Kevin Rabas and Nikky Finney

and you can be sustained by portuguese like your sustained by songs on the radio today on k pr presents meet the new poet laureate of kansas kevin raye this i'm kate mcintyre we welcome kevin raye best of the kpi's to be as we'll hear some of this work his plans as poet laureate and about his path to poetry haven't will join dozens of kansas poet sen poetry lovers in topeka next weekend for brooks fast it's a celebration of the one hundred years since the birth of poet gwendolyn brooks you can find out more about the june tenth activities at visit to peek dot com later this hour it's more poetry nikki giovanni has been called a living legend and one of today's most acclaimed poets but first kevin ramos was appointed poet laureate of kansas in april he teaches at emporia state university his most recent poetry collection is songs for my father poems and stories kevin makes his first official appearance sponsored by the kansas humanities council on june

fifteenth at the ottawa public library or you can see him june tenth at brooks fast kevin stop by the akp our studios earlier this week kevin and it's great to see you again and thanks for having kate congratulations on the new job thanks what do you have in mind for the next two years of your poet laureate yep well one of the things is make a lot of appearances and at those give talks my i talk right now is called finding the extraordinary in the ordinary and elsa do readings often combining music and poetry together and i think the last time i saw you we were doing a little bit of that mixing drums in poetry i'll also have some of the projects one is to take a hand held older poet mentor younger poets and collect some of that correspondence in a book called lester young poet which riffs off the austrian poet rilke as our work where he corresponded famously with someone and

so i'll do a little bit of that arm dawson recalls for a poetry on the main square a focal writing poems offer broad kansas gathers together and have another anthology of of work by kansans about kansas on and then mixing poetry music i'm i'm doing that some myself and m star in turn ramped up and create more groups where poets and musicians or parent and then also when i go about the state opposed open mikes where armed if if opponents want to have our music behind them all play and the musicians our brain will play behind them was i think a pretty ambitious two years ahead yeah talk about that mentorship piece is that a way to foster at young people to make their voice heard a little louder oral or what you're hoping to do with that yeah well you know in some ways poetry is not a place for inclusive indeed so bringing folks of all sorts to the table and then once they're there and help them i'll rise and through that mentorship hopefully

that that ascension can happen and also recording it in this way folks ten twenty thirty years from now concedes was going on in contemporary american poetry in kansas and don what i learn from it if i'm young person and what can we get as a record archival lead of of that time on so i'm looking for to that in some ways the roca book as i do for an update and we're going to do it and what is it that you hope that maybe older pilots get out of the mentorship experience right energy enthusiasm new life to the fore mom and amazon are also older portals a whole hey these are some things that i could also be doing or hear some things i want to die in the folks into armed you know there are so many things that we kept well would we will not expect and those kind improvisations will hopefully energize our poetry can tell us a

little bit about yourself and how you came to be a poet well in my mom was a journalist and that she would bring me along to a fire or or or arm an interview of any sort and i would she was slain beyond the strap of the tape recorder around my neck and i would follow her like a doc follows of mother and this i get to experience a lot of stuff that way hear people's stories and i love telling stories that i'm examining my own life and observing that in and finally the boss of finding out about the people around me and rick your pores a gray that that they are kind of the folks you tell those the towns stories the town storyteller and retell or and so i fold my mom that way and she kind of brought me into into writing and literature julson purchased right now there are a lot of books at home my dad was a construction worker so that was really his thing on both my parents want to be teachers

and it didn't work out for either of them but i guess but you know a few years later i became a teacher so we did a good descend in that way i am so i love stories and we also spent some time in his room in a plane with a whack sir but also looking at the stories as they were laid out on the page and arms so we got to see the hardest town stories being told i lived in johnny which was pretty small then on you know the cows would walk up to the fence of the city baby pool and now that doesn't happen on the cows or other was a big houses are but we were caught indoctrinated into the wife of the counter stories say you could become a journalist at the knee of your mother but instead you explored baby the more creative side of storytelling you know i did try to i worked for a little while for the justice a vidalia onion as a cub reporter and it and i'd i'd probably local b which includes these things like city

