learning and building relationships through sharing people stories and we'd like to thank our sponsors this activity is made possible in part by funds provided by the metropolitan regional arts council through an appropriation by the minnesota legislature the lower alternatively using punctuations in my name that expresses my personal journey toward all this well using the lesson my poetry i work as a writer performance artist mentor curator consultant and philosopher open space technology facilitator public speaker an arts administrator i keep finding new ways to describe the point i am because i am a being in motion i won't settle for identity as a limitation or a box to die in i think or lines to avant garde music trimline myself that i came from somewhere regional and bold and i'm going somewhere else i am a founding curator for bridges and a performance arts program with pangea real theater i have been a recipient of a lot of creative nonfiction war a drum travel study grant a drone career artists grant and intermediate arts interdisciplinary mcknight fellowship i was a founding producer of right on do it with me because i know who shake age and i know this junk from years of association in the writings holcombe word community i didn't want them to work in progress that i've seen and i think she wanted to do something from that anyway so i don't think it was an imposition that they that shady movie really work from performing work wrote it that way to keep from it just being a word that we say because you know the word became taboo to say the end of the city years ago actually here it were and said we couldn't say it anymore and so we're going to be addressing that theme of that word this evening which is actually consistent with the things that i've chosen for my work which is rhythm nation and we reclaim that word along with some of the words and some of the things this evening i'm going to be pre planning replanning and then actually coming for the first time some things that have shown up in my poetry and  maybe along the way i will be able to claim some new identity and this jones when i gave her the opportunity said let me get back with you  a few conversations about that and so those are the three themes reclamation negative and confusion and chaos see how we go haven't heard before or seen anywhere because i haven't performed them in public i'm going to start with a piece that's a proposal for what i've been affectionately curious show here that was called to do it day in the sound of soul since then everything has grown out of that and so i'm on a point now where i feel like i need to introduce myself again not only to you but to me as well so the title of this pieces by way of introduction and how do we continue a conversation between ourselves and the world dream back then friction  possibility only a stain on dreaming of flight my own for this is free though the creature between  pool by gravity to fly my joints make noises stay turn reach for glory everything points to earth soil was me and whoever you are i'm a caterpillar again moving through crucibles symbolizing emergenc focus the greek word for butterfly is something i've never known what's best for me but i know that  informed him about my identity crisis or maybe i had but when i saw him the night he heard me and give me a new name and i'm going to try it out on your own i thought it was more appropriate when i was reading the and just read because well actually it makes sense when he first said it it just kind of sounded like a joke when he called me godfather of so get an idea and i get committed to trying to write about that idea every time i said that night i do research on it and i drive most of a little bit crazy but i ruminated on this long is what it is right now the working title is when a cat goes out when the opportunity right he bowed when he went out that last time looking for whatever he created then attempted to asked kant's perspectives he makes patterns disappear after having been on the scene too long and this speculate about where he's gone he's got a woman across town really said who won't come out with him or hang with the likes of us he had his alternative personalities sometimes he shouted reclusive but that last time he ran out swallowed him whole so he stayed in the belly of the beast too long to remember his way home and when he arrived at a place he thought was home everything recognizable with the out like new york in a major storm scent of a woman and radar of voices bouncing off each other work like what he heard confirmed he was still alive though he had lost his way he was out in front of something that didn't no anything about him nor did he know anything about it home was not an avenue or a building where he used to live but somebody who knew him and put up with his  in was not the songs he already knew but the ones he'd never heard that insisted on entering through the soles of his feet before  also one of the organizations another organization that i would with in the twin cities is actually given sunday sion and i've been involved in a retreat program that they have for african american writers and they are accepting applications again for a black writers retreat the deadline for application is january fourth twenty thirteen and the flyer which was on your table says if you want to focus more on your writing hone your craft with mentors as peers excel or etc then you should make that deadline if you're an african american writer if you're not significance of it i've reached a measuring because it gives me an opportunity to share what i think i know with people who think they want to do what i've been doing and  it's important to me to be able to share my experience and that's why i write because i think i have something to say and when somebody develops a relationship with me that  is a mentoring relationship i am very respectful of the relationship because i've had mentors throughout my journey and i think it's important to give back and i always learn thank you for being relaxed enough to laugh mentor so this is by way of introducing our next reader or performer i'm not sure how that's going to turn out i'm holding myself back tonight because part of my identity crisis is i'm trying not to be so extravagant anymore i just i just want my words to perform as opposed to me being on gary's and the other flailing and all that stuff i used just don't know words to play themselves these days and so i don't know what this is going to do but she's young and she wants to fling out at some people writing it but i'm trying not to do that i don't i don't know if i organs and make less music his breath i think of one brother when i look at him a young love hard enough to stand soft enough to fall of beauty born black and dream fulfilled in the real of my consciousness and i pray piece is short and it's the working title was yesterday was of the scars of my company seeing me through today yesterday taught me how to love today with teach me something new but i didn't know i didn't know i didn't know that on a curve on that curve i knew its day w maybe there is in the lips is in i think jail this and i think of like reclaiming that because it doesn't seem so confusing anymore  great nation a product of natural selection i have been surviving in the heart of the