An hour with Poets Nikky Finney and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

in celebration of national poetry month katie our presents an hour with two poets and kate mcintyre later this hour we'll hear from national book award winner nikki finney from a talk she gave at the university of kansas as part of the hall center for the humanities lecture series but first caren miriam goldberg is enjoying her final days as kansas poet laureate welcome back karen it's nice to see you again thanks so much for having me today it's wonderful to be back here you were named poet laureate of kansas back into thousand nine and in just a few days he'll step down from the post and make way for a new poet laureate talk to me about your four years on the job as the official poet of kansas well it's definitely been a journey without a map at times i was appointed by then governor kathleen sebelius and my program the poet laureate program was part of the kansas arts commission and when the arts commission was dissolved i basically was carrying the program in my pocket and

as i told some other people and no one ever told me i needed to step down so i just figured i needed to keep going and so one of the things i'm most proud of being able to do is to work and work and work and find a new home for the poet laureate program and i'm just thrilled that it's the kansas humanities council and we're thrilled that you've been able to continue your work through the humanities council as well but some of the projects they'd year especially pleased with that you've been able to accomplish and in that for years well during his four years at times it really has been like walking through a dark house and try not to bump into things and hoping you find your way to the door you know to get outside and meet others and i don't know where i'm gonna this metaphor but in any case there may be a bed a matter of better metaphor is on the old cliche of finding the

path by making the path and i had a lot of help in making that path so my gold shifted from doing writing workshops and helping helping train people and communities to lead ongoing writing workshops which was what i started with in the very beginning to read just helping to cultivate a greater sense of community among poets in the state and reading a wider audience of people who appreciate the art center the things that i especially feel good about are the two conferences that i organized the midwest poet laureate tie and i believe that his two thousand ten am than the national poet laureate tie where we had twenty poets laureate from alaska to alabama here i also feel really good about what ive discovered about other poets in the state particularly

through our publication begin again one hundred and fifty pilots but kansas palms that i started to put together on the website one hundred and fifty kansas palms to upward press dot com as a way to celebrate our state's one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of state had and that turned into a book and then it turned into a torrent over a dozen cities even reading in ulysses kansas which from what ive discovered is beyond where the world dance and then the next year in two thousand twelve i started the kansas renda project without knowing how much we would need it and this is one poem written in one hundred and fifty voices and each poet would only have a day or two to you read everything before him or her an ad they're tan lines and we worked with a google doc behind the scenes and then what was created was revealed every two or three days one

hundred and fifty kansas palms that were pressed outcome and that became the buck to the stars through difficulties kansas wrangler and what one reason and it's just so vital to me is there really explores what it means to live in kansas particularly during that time that's very challenging for the arts during a horrendous drought and yet during little bouts of the kind of wonder and surprising beauty that hold us together and helped us see the world more what are the challenges of bringing a hundred and fifty points together and i guess not in a literal sense bed that in a metaphorical sense of how do you get them to speak with one voice while each one was encouraged in their anger truly speak in his or her own voice but to pick up the threads from other segments of the rancor beforehand and i think that there was such a hunger

among the writers in the state who participated in the writers from other places with kansas connections he were in their anger to make to make a stronger community together and to express something that we could bear say in the form of poetry about the importance of poetry so once i put out the word and i first put out the word to the poets and begin again answer that ninety six people and then i contacted people in different colleges and universities and encourage students to get involved and then i just kept looking and except in submissions and i am having to make some hard choices about who was in and so on it started to find that it was quite easy to people the rancor and we even had some unusual things such as bill sheldon wonderful poet from hutchinson kansas and then i met his son who's a college student in emporia

tyler sheldon and then an a wonderful poet in his own right so he's entering get to sneeze a little father son combination there many many parts to the rancor that separate them and all kinds of other connections that happen mccole project it's been a wonderful project and i'm just i was blown away when i was putting the book together with denise lowe who owns mammoth publications and published it and a former poet laureate of her art portal a poet laureate i was just blown away by looking out altogether what we've created and we've had over a dozen retains an egg each reading the rain get is kind of a movable musical mosaic whoever shows up and reads that the rancor that particular night could you share some of the kansas rhino of earth absolutely and i am i will read the last segment it began and ended the wrangler to be honest there's a hundred and forty eight poets and that but

