first one of the season so thank you for being here so the lowertown reading jam is sponsored by the st paul almanac it's good to see you all here if you're interested our books are available for purchase right here at the black dog cafe and it's i think it's right there by the counter  learning and building relationships through sharing people's stories we'd like to thank our sponsors this activity is made possible in part by funds provided by the lowertown future fund of the same paul foundation and support from st paul neighborhood network as pm then airs our shows throughout the month on their cable access channel shout out to shell and we'd also like to thank to cooma aken he's our incredible artist who draws action as it is happening and if you look behind me you can see all the amazing lowertown weaving jam stuff that he's created and i keep telling him this i want to little bit about her she is a visionary and founding member of the givens plaque writer's retreat program who is interested in bridging the gap of what is missing for her what was missing was a network of black di writers to collaborate connect and support this writing aesthetic alina is a west african dancer choreographer poet and playwright who writes dramatic works with social economic and historical subject matter driven through personal characters she is also a given foundation literary artist please help me welcome alina scoop scoop scope so sorry please tell me w black thank you clarence wait for inviting me to do this i so appreciate you and i appreciate all the writers and all of you that he had to listen and so you know we have like a very small amount of time so i'm just going to like that and we're going to get things go and then i will introduce everyone to you at the very end but i will say hold on to your seats  the bridge you are inside me behind me in front of me beside me which is strange because you are outside walking are invisible dark you are with me loving me and holding me and wanting me which is strange because i told you that i wanted to be free there is a place on the other side of where we are now i will meet you there there is a hope on the other side of the last dream so i will find a little place along hopes shore where we can go together to dream a new don't worry on the days that you cannot make it i will come back as many times as i need to until i find you if i could write you a poem if i could write you a poem it would be long and complicated like our lives it would be brave and fierce and warm and loving and patient and would be you cannot be culled from language lazy bubbling language or naming a simple form and color i cannot be found in a balanced anchored couplets or a race to the finish in bumpy hills and swimming rolling waves the idea of me is expansive beyond shape and line analyzed and reconstructed tortured in consideration of how i should lay against the curve of the seam anchored to the margin or scattered until i shape the chevron the poet has been hoping to achieve to wish me into a form that can be contained on one page to at the most is to hope that i will fill the vessel you load me in the belief that i am shape of  noble describable i deserve at least short story my flex as novella  a time comes when silence is betrayal we always are what we do and do not do it is a hectic time calls for the person some of us were born into this war as others haven't gotten the memo or looked outside the window and saw the ghosts there are many ghosts here too many to count we co exist us in the trenches us the lifeless us the ones who cannot hide ourselves deployed as a nomad in the city of death in the new planet with no borders but locks and walls everywhere i walk aimlessly under the stars in the night time of my fears when i see the ghosts that helps keep me focused for they keep me company no idea of the day or what the clock says i look up at night and see teves in the sky take down the stars blood still wet like the uncertainty of this new certainty i have begun to see the exigent circumstance i was made into it happens when i do this real moron thing called thinking blood stew with like the uncertainty of this new certainty my conclusions are not always popular or pleasant i'm all out of cheeks to turn and the old narrative is out of people to blame we have no time to clean up boots the poverty of language is upon us the sounds are real the harrowing we are transfixed by a life where bullets till the truth because fear is the only thing that has a voice but that's a no blood stain in the bed i am a lifelong soldier in a proxy war as weapons are old truths they are being pushed aside by a new truth telling the only truth into a new law is we have a way of speaking languages that kill but we continue to worship them with complete of life and war or some space that goes unchecked the winds of this decade blowing us to the land of no future we stuck here where one can hear the crackle of the universe and we are all one our weapons are the words in which we worship with devotion we stuck loving illusions loyal to ling which is that failed us miserably loyal to business as usual in other we seem not just apathetic but naive enough to believe that our choices are a political say that again and twenty thirteen we seem not just apathetic but naive enough to believe that our choices are a political and human organization no choice ever  another thing i want to do a quick announcement a who is about to do another piece is doing a late night series at pillsbury house november six that later but for now we are about to start a race piece so i'm a get out the way don't forget the empty jar i'm just saying ok so i'm going to try an experiment which isn't an experiment as an experiment here so we'll see for people who don't know what late