halls and city council also whether the police report on that little things like that and also whatever happened be happening in town so i did that for a while i really enjoyed at least half i am because i was newly married and living in a different town i wouldn't have against my drive an injunction and do my thing and come back and you know i'd leave at five in the morning i'm not come home until nine pm you know how it is and i enjoy that i liked it on it became a little bit too much for me at that time my wife and i have not gone back to it but i tried it out i really did learn a lot and you know the dea the need to write every day is something that i carried into my poetic like meaning you know kevin before you're done today i wanna bomb from you you know that's the way the news reports i want two or three stories from you if you wanna keep working for us and so on that that taught me something you know hemingway learn from that also people like gaunt tom stop or to other great playwright worked doing the reviews on things and to like him i actually want to tell stories where i didn't know all

the details no one to fill in the gaps and you just can't do that writing hard news or even features so armed they imagine a part of that the part where i didn't know somebody thing that want to find out what that is and it's a possible pilot that is you have to invent it that support the cut drew me to poetry and and fiction because sometimes there's this unknowable part by you wanna make it up on you can do that as a reporter of course not being keep your job is that you alluded to this before in addition to being a writer and teaching about writing you're also a jazz musician what does that bring to your poetry toolbox we know there's a tradition of poets to write about jazz and performed two jabs are so folks like langston hughes entered brock jack kerouac use of common ya ker arms deathly sick joy harjo and his crew keeps

going forward on kevin young is coming to to be get on as another great great poet who writes about jazz and rice in a jazzy way you know writing about the art from jazz arm sometimes call after american classical music on and bridges a painting and performances engine we're just for the portrait you're reading and writing in the way of the jazz life meaning taking the forms of jazz things like bebop and avant garde jazz and writing a way in which your poetry follows that arm prescribe rhythm and melodic structure and that's another thing so there are a lot of elements that can lead someone to jazz portrait lots of forms a jazz portrait is a really cool literary magazine called brilliant corners which is all jazz poetry and literature about jazz on and i love that there are lots of anthologies of jazz poetry i'm including just there that there's one called one moment's notice and this one is called jazz poems etc on end are kevin young has a bug anthology is called jazz poems were called blues poems

so there was a place to find this and you know as a person who can kind of came into my own in kansas city i was exposed to jazz i mean we would hit two or three jam session the night and sit in and play and our wi fi bellows working was not we would then go home and would shatter practice and they come back and during the summer was also working at the more sound archive young dc which is a jazz archive which is really millions of jazz recordings on and i would go there i'll i'll i hung out so much of the archives at one point checked bag said he was the director of that you would say you know kevin you're all the time want to start shelling while you're here mortgage on the clock and so on that came into being in that way i'm i've heard now the archive now has a robot arm i shelving so i've been replaced by our robot but anyway we were we would we would go into the archive and listen we would study and class in the uk see jazz program we go on to play at the jam

sessions and we would eventually starred in your first gigs were first paying gig phones so we learned a lot about the jazz life and was an archive i was until langston hughes weary blues recording where our langston hughes teams up with charles mingus the rate of one guard bases and composer an airliner feather art critic slash composer and he made his great recording that we would listen to a lot of time for shelving i thought one day i'd like to do something like that and it didn't come and so i'm you know i start listening there about nine to ninety three in about nineteen ninety nine i started my own jazz portrait group and started cutting my teeth in that way well speaking of jazz poetry we first met back in two thousand nine when you did a reading at the university of kansas memorial union accompanied by drummer jorge poster for the kbr archives we've got a clip from that reading let's give that a listen good morning when i offered

books she pulls back the pages until the spines crack exposing where the pages turn around son had yellowed backed wyatt and she poked her nose into that place where the book is did it takes in a long breath and i remember my books are objects not ideal as words but had stuffed lightning energy is books on loan to my stray markings and paper scrap paid holders as well as all the sense of all the rooms i had lived in it books with me in apartments in the city and suburbs on trains moving community in the mountains he says will side by side running tracks and libraries and bookstores and after encounters when the hands through the water on park benches on car has her top lot of washers and these votes statewide scene everyone and everything left off for a while the books were maimed and i lend them knowing they too may leave one day fire water

forgetfulness taking all of my stand with them scaling to the top shelf of the used bookstore moving on into the silken bander and perfumes and wills and varnishes of someone else's short and recorded last lovely obscure solitary life again that's kevin raiders from his first appearance on k pr presents back into thousand nine kevin when you listen to that now years later what do you think how has your work changed since then and how it's remained the same you know that was an exciting time that was and during my first year or so working with jorge bell's fear that the drummer and percussionist and you know we were on rehearsing and playing out quite a bit during that time and i think that one that particular to slash bomb worked up pretty well the background of the rhythm flows like a river beneath us and it also reminds me of that pattern of life where i