i figure fifty voices you know do you need to fund to step forth and anyway i'm sure basically the rank has been quite seasonal and it started in winter and ends in winter because people were riding in concert with the seasons and there's certain themes that kept emerging in certain images of course rivers and whether were crucial and also the sense of history and geography we also had quite a bit of of little strands of politics and what's happening in our culture at large and the rancor but it ended by going back to some themes mentioned in the beginning and end of the rancor segments right before mine the reverse things through rock and time as we said aired its bank our truest wishes rise from underground tributaries composed of old ocean last

allotments bravest bombs clear a scene what we know when trees over into porous crowded what we dont know lands on high branches only the deer see we turn our faces faithfully toward moonlight and motion waiting for what comes next a bluebird returns to the harmonics of cedar and big blue stem the night and temperature fall we remember that this world holds and holds us together in the widening river of stars above as below no other way that's beautiful think you write at some of the images from people before me that it's it's just a lot of fun to work on a communal palmer you're weaving and what rises up from other voices to find a common voice karen it has been such a pleasure working with you during your four years as poet

laureate and getting to share some of those projects with couric at our listeners thank you so much thank you so much and i'm just so grateful that kbr has helped us reach other writers and other people in particularly wide in the audience for the power of her words throughout the state best wishes to you thanks so much carrie again that was karen miriam goldberg the poet laureate of kansas since two thousand nine victims as humanities council is expected to name a new poet laureate later this month by the way kay pierre presents has featured a number of those programs charon spoke about including poet laureate the end begin again you can hear those programs archive on our website kcur that okay you got edu just search under poet laureate our celebration of national poetry month continues with nikki finney it

won the national book award in two thousand eleven for her poetry collection head off and split she's the author of three other books of poetry teaches creative writing at the university of kentucky and is the co founder of the afro latin poets finney spoke at the university of kansas on september six two thousand twelve as part of the whole center for the humanities lecture series her talk was called making poetry in our interest in seeing a cage the term answer justine was going to suggest that humans now serve as the geophysical force there were change in the climate of the planet and the work by sharing and a new geological period as a result of that change and now nikki finney thank you university of kansas changing to come tonight if you live long enough occasionally you get the opportunity ah thank

someone publicly who we've always want to thank our likely end tonight is one of those nights and i was back in the green room waiting to come out and a man knocked on the door who had not seen in over fifteen years and he was your former chancellor robert hemingway and he was my former chancellor at the university of kentucky and i daresay had it not been for a lunch that i had with him right before he left to come here i would not have stayed in the academy and i would have just been a crazed poet trying to get the words right so i think you publicly but i've been thanking you for the last fifteen years i begin with a poem that i

dedicate to the beginning way into his wife leah i wrote this point in nineteen ninety four when i was up reverse carriers of kentucky among the learned on the banks of her butterfly time grandmother would stand as fluid as a wonderful teaching with a five and dime cole in her hand be still and listens as she could be heard to say she would make more good decisions those more control dane and relinquish power care about more people to recycle more energy discern more foolishness in an afternoon of fishing then congress ever could beat everyone unanimous old democrat all republican my first semester was ever were spent staring at this human university

shifting my weight from leg to leg waving first how fly and firefly from all her apron dress and listening to the sound around us there was noise there was instruction there was indeed a difference too this kind of standing stare at stillwater this speaking on the depths of a true life lived full she called a sociology shook prince baked into the softbank geography advanced he's a number of lessons could go on for days as long as there was sign and date it was learning to educate means to lead out she told me on the road home had no idea what she was saying or why now had well that night falling between the country but i do wonder why does she stand me they're each morning that poll in my hands gripped as tight as chief full born to a jaw insisting

pond water is as good as any bull a good teacher can do more than talk about it she'd artist said to me and jane she can see a clear they're on their bank preparing me for a giant workers when she knew full well bram and mullet were all we head touching our lines in those days i left her artisan iron gates ready for labor and anything in between you don't fish just to catch your fish so you can keep so you can put something back the teacher talk it has less to do with the fish and more to do with your line in the water your hand on the poll with discerning rituals with what you can figure out about yourself while standing there in between the body it's know what you will not let corrupt you that you can not be