night is that was a cue hopefully batman knows what that means for people who don't know late night happens over it tells very house in the fall there's usually three nights and i think one of the best parts is this is an opportunity for artists to experiment  but for the audience i think the best part is that you get fed foods at eight and then the show is at nine and the show goes until eleven until it's done but you're seeing new work and people trying new stuff so if you  there's actually three there's november second of ember ninth and i'm up on the sixteenth you ready madame american art pride reigns first how is it that i live in a country where to apologize is the lowest thing one can do how is it that i live in a country where pride and infallibility even when false is more important than truth than relationship then the future viability of how we are here together with each other how is it that pride reigns first past wrongs didn't really happen that way and more importantly do not matter in the now how is it that the only humans are country government corporation and the great white hope how is it that i live in a country where many of us we must eat dirt and grin because others pride and save face is more important than our humanity how is it that i live in a country where acts of terrorism historically and regularly practiced on some of us inside the borders become massively criminal and immediately prosecut someone else comes knocking at the door how is it that i live in a place where country government corporation all dreams and ideas born of humans even humans ourselves cannot be human cannot be wrong cannot change cannot express regret cannot think of others how is it that i live in a country where once again we are the people out on the plains we promise native americans we promised the palestinians the poor of appalachia there are ton of me their liberty their lives without interference until we realize that we need where we have promised to leave them alone how is it that i live in a country where nobody is willing to say they are sorry and that what they or their company or their ancestors or our government or what our country did and does in other countries to other countries companies people spirits and souls is wrong wrong wrong it's evil self serving and unkind how is it that i live in a country that i love and i die with shame to be a part of every day how is it i live in a country where art is a dirty word unless it is to gain to grow to triumph over other the art of the deal the art of negotiation the art of conflict the art of war she had graduated from moody bible institute and was starting nurse's training at hamlin to become a missionary he was in seminary school at northwestern bible college to become a minister then head back home to philadelphia and start church she taught sunday school at that small church that is no longer there north of interstate ninety four he was in turning under the tutelage of leroy gardener sr she wondered where he went when church services were through he had no idea she was interested until she called bill and hill my mom starts a story of how she met my dad i pursued him i wondered where he went after church where does he live with a smile on her face i can see her watching dad walk down rondo avenue we are going through her old scrapbook that she made handmade it held cards that her and dad sent to each other with handwritten bible verses on them one card had a long letter from mom she'd gone home to menominee wisconsin to visit her family she explained that what was happening at home who she had seen friends and such but she was confused because they were sorry they weren't able to find a nice white boy for her they were sorry that she was dating a black man she was confused because she loved her family and her friends but she also loved bill my dad she wrote in the letter i love you bill dad said he didn't want to force her to choose him he wanted her to make this decision on her own he loved her and hope she loved him you love who you love they married on september first one nine hundred fifty eight their wedding picture sits on my desk at work it's a black and white holding hands there's smiles big and proud mom dressed in a t lame dress with a boat neckline sheer three quarter inch sleeves holding a bible wrapped in ribbon ribbons in her left hand dad is dressed in a white dinner jacket with black slacks and a bow tie looking very sidney porty a and guess who's coming to dinner are standing in front of the church steps mom tells me what we don't see in the picture to the right of the picture a group of white people who have gathered on the boulevard across the street a group of men women girls and boys watching my parents wedding party friends and family leave the church no harsh words were said just the typical minnesotan of gawking and looking this was one nine hundred fifty eight in minnesota it may not have been against the law for interation couples to marry but it was rare to see a couple getting married and someone must have minded because the windows of the church were broken out that night my parents were married almost fifty years they've come from different races but they were meant for each other they ate the same food were not afraid to go on a limb for someone and deeply believe that justice was for all they were not afraid to cross the color line to see someone like themselves beacon it was the end where i started to see my parents i had seen them so many times before but  when i was i saw them as individuals their own person grieving and coping each in their own way i saw them and knew i couldn't be hurtful to them longer see at age fourteen i wanted to curse and swear and not follow the rules being by dark we've got a list of the senior season homework first