was cutting my books and remembering where they came from and honoring the great things that are in that but also saying as in maybe arm something like on something like disorderly greek where you get away from your book citizen other things and so that was coming out for me also that that that poem starts with awesome at smelling a book and that the physical object and how a book is not just on a screen but a thing in front of us made in the paper and glue and and cardboard etc and that comes from another poet and writer i mean the writer ta shahar says from this town from lawrence and she was over my house once and smell the book as she opened it and i thought isn't that a great way to start a poem and i just follow that image to wear a naturally lead kevin this is a big week for poetry in kansas on saturday june ten the city of topeka will be celebrating one of its most famous poets it's

brooks first marking what would have been the one hundredth birthday of gwendolyn brooks who lived in topeka briefly before moving to chicago with her family kevin talked about gwendolyn brooks and the footprint that she left behind right well you know i'm quinn owen burke says born in topeka kansas at kansas person she lived most of her life in chicago and is really often seen as a poet by chicago she wrote about all parts of chicago armed inner city chicago suburban chicago a anything in you wanna know the chicago you can almost learned that from reading when all of brooke's the people of chicago especially african americans and dion she has some jazzy poems like we roll call which one of her greatest hits on and she has all sorts of lesser known poems too on and she was the first i ever work record the first african american poet to read when the pew a surprise and so she was at a pioneer and trendsetter and so and she was too

truly great summer poems are more conversational summer palms are more our lyrical and a discursive i mean people know they're the ones that are for voice but she wrote all sorts of pawns and armed she was kind of a she was very much a celebrated african american life and so you see that in her poems on i could read will re record to really short sure if you'd be interested in that i i met when one brooks i believe it was a literal rock arkansas i was living in fayetteville and i have to talk to her after the reading and she read this one characteristically and powerfully the way i'm going to try to read it now i'm so as we record this is one of her greatest hits it comes with a subtitle the pool players seven at the golden shovel we're real cool we're left school we're we're clay eight we strike straight we're saying santa we engender we jazz june

we die soon and though it's about forty words is pretty important are showing those guys lives is celebrating a sign that they may have short lives because of the choices they're making but still celebrating their youth an energy citizen on she doesn't discount them she doesn't judge them she says this too is beautiful and it's cool yes and her poetry has a rhythm to it that must've really really appeal to you know yes i mean i should've learned my jazz portrait lineage but she didn't have so many poor little like that just that one that everybody noticed that that as part of bricks first there will be a burma shave style poetry walk by a keynote address by kevin young who is poetry editor of the new yorker a talk by elizabeth farnsworth who anchors the newshour on public television there will also be a number of people reading the poetry of gwendolyn brooks myself included or

reading original poetry inspired by brooks kevin is that you're going to embrace poem somebody else got that before a kid is says is so popular we were you know fighting over the poems i'm in a real one called old mary which is a lesser known i could read it now or if we could keep it for later which everything let's encourage people to come to hear you recite that on saturday june tenth at books that just sounds good kevin could you leave us with a bomb yes ninety two we were going on this one is a jazz poem about the jazz life you know that they say being a lifeguard might be like baywatch in the new movie coming out on that really it's about things like cleaning to add the baby pool with a net and so the jazz life is also not always about to standing up in front of people and and sewing and a brilliant glorious god or gods like fashion it's also all sorts of little things and here is one of those on his essentially

one about on ah a musician that condom ii into serenading his ex wife and her house on so here has called a bottle problems ryan struck in and has a dark green bottle he's brought in just twisting the corkscrew and the cork popped and torn it won't come out and she asked me to help and i break the bottle it thinking now no one will drink bud and takes out cheesecloth and strains the wind through purple and blood red or white fabric abstract art on cloth the neck of the bottle didn't an angle a lever she moves are drunk world and i can see the future and those wine stains ryan back on the bandstand his big brown upright bass at his shoulder humming lowing strang singing and mike gravel under tires outcomes ryan's paris voice lost the continent over but now back when casey the cats haller the kc whale and bray turn sophisticate by a night of strain won

we do have a slightly political one but also on this one's called but not guns should i disavow k pr is endorsement of this right off the bat sure thing at it is mildly political arm a dozen point any fingers i don't think so but not guns when it gets real cold assad from azerbaijan comes to school and a new green and black camel a ski mask and secretary kerry tells him not a good idea wearing that the day after the shooting clips emptied into the dance club but assad doesn't get it doesn't fall the connection between batman and ham when men to look like him but have lost all heart face assad lungs his books up steps we use twelve copies of his poem on my desk lines of lost for pomegranates and belongs