bought or sold assume another will come after you have long gone they're called titan hand as well hoping ketch something put something back whenever you can with a plain plane poll grandmother given a plastic barbara found these days i cast out among the learned and teach to alter sleeping states i stand before the university time and fischer the living will bubble among the learned who know real like the stills no terminal degrees a poet needs to fly fish sometimes in order to catch glimpses of privileged information that there are too many meetings and not enough conversations going on a poet needs to hopi and hope inside the polished granite of the academy that the newly arrived with their chains dragging in the sands will help but others who have been here all

along have not given up and fishing to know that the learned i really hearing the living inside the walls and out and not spending so much time and talk just on our brilliant selves i am testing out a line to ensure that our souls remain olive oil than patient alive and able to hear the sermon the noise from the instruction none of us are testing far enough offshore they're in the dimpled uncharted waters and the undiscovered raging sea where more than what we expect always lives and waits for the courageous to come and tip toe in we have barricaded ourselves away from their scholarship of risk from all the elements that made us feel and fight and therefore three rebirth conversation don't pull

your line into fast grandmother would say out of the corner of her eye keep your hope in the water all the way to the edge that's where the great tadpoles swim i've come tonight to be some poetry to talk about something on my mind and i wanted to start with that whole problem because it's still very topical from even today for forty years i have been a prodigious note taker i have taken note on the world all around me and on the world behind me on the walls of my writing studio in kentucky stand one hundred and thirty nine the journal books that i've kept since the age of fourteen some point i began to not call them journals but rather my personal field guides i begin tonight with a small sampling from those forty plus years of paying very close attention to the planet that i live

on into its inhabitants and to those things that spin and fall and jump out of those inhabitants now is listen children the earth is a black and living thing lucille clifton american poet he'll die number ninety two to this morning we got a new berry defined smells sweet but hey at the end of the day the road beside the time was jumping with frogs linda keith any field guide number nine june nineteen sixty nine three today a dinner date and said mama with this crazy thing he said good lord willing and the creek the raw eyes i'd never heard that before

had to wait until dinner and dishes were done before running to my room and writing it down lending keith any field guide number thirteen nineteen seventy one before it was a very sunny day i'm waiting for the full moon to arrive again today a doctor named king was shot mom is crying in the kitchen over the washing machine still lane nikki fannie feel that number eleven april sixty eight and took a scene the age of man is a new name for a new geologic at dark one defined by our own massive impact upon the planet in between my novice whether notices that i just read my notations of small town life and national events

i dreamed of becoming a poet since winning the national book award a year ago i've been thinking a lot about what i know and how i've come to know it and what i want to save him at going forward i was a girl growing up in the south in the nineteen sixties after meatloaf brushing my teeth twice mastering certain mammoth absolute respect for women who covered their body but not their faces and their hands and thick black catholic cotton my mother and father his greatest fillies was in the power of inquiring mind therefore they sat book after book in front of the hardback diamonds i thought with more facets that anyone could possibly count listen children the earth is a black and living thing as a result of these books i read everything observed everything took my field notes on everything and

now i'm maybe halfway through a life trying to save some things with my large net of lyrical alphabet its when we were old enough my brothers and i were given the opportunity to begin the task of choosing own books and magazines like every other critical moment in my life before the age of eighteen it happened in the small carnegie library in my hometown i discovered nature guides detail and the flora and fauna of south carolina could not put them down magnolia azalea saw palmetto yellow jasmine hummingbird honeysuckle redd foxx and beyond all that i can also tell you what dinosaur ruled the land and when i also could tell you what it like for breakfast and how long wingspan was if it had won had wonderful teachers but it also cultivated early on an art of

didactic sense for learning i believe that sense had to do with my early desire and disposition to observe i wanted to know who had been here before me and i didn't want to miss what was here now something about my life with songs that in motion a deep and abiding love for the world beyond the safety of my little room the power of really seeing people but also seeing other living things i was interested in history as ways and means and they came upon the word extinction in my small ten year old mind i made a connection between the extinction of the dinosaur the possible extinction of my own community this was nineteen ninety six or ninety seven i was nine or ten two years before martin luther king was assassinated one year before