hungry the humble and the pure i first became pleasant a sweet perfume mask in the stench of poverty and smile in a groan which she could not pier no matter what she pushed i became powerful at the party i even reclaimed the park she took the presidency i took the people and we parlayed our way through syringes with needles piercing vinyl instead of our skin that was my first win win record spawn i remembered public enemy number one of driving up position to the powers that be still do you remember me i made you hit i helped you out when your daddy did when your mom had that coke habit she could hardly kick when to sure split return in chicken son i've got an idea now of problems but it's you have to tell your mother that a she is your lover for the freedom that you see happier next fall there is no wrong or right we've made nouns and verbs and lost all will to be tonight and we test power to electricians who have refused to use that there's too much light  years without fear of being lost it cost me nothing if we part on meeting means meaning maybe it's still tell her you've missed me since and still there's something to be said about passing in silence it could be death on the i don't know that i believe in dying there's no power in that so tell her that we live in there are no holes to be filled between as we are whole planet is engulfed in one another in the shadow of the sky right beside the moon tons guided by the sun we speak one when i'm done together and don't let her call this energy accustomed w do tell her that you always see me seeing you when we see one another tell her it is a practice to approach it with passion and then i don't keep your secrets we share them we share them have me have me as a doing nothing to be kept but to be with in company you so for i stepped down and i'm actually going to say that this new thing that's not really new is happening so and you believe minnesota does a quest we have a quest we do a series of slaves to find six young people between the ages of thirteen to nineteen to represent our state in the international bridge and with his poetry slam festival and the minnesota spoken word association has passed torch to me wary two thousand and thirteen to march two thousand and thirteen we are holding a series of slams and in cities to identify those six young people if you are one of them we know young people that you've spoken word poetry please tell them to go to  written music in the background slow down nobody gets up with myself i felt so good about the energy of his role because there are so many loving people in the room i mean people that i love and people that love me and people who are in my poems and people spark me and i just it's it's great to be in a community that i mean just to see faces and feel spirits of people who are like embrace you just by being in the room with you that's that's very that's a very fortunate situation to be in and i just i just look out and see so points and for me was the editor and after we worked on a project together the painting that became the cover of the book she gave to me as a gift and she hadn't you can go to facebook on the homewood studios page and fired a photograph of the painting if you want to see it later i made a donation of the painting to homewood studios where you can actually go on with studios and see the painting it was just that miles and nobody comes through there so i wanted to be so community would have access to it and i decided to write a poem about the title and about the painting and i'm going to share that before i introduce share cage  argumentative agreeing with other points of view same bland when there is no definitive position and perspectives shift like s stigmatized vision rules this world and mark every time a tale of trial with disgrace  when blown children of dandelions rooted breezes it humid air pockets dispersed indiscriminately a moment grasses and flower was blown into dandelions father of a future well rooted in stigmata of past absurdity gail forces covering spirits without solid footing and demanded answers to questions gods and cheer about the swathe of strong wheels the temperature of heat indexes and side effects of sedating fertilizer he returns each spring to better care and owens for he has a purpose beyond appreciation beyond illusions of perfection bastard plan project radical perspectives change worlds in undesirable and troublesome way wants him on is the extract his neck stretches and contorts until his point of view is upside down inside out  he's among the chronically unemployed the ironically unemployable because he resists history with the peanut he will celebrate columbus day were juneteenth they are recently well it wasn't recently the weather was warm i remember that at the playwright center i went to see an incarnation of a work in progress called writer's retreat with the mentors i made about aka and myself and she claims that she started writing this piece well she was at that retreat and i say ok list have helped me come closer to understanding it as i've grown into a woman when you know the main stage theater you're really far from people so it's been a long time since i've been this close you can see there's no way you know it's like the wizard is sort of taken off the  ok class as you know we will be heading to the united states next month and our cultural connections project i've been given this book of terms to help us understand the cultural histories we will be dealing with but i don't want you to go over that to the united states and use some of these terms incorrectly do you understand ok my mom also referenced is represented as a black woman blue gum and offensive slur used by some us white southerners for african americans perceived a black person also used to describe native americans buffy a black person but head a black person covered a black person  reclaimed this word and softened it and the expression a person of color use in the u s and u k a black person possibly from portuguese or barack or a building constructed to hold slaves for sale crowd a black person specifically a black woman and plant a black person making seventy nine classic film the jerk the leading character played by steve martin is advised by his associates to keep the eggplants out of his planned housing development eggplants steve a black person and the dating sixty four film class exude the british officer played by michael caine refers to the zulus as dozens gave a black person gollywog a dark skinned black person after florence kate upton the children's book etc the term git was often used by richard nixon when speaking and private used to refer to mannerisms that resemble dancing jim crow you have a black person also the name for segregation laws prevalent in much of the united states until the civil rights movement of the nineteen fifties and sixties capper capper kept fear kept for cash for south african a black person considered very offensive m used to describe a negro originally or a person of north african origin more recently came to public attention in two thousand and six when the us senator george allen famously used to refer to one of jim webb's volunteers derogatory that in english used to refer to black children or caricature of them which is widely considered racist portsmouth power of a black person