not guns that kevin rabe is the new poet laureate of kansas again he'll be in topeka next saturday june tenth at brooks fest celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of topeka native gwendolyn brooks you can find out more at visit to pico dot com for the rest of this hour a living legend in poetry nikki giovanni teaches at virginia tech university she spoke at the university of kansas on april fourth two thousand seventeen sponsored by the project on the history of black writing she started out her evening with a nod to kansas and gwendolyn brooks transitional reality probably take our shoes off because certainly kansas has a second because of what it has meant to american what it has meant to the world and if nothing else the brown vs topeka which also discuss the home of the incredible gwendolyn brooks just makes this reminds us how important is the land that we actually stand up i'm a native

tennessee and i was born there doing the age of segregation when you couldn't go to the sale and he's on top of this a movie theater where the white guys would cruise up announced region cannot do you when the bad guys were afraid of being lynched but we went to church each sunday and we sang precious so and we found a way back to survive anything can survive but to thrive and believe and how dominated tennessee i was born there but it was only two months old and my mother and father moved my sister anita cincinnati do a major segregation went down drugstores would serve us when it was red light but at least money to get a job teaching and then i could get a job in an investment after all if you are college graduates that's a major can expect the pullman porters took their south in summer and watch over us with them and they'll inflate and daughters from there to here from knoxville tenn i was born there and the only state in the billions that didn't have to undergo reconstruction in the volunteer state prisoners many for one side as another in an area where if i just have to have a car breakdown i would prefer anyhow detainees city neighborhood

but there was no work and no way and the chronic and was the flare which cases to ohio lines are crossed in the river just for people to and love and to whom were related to the rest of the range but the rage they someone had to go i chose me but i was born there so the going was a contaminated tennessee take no joy in davy crockett knowledgeable they were wrong to be accountable they want to fight for that that allowed james actually under rubble out and native tennessee was not allowed to play a big part in the truth can't attend the field of development and anthony clinton independent film a walk in the spring many anticipated unlike at least in the big guys around her native tennessee graduated fifth anniversary in nashua i know that the freedman paper that's when nobody gave him anything you say nicholson prayer and determination the freedman paid for and many others i know the american missionary society to the money

the jubilee singers may just say this and used for other purposes i know the mayor commissioner says it was wrong i was educated by the standards of those songs among themselves that i'm not loved nashville data show who invited the jubilee singers to sing at the grand ole opry they had to hear the rumors she sang on senator she saw the usa in a chevrolet and now i once saw on a plane i was going to be tensions and first glance i said hey she's now is it hey that when i got george online i rolled the chattanooga choo choo lookout mountain of song memphis and was ejected from the mighty mississippi gracefully tylenol rid of those treatments at midnight all those balloons from somebody blows the basic handy broadway and they became the late great johnny ace that inspects of music american music the athens of the south and tennessee music but members of the dues to belong everyone wants to rap to mind at a memphis i heard the shots that that meant that the mud and i know

i'm a native tennessee and i know what it is to be free i am singing a country blues i'm whittling window and underground mining coal and running moonshine i'm a white boy with the banjo native to west africa one with a twenty native to the heroes i am sorry i am who i am free and native tennessee it's been that is your new round and let you know that was there was a great she was like a precursor to the bony ridges good old said he had that cemented what they started to say was that because the taliban is your wanted to have the jubilee singing fits in this ocean and set the summit's but then it puts everybody in america is going to bend in and inspection of chemical in the age of segregation clearly has gone segregationist finish the age of racism is still with us so we close the

segregation door that we have still you have to go to make a sense because you have to go through that they don't because you are the new generation of no segregation you have to make up your mind what's important to you i can tell you when another story that that that threw me out and i teach at virginia tech and as you know we had steven of guns we have a terrible situation thirty two people were were murdered and i was invited out and what would be different lenders to close competition got a call from sandy smith and she said that you know you need the company gym clothes connotation and i was just a bomb depending on the song's like oh my god they enter the us but i was nervous and i had a couple of students and i really love the life and somehow didn't know we're reaching jollity rejected that we don't like when i had a student