bobby kennedy was assassinated eighteen months before malcolm x was shot and some months before medgar evers would step out of his car to the sound of a shotgun blasts this was just before fannie lou hamer withstand about the democratic national convention where my father had traveled as a delegate from south carolina where ms hammer would eventually leave her a couple words in the middle of a chicago night she said we are sick and tired of being sick and tired of took that some feel guy number twenty four how are these things happen and how do they help roll up a black girl poet who cares about more than her small wonderful community but who cares about the entire universe in the middle of my communities fight to desegregate the public schools of south carolina i was trying to wrap my head around the head of tyrannosaurus rex for some years after the bodies of goodman schwerner and cheney were found i was out in the woods in the

dark counting how many broadcast my grandmother's loaded us and the perfect circumference of the newly crowned as the yellow jackets thirteen summers at the emmett till somebody was finally found in a swamp and his mother had insisted on opening the casket so we could see when hatred look like i had a long legged sandy haired tomboy of a black girl began a new feel guy i knew no book labeled black girl feel bad number three dyed to prehistoric life i was most interested in memorizing the evolution adaptation of plants and animals journalist fish bony fish long fish birds mammals amphibians most plants an animals exist only because they are successfully adapted to their environments all the rest had

become extinct that's what was on the far side of the page in feel bad number thirteen page seven on the backside i found this this was the day thirteen years ago that found that little miss in a way this in children that birds is a black and living thing i don't know why i became such a camp with extinction arrows ages us but it had most but not everything to do with dinosaurs happen something some big into michigan wondrous just not be here anymore how could something that such a beautiful name like woolly mammoth just one day not be here anymore who was responsible i thought what could we learn from the dinosaur how could we remember their footprints learn from the lesson of their lives and their deaths what could i have my bladder of feel bad makes clear note of the my own community

leaders of the world what would i have to look like in order from ideal notes to be considered relevant chamber un order of the key in centurion devonian mississippi in pennsylvanian permian triassic jurassic crustaceans tertiary quarter an eerie passel a mesozoic cenozoic as one little black girl living in a sometimes explosive other times past are quiet i was out looking for my tribe not just those who look like me but those who felt like me and knew there were other things that we have to say is that we could not that become extinct

listen children he is a black a living thing he has seen officially does not yet exist it maybe permanently so the geologic time scale in twenty sixteen it is the international commission on strategy or three that determines that the nomination and the calibration of different divisions and subdivisions of geological time which date back to the formation of the earth four point six billion years ago on officially however the term is being used more and more frequently and supper scene was a term that was proposed in the year two thousand ipod jacobson who won the nobel prize in nineteen ninety five for his work an atmospheric chemistry of the concept itself the idea that human activity affects the earth to the point where it can cross the new age is not new and data back to the

late nineteenth century listen children the earth is a black and living thing sidebar i keep repeating this line this lucille clifton line because my mother and grandmother were seamstresses and among one of a hundred things that they did was this and so i believe in a good strong stitched line i do not want to lose the power of needle and thread so i remember them as seamstresses and so we're in a mirror mirror we are officially still in the house seeing but the earth's systems don't seem to be working in the same old way the birth of the twenty first century is warming overcrowded party to far stiffer and more toxic and ever interconnected than it has been in kentucky where i live on a mountaintop removal mining is

destroyed or severely damaged more than a million acres of forest and very nearly two thousand two thousand miles of streams this past june high temperature records were tied or broken across the united states in kansas i don't have to tell you the impact of the twenty twelve drought and agriculture and farming families drought doesn't hit like a hurricane or an earthquake wrote rick montgomery of the kansas city star you can't see it coming on satellite radar drought creeps first the missouri crop more than the kansas cattlemen thousands of trees he said will begin to die not let not now but very soon if not this year then next one does any of this have to do with being a poet what does

any of this have to do with a black girl from south carolina i believe it has to do with her not being willing to give up i believe it has to do with remembering who taught her something and what she believes and what she will not toss away no matter how bleak picture looks i know it has to do with what we collectively we in this room engaged ourselves with politics or not human being to human being what we do not separate ourselves from it has to do with not just taking from the earth without hand open but putting something back every time i read a poem every time i go to another place to talk about this thing and other things i feel i am putting something back