play later no you can't go on i don't care what you told them most of us remember this well the trials of teenage years i was ugly and mean to them when i wanted to be but the seeing never went away the side of my parents as human beings with feelings dreams aspirations it was clear to me and it only got clearer my dad and i became good friends and i became my mother's confidant she missed my sister kim terribly well they both did but mom was more demonstrative crying at the dinner table over to dish and listening to while listening to phil donahue or singing hymns at church dad was more inward methodical counseling and grief group and counseling and occasional hello kim to a picture on the wall but i saw them they were hurt hurting they lost one of their own this was different from baby boy young our oldest brother first born born dead they didn't know baby boy had hopes for him they had dreams for him and yes but they knew him she was theirs for fifteen years three months twenty three days five hours and ten minutes they watched her grow they saw her become own person from sucking her fingers and caring adult to a determined i don't care if you like me or not young girl wearing full afro and levi bell bottom court as they watch to get sick and they tried to make her life normal they tried to save her keep her here with us i saw they loved her and largest they stayed together because where else would they go my fourteen year old eyes saw this but i didn't know that they would become a big thank you ho tep everyone i waved them are going to be reading a couple poems from the she sweet she speaks from the four corners of the world a short collection of poetry night time she speaks of resilience the sun won't set the gas was turned water cold so was the stole back door kicked in again but nor hungry her sleep will only intermittently be broken grandma's memory and love per minute like the sun shining even when the earth  permit night the sun always always shines and so will her soul her people the sun won't  i wonder why you come from me she speaks of the fall and her assigned protectors betrayal i wonder why you come with me come for me your wants to soak in hands now for me on the purple high viscous i held out to you slap in the healing out of me and even further from your needy reach you come for me i wonder why you come for me when i draw you a bag of lavender oats and honey has my sure composure to life's unwinding cause your contempt surely i have not made the ground crumble in haiti and added insult to your home and yet you come for me why should i fear your coming when i await plight has always been my i put you to bear held your hand and gave you myself drew pain from your tip but now i bring your insecurities to tear at the hole in this american red cross tent to tear at the whole ness of me is seems and vain effort to regain your footing but your strength is not found on my back it is in my hand so i wonder why why you  evening if you're alive say yeah marcus harkness north minneapolis is in the building i want to live a cape this essay to my father who passed away on may twenty first this summer and especially during election season but never mention the missing clare's the millions of americans who ain't living below the quote official unquote federal poverty guidelines which publicly define who is poor in america members of the missing class are struggling to get by we're not living comfortably if you're in the middle missing class you don't qualify for much if any public assistance yet most americans like viable prospects for a high quality of life in terms of economic opportunities church is the means to be able to afford quality housing rising cost of transportation nutritious food in under served environments college tuition and affordable retirements without low income public benefits government assistance plutocratic politicians disparagingly call it so called in title minutes most members of the missing class tend to be economically disadvantaged obviously because they don't have income to fully make ends meet most do indeed work the working poor and zero are low and moderate income earners are too often left out of the mainstream political discourse in the mass media public policy forums and legislative processes with half of our country classified as poor or low income today i can amidst educators journalist this collectively change the hearts and minds of the masses about prioritizing economic justice let's make major grassroots moves in america organizing this richest nation on earth for the sake of the so called common good let's make a more competitive co operative a less competitive economy locally nationally and globally people and let me manage everyone's expectations five knowledge in that i world  need equality no but if we want to our world to be sustainable then humanity's interests must be served equitably for crying out loud this release the grip the corporate mass media entertainment industry and political elite have on our hearts and minds let's think critically and independently log off a social media and unplug from your technologies and pay attention every national economy needs a thriving middle class but mainstream americans in the us tend to be too apathetic so materialistic and individualistic that we generally are dis interested in economic activity and justice issues especially for those people for those people we don't know for those people we perceive are different for those people we truly don't care about the missing class majority tend to get ignored or treated as footnotes bests in politics implicated as being failures in life or more politely as unsuccessful in this world based on their social economic status effectively dismiss as irrelevant in the political economy by the privileged politicians who promote so called class warfare so let's erickson answer the difficult questions what on earth this is supposedly the low unemployment rate mean when it's only including people defined as so called participants in the labor market excluding the long term unemployed and disenfranchised what are the real unemployment underemployment rate in america concentrating on the government's unemployment rate instead of income and wealth inequality and the consequences of an affordable cost of living misleads the public because it paints a fictional picture it paints a fictional picture of our national economic health in america we collectively have enough where as a nation but we need to prioritize and focus on what matters most how many people can not and do not earn a real livable wage income how many people don't have access to adequate health care food justice housing justice education equity can we really afford the military in prison industrial complex is can we afford to propecia by historical racial disparities in a growing underclass i hate  political grandstanding yapping about job creation with sensationalized soundbites and buzzwords yet a lack of substance a lack of honesty and intellectual integrity the power hungry privileged politicians economists and lobbyists who prioritize big business is profiting over the people they prefer glass and over the facts the raw facts that job growth within livable wages is unimpressive that low income jobs inadequate the reality is that the romantic pop culture narrative of the american dream is allusion marry or advice is for the majority of people who will die in the same economic class that they were born and raised in i hate to break it to you but there will never be enough sustainable living wage job opportunities for the majority of americans to make it to remain in the so called middle class what on earth is that so what do we the people do about the struggles of the missing class sacrifice she speaks of loyalty and deadly silence i hold you on sacred secret say refusing to flash light your exploitation or have you see a ghost of your reflection and your shaving mirror at two am i will continue to be the swollen belly starving and not pregnant behind your dignified name empathy silences my  vinegar and jalapeno greens and it's our plate is full and your deprivation has been your and my curse since your creation eve was given to adam without snatched them out stuff them in my mouth while polishing my bowels to leaving my teeth traced on your skin but would not show the world you were gri instead of teddy would not show the world i was victim instead of the i put our secret in my pocket against a bruise that won't heal and sometimes when you lean your weight on remember when you used to play jacks and you remember when used had cake this stories about us how she lost her virginity and i was there and is still my sister and best friend the future looks good as fumbles the keys against the lock and doesn't see what came behind her her father as a boy when he was still tender vying for his mother's affections her grandmother overworked to the bone by the women whose houses she dusted whose laundry she washed whose children she scrubbed cleaned overworked by the bones of a husband who want ed many sons and the men she entertained to give them to him seize her son to his thirteenth year with the perfection of her nurse and dies in her bed with a long weary sigh his stepmother regards him as one with a stray dog that came by often enough that she knew its face but if she let him and they dance around each other boy waltzing forward with want woman her wedding away she'd grown up the eldest child of too many and knew how the needs of a child can drown out a girl's dreams the boy sees only the turn back the dismissal and the father ignores  all blinded by the light of an old man with a young wife still fresh between her legs this one he will share and when the boy is fifteen and returned from the market where he sold metal scraps to find his possessions two plastic bags in the front doorstep he doesn't even knock to find out why or ask where he's supposed to go but squats in an abandoned half built bungalow he shares with other own mother boys where his two best shirts are stolen and he learns to carry his money with him at all times he begs he sells scrap metal he steals and the third becomes his way out he starts small with pickpockets and good snatched from poorly tended market stalls he learns to pick locks to hotwire cars and finesse his slight of hand when he is twenty one the war comes to nigeria and while people are cheering the streets and shouting he begins to stockpile goods when goods become scarce he makes his fortune when food becomes scarce he raids farms in the dead of night which is where he will meet his wife and why as fumbling the keys against the lock doesn't see what came behind her a mother at age twenty two not beautiful but with the fresh look of a person who has never been hungry she is a brash girl who takes more than is offered it is hundred sixty six months before everything changes and she is at at a party hosted by friends of her parents and there is a man there yellow skin like a mango and square jawed body like the statue of david wealthy unmarried women strap on their weaponry when some smiles robust cleavage accommodating personalities and go to war over him when she comes out the victor she takes it as her  you almost a year into their courting the war comes her people after loyalists his people think it's a fool on the night of their engagement party only her people attend and when she goes by his house the next day she discovers he has left the country her family is soon forced to flee the city soon forced to barter what they have been able to carry soon forced