sample a derogatory blacks and ayers a black person originated in the us in the fifty's space a black person recorded sets twenty eight from the playing cards book plural have come to be frequently used between some african americans without the negative association of nigger nigger let is known as a black  was bad years before any body of the mother's generation could hardly remember but look at the history made up no list goes on hers is a history made up but the gospel in her life doesn't leave space for understanding the relationship between poverty and violence against women between illiteracy and the choices they are left with her life is full of too much funk to make the mental connection so the cycle continues continue continue her life improvising its way into her life southerner affluent i remember the first time we met down to the moment yes i do i'll never forget it because it was the first time i had ever felt like that before i'd been told what love was and what it felt like and that sometimes you can really see someone for the first time without ever knowing them before and and fall head over heels in love love at first sight that's what they call it well i am a living and breathing example of that reality from the moment we were introduced on the dance floor at the thompson's gala here was my world that is right you see i've never pretty celt life i guess you could say that my parents were both lawyers and lo and behold we were part of the league of blacks that had newly come into their freedom tradesmen so we came from an entrepreneur ancestry and not necessarily one so embedded in slavery i remember once my sister was pushed down into the mud and she was called a nigger and i will never forget my father yelling at those bullies sirius was more money than any of you put together told her the next time somebody calls you a name you tell him to come see me you see we were taught that we were different from others not only the whites but the blacks too i always wanted to say but daddy would look just like the other blacks i guess i quickly learn that looks can be deceiving but is why our type of people form societies like the black masons and taunts bluebloods that's what we were called so that we would know which type of person our super was and  not be misguided into falling for the wrong type of person it was quite complicated in those times i do remember that but after a while it became not true as young as young children we love the parties after a while it became natural as young children we love the parties the socials the balls with beautiful gowns and credibly golden steeple bluebloods we thought we were unbreakable boarding school was the only thing my sister and i hated but mother and father travel a great deal just like my husband telling us so this was something i came to understand quite well and eventually said you see when a young woman is introduced to a young man in society nine times out of ten that would be the man she would marry our kind of people went to great lengths to keep the money and the blood and world our kind of people went to great lengths to keep the money in the family there was great detail in assuring a suit it would be the right kind it wasn't completely like an arranged marriage because two people had to like each other usually but a great deal of conversation between the two families had preceded that introduction at the thompsons every girl just hope to god he didn't have a dog for a second that he'd simply become both of which my thought is work in the beginning it was so blissful at first he treated me like a princess like i was the only one on the planet that was before the company merger then they started demanding so much more out of him it was stressful so instead he instead of turning to me chose the bar the other women usually white the kind the didn't ask questions or talk back as he put it niggas can be so much work he like to joke around the house but i tell people that love comes colors it's not always green and sometimes can damn well turn blood red but you think marriage is it's about commitment through thick and then  it's just that clear cut to lies and hatred strong enough to kill two accidental slips of his fists across your cheek followed by tears that beg for forgiveness through strange female voices on the other end of the receiver and late night meetings that couldn't anybody that thinks it is purely deluded and that's why i stood by him because deep down underneath it all he was a good man despite what everyone in this town says he was and he was a decent loving father i'm sorry i get so emotional when i talk about that is just sentence passing attack only remember the good things yes because that's what a good wife is supposed to do that's what they teach us and that's what they taught us in the links and that's what i teach my children no it wasn't the best relationship it wasn't but we stuck together and we loved each other through thick  somebody is anti borderline crazy is the camera forget not then the problem with people like you with that you've got time for this kind of stuff i can't believe they give you money to do this a great kid can think of the things that i can do with a grant yes the word is  bad it's a bad word we all know it is but we use it sometimes without even thinking we don't have time to be figured out we and how we use it like you do we're busy figuring out how to just live life day to day less time they elder i remember when i came to this country from liberia hope my whole family was so nice people i'm a teacher for godsake i know the history and i can honestly say that we the younger generation have reinvented the term it's not just the saying it's not just the same word it was years ago it's about kendra's about brotherhood and connection a shared language and code i used the term and love and yes i will say that i know to some degree i'm being hypocritical but it's a term for us to use in communication with other black people and it's not for others outside our community to use it that's just how i feel the year nine hundred ninety nine set in juke joint you know that corner bar and somebody is everybody's neighborhood neon sign that you can't quite make out just hanging from the strings best drinks on this side of the mississippi the bartender brother walks stand tall dark skinned brother see a pretty brown sister at the bar does a double take puts on his best walk sexy smooth one leg leading one leg dragging mack daddy stroll hey baby has a go and he asked how do you think it's going black some nerve you got whoa let's start this train over thing we mostly got off on the wrong track you can't get off of something you ain't never got on the names ch sugar that's rich one bite and you're hooked black you better watch where you walkin this ain't no crystal stair baby hadn't been to hell and back and the doubling got me yet another told you on tell you again the name of sutcliffe a lot we didn't know back in running when i look at your black but that's what i see so that's what you want to be a black bother only with black street and this rundown black neighborhood on this corner street black block livin this black reality who somebody stole your pretty brown thunder honey but don't you feel for the first time in your life you matter brother who's real