and shot a scene a period marked by regime change in the activity of industrial societies which began at the turn of the nineteenth century and which just caused global disruptions in the earth's system on a scale unprecedented in human history climate change bio diversity last delusion of the land sea and air and resource depredation these changes called for a different way to inhabit the earth to say they're thinking these changes that are happening around us are trees that won't die now but next year are calling for a different way for us to inhabit the earth and having the earth in a different way of living beyond the supersonic sweet moment slowing ourselves down looking backwards

and forwards for all the things we need but also it really is and also heroin me it's this angel he is a living thing is covering the outside warms the planet it also seeds into the oceans and certifies them sometime this century they may become acidified to the point the corals no longer construct reads which would register as a reef get really have market each of the past friday major mass extinctions the most recent one which is believed to have been caused by the impact of an asteroid took place sixty five million years ago it eliminated not just the dinosaurs but the prius swords and ammonites too dr

cruz and started this debate with his word thinks about the anarchist seem much bigger than simply publishing a revised edition to a book his purpose is broader he wants to focus our attention on the consequences of our collective action what i hope he says is that the term answer justine will be a warning to the world my hope as a poet is to give it to you today mixed in with my own words and poetry so that you remain make something that we can use collectively so that the counselor scientific time keepers in twenty sixteen ultimately takes out this matter and besides we don't need them i believe what my parents taught me to believe until i ventured

out into the world and found more to wonder more to hitch my little wagon to when i was a girl i wrote and thought as a girl when i became a woman i put those girl waste site writing poetry is that turning around and staring are up gigantic ancient wild horse slash cow they went extinct and sixteen twenty seven that is portrayed in the new film out the use of the wild beasts of the southern while asked me when that little girl turns and stares that creature in the eye that's me that's why i've come here to do tonight is there a scene in the eye i want you to have that image i want you to believe that as well in order to feel that i am not just taking up space in order to feel that i am not just writing to win a national book award this is what i have to do

this in children the birth is a black and living thing i am a poet who considers herself deeply connected to the earth a poem feels it every poem is an act of faith with the air that i breathe and the ear they dared takes it in because the toe bone is connected to the foot pond and the foot long it's connected to the heel bone in the heel bone is connected to the ankle bone and the ankle bone you know it's connected to the internet is connected to and that's siobhan is connected to the hip bone and the hippo is connected to the bomb and you will need several backbones to get this work done last

the woman the cheerleading legs has been left for dead she her pace as a movie four days three nights and leaping fingers helium arms rise and fall pulling out the week old baby in the bass and they're pointing to the eighty two year old grandmother fanning and raspy and the new orleans saints folding chair ed the mighty know three times a day the helicopter flies by her in a little coral the grandmother insists i'm not being helpless so she waves a white handkerchief that she puts on and takes off her head toward the camera man and the pilot who remembers well the art of his mirrored i'd posture in his low flying helicopter bond some don't how jake who she lie he makes a slowly it can't depend on a move known and rescue as the

observation pass the roof is surrounded by broken levee water that people are dark not blocking starving abandoned dehydrated brown accumulates not broking the four hundred year all anniversary of observation begins again amy meaney miami mile the woman with a pompom legs waves her and even homemade sign it reads please help please and even if the eu has been left off of that please do you know simply by looking at her that it has been left off because she can't spell and therefore is not worth saving was it because the water was rising so fast there was a time a ni nee ni money mo capture the low flying helicopter does not know the answer it catches on to some patriotic take but does not land and does nudge a dictionary or not our regulations

require an ep at the end of any please before any national response can be taken there for it takes four days before the national council of observers will consider dropping one bottle of water or one case a dehydrated baby formula on the roof where the eu has rolled off into the flood obviously none slashed now big enough four days later not the mother but the baby girl but the determined hanky waiver who they were both named four and after has now been covered up with a green plastic window on being pushed over to the side right what i'm missing he was last seen my mother said to pick the very best one what else would you call it listed every child left behind anyone you know ever left out or put i mean anything by mistake potato a towel in the future observation helicopters will