left egypt and i knew this when i started to look at the name of the people who were killed have been frantically now been read about this but i wanted to paint men his mother because i wanted to tell her but i'm sure some of the children and i wanted to tell i will admit you had told me that i knew that men were shot just because there was a he would never be sure that he would never have run away he would get to safety and appoint somebody needed to say to his mother yet a great sign and we'll listen so i know that for me to walk out on stage and i said to think about maybe somebody i'm going to be upset and so i thought i have to write something that the word simple and what's important is that we are virginia tech i don't know how well why i don't like anybody does anything but somehow another twenty years we've heard that that you know that the sec and hate no i won't say that militiamen on thursday she asked to see me that she dig for people call and i've never been so happy that i've had people

tell me what hurt people call that people my people said i'd be delighted so i go to meet the plane she was on enrichment and i look bigger and i did i looked it and who do you like when the list with innovations meeting so many people you know that there's no way that you ever gonna make any sense to him and you know that when you know somebody in that movie stars is the least of them at it because of the deer sausage ok there has to be a way that someone does i needed to say something to which insurers something is not to try to say anything it's the quietest going to get on that one and so that you know they have a person as a human as nikki giovanni and she's like how you and i am it's actually like that and that was what i was waiting for and i said we have

something in common man in that got her attention things she's a singular great grandmother in victoria invited listeners for my school this university to come and stay with their engines and it was and i said the reason that we are called the jubilee singers is an honor of victoria i'm a big fan of african americans like i graduated i think it's it's so it probably lead to the rampant grandfather who graduated in two thousand fine but i know too that at that at nineteen oh five i know that we hear for black and predominantly in abortion is one the world is predominantly white so get over whatever it is you're thinking like oh i'm the only neighborly hear wherever you go you won't be doing it was so crowded over and secondly we might have to rethink how we look at the agency use

because it's true and i love this but this is going to be eaten up by for example bandaged up and then it keeps going up which was not the jeweler interested it would know but there it is on seventeen then will announce come over to sixty eighteen and it's taken over and goes like you would love to see this has become the fistful of vanderbilt university because this cannot continue and if you look at those that made me meant to imagine and i won't do this but it made me so upset to see the htc new presidents go on and smiling at their bones that they know you know it's going to be a horse than honorable mention that you have to take the next the htc use are important and they are important that we get the white student in to them

it's important that we get to know each other it's important i'm sorry we don't know and i'm sorry that we lost a direct and i mentioned that an animated dancing in the draft was important because it made us talk to each other it made us no matter what it was on an appalachian it may just have to get to know we get a letter saying each other some who would not have a country and western if we hadn't had the dread because the white boys would not have been singing with the blackboard and understanding that this is music everybody can listen to and i'm sure you should if you don't know then you ship and one of the things that made country and western important is that they were listening to what we did and what we did was we decided we didn't give a damn who like them is everyone's in it for ourselves and once we set for ourselves other people started to listen and one of the biggest and listen or one of the greatest songs that that gladys knight was not a nice person but when the lettuce crop

she just wanted to write songs you're the best thing that ever happened to me how can we get that song she had been left in the country and when we listen to each other and it was one of my favorite songs is you know nick of time because they just they just know when that that nobody really stopped a couple of people in my life and when i read the bluest eye i was living in you and so she was like oh my god i have to meet this person and i lived at the ninety second and central park west and i know that she worked at random house which you about new york but the easiest way to get around europe really never did somebody i just walked down the wealthy and the captain ran against him as well as lichen and the hack it like to see tony larson police and the only dish expecting i don't

think so you know anything like that and us senate though the time nikki giovanni i'm a poet i love the bluest eye would you like to have a couple coffee and i drink it seemed like there were a couple copies and she says that you wait until after work and so that's how many you know and the other person that i stopped and i hope you know him to because he's a great guy was alexander mccall smith is a wonderful and i went to this idea that the no one ladies' detective agency is a great and i love botswana and i was in england so there's that we're bringing you can go to edinburgh and so i went over to edinburgh and walked into the bookstore is a big agenda and i said excuse me i am i'd like to meet alexander mccall smith they get you nowhere years and so they know oh no he is he's in california right now is giovanni and out because i did not think would you land but they

