>> Robert Casper: All right, everyone. Hello out there. >> Hello. >> Robert Casper: Happy national poetry month from the library. Yeah, thank you. I like the call and response for national poetry month. Very exciting. My name is Rob Casper, I'm the head of the Poetry and Literature Center here at the library. And I'm delighted to welcome you to tonight's event, the National Youth Poet Laureate Commencement. [ Applause ] Before I go further, let me tell you a little bit about the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. If you don't know, we are home to the US poet laureate and our current laureate, Tracy K. Smooth -- oops, can I just -- great. There we go. Will be concluding her second term on April 15th just across the street in our Jefferson building at the historic Coolidge Auditorium. You should find out about that event. If you don't know about it, to check it out you can go to our website www.loc.gov/poetry. We also have a sign-up sheet outside. You can sign up and we'll send you emails about that event and future poetry events. For many years, because of the law establishing our poet laureate position, the Library of Congress did not promote other laureates. I'm happy to say we've changed our tune and on the 15th Tracy K. Smith will be welcoming poets laureate from Indiana, Hawaii, Nevada, New York and Oklahoma to share the stage with her. Yeah, it's a great group. [ Applause ] But really everything changed two years ago when the first national youth poet laureate came to visit the Poetry and Literature Center. I had served on the final judging committee for the position and I couldn't have been more pleased that Amanda Gorman was appointed. You can read all about her and her visit to the office on our blog From the Catbird Seat, Poetry and Literature at the Library of Congress. But let me just say that everyone was wowed by her as they continue to be. And Tracy was as well, so much so that she had Amanda kick off her opening reading as US poet laureate on that great stage. It is in the same spirit that I want to first welcome to this stage our DC youth poet laureate Gabriela Orozco -- yes indeed. [ Applause ] And I want to also after her welcome Prince George's County poet laureate Mi'Jan Credle to kick things off. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Gabriela Orozco: My name is Gabriela Orozco and I will be reading a poem. Welcome to my city. Here the songs of my city, the rhythms of the marching bands, military symphony, strength that inspires me, silence in the museum halls and snowy lights listen to the soliloquy that captures the beauty of my home, Washington DC. My city that echoes the protestors' shouts, our valiant voices reverberating throughout the streets, glorious avenues and everyday bus routes. Reaching the ears of lobbyists and businessmen, elevating the dreams of the schoolchildren, carried by the stirring gusts of autumn wind that uplift the hopes that rise above the din. City with kids like you and me, whose words beg to be set free and who's courage rivals the intensity of those who rope or liberty. This place I call my home, it defines me. Setting aside grandeur for gritty, fights and chanting in the streets, taught me to raise my fist and praise for peace. City representing me oh so clearly. Art, poetry, policy, words taking validity. Hunting for meaning in congressional library, somehow believing in poetry, hoping words will fix this broken country. I have a craving for change and I am hungry. The yearning prose of this place defines my identity. I am the partisan politics of this place in which I place myself. This presidential palace turned into pompous parade of people pointing fingers at someone else. I am the bitter bickering between red and blue, the bigoted below of the unabashed crowd full of boos. I am the op-eds and opulent museums, the oval office and Ocasio-Cortez and everything in between. I come from this deep divide. Dangerous deeds drop from each side. I am the device of distance which no one dares cross. I am the voice of dissent and I have dug a deep trench into which I make my descent. I am the spirit of the city caught fire, a torch of hope struck a light, the fierce blaze of the pyre. I am Washington DC, bear witness as my flames reach higher. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Mi'Jan Credle: I want to say first of all, thank you. It's a pleasure, a blessing, an honor to be here. The title of my piece tonight is titled Color As Character. You see I was crowned king, as I exited out the womb. And God's glory was written on a stone in my tomb. My skin flawless, color in the lines, black and brown beauty, crystal clear to the lines. So you've got to know your worth and then tax it. And then every day, practice. You see everything was already set up to never say what the facts is. I look in the mirror, I see blackness. It's so attractive. But what a shame that in this country it came with fatal attraction. I've been the black songs, writing to your mom. She look in the mirror, she know she the bomb. Heat wave, we bear the heat, we've been slaves. Took the bondage and pain and go on our chains to wait you. Even while you grew too comfortable while whiteness did what black folks do, and make the best out of anything that we come across. Failure, dreams, hopes. So we ain't never lost. There's superheroes among us. We hold our heads high. Even though they hung us. Adversity ate that, progress, they hate that. Tears don't work melanin, you can't make that. Only one God that I know can create that. There's only one Jesus with a bronze head of wool, sorry, but the white man ain't that. God made us out of the dirt, took what we gave us and we made it work. We didn't [inaudible] and we would have been worse, and carrying our hearse like a loved one hurts, but we never gave up. First still raised up. God still allows us, so still send the praise up. Faithful works, I pray to God that pays up. How many people do you know, shine brightness on [inaudible]? The dock and days, the dock and the shade, the dock and the hate, but the louder we say surely, this is my color and character. I mean, surely there's a greed, envious and jealousy. How can you look at me? The sun bounces off my skin and hit the back wall. It's straight on the [inaudible] what shouldn't I want to be black for? See God painted a masterpiece and every brush of brown was something out of fantasy God insists on looking at. And every peeping head of sheep, powerful black [inaudible]. God made us out of the dirt, took what we gave us and we made it work. See I come from a lineage of warriors and engineers, pharaohs and pioneers. But we have seen our fair share of pain and struggle, black tears. Poverty and [inaudible], potholes and [inaudible] took the bad with the good and the good with the bad. A couple whites could do some good, a couple blacks have done bad. But the moral of the story is, if you don't want to love yourself, you're not ready for combat. Don't let them make you think different than we doing on contact. You see, I'm a [inaudible] with dark skin. I happily sign that contract. Black is everything, the world's most precious ancient artifact. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Camea Davis: Good evening. >> Good evening. >> Dr. Camea Davis: My name is Dr. Camea Davis. I am the -- hey. [ Applause ] I am the national director of the youth poet laureate program. [ Applause ] I'm so honored. Poet, scholar and teacher/educator. And I am here to welcome all of you and to contextualize our event just a little bit. So I have had the great privilege and honor of being able to support the youth poet laureates during the 2018 Patricia Frazier's term as national youth poet laureate. During which we have also produced the inaugural youth poet laureate anthology titled after one of Patricia's poems, At Least I Know My Neighbor's Name. So we'll have that for you after the event. And I'd also like to speak briefly about how the youth poet laureate program sits at the intersection of democracy and poetry. So as a scholar I have been studying democracy and I believe that it is democracy that allows America to attempt human liberation and at the same time it is democracy that has kept so many people unfree. But poetry improves democracy, in that it shows America the very best of herself. What we are and who are can be. In my leadership at the national youth poet laureate program and as a scholar, I have gathered the evidence to argue that this program which grants the distinguished title and platform of a laureateship to young people across America's urban cities, not only amplifies youth voice but it grants them access and power to mobilize their ideas. And in this way, poetry allows us to reflect, to critically analyze and it equips us to act in ways that support a more just, critical, multicultural form of democracy. And we're here tonight to celebrate all of our national finalists and to amplify the great work that's happening in this region of the country. So I invite each of you as a welcome to join us in celebrating. I invite you to listen critically to the poetry and to join us as the youth poet laureates reimagine and represent democracy tonight. Thank you. [ Applause ] And next I have the honor of introducing our host for the evening. I'll read her bio for those that don't know. Mahogany Browne -- yes. [ Applause ] Yes, she is writer, organizer, educator, currently the artistic director of Urban Word NYC. Yes. Browne has received literary awards from Agnes Gunn, Air Cerembe, Cave Canem, Poet's House and Roschenburg. She is the author of Woke Baby and Black Girl Magic, Kissing Caskets, Dear Twitter and the forthcoming Woke: A Young Poet's Guide to Justice. She resides in Brooklyn. She's an amazing human being and a wonderful host. Give it up for Mahogany Browne. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [ Applause ] >> Mahogany Browne: Make some noise for Dr. Davis. [ Applause ] Did you hear that little ditty she wrote? That was like 400 words and it had my entire life in it. Thank you for fixing us. And please come back and do it again. So we're going to hear from five amazing poets. I want to welcome them to the stage, so hold your applause till they all get here. We want Maren Lovie Wright, Baltimore youth poet laureate. We want -- [ Applause ] >> Sorry. [ Laughter ] >> Mahogany Browne: Y'all couldn't even here. She's going to have her own bio in her own time, I promise. We have Azura Tyabji, and this is the current Seattle youth poet laureate. We have Jackson Neal, the current Houston youth poet laureate. Haviland Whiting, Nashville's youth poet laureate. And finally Kara Jackson, Chicago's youth poet laureate. Please make some noise for these poets. [ Applause ] Did we all get our pictures? Do you see this? Look what's happening, all right? We're prepared. [ Laughter ] The slayage is happening right here in our Library of Congress. Thank you, Cirelli. Give it up for Michael Cirelli. [ Applause ] Making it work, making it happen. So these young poets, all amazing in their own right, all have work in this amazing anthology. Please make sure you pick up not one but two: one for yourself and one for a gift. Their work is here and they're going to be reading from that today and we're going to listen closely and clearly and we're going to yell for them. And if you have a hashtag, do that. If you record it, turn your volume down so that when it reads back we don't hear it, huh? First up, Maren Lovie Wright-Kerr. [ Applause ] Now you can make noise. [ Applause ] I've got your bio, baby. I got your bio. >> Maren Wright-Kerr: Oh yeah. >> Mahogany Browne: It's all good. You look lovely. I love that. That was perfect. 17-year-old senior in high school. The current Baltimore youth poet laureate and the youngest to obtain this title yet. What? [ Applause ] She is also the 2018 Hyperbole winner and 2019 Baltimore Youth Grand Slam winner. That's a lot happening. Maren is a member as well as current co-captain of the International Championship Baltimore City Youth Poetry Slam Team. And is a young arts finalist in writing. All we ask is that you stay open and present. If you hear anything you like tonight, you say ooh. >> Ooh. >> Mahogany Browne: Ah. >> Ah. >> Mahogany Browne: All right. >> All right. >> Mahogany Browne: Nice. >> Nice. >> Mahogany Browne: What? >> What? >> Mahogany Browne: Word. >> Word. >> Mahogany Browne: And my favorite is wow. >> Wow. >> Mahogany Browne: Let them know that you hear them. All right? Make some noise for our first poet, Maren. [ Applause ] >> Maren Wright-Kerr: Will the Poets be President, turn the Oval Office into a soap box, scrub it clean for the first time ever? Because poetry trumps Trump, standing up stanzas instead of building up walls. What is more patriotic than a pen? Leaving irreversible marks wherever it lands, ain't that American? Red or blue ink on white paper, ink that American immigrating from pocket to page, will a poet be president? And no more wars we waged, just spoken word turned arrow, shot from a cupid's bow to make this country know love for the first time ever. All armies armed with group pieces instead of gunshots, just snaps. And the only fire to be found would be this poem. But if not, let a poet be soldier. >> Yes. >> Maren Wright-Kerr: We are prepared for civil war that is anything but civil. We are prepared for civil war that is anything but civil. Let poets slam but this time just not each other. Thank you. [ Applause ] How y'all doing? [ Applause ] Ooh. I'm going to do another poem for you guys tonight, but I just want to do a little quick shout-out to my family. They're back there. Love them. [ Applause ] Yeah. How hard would it be to find Nemo if he were as dark as the ocean floor? There are too many other fish in the sea to see him suffocate. And I've been told we all look alike, so how hard would it be to find his body amongst the rest of us? How hard would it be to find a black Nemo? In Baltimore, sadly, consul as hell sells seashells by the seashore, but you can be sure a nigga like Nemo can't cell cigarettes without assassination. Call it finding Eric because of course you cannot breathe when you are drowning. How can the rest of us just keep swimming? We were already fish out of water to begin with. Out of wishes, out of ways to wade in the water so we don't wave off freedom goodbye. Because I feel like currently there's a black Nemo still lost in the tides from, "Let's name the species," to trapped in a tank in like three scenes. How hard would it be to find black Nemo still dogpaddling through the school to prison pipeline? Ain't no way to be more pacific about the great barrier reef keeping my people from succeeding if Nemo was black. Would his father even know he was lost to begin with? Would black Marlin ever stick around the sea to see his seamen be men? Would he follow in the flippers of almost any black father and be clownfish, be clown, be too lost for finding Nemo? Maybe that's why so many black boys are falling off the deep end. How hard would it be to find Nemo's bones, alone, disintegrating in a predator's stomach? Because I'm a nice shark, swims right off great white president's or a great white police officer's tongue too easy. Because body cameras ain't waterproof yet. Because shark tails are the only parts you ever see come to the surface. So of course they never reflect the truth in the water. Because America be shark week on repeat. If man is 70% water, how hard would it be to find Nemo within ourselves? Before his life goes down the drain, and know all drains don't lead to the ocean, kid. All drains lead to sewage, lead to a storm of very pacific proportions. And I wonder, how hard would finding Nemo be then? Great white shark says fish are friends, not food. I reply, with friends like these, who needs anemones? Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Mahogany Browne: You can go ahead, stand up for this poet. [ Applause ] Go ahead and stand up for this poet. Stand up for this poet. Stand up for our young people. Stand up for this poet. Let's go. [ Applause ] Like finding Nemo will never be the same, huh? Movies gonna change after tonight. After tonight it's all gonna be different, friends. You ready for the next poet? Say oh yeah. >> Oh yeah. >> Mahogany Browne: Azura Tyabji. >> 7: Tyabji. >> Mahogany Browne: Tyabji. Is the Seattle youth poet laureate. Community justice and healing motivates Azura's artistic process. Poetry inspires movements for radical change and Azura strives to continue the legacy by commanding attention to injustice while invoking a future without it. Please welcome to the stage Azura. [ Applause ] >> 7: Womanhood speaks to patriarchy uninterrupted for the first time. The whole time you withheld your love from me, I waited. Found 100 different knots from my tongue, sewed a chain of pawn shop rings, molded a makeshift Eve from wax, sipped glass like water and hung mirrors on every wall. I confessed my sins to the corner I assigned myself in your absence, counted every calorie and word wasted trying to reel you in without pulling too desperate. I would have loved myself first. But that would have been unfaithful. So instead I shrank and shrank and shrank until forgiveness nestled a tumor in the cradle of my hips and I said, thank you. Even though I asked to be human, you made me woman instead. So patriarchy, where do I begin? My first word was no, so the second one you taught me was sorry. I remember learning the word sister, tentatively calling hers my own, my daughter's innocence, girlhood, while you called it your fetish. Everything always has to be sexy for you to listen. So I made my body a megaphone, hollow and amplifying. I learned for women ugly is short for worthless, so I trained every bone in my body to bend pretty so one day, slim and sharp enough, I could cough on up like a swallowed key, unlock freedom from the femininity you forced me to stomach. Sometimes I warp my arms around my body and find myself grasping at helium. You always want me to sound higher, be lighter than air itself. Be only defined by your shapes I fill when you are not looking. I put on my face every day, come home and wash it down the drain. Pick apart whatever is between my legs for you, like this is woman enough, this isn't patriarchy. You twisted sisterhood into a rat race, now I look at them and see only what I do not have. So I need you like I need air when you're pushing my head underwater telling me to liberate myself at the same time. Patriarchy, my sisters are dying and you are always mistaking their blood as lipstick stains. You only seem to care when they have your last name. To be woman means to be blamed for your own casket, and I'm tired of funerals. So I learned feminism. Will you love this feminism when it is not pretty? Will you love this movement when it does not turn you on? Will you love me when I am not pretty? Will you love me when I do not turn you on? I know you've made some progress, patriarchy. On some occasions you've even raised your fists with us, but even your most progressive heroes come home to beat me. So I am done waiting for you to love me back. I'm taking every hour spent silent and screaming to fill balloons at a party I throw for me and my sisters. And you are not going to invite yourself this time. It will be so luxurious. It will be so redemptive. Your God will foot the bill. Every mirror will shatter, will forgive on our own time. And there you'll be, waiting. Thank you. [ Applause ] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. The next poem I'm going to share is titled Allegiance. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. After Sophia Elhalo. Dear America, as much as you believe your walls are the only foundations I need, I still have faith in other nations. To begin, I pledge allegiance to my papa whose embrace feels like continents. I place allegiance to the girls on Instagram who gas each other up in every selfie. I pledge allegiance to the heart eyes emoji and its star-spangled cousin. I pledge allegiance to La Tienda on the corner by the train, sheltering kids who just don't want to go home yet. I pledge allegiance to the station and the murals in Soto. I pledge allegiance to the south end, to the winters where our friends did not make it. To the northwest summer lakes still cold as my brother implodes its tides. I pledge allegiance to the last brave gulp of air before someone learns to swim. I pledge allegiance to libraries and everywhere else you don't have to pay to exist. I pledge allegiance to the cacooning tent city on Town Hall's lawn, the requests blasting outside the youth jail on New Year's. I pledge allegiance to the external battery friend and the bus drivers who wait. America, I am not starved of faith. These too are nations in repair of you. America, I need the diligence of a did you get home safe text. I need justice not hung by a price tag. I need a country more than a flock of wolves demanding its prey act more alive. I need patriotism that's more than a stiletto on someone else's pulse. And I don't have a name for the change that's happening yet. Just know I'll be there juggling the pebbles in my shoes as I sharpen my oyster knife on the mountain. I'll sit this squirming nation between my momma's knees as a bristle brush scrapes a pink trail down its coaxed neck. I will dare you, America, to move your head an inch before you make your transformation take any longer or be any more painful than it already is. America, you have left the porch light off far too many times. You are running out of chances to convince me you are still home, and I don't worship your tyranny or want to fill your shoes either. My poetry is a mouse at the foot of your elephant. I will leave you running, humbled, knowing we grew someplace brighter, where your walls once trampled. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Mahogany Browne: Please stand up for our poet. [ Applause ] I feel like these young people, like really patriarchy doesn't have a chance. TV gonna be different. Instagram gonna be different. I'm excited. Our next poet, are you ready to say yeah, yeah? >> Yeah, yeah. >> Mahogany Browne: Jackson Neal is the Houston youth poet laureate. A queer Scorpio poet, Jackson is a National Young Arts Foundation winner in writing, two time Space City Grand Slam Champion and Provost nonfiction prize winner. Please welcome to the mic Jackson Neal. [ Applause ] >> Jackson Neal: Death dropped from grace. Left heel buckled in the soft of me, right heel slung like an ax. I shred a hall of boy-shaped mirrors with the teeth of my stiletto. Everything about me is crisp. I make a blade of wings and slash new eyeliner. I make a man of red clay and crush him from my rouge. Look at me, but only when I say. Light is nothing but the flash of my manicure, the sheen of my thigh-high's. I coax morning back into its shell with the tip of my acrylic. Oh yes, honey, I'm bad. Creature of rind stone and clavicle, creature of leather and gems, even my boy name shatters when I clack against pavement. Look at me. And don't look away. As I drip from your sky. A petrol bird, a wisp of fire, laying waste to men who envy me. Is this what it takes to keep the queens alive? The nation of Adam split at the seam. At a library in Houston, a white man in a MAGA hat pointed a gun at the drag queen asked to read stories to children. Walking to my car in makeup, a hive of frat boys threatened to beat me. There are men so afraid of women, they would torch their own mothers to forget where they come from. >> Wow. >> Jackson Neal: I steal lip gloss from my mother's house and invite the same. Sometimes I am both my mom and the match. So what to do, but let our bodies fall, rain kissing a forest fire at the party. The walls are christened by our sweat as we throw ourselves in the air. A legion of lace-thighed women cackle, "I'm dead. I'm dead." Meaning I've left earth to join the circus. One by one we jump, faces stretched so wide they split a nation runny with the yolk of our lips. Nowhere could be further from death than the moments we are flying in reverse, not earth. Not heaven, not dead, not dead. Only a dazzling slaughter of the old name, back art like horizon. Lights out the instant we drop. [ Applause ] Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So I am the youth poet laureate from Houston, Texas and so this next poem is for my city. Multiple Choice Test after the Hurricane. Question one, Houston's 2015 flood was so large meteorologists predicted it could only happen once every 500 years. In 2016 a second 500-year flood hit my city. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey was so large meteorologists predicted it could happen only once every 1,000 years. What does 20 centuries of grief look like? A, grandmother's home a wooden skeleton, each plank the plea of a drowning man, oakwood piano, ceramic chickens, the wedding photos, all of it drenched in shit, salt-crusted, buried under dead possums. B, your father, 49, crying in his mom's arms. What we do not hold the ocean takes. It is hard to place water. There is water in the body, there is a body of water, there are bodies in the water. C, 34 trillion gallons. D, 20 centuries of a grief beyond religion. The earth is gone after 40 days and then what? This water takes planets, it floods heaven. The ocean knows no god. Question two, if we close our eyes, the rain will also sound like A, fire; B, our homes cracked open; C, our bodies husked like crawfish; D, rain, just rain. It's just rain. It won't stop. Question three, when the mother asks, have you seen my son, what is the correct response? A, only in pictures on the wall at CVS, the news' missing persons list here creased inside your hand. B, maybe, beneath water. C, you think she's referring to sky. No ma'am. Our son has left us. Even that was drowned. We have only the moon pulling ocean over our head. D, I'm so sorry. Question four, when the politicians offer only prayers, you will tell them? A, it is dangerous to pray in the midst of spirits. We are warned not to drink the water for the way the dead will pull your stomach and speak using your vessel. Your amen's taste like a mouth of venom. B, who is your god? What's his tax bracket? What's his party? Is he white? Is your God insured? Did you make tithes? Did you make a tax cut? Did you make a sacrifice? Is our blood enough? C, actually, I know your god. God of coal, god of oil, god of fracking, god of overdevelopment, massive hurricanes three times more likely, god of trinity. God of Noah, take your god back. We ask for no blessings, we give no thanks. We taste the blood of salt and spit. D, I've seen the way you bend a plate and see. When the Gulf of Mexico is 10 degrees warmer, was it not by your hand? Did you not cosign this land to 185 oil and gas companies? Where we once had soil, there's only concrete. Hurricane intensity has risen 15%. What is 15% of a prayer? Answers, we are a people made of more answers than problems. Our answers inundate sea, a renewable wind, river still breathing. There are answers in my nanna's cooking, when we had to evacuate and every road was closed. We found a way out. Our answers float. They say love, there are answers in my people. My people. My clutch city, my H-town till I drown. My H-town has drowned, and I wonder why that is not answer enough. [ Applause ] >> Mahogany Browne: Jackson Neal. [ Applause ] Smells like a Zumba class, huh? You get in, you sit down, you have to get back up. I almost threw my shoe. It felt very spiritual. Thank you. Wow, thank you. Next up -- yeah, that baby tall. Haviland Whiting is the Nashville youth poet laureate and a junior in high school. She is a world traveler and an avid reader, a writer and a musician, having played the cello for 12 years. She enjoys learning languages to help better connect to the world and the people around her. Please welcome to the mic Haviland Whiting. [ Applause ] >> Haviland Whiting: Nashville. The sun is setting over the city, a symphony of silence save for a passing car. I watched my city turn off her lights, say good night to the roofs and chimneys and light the moon ablaze. Nashville, golden even when all is dark. Music follows woman home on Broadway. Her husband plays in a bar downtown. A girl treks to the corner mart in Edgehill, her daddy watching from the window. And in a university a student stares at a ceiling wondering how he ended up here, miles from California. Here Nashville has a skyline people write songs about. With evergreen and sky streaked with the fading light of days gone by. And as tea brews on the stove in 1962, a young boy takes his seat at a counter downtown, his skin the same color as the coffee spilled in his white button-down. And in 1864, [inaudible] reveal Nashville putting on her work boots as gunfire echoes through the night. Walking through the streets of a slumbering city, I am heavy with the bones of those who support the street below my feet. Shani women read and braid hair in a window. I am watching history unfold during my long walk home. Here we have party girls and their drinking games painting the town happy. We have tourists in their cowboy boots and low-rise jeans losing themselves on 12 south. We have the girl walking to the corner mart remembering where her friends lived before university expanded or a shopping mall or another high rise. Nashville, what is the price of a family, of a home? Of sun-bleached days on the basketball court? What happens to a friendship when even the projects get too expensive? What about the homes now skeletons? No little girls with their braids and beads or me and my light-up sketchers. There are people who have nowhere to go. Breathing in this high-rise city becomes difficult when I remember how cold the winters here get. And how much colder it must be when you're sleeping outside. We have people who consider the bottom of a bridge the closest thing to home. As I hand the man on the corner of Wedgewood all of the change in my pocket, I wonder how long it will take until he too becomes a memory. People speaking their minds will bring change, will bring righteousness and will bring slumber to the bodies sleeping. And maybe the college student, sends the streetlight reflected off the pavement to his love in California. Maybe he tells her, I miss the beach but damn, do these Nashvillians know how to dance. And as the sepia tones fade out, the wife and her soldier dance the Tennessee Waltz as candlelight flickers. As the sun sets on a sleeping city, I bottle up her last rays. I release my love over the skyline, the ones people write songs about. When I arrive home, I remember how imperfect home is. Nashville, heartbreak city. There are things that need fixing, lights that need replacing, shelves that need dusting and hearts that need breaking. But it is home nonetheless. A city of music, of love, of missed buses and art museums. Of forgetting and cold nights. Thank you. [ Applause ] Thank you. This next poem is dedicated to 26 girls who were found off the coast of the Mediterranean dead as victims of sex trafficking. Why you wanna fly, blackbird? You ain't ever going to fly. Why you wanna fly, blackbird? You ain't ever gonna fly. When the men come, set yourself on fire, reach on higher. One, on the first day of war or maybe it was religion, God said to carry bullets under our tongues. He said these men will try and swallow your holy. I'll protect you and shroud us in cloaks called skin, Eve said. How beautiful it is to be wearing the night. Two, on the second day of beauty, Eve plucked an apple from the tree, lifted it to her lips. God said, stop, that's strange fruit. Eve folded up her ammunition tongue and forgot what it meant to be holy. Three, on the last day of love, or maybe it was regret, Eve allowed Adam to mispronounce woman. He looked at her, fruit juice running down his chin, said, I've never been with a black woman before. Forbidden fruit. Eve said, my body has been divided into cities. My lungs are refugee camps. My thighs borders, but oh God, don't I wear the world well. These cloaks wear our mother's curse, slipping into this skin dress wearing shackles like special occasion pearls. Girlhood is the forbidden fruit. Biting into beauty like barbed wire, spilling sorry like an accident. Like a cut tongue constantly forced to apologize for femininity. For too long, black women have been hiding our ammunition tongues. Boxing up our bodies like cargo. But what I'm saying here is that we are cargo. And now we should probably know that though. Bodies float, bodies hanged, bodies shipped from continent to continent. 26 girls who are always more angel than human, always more Delilah than Mary. Samson mistaking her shrinking for permission. There is no one to give skin a burial at sea. The lonely cemetery is the pause after the kick-back. Semi-automatically assuming slavery ended after the last fruit was eaten. Kill the mind, feed the body. Youth is a concept most girls know like water, which is to say we all need it. Drinking even as we're drowning, even as we're screaming, even as we're Cyntoia Browning, even after we've trained our tongues to say home is the skin at the back of our closets, wearing black girlhood as a noose. Black women are often the victims of sexual abuse and the silence kills more of us daily. And the blood is often just used as war paint. The female body is a loaded gun, maybe that's why we're debating gun control. To be woman and to be black is to know that your beauty does not belong to you. It's to be the first and last person to love yourself. You grew up learning to protect the man who hate you, to know that silence is your most viable weapon. Somewhere, Moses is parting a girl's legs like the Red Seas that we see as gravesites. Gun control is leaving the safety on, if it means that he can't get in. So why you wanna fly, blackbird? You ain't ever gonna fly. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Mahogany Browne: Thank you, Haviland. [ Applause ] Okay, deep breath in. Hold it. Then exhale through your mouth. All that excess, that fear, let it go. These poets, they got us. They gonna save us. Just listen to this work, that is our call of action. Okay? Our final poet, Kara Jackson, is the Chicago youth poet laureate. [ Applause ] This is a program sponsored by Young Chicago Authors standup. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Frontier Poetry, Rookie, Medium, Nimrod Literary Journal and St. Haran. Through a multidisciplinary approach, Jackson attempts to document her lineage in a country that demands its erasure. [ Laughter ] I don't know what I'm doing here no more. These poets. Welcome to the stage, to the mic, Kara Jackson. [ Applause ] >> Kara Jackson: Blood is not a woman's currency. I face mother nature like rent, blood dweller of my routine faucet. We get along like languages that are similar. Sometimes I can find something in my blood that's recognizable. Sometimes I find myself in that timely pond. But it doesn't make me a woman. When asked of my kind, I wouldn't show my blood. My hands maybe, how they go searching for nothing. Or the uncertainty of my teeth, the way my fingers find homes in my temples. Everyone bleeds but not everyone can exchange their blood for something like whole countries. Compromises of grass. It's true, blood is a currency for someone with two much power. Blood, a dollar in the right hands. [ Applause ] Thank you, thank you. This next poem is dedicated to my best friend who passed away when I was a junior in high school. So I would just like to invite her into this space and let the space acknowledge Maya Gabrielle Gary. And the title of this poem is Maya Grows on a Tree Every Year when the Season is Right. She announces herself as a fruit reddens and relearning its color. We talk about death like a dead person doesn't always outlive themselves in being dead. As in some day we will be 50 and we will not remember what brought us together in the first place. As in someday I will forgive myself for every assignment I didn't turn in after the news. When we found out teenagers could die, it was in honors French class. We read dead Maya in the glow of our palms. We slid dead Maya into our pockets for safekeeping. Now the Maya we knew as alive is lost in some kind of short memory. But the idea of her being dead swells and softens in our hands. The mystery of cancer is a bitter sugar. We pick our dead homies off of a vine and check them for bruises. We stay alive a little longer in the name of all the poems we will write about them. And I know the fruit metaphor gives me closure. I know that grief makes me smelly. I know that writing a poem forgives the shower water that doesn't run, the paper that goes unwritten, the pile of homework that announces itself like a fruit falling. All of my friends who were dead are also ripe. They are all fresh produce. They are all sweet in the center. All my friends who are dead have patted me on the back for getting through high school. It's hard to believe honor roll can make room for grief. My college list means so much more because Maya always wanted to go to the east coast. And to say I graduated is also to say the tumor didn't win. The tumor is never stronger than the best friend. The tumor couldn't take me even if it wore boxing gloves, even if it fought professionally on TV. There's a cheering section in heaven where Maya stands swinging a pompom, a tree moving its head with the wind. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Mahogany Browne: Kara Jackson. [ Applause ] Wow. >> Wow. >> Mahogany Browne: These are our literary ambassadors for the next year. [ Applause ] Yeah, I can quit my job today. I'm done. Right now. But we have a little bit more to go. But no matter what, remember these young people, they are righting our wrongs. And not just democracy they are fighting for. I feel like there's a righteous rage in each of the work that they laid down. And that is testimony and that is a blueprint for our actual freedom. Because right now we are wailing and waiting in the water. Next up, Michaela Lacy was appointed the 2018 Prince George's County youth poet laureate. During her appointment, she quickly endeared herself to the county executive Angela Brooks' administration by becoming a youth liaison, lending her unique voice at various official events. Michaela plans to publish her first chat book this summer. Please welcome to the stage Michaela Lacy. [ Applause ] >> Michaela Lacy: How's everybody doing tonight? >> Good. >> Michaela Lacy: Before I start, I just want to say that I love you guys. Like every single solitary one of you guys have changed my life, my perspective, my ability to look at myself in the mirror. And I just thank you and congratulate you for being yourselves. You are awesome. [ Applause ] What poets find very interesting is that when we are preparing ourselves for the next level, when we are questioning where we're going from the positions appointed to us, that we look at other poets for inspiration. And we look at other poets to kind of give us an oomph and tell us what we can do to increase our ability to believe in ourselves. And I want to let you guys know that next year when people are putting in applications to be the 2020 youth poet laureate, they will be looking at your videos. They will be reading your works. They will be trying to figure out what can I do better so that I can be just like these people on this stage. [ Applause ] I was asked to introduce the 2018 poet laureate of the United States, and that is Miss Patricia. And again, she was one of the poets that I used as like an inspiration when I decided that I wanted to write. And so this is to Miss Patricia. Patricia. Patricia. Patricia. [ Laughter ] Let me guess, your shoe size is 38 and a half. No wonder they're unfillable. The flapping around of excited feet as they try to make a noise as loud as you did. But you are a bullhorn. You are a five-point Richter scale earthquake with a 10-day aftershock. Your voice is a lullaby to the northern star. A stone to the ancestors. You are what happens when the mirror answers back to you, a reflection never bending at the strength of its own glow. I can hear your words in every revisal these poets have etched into their notebooks. You are the, am I worthy, we ask ourselves as we press submit and press resend and press our hair and press our suits. We all want to be just like you. We thank you for being brave enough to share your hero with the world. We thank you for the nervousness you felt in your belly when you sat in this very room 365 practice sessions ago. We thank you for the moment you stepped on every stage knowing and not knowing how you wanted to pull this earth into your palms. This is a thank you letter on behalf of those who are worthy enough to even shake your hand. Let them. Never forget the touch of your softness. Let us never forget the moment that a black girl, a black girl came to the podium and proved that us winning is more than a once in a lifetime victory. Let us relish the glory that the face of this platform bore two afros, two curl patterns, two faces that look like my mama's and empathize with her struggle just the same. All because you were bold enough to tell the world, this is who I am. We thank you. And while we pick up our pace to run across the finish line, you dance over ever so gracefully. Let your feet never stop running. You are phenomenal. [ Applause ] Now without further ado. [ Applause ] Let's call up the 2018 national youth poet laureate, Patricia. Thanks. [ Applause ] >> Patricia Frazier: Y'all. [ Laughter ] I just -- I just need a moment. Wow. Thank you so, so much. I literally forgot how to speak. [ Laughter ] Okay. I'm supposed to read a poem. Can we please, please make some noise for these laureates? [ Applause ] I am so, so excited for them. I was so excited when the finalists were released because I had the honor of hearing the majority of their works. At the end, when I heard Jackson read for the first time, I was literally crying. I ran over to the other Houston youth poet laureate and I was like, "Who is that? That needs to be my friend." So I'm just so, so proud of y'all. I love y'all so much. Please, please, please keep writing because we need it. >> Yes, Yes. >> Patricia Frazier: I also don't want to read a poem after that, but I'm going to read it. [ Laughter ] This is a poem about me not being a girl. Yeah. It's called A History of Coming Out. I watched my granny skin potatoes and scrub wounds, knees kissing the ground until her shins were blistered lips. This is what I know about partnership. My mama hanging underwear on a string before finally fastening herself. Tradition. How do I tell my granny I've inherited something not mine? I've tried to milk love like juice from a mango seed out of men I didn't even want. My girlness, I've searched for it like a lost key or a broken wing. Y'all still telling me that penguins mate for life. Y'all still want me to smile at your kids. I must become the spiteful wife my mother deserved to be, the vivacious womanhood my ancestors missed out on. But I am nothing but a library of desires, burning for discernment. What my blood wants for me is just a dust jacket over the exit sign. I need to talk to you about why my head is always in that damn phone. I love watching the earth shrink to an unnatural size and sparkle in its newness like a pixelated disco ball. Anything could be anyone, even the days dancing together, companions in their autonomy. In this whole party the only healthy friend I've made is this healthy corner bloated on my loneliness. My loneliness like another me darkening into the white wall, a busted sharpie or an oil spill somebody forgot about. There are things that popped out despite the furrowed brow waiting for them. The black bursting from my sister's gap tooth, a beautiful stain, a contagious coming out, my mama trying to twerk before another year pulls her closer to stiffness. They're a science working to prove that trees have souls. A whole biology invisible to the human eye like a boy with sagging titties or a mountain that finally moves despite what fate had planned. There are hands that skin potatoes for the price of my eyebrow piercing, my ever-changing name. When it's time for the man to make the final decision, push a button unleashing his whiteness like a body pussing from too much sunlight, I'll remember that there are past Patricia's still daydreaming of a name to call their inevitable. Of how they stretched the last moment, skinny as a tiny border till it snaps, and even after they are still wishing for the impossible. Somewhere in a memory I made, my granny as a child is waiting for me to be a dike, to be nonbinary and to be alive. [ Applause ] This last poem is for my mama's best friend. I just am happy to read a poem about the beauty supply at the Library of Congress. Okay. You tell the barber not too sharp. You have an eyebrow lady for that. And elbows, ashy knives that slice shame into thin hairs, swept into the dustpan with everything else that no longer belongs in the beauty salon. Who cares about a nigga calling you ashy when bamboo earrings are still two for one? You don't even explain to him your disdain with slippery fingers and the cancalon. You, queen of truly not giving a damn, know that when you serve the next look, they'll still ask where you got it from. You tell me confidence is key but never which doormat it sleeps under. You tell me I can be just like the girls on America's Next Top Model if I just stop making the same face in all my photos, say I do these almond eyes a disservice every time I don't cut my bangs straight. Every time I cut my pretty skin with blades thin as white girls. I can't bring myself to say to you that I don't think there's enough Yaki in the whole neighborhood to make up for genetics. You say cheap wig, hair glue. I'm still running away from the sun. The beauty supply is the only place I don't fear, only thirst for rotting light. Who needs Disney Channel when you have a beauty supply? There will always be white people. Let them have their extra ten pounds, Forever 21, Sally's, Claire's. Let me have my Sistar Beauty on 87th Street. [ Applause ] >> Michael Cirella: Give it up one more time for Patricia Frazier. [ Applause ] She will be passing the torch tonight at the end of this event and we're very close to announcing who the 2019 national youth poet laureate will be. I just want to say a couple of words. My name is Michael Cirelli and I was one of the cofounders of the program in New York City that then expanded into a national program. And really the -- thank you. It's all good. [ Applause ] You know, really the rationale behind why we started this program was because we recognize that there are tons of incredible young poets in our communities. But we really wanted to isolate and celebrate those young poets that were using their voices for change and for social impact and for activism, volunteerism. And all these poets that you see here tonight, you heard them. They're exquisite writers. I mean, they're featured in the top literary magazines in our country. But what you don't know is that they were also selected because of the incredible work that they do in their community as they submit a CV and portfolio. They were out at the soup kitchen volunteering this morning. These poets put in work on the streets every day of their lives. And that's why we took this group of young poets and we put them on a platform like this. So that's really important to us. Going back ten years ago, when the program was founded, it was created because someone came to my office from the city of New York and said, "I want to start a program that energizes students around voting and energizes young voters." And that seemed like a good entryway into using that opportunity to say, let's take this title that's traditionally been reserved for adults, the laureate title, and extend it to young people and then underlay it with this idea that we have these young change-makers in our community. And we'll overlay it with those change-makers that are incredible poets and use their voice to make that change. And let's make this thing happen. Ten years later, we're at the Library of Congress. We were at the Obama White House. [ Applause ] And all that good stuff. So before I go any further, I'd like to introduce the person who helped start this program to come and say a few words. She took the train up from New York City today and her name is Onida Coward Mayers and I'm glad to have her up here and call her my friend. [ Applause ] >> Onida Coward Mayers: Good evening, everyone. >> Good evening. >> Onida Coward Mayers: Wow. How amazing. Yes, my name is Onida Coward Mayers. I'm so happy to be here with you this evening. Congratulations to all the family who's here as well. Can we get some applause for the family? [ Applause ] So yes, I am thrilled to be invited here today to the National Youth Poet Laureate Commencement. I tell you this is the tenth year of the founding of the first youth poet laureate in New York City. So it seemed very appropriate and I was so happy to be asked to be here on this occasion. But when I was asked to speak this evening, I became very reflective. I was grateful to be asked but I was also really reflective about it. So one day as Michael said, ten years ago, over ten years ago really, I sat as I did today listening to amazing young people perform their love. And their experiences. And I remembered thinking at the time -- I know what I was thinking. I can tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking, "Wow, if I could just get them to talk about civics, what's happening in their communities and what their vision for what they'd like their world to be." And this is what I was thinking at that time. What I was dreaming I can't really tell you. I don't know what I was dreaming to see. I don't know what I was dreaming this would be. But I do know then that I was directed to a dream-maker, and that was Michael Cirelli. [ Applause ] And that then became the bringing together of our two worlds. So one world, his, was very creative, very passionate, full of poems, models of excellence and unimaginable vision. The other world, mine, was very structured. I was working for the government. Very hopeful, full of hope. Very data-driven, very policy-driven. But too I had some creativity and some vision as well, right? But never in my entire life did I realize where we would be today ten years later. So young people, you have surpassed my wildest dreams. Thank you. [ Applause ] They are doing everything we need them to. That's what we dream of for our children. We want them to own themselves. We want them to own their voices. We want to help and direct them. But we want them to own it. And these young people have owned it. So I'm so very grateful. My dreams are beyond imagination, have come true. And I'm happy to be here to share this moment with you. And I wish each of you the best. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Urban Word. [ Applause ] >> Michael Cirella: So we're going to close the space. We have an incredible poet you've heard tonight, but you haven't heard them as a poet and that's our host, Mahogany L. Browne. Do you want to hear a poem from her? [ Applause ] Hold up right quick. Hold up right quick. I've got a couple thank-you's first. A couple of housekeeping. We have some beautiful -- and when I say beautiful, gorgeous -- pieces of artwork in the back. They feature each of these poets. There's five, one for each poet. And those are free for everyone in here and the poets will be back there and they can sign the posters if you want. If you don't want them signed, you don't have to get them signed. We have incredible anthologies back there as well, so you can get the anthology on your way out. So that's the housekeeping. The thank-you's are in order. It takes a lot of commitment to something like this in a place like this to happen. So I want to thank the Library of Congress for hosting us in particular. Thank you. I want to thank Anja Cretani and Rob Casper who are really the people that are the engine behind making this event happen. And I'm really grateful for them. We also have a lot of organizations that support this program. Everyone from the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of America, Cave Canum, et cetera. Incredible judges, everyone from Juan Felipe Herrera who was a poet laureate of our country, Elizabeth Acevedo who's a local National Book Award winner who came out of Urban Word. She was one of the judges for this contest, so you'll get to hear who the winner is soon. I want to thank the local organizations that host programs here for youth poet laureate and help bring a great crowd tonight. So I want to thank Mazi Mutafo from Word Beats and Life. [ Applause ] I want to thank Slangston Hughes, Kenneth Morrison from Do More Baltimore. [ Applause ] And I want to thank Dialect Prince George's County Patrick Washington. Thank you Patrick. I want to thank Urban Word staff members who came down, our program director Chanel Gabriel. [ Applause ] Our executive director Sophia Snow who's back there. We even had board members who came down on the train. Ellen Parker and Heather Murata, they're here today. We have our first board chair in the house who lives down here, Mallory Lock. We have people that support us in the foundation world here. It's just incredible people that have come from New York, made that extra effort. And last but not least, our program director for national youth poet laureate who's really carried the torch for this program, connects and interfaces with all the organizations across the country. There's more than 40 of them and it's growing and maybe next year at this time we'll have 60 or 70 orgs -- sorry, Camea. Dr. Camea Davis. [ Applause ] And with that said, the person that gets a big thanks, just being kind of the torch bearer of our work for many, many years -- as long as I've been part of Urban Word -- who's your host tonight. She's our artistic director of course. She has a new children's book out called Woke Baby. She has a Black Girl Magic book out. She's got tons of incredible poetry books out. So we'll close with a poem by her and then we'll have Patricia up to announce the winner. Give it up for Mahogany L. Browne. [ Applause ] >> Mahogany Browne: Thanks, y'all. Also, a shout-out to Terrance Hayes for giving us the book cover. He did not charge us. He is a Gugenheim genius and just happens to do art on the side. So make sure you get this. This is an amazing gift. I'm going to do something new. >> New. New stuff? >> Mahogany Browne: I like it. You could have said the word, honey, it's fine. This is all good. This is your world. She's like, "Who's in the crowd?" So I wrote this for the women's march that just happened, this specific one that was in New Jersey. And it's called When Fanny Lou Hamer said, I'm Sick and Tired of being Sick and Tired. When Fanny Lou Hamer said I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, she meant no more turn cheek. No more patience for the obstruction of a black woman's right to vote and plant and feed for her family. She meant equality will cost you your luxurious life. If a woman can't vote, if a brown baby can't be fed, if we all don't have the same opportunities America promised, she meant ain't no mountain bold enough to ward off a determined woman. She meant ain't no room for your eagle's consideration. She meant here, look at my hands, each palm holding the globes of your eyes history wants you to forget, the 16 shots that sent me harm-free from a plantation shack. But look, look at my eyes. Both these are windows to the little lights of my she meant nothing but death can stop me from marching at a jail cell a free woman. She meant nothing but death can stop me from running for Congress. She meant no black jack beating will stop my feet from working and my heart from swelling and my mouth from praying. She meant America, you will learn what freedom really tastes like. Each butterbean and potato and cotton seed and dirt patch picked by my sturdy hands. She meant look, look at my sisters with me. Miss Victoria Gray and Anna Devine with our rightful seats in the back of the house floor. She meant until my children and my children's children and their babies too can march and vote and represent this country or represent the White House and give back in interest what was planted in this blessed land. She meant I ain't stopping, America. I ain't stopping America. And even death can't take away from my woman hands what I rightfully earned. [ Applause ] Thank you and welcome back, Patricia. [ Applause ] Okay. >> Patricia Frazier: Hello you guys again. >> Hi. >> Hello. >> Hello. >> Hey. >> Patricia Frazier: So I'm here to announce that -- I don't know, I didn't get a script. But your 2019 National Youth Poet Laureate is my best friend, Kara Jackson! [ Applause ] >> Kara Jackson: Wow, I would just like to say that first of all I'm standing to the right of four -- I can't count. Five amazing, beautiful poets who I just have been so inspired by in the last 24 hours. Literally I feel like way smarter than I ever have been, just being in the same house as these people. And so it's just really a big honor to be named this knowing that you guys all are just so deserving of this as well. And I just am thankful to all the people, all my mentors and to Pat for just believing in me and representing a community of people who believe in me at Young Chicago Authors. And thanks to my family for being here and for being supportive of me. [ Applause ] And thank you Mahogany Browne for being raw and letting me look up to you. I just feel like maybe your ears just burn because I just talk about you so much. And thanks, everybody, for looking at me. This is not planned. I don't know what I'm saying. I'll just leave the mic now. [ Applause ] >> Michael Cirella: Stand up. Stand up.