leave the world observe south and fly and kanye west was finally right formation it will arise over burning san diego the fires here will be put out so well the grandmothers were right about everything people outlive bull whips and bull connor historically afraid of water and looting effective crocodiles left in the sun on the sticky tar heat of roasts to roast like pigs surrounded by forty feet of churning water in the summer of two thousand and five other which is country in the world played the old observation game studied the situation wondered by committee what can we do count it in private a long historical division speculated whether or not some people are surely born ready customs to flood can hear my mother say to you very best one

you are not he says after all it was only poll new orleans all bastards city of funny spellings nuns when there's a squeeze box accordion accents who would be left behind to care thank you very much you're listening to poets may keep thinning on kansas public radio whiz is my favorite part of getting an airplane so please take advantage of this moment when i was a young writer and head a moment to talk to another writer i think i would have maybe not make so many mistakes that were made some apparently is yes could you talk us a little about how you write your poems like the process

the filing appears on the morning because i because i my grandmother's girl and because i lived with her on the farm many summers it yeah there's something in me that i can't break even when i want to live i get up at four am when i'm out on the road and i write sins that is i love the morning it's it's also called the time our of the long examined in buddhism it's also when the most get up to meditate and it's thought to be the quietist time of day very important to me still let's have to hear other things coming out of the poem coming to me i think poetry is the aural oral year and i think we don't talk about that enough you talk about or a little talk about the elusive quest and shuffle out about the power of the ear in poetry and science and so i have to get out because it's the quietest time and i can hear things that i can't hear it any other time of day an awful lot riding on airplanes

because i can get up and go anywhere so you all this time in a window seat om and i never thought of the people next to me i'm a great person does it is sad because i miss and i was telling somebody earlier that the great writer janet yellen's i've told me once when i was probably twenty years old he said you will be a writer is that you have to do get up on the horse get in the saddle hold on to the reigns and ride until the ride is done if you go get tea and go walk that dog and go make some pancakes and go to the movies and cultivate a hard game you're playing you know writing at the question i was wondering if you'd talk a little bit about what you see the role of the poet and society actually i'm going to

guess wrong probably carl any knowledge legislators of the world and hear your poems time and how it inspired i found that the congolese there it is evocative fish homes and it all comes together in these interesting ways so my question is a larger question about what you see the role of the poet in contemporary society ready think what can do what he thinks are the limitations unannounced legislatures that's what i think they do i think you know if i ran for office i would get elected you know whitey went over me because i i would have to be politicians know wannabe politicians tell the truth i do i really believe that our art must be provocative let's bring us together you know i might be writing about and seen you know i'm not a

scientist but i see the world and will be very clearly and a long time ago the writer tony <unk> told me something that changed my life i said to my second book she was on her hospital bed dying as you grow green card debt and she said nikki do not mean she said mickey key squeaky do not really are enough to the full ok i will just come in regular point that i work on really really high that doesn't matter to the i mean the point about that until another things are really important and i want them in the roman i want the mini we know what i do and we're not paying close enough attention to what is happening we said it was a hot summer now and we've

got to leave already get involved in something something it everybody in here change one thing about the way they live now huge impact with a recycling whether it being are joining the group whether it be you know supporting something that you just think i look my job as a poet is to look at it and tell you what i see and not be polemical and not be on the top of his gang ranting and raving about it is but to say it's usually just say it truthfully i just say a great karen we you know uses this is my job justice to myself you've mentioned this word health of the scene it's a vocation is there's many people are talking about judges think about naming him

a geological time for ourselves as it were actually helps is called from the issue or does it you know this is the case where there's not much we can do about it depends on the president to loosen saying i'm not giving you those words so we can walk blindly into it i am saying that we as human beings have that power just say no that's not where we're going and i don't think enough of us understand that i think we'll leave it to these committees and we leave it to cnn and we leave it to you know a doomsday you know going wrong i'm not a pessimist i cant writes and sit there at that desk in the morning and believe this is it you are going down i don't believe that but i also know if we do not become