do need those like matthew never expect so the next question on don't stop those will be bonnie raitt as i loved at the time i just think it was a brilliantly written and of course i'm seventy two years old so the line that i've got to let you know if life is my precious when there's less of it to waste and you know that's our bodies might suddenly just want to have a drink now that i drink and i have a glass of our continued support and i just thought that i should share some of that i want to remind you all and of course we're in kansas where it's five million dollars and then we analyze this wouldn't work if we were in st louis because st louis's lilies and you can do it but the next important thing for all of us that you know space and i really did resent and i just you know if you and i just resented the martian and i resented it for a lot of

reasons one it was stupid so he goes and he goes up and there's a strong and they believe him ray thanks very good friend under that in afghanistan but he's a white man and so you know people make you know the people who are in the community anything that switch on again not in the home with the witnesses and then the scalpels of the debate the other parents and just about never be hungry again and that's a life there's a vote she will be hungry again but as everybody knows when

german came through and won georgia we recognize a parent what he did not recognize your yams so when he came through games look like big rats if using and you know what they look like and what was so wonderful about being black and why i love it so much as we know that scotland hundred people one hundred and it was the people that they sent people who dug up a couple of games and went up to the big house is a mystery you can have this debate which you have done for us like people did that i loved it then ended with a wife and getting the girls were better than most people if you run into the martian there's only one person that to go up to mars i get along with everybody that's a black woman i had some ideas that oh you know it wasn't a

woman at that reason a black woman she hasn't be fine until we get there people impose themselves upon us and the babies that we here we were impregnated the babies that we deliver we gave a name to and we loved so whether we're in march of pluto is saddened and matter where we are whatever we are being forced to argue was intimate with we will deliver name and love so when we talk about space we have to talk about having black women so those of us who in depth teaching fourth fifth and sixth grade year to remind his notable know michael let me i'm a friend of john bolton and nobody's gonna let said the backbone and i want a bonus basically making it is a good tool to destiny man and i also had cancer and so my left lung this incident but i can take you into space but i can't bring it back and that's because once i come back into gravity

my my organs will move ona about that and sort of us make a deal which the actors good look chris christie has a different ebb and saying you know let's make a deal and quite convincingly when said yes but probably somebody like me maybe are limited use of the medicine in it's only going to live so long i wanna go up in the next five six years i wanna go into space and boeing and i one day an ability feeble england and i went and that they just open the hatch and let me out you know you're with us this is hot chocolate at the beginning of spring but the

hand that the rain a splashy branded gifford says it just a little cinnamon to get addressed this is not a problem this is a summer quote log cabin see that on a piece that was a grandmother's wedding dress that that was grandma's favorite sunday is that the baby who died mommy had pneumonia so the red flannel shows the human this does not pay the museum last novel itself of thousands this is here typically whoa this is not a summit deal it will singing precious lord take my hand amazing grace how sweet the sale go down moses way down to the past wake up to the future that was saying that the voice of marian anderson note on the area's only into bans on the killing battle to the dirty dirty with bessie mon with dinah washington rock n roll through the sixties and wrap its way all up into the nineties gone out and displaced with etta james singing at mass know this is not a summit but the truth of the beauty that the only authentic voice of planet earth comes from a glaxo killed in mind about the

doors of the buy of the diaspora this is a rock and sheer rock me gently in the bosom of abraham this is a blessing no i'm not gonna move today this is a porch what they sense the fireflies telling and alex the story of the africans this is a book written to cover a dirt floor and pass with the lead with leftover vegetables making a slow cooking so this is quote settling chicken and surprising everybody with our ability to make a way out no way this is not rest when we're weary not comfort when we're set it is an actor when we aren't paying it is no man we were confused it is keep driving job when the road fixing unfair turn it is don't let nobody turn around when always a runaway is dark it is the they were mothers who planted it here put vaseline on our bases and then choose pact addresses or sweater so that we could wish their coats who welcomed us and our children when we was left alone to read them who said get your education and nobody will put you back

this is not appointment is a celebration of the road we have traveled it is a prayer for the road yet to come this is an explosion the regional big bang that makes the world a hopeful loving place this is the black woman and all our trouble in glory and all our passage in future for bands at all that made love a possibility death is about us reach the natural brain injury and here is made up of big the place is called short sleeve and cz riders junkies whole rich lives and others ran mother's arms working in the home outside work in that system are outside working praying working to survive giving pride giving circle giving voice giving encouragement giving whatever we can give this is a why replace over peter's sail unimpeded for the gift of what the mission regiment from massachusetts all the men and women lynched in the name of rape in until medgar evers malcolm x martin luther king jr this is the band we fly for respect dignity the assumption

