Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGmNfDfUT5M Starts at: 00:47:35 (jump to 00:47:35)
Janice Lynch Schuster — Poetry Reading
[00:47:35] Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. [00:47:37] Thank you so much, Kelsey. [00:47:38] We really appreciate you being here. [00:47:40] Please, guys, if you can donate to the GEO Fund, [00:47:42] GEO Fund, she’s back there for you, OK? [00:47:46] You got this one. [00:47:51] Coming to the stage. [00:47:52] You would give me the long name. [00:47:54] But coming to the stage first, this first artist coming up, [00:47:58] her name is Janice Lynch Schuster. [00:48:02] Did I get that right? [00:48:04] Schuster. [00:48:07] Oh, Janice. [00:48:08] Give it up for Janice, y’all. [00:48:09] Woo! [00:48:12] I didn’t know I was going first. [00:48:30] I’m really uncoordinated. [00:48:32] I can’t read from my iPhone, so I have a big binder. [00:48:37] So bear with me while I shake and try to find my page. [00:48:42] I’m 61 years old, I raised six children, one of them died in 2017. [00:48:55] I’ve been hospitalized many times for depression. [00:48:58] I’m not going to read you any of those poems, because somewhere it’s like keep it light. [00:49:04] So what the heck? [00:49:09] What this poem will do. [00:49:12] Is not what you expect, no clearing of the air, no lifting of stars, [00:49:20] no scent of earth after rain, no opening of your son’s eyes, [00:49:26] who has been gone so long, he has turned to dust. [00:49:31] This poem will not free you from who you have become. [00:49:35] It will not recount the day you were five and screamed at the bus stop, anxious as you were, [00:49:42] not to leave your mother, the big yellow bus, bright as the sun, it scorched you. [00:49:49] This poem will not dry your tears. [00:49:52] It will not pull you together. [00:49:54] It will not decide what you should remember, or help you to forget. [00:49:59] This poem will graze the roof of your mouth, and make you wish again you were a storyteller, [00:50:06] that your guitar had not gathered dust in an attic bedroom. [00:50:10] This poem will keep you awake at night, wondering if you broke the lines in the right places, [00:50:17] if you broke the boy’s heart when you were 16, if he remembers your name, [00:50:23] and how he took you in your red flowered sun dress, and thought it signified you were his. [00:50:30] This poem is your own. [00:50:33] Outside, spring struggles to come in through the heavy gray clouds of winter. [00:50:37] Recipia has burst their golden curls across the yard, and Lenten roses purple the brown leaves. [00:50:46] Everything is in motion, except you, because you are still writing a poem that will keep you from moving. [00:50:54] Only across the page, blank sections fillering with your shaking hand, this poem is how you fill what cannot be left behind. [00:51:04] Thank you. [00:51:05] Thank you. [00:51:06] Thank you. [00:51:07] That was kind of light. [00:51:13] It was a little light. [00:51:16] I like to dance alone, because all my kids are grown, and they don’t like to dance with me anyway, even if I’m not alone, so what the heck? [00:51:25] Dancing alone, I remember to love the body that carries me from room to room, on tiptoes and twirls, on shuffles and swirls. [00:51:35] My constant companion. [00:51:37] as i walk one hour to the next and clap my joyful hands because i can’t [00:51:44] while dust notes in the morning light settle on my arms [00:51:50] i’m very disorganized as you see but that’s what happens um [00:51:58] i have this one i have some love poems i figure they’re light this is an old love poem [00:52:04] um you fit me like the dress i wore that summer i turned 18 and my curves were slight [00:52:12] and bare in the glinting afternoon light when i just rode at the sight of you [00:52:25] in this one the honor of poem the poet hanif abdul rakib [00:52:34] you have to [00:52:34] know him because he’s like extraordinary and he’ll just move you in ways you haven’t been moved [00:52:39] and someone asked him how could a black man write about flowers in times like these [00:52:45] and um so i wrote this poem called the gardener in times like these who writes the flowers [00:52:52] perhaps those have emerged from the weight of dirt or born it sent roots and shoots [00:52:57] against gravity felt the heat unknown movement with hope against the winter of isolation [00:53:05] those who persisted in opening their weary beautiful heads [00:53:09] and daring fruits who lured pollinators back indeed he said come feast with me for i stand [00:53:16] in this field this pot this roadway this street this desert this mountainside and long only