involved in some small and being way life as we know it is going to change it's going to change it's changing us i don't need to draw attention away from you because i'm very glad i need you by republicans who are some of the writers who'd been important to you along the way gwendolyn brooks michael walker had so much it will be half of what i came to say because i wasn't welcomed in time this but langston hughes an arm and lucille clifton you and i was talking about at dinner i was talking about rachel carson is not as writers who have meant a great deal to me it's people who haven't

the side i'm going to say this again how difficult it is those are my heroes and shields and they continue to be this secrecy come out to this day so the list is very long as liked using children as they can of course thank you same time you know i really appreciated by horses yourself and restrictions as you often open it up and one person stood out to me was what would i have to light in order for my field bills to be considered you know that's that is academic negotiations are you know you just you know in the beginning you know i'm not a writer but ossa muscle cars sold well you know was that the crisis came to me when i was little and when i was small and when i was saying these divisions in the community and numb how how much hated was a part of

this beautiful place where i was from and the people so easily and so easily heat i can understand that and so much destruction so much violence was in the south that i grew up in but as i grew older i had to make a decision was i going to stop myself because our gaze at it easy on me or was i going to become that art of didactic scholar there in a person of ways of my grandmother in the ways of you know other institutions and keep walking and be prepared for whatever my life was gonna open up to i chose the latter and it's a decision that i think you'd have to make when you realize that we are different that people are judged differently but you know i'm not going to shut myself that i have to stand him in on the find another way in but if you stab yourself then the games got the game's over so

yuki making yourself into the person you want to be and think the doors will open i believe that i really really believe that and if they don't open it is not yet sent in what way were you inspired by our chancellor when you know so many people when you become the president when you when the civil war at all because it anymore oh i have to sound like this all about for me the man that i knew at the universe of kentucky stood out like a neon sign like this because he would take on the hard stuff and he would tell the truth about things that nobody wanted to do with his turn a blind eye or you know

think about this you do this is the man to go on about that but think about what you know one of the things that i look at the end of his life years ago squeezing about evolution was not you know many university presidents spoke no asset when you feel about it let somebody be able to say i mean i believe that and that's how we sell because this does mean as we gathered be able to compromise and talk about what i believe in what you believe and that's what he taught me as a young assistant professor

and i've been in trouble so after hearing your presentation i feel like i should ask the question in verse com how do our homes initially to rise in your minds do they do you hear them do you see them do see words images could you yes i am incredibly visual i see things long before you know the knees let's have a beautiful poet was no longer with us she said you can smell a poem before you see it i love that because you know my eyes you know smell being he gets of my eyes would smell the pouring and in that process down into my head and my arm in my hands now begin to capture it on paper but i can always say oh obama that in

this and it's usually few of the usual since our visual moment absolutely yes i'm ok you so much craziness with your presence in the yankees even an inspiration and just a model so the language i am quite interested in one little thing that you are talking about and that he might tease out just a little bit of that is that the film beasts of the southern wild and obviously have a profound impact on you if you would please just talk a little about what it means to you now you see again and that what you take let me just say i can have an entire hour on the beast of the southern wild as it's not simple it's not simple an entity part of it is like the part that i talk about is the part i can talk about in this moment because the other parties if i deconstruct it

really met may and you have to be able to have to do that you have to be able to say everything about this film or what is it about this film is speaking to me so here is a film about a brilliant little black girl quote the title of the film says he says and so that while these are all stereotypes a black people be steel while all those things come up for me cuz i pay attention i got the better feel most number of violent crime five aug right and you see this little girl was in the world why all the films about little black girls have to be as a little girl in of the world why all the films that we got a hollywood make us here in my guest ryan lined up down the sidewalk why all the black money and then not doing what they're supposed to do this is little thing when

he's raising a child right and he has a daughter at a too many stereotypes for me so i don't get into that to the league away she turns and lets start in the face and so i say good things about moment to be able to critique it as a whole and as a whole they're some things that are problematic you've just heard poet nikki finney speaking september sixth two thousand twelve at the university of kansas as part of the hall center for the humanities lecture series audio of this event was provided by k u media services kbr presents is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas when kamen entire remind you to do your part to support locally produced public radio like katie our lives online k pr that hey you guys and thanks for your

support