to near begging for the first time in her life food is so scarce she slips into farms at night and harvests tender tubes of hof grown corn and stuff and they boil so soft she eats the inner core and fibrous husk to one night she finds a small farm tucked behind a hill and there she encounters a man stealing the new yams that would have been hers there is no competition he is well fed and strong and even if she tries to raise an alarm out of spite he could silence her but he puts a finger to his lips and gives her am and being her she gestures for two more he gives her another one and she scurries away the next night when she returns to the farm he is waiting for her she sits by him and they listen to crickets and each other is breathing when he puts his arm around her she leans into him and cries for the first time since her engagement party many months ago mother pin your hopes on to another fragile thing and the second is named after her mother who has since died and does know that her daughter will forgive her for choosing the wrong side and name her daughter and her youngest child as a both the keys against the lock and doesn't see what came behind her her sister whom everyone has taken to calling bibi because what nonsense to name a child after a country that doesn't exist baby who is beautiful in a way or mother never was to be stubborn like her mother was always they fought since baby was in the womb lying so heavy in her mother cervix a light job could have jostled her out bedridden baby's mother grew to resent her and stewed so hot the trial should have boiled in her belly and three years later as a pretty yes but in that manageable way that causes little offense she is a ghost of bibi pale in tone and know can't have a pad so just have to walk up to shoes and deal with it as a grows up your earning for her sister's affection when bibi is twenty one and in the university and her parents struggling to pay the school fees baby meets godwin yellow skin and square jawed like his father and falls in love she falls harder when her mother warns her away and when her mother presses saying you don't know what his people are like i do bebe responds you're just angry and bitter that i have a better man than you and your mother slaps her and that's the end of that conversation as a masters as a go between a role she's been shy and hide into since you youth and keeps be appraised of all the family news despite her mother's demands to cut her off and godwin is a better provider than b b c father who is now a modest tra he rents her flat he lends her car he by he blinds her with a constellation of gifts things she's never had before and like spending money on orgasms the one time she brings that marriage he walks out and she can't reach him for two days twelve days that put the contents of her bank account in stark relief twelve days where she sits in the flat that's in his name drives the car also in his name and wonders what is so precious about this name he won't give to her and when he finally returns to see her packing and grabs her hair pulling screaming that even this is his she is struck by his fist yes but also by the realization that maybe her mother was right the reunion and the reunion isn't tender bibi's right eye is almost swelling shut and her mother's mouth is pressed shut and they neither look at or speak to each other her father who could never bear the tension between the two women the memories of his turbulent childhood brought back squeezes baby shoulder in leaves and it is that gentle pressure that starts h soon she is sobbing and her mother is still stone faced but it is a wet face that she turns away so no one can see takes baby to the bathroom the one they've shared and fought over since they were old enough to speak she sits her on the toilet lid and begins to clean around her bruises when she is done it looks terrible when b b stands to examine her face they're both in the mirror i still look terrible b v says yes you do replies and they are soon laughing and in the reflection they noticed for the first time that they have the exact same smile how have they gone this long without seeing that neither  whereis about her things that are still in the flat as it says not to worry that she will get them why are you still nice to me he wants to know habit as in my replies baby things about it for a moment and says something she's never said to her sister thank you which is why as a family in the keys against the law doesn't see who came behind her god when who grew up under his father's god when so i'm used to hearing know him like a wave of acid dissolving the superficial decency that accompanies a person who always gets his way god when who broke his cello when he discovered his younger brother could play it better which is why he came to be here watching as and looking so much like her sister from behind from going the unfamiliar kase against a lot of babies apartment so she doesn't see who comes behind her guardian with a gun he fires into her back the hope was a woman she would not be then she would be thick from all the possibilities  that within there would be a gap between her front teeth along with one not small just the right size so her nature w slipped up and out onto us all and she would have full lips for speaking the truth and hi hey are no matter what style she chose to wear it and which of way is being natural if hope was a woman she might be pregnant but she might be not no matter what state of motherhood we found her and we would no that she had birth to herself a find it difficult to pin her down but if you ask her to embrace you she would drop everything she was doing and she would hold you my friend like you have never been held before all of this would be the idea of me is expansive analyze reconstruction