for intent of integrity for a future generation to rally around this is about that's celebrating ourselves and wealthy zone is like the candles this is a rocket that's right a big fan of appalachia and one would think this is as long as a judge's judge and i love that it's only fair that we recognize white women and we have kids we keep putting that part of that great history down and of course we have hidden history of the lynching of whiteman and that's a history that have to keep coming up because of the white women along the appalachian trail one inch by the people who didn't like the fact that they were standing for something and it's something that we were white women have to be we have to be proud of we have to make a decision that this is a history that i must embrace because i'm a good person not been for him better than

average bear and china's place these days is thought let's get people who want to please because they crazy and mean and evil and you don't want to be bothered with them july july biting in your own right to be as beautiful as you think you are and i just think the simple and when that make mountains he made runaway slaves with no knowledge of the north star noah budnick classes describing blossom in knots out of trees he made black men and women unafraid of mountain lions in florida panthers and no matter where teddy roosevelt tried to show they are still not like people that the cuddly little while that the fears grisly not the mighty opponent no other humble hansen like there's all this and their demands are to be avoided god didn't make the jack rabbit who could be snared got made the possible was slow that made the clever raccoon and rivers sweet with fish and that's really interesting

when god made runaway slaves he knew they would be different not only in the nature of humankind so he sent mountaineers he said people who would not be a slave not only one who would not kill a slave holder died for one three white men who believe in change and a pretty white woman who believed in him and they made their home among these mighty mountains they like to have a drink or two so they welcomed johnny appleseed it's about stories and berman apple jet they like heroes so they welcomed the traveling preacher with his message of a man who is trapped about the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored they like to say so they welcomed the runaway slave with his banjo and register for one when god made mountain he made men and women who would need each other who would respect each other who would tear the world so that all men and women to be a saint come on to me ye who need rest and they call it appalachia the original word for peace and some folks say this cannot be done and the rest said yes we cain

and the cloud settled in that peaceful place between ground and sky entries like smoke coming off a coffee pot like steam coming up a kettle of pinto beans like the rustic smell of butt putting five days and at home and a piece like got as a rocking chair and this guy smoking his body and being proud of his great smoky mountains but as that sediment on weakening of the cincinnati now when i was two months of just a week than they could carry me thousands of them a message they're finally a member of the messages that had a son that was chris and when she would go to get to be a six seven years old i used to babysit him and in the summer likely given that you have been summoned and we know what to do with a sense of your home and then you realize it's enormous trouble because we would have that i've

been the g gets on and having kids and baby sitting in the day and i'm trying to think of things to do with our lives is i really don't like services and i'm glad that they've closed and alliances and so educators to the sunni led the prevailing potency when it isn't in cincinnati used to be free and i don't have an uncertain and thirty years i don't know but it has to be free so we go on monday we go through the zone and then one day it was raining and i said to christopher you know one of the good and so because it's very different for those of you take your children afterward but the elephant in the rain a very different from amazon and sunny day so chris was always present in any jazz hasn't taken so we went to cincinnati zoo which is a wonderful so i went to the zoo you can see the monkeys running around because they are jungle and so they've used in one in our industry and i like cotton candy is like when they made it now descended into china someplace but mason the latest of a campaign and got ten gossip or so i had been

as a parisian johnson that again and he said yes because you like that vision so we could have gotten any place and i looked up at the latest segment allison took advantage please and i should've known immediately it's raining to patent and these police and the people talk to some of his land understands analysis lower level and it's raining in afghanistan and i mean no disrespect you but being black and it is the white people treatment get when i thought oh she thinks about a runoff you know so i put my two quarters of something he could see and painful and announce a few might be really really thick we don't sell your cotton candy in the rain

and it is an active politically i knew i was not going to get it accepted that it pours back to put him in my pocket and i said man i mean no disrespect and i'm curious why don't you so when it's raining and she looked at me like you know you must be an idiot now i just wanted to do was slowly and gently said ma'am i'm just not sure what you have to do with the campaign and the time and i just think it would be huge and socialism and mentoring women that way than you know to say something and then they expected you know like they got help you what they initially i wanted him to like there's something you know and i didn't get it but i went home i don't know i was thinking about it and

