserve the use
of closed-form for only one of them I
will write her seven Shakespearean
sonnets no I will write her seven
villanelles no I will write her seven
epic poems written in rhyming couplets
no I will write her seven powerful
and poignant PSAs that will all end the
same with three words repeating I love
you I love you I love you I love you I
love you I love you I love you after I
wrote that poem an overwhelming sense of
calmness fell upon me and I found myself
able to forgive with greater ease after
writing that poem so much so that when I
received a follow-up message from my
half-sister containing my father’s
obituary and I discovered that I was not
in it that I had been written out of my
father’s life even in death I was not
bitter and I was not angry
yes I was hurt but I took a breath and
in that breath I came to the realization
that my father did not write his
obituary someone else did and it was
their omission not his so I wrote a poem
writing they’re wrong this is called the
breath of our disconnection or on
finding out that I was left out of my
father’s obituary he is survived by
sheets soiled crimson crumpled cold on
hospital floor survived by blood in
lungs throat and mouth hair in sink by
chemotherapy by diagnosis survived by
pain inside and shortness of breath by
calloused hands farm Jack come along
whirly jig he is survived by new family
and new priorities by Community College
art classes by beautiful Brown woman by
not so Brown boy he has survived by
pills of different colors and sizes by
PTSD by Agent Orange he has survived by
severed limbs and wells of soldiers too
young for death by Ho Chi Minh City unit
Corps God and country act one of Hamlet
by paint-by-numbers survived by amniotic
fluid in lungs throat and mouth by
unbuckle belt and floral print dress on
floor board of a Chevy by young man and
younger woman Swain and time in
small-town Texas dancehall he is
survived by I’m so lonesome I could cry
playing on the jukebox
but these poems taught me anything
they taught me that yes my father did
leave me all those years ago but I don’t
think he meant to and that’s enough
that’s enough to forgive him I struggled
a great deal with the title of my new
book originally was gonna call it causes
of degradation after that first poem
that I wrote that night after receiving
the message but there’s a lot of fire
imagery in the book so I was starting to
be drawn to the word arsonist I had a
conversation with another one of my
professors James along Yoda Stevens
who’s just as gentle and lovely as he is
brilliant and he said to me it has to be
arsonist
it has the word Sun in it and he said it
also contains the phrase our Sun is
inside the word and then I knew that it
had to be that I want to close with a
poem that’s very near the end of the
book and I think it sums up this TED
talk perfectly and sums up the book that
I’ve written it’s called arsonist and
sums up maybe my entire life it’s called
for better or worse almost a year now
what I’ve learned is this my dead father
is not in the dirt nor is he and the
poems he is in me my name is Joaquin see
what the nail I’m a poet and a teacher
and I am my father’s son and I have an
idea worth spreading and that idea is
the not so simple act of forgiveness
thank you so very much
[Applause]
[Music]
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