WEBVTT

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I have two questions for you.

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One: whose shoulders
do you stand on,

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and two: what do 
you stand for?

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These are two questions
that I always begin my

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poetry workshops
with students because

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at times, poetry can
seem like this dead

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art form for old white men who just 
seem like they were born to be old,

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like, you know, Benjamin 
Button or something.

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And I ask my students 
these two questions,

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and then I share how
I answer them, which is

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in these three 
sentences that go:

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I am the daughter of 
Black writers,

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who are descended 
from Freedom Fighters

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who broke their chains 
and changed the world.

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They call me.

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And these are words I 
repeat in a mantra before

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every single poetry performance, 
in fact, I was doing it in the corner

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over there. I was 
making faces.

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And so I repeat them to myself,
as a way to gather myself,

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because I'm not sure if you know,
but public speaking is pretty terrifying.

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I know I'm on stage, and I have 
my heels, and I look all glam,

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but I'm horrified.

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And the way in which I kind 
of strengthen myself,

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is by having this mantra.

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Most of my life I was particularly
terrified of speaking up,

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because I had a speech 
impediment, which made it

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difficult to pronounce certain letters, 
sounds, and I felt like I was fine

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writing on the page,
but once I got on stage,

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I was worried my words 
might jumble and stumble.

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What was the point in trying not to 
mumble these thoughts in my head,

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if everything's already 
been said before?

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But finally I had a moment of 
realization, where I thought,

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if I choose not to speak out 
of fear, then there's no one

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that my silence is standing for.

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And so I came to realize that I 
cannot stand standing to the side,

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standing silent.

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I must find the strength 
to speak up,

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and one of the ways I do that is 
through this mantra where I call back

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to what I call 
honorary ancestors.

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These are people who might 
not be related to you by blood,

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or by birth,

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but who are more than worth 
saying their names,

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because you stand on their 
shoulders all the same.

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And it's only from the height 
of these shoulders

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that we might have the sight
to see the mighty power of poetry,

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the power of language made 
accessible, expressible.

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Poetry is interesting because not 
everyone is going to become

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a great poet,

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but anyone can be, and 
anyone can enjoy poetry,

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and it's this openness,

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this accessibility of 
poetry that makes it

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the language 
of the people.

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Poetry has never been 
the language of barriers,

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it's always been 
the language of bridges.

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And it's this connection-
making that makes poetry,

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yes, powerful, but 
also makes it political.

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One of the things that 
irritates me to no end,

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is when I get that phone call, 
and it's usually from a white man,

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and he's like, "Man, Amanda,
we love your poetry,

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we'd love to get you to write 
a poem about this subject,

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but don't make it political."

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Which to me sounds like,

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I have to draw a square,
but not make it a rectangle,

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or build a car and 
not make it a vehicle,

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it doesn't make 
much sense,

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because all art 
is political.

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The decision to create, the 
artistic choice to have a voice,

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the choice to be heard is 
the most political act of all.

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And by "political" I mean poetry 
is political in at least three ways:

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One: what stories we tell,
when we're telling them,

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how we're telling them,
if we're telling them,

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why we're telling them,
says so much about

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the political 
beliefs we have,


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about what types 
of stories matter.

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Secondly, who gets to 
have their stories told,

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I'm talking, who is legally 
allowed to read,

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who has the resources 
to be able to write,

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who are we reading 
in our classrooms,

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says a lot about the political 
and educational systems,

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that all these stories and 
storytellers exist in.

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Lastly, poetry is political 
because it's preoccupied

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with people.

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If you look at history, 
notice that tyrants often go

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after the poets and 
the creatives first.

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They burn books, they try to get rid 
of poetry and the language arts,

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because they're 
terrified of them.

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Poets have this phenomenal 
potential to connect the

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beliefs of the private individual
with the cause of change

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of the public, the population, 
the polity, the political movement.

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And when you leave here, 
I really want you to try to hear

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the ways in which poetry 
is actually at the center

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of our most political questions 
about what it means

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to be a democracy.

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Maybe later you're going 
to be at a protest,

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and someone's going to 
have a poster that says,

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"They buried us, but they 
didn't know we were seeds."

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That's poetry.

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You might be in your U.S. History class, 
and your teacher may play a video

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of Martin Luther King Jr. saying, 
"We will be able to hew out of this

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mountain of despair
a stone of hope."

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That's poetry.

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Or maybe even here, 
in New York City,

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you're going to go visit 
the Statue of Liberty

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where there's a sonnet 
that declares, as Americans,

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"Give us your tired, 
your poor,

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your huddled masses
yearning to be free."

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So you see, when someone 
asks me to write a poem

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that's not political,

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what they're really asking me 
is to not ask charged

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and challenging questions
in my poetic work,

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and that does not work, because 
poetry is always at the pulse

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of the most dangerous 
and most daring questions

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that a nation 
or a world might face.

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What path do we 
stand on as a people,

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and what future as a 
people do we stand for?

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And the thing about poetry 
is that it's not really about

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having the right answers,

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it's about asking these right questions 
about what it means to be

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a writer doing right by your 
words and your actions,

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and my reaction is to pay honor 
to those shoulders of people

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who used their pens to 
roll over boulders

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so I might have a mountain 
of hope on which to stand,

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so that I might understand 
the power of telling stories

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that matter no matter what.

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So that I might realize that 
if I choose, not out of fear,

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but out of courage, 
to speak,

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then there's something unique 
that my words can become.

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And all of a sudden that fear that 
my words might jumble and stumble

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go away as I'm humbled 
by the thoughts

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of thousands of stories 
a long time coming

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that I know are strumming 
inside me as I celebrate

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those people in their time
who stood up so this little

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Black girl could rhyme


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as I celebrate and call their names
all the same, these people

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who seem like they 
were just born to be bold:

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Maya Angelou, 
Ntozake Shange,

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Phillis Wheatley,
Lucille Clifton,

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Gwendolyn Brooks,
Joan Wicks,

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Audre Lorde,
and so many more.

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It might feel like every story
has been told before,

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but the truth is, no one's 
ever told my story

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in the way I
would tell it

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as the daughter of black writers, 
who are descended from freedom fighters

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who broke their chains 
and changed the world.

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They call me.

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I call them.

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And one day I'll 
write a story right,

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by writing it into a tomorrow 
on this earth more than worth

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standing for.

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Thank you.