i ended up writing a poem because i think people are always trying to tell you what you should get and how long it should have to make it work is not in that damn business she sells a reporter i get what it like this cotton candy not that is not the last that long and so what you gonna do is enjoyed wine yet but that's after you don't look now i'm fading away into the gray of my mornings are the boots of every night is it that my nails to be breaking that maybe the corner my second little pig things keep pumping out on like they spotted my life it seems no matter how hard i tried i become more difficult to hold i'm not an easy woman to want they have asked a psychologist psychologist politicians ok social workers what this decade will be known for there is no doubt it is loneliness if loneliness were great them wanted the advantage if it were would the

furniture would be mahogany but since it feels like it has cotton candy on a rainy day the sweet soft essence a possibility never quite vigilant and i've prided myself on being and the great traditional bit circus that the show must go on though when my community the matter is one man show which overland up it's a midway point to thread our way to the border and utility looking for the blue ribbon and gold medal mostly seen as food labels will consume but people who sing the same old song stay as sweet as you are in my corner or perhaps just a little bit longer but whatever you do don't change baby baby don't change or something he could change everything some say will change i need a change of pace basic attitude and might go along on my loneliness i know i need something or someone or i strangle my worms as easily as adamant years i struggled my screams as frequently as i as i clench my smile it means like i am cotton candy on a

rainy day the un realized dream of an idea and i share with the painters they desire to put a three dimensional picture on one dimensional surface my favorite game show network person you are and i should get over it but i like the jeopardy what i'm here in kansas but i'm recording in the day when that recording jeppesen when i go home i'll be able to have the internet and i really love them them falling in love the food network bobby flay but i really i think i can beat bobby flay and of all india because the trick to beat bobby flay is who has to who has to judge and i think that i should get three pellets but there has to be a show called deal or no deal in the end of course is

that they will torture and i just and look at boats and family feud but one center was written it anyways and there's something epic pride you know it's a sacred it is that i want to remind all of the english majors although shows if you look at jihadist and ninety percent of the questions are literary so if you're an english major and people will let the drums at all how you gonna live your fortune because uganda phone geniuses and a lot of people don't think about what you do as a nation is what you know the line from the poems and that they only avenue to make a to make a fortune but i used to love the hell because i'm a nice person and i think i'm a nice present but it didn't make me crazy you look in the deal or no deal some ideas there they have a stupid question against that and just opened again for the second ever ten fifteen thousand dollars that's a good day's work

it's the guy i was about how we will say you know dylan no deal in their dream home which and then let alone to beat the bank get nobody beats them at kids' of a shame for god sake and just listened to make ukraine and so one day the summit have twenty thousand jobs which really is a good day's work and they don't know the owl yes and they said you know i'm going to be the banker they lost everything i was so glad oh and i don't think i'm a nice person i was his legacy that in my class but really the nice kids and i think they think i'm nice about it but my class nose and i used to just live for a deal in libya and i came in when it should tuesday and i came in one day so may twenty one and twenty thousand dollars in the last and i came in and i i complain you can see how do i

win and just figured that only lost twenty thousand dollars and the place is looking at me like how long does this create a maid this is where my sake i said to the place that you think i should be on deal or no deal because i know how to handle it as they would say you know again that you will write a letter or you know something encouraging right and in a response and so i just end of the aisle go go i mean would you want to light great and so this about gender make me go one of it again just not a hum that the jobs added those you didn't understand and he said like you know why what we didn't say anything and i said no i don't because he said nobody wanted to see you make of the weavers

crammed isis don't you know that is the first time my then i make a fool of myself is on deal or no the last night now this deal or no deal for english forty seven fourteen and just so they know who they always a crt and one six nine to reset their grandchildren talk to you and there was a few you know my class is not so sure that i should have tried to do you know do they think i'm lucky after all i'm teaching them they know i'm smart they are for example learning that don't wanna see me make those really mistakes and push beyond the banker is neither for now though he's a machine to think you can beat

him is to think you will win and vegas but i'm persistent my dream is a red dress above my knees high heel reassembled and me coming over the top the music building dump that hadn't been done i will say with a lively smile i want to play the game i want to be that were born forty years after me yet i remember i know you can go through life unless you're well known for love or money to make a film of yourself where else the ecstasy poet nikki giovanni she spoke at the university of kansas on april fourth two thousand seventeen sponsored by kay use project on the history of black writing one last plug for brooks fast saturday june tenth in topeka celebrating what would have been the one hundredth birthday of poet gwendolyn brooks you

can find out more about brooks first ad visit to pico dot com or on facebook i'm kay mcintyre k pr presents is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas