increase and in october of 1847, 15 times what they were paying in 1846. this amounted to a 900 percent increase in tax in less than a year. still james lacy was paid in full and not in arrears. i show the book to the librarian who knows i am reading papers to look for clearance notices and says, there's your answer now you know why they left. newspaper mentioned the establishment of insolvant commission. in commission states the tax afforded the clearance amongers the most effective means of getting rid of this agricultural population. some landlords were praised as humane for forgiving 3-4 year's rent or accepting what people could pay. these landlords were in the minority and the landlord of cottage where nie family lived was not among them. rate payer

books for 1848 is missing. the book for 1849 is in worse condition than the earlier books. theate book for 1849 is torn and muddy and appears to have blood stains on the pages. as if this book is telling me what happened that awful year. i search for james lacy's name and find it gone along with the other tenant and it is town lands as well. [applause] >> i think on that note i will read a poem, which is my book among other things my quest to discover the family's connection or my connection to that history. and what happens there is the pursuit and the logical seeking after those signs.

those material signs baptismal records and there is happenstance. that's what happened to me once when i went to ireland i staid at a b and b. there are a zillion every other house is a b and b. i hit on the one b and beshgs where the owner said, your last name is to bein i know where all the to beins came to ireland. i said, i'm all ears. this poem goes into that and the last part is a translation from an irish song, the ring. >> i followed the winding coast road back from cove airny moore and her brother cast in branz at the center entrance head of a line at elis island looking as though they a choired dreksz in their own country.

dim passage through american wait and coffinship the figures of a prior generation real to swells and sound effects each swollen in the ache of crossing. my father's ship united states streaming to the harbor, the way it steamed in the narrows below the rising towers of the bridge. above the keys, saint coalmans resided over the dock where my mother's mother waited and my father's forefather disappeared like vermon in the fields they flooded home. i can tell you where the to beins first landed that invited me to the patio in the house glass of whisky regard in luminous in the long twilight. if you drive east on the way to

gonegarvin off to the right you will come on the ring road where there are to beins from norman times. the name [inaudible] into our own name now. i had known history but not the place. so next day driving along the route each village seemed a station on the journey of return. kiely's cross i pursued the paper trail, unwound the breed of names through census and baptism each generation christening the last until it was language on the tongue and the trail trailed to the mists of the unrecorded. now i was tracing a highway to ore gin the potatoes struck

black with blight. metals and we was their faces swollen with fever. stench rising from the evicted burrowed. men like dogs scoured the fields. i saw in one cottage a royal of rats feasting on an infant. no one where i witnessed anything like it not in calcutta. the voiceless children silenced by hunger the bodies burned at night leaving i don't trace. descending the drum hills i turned off the main road following signs and i language lost before i was born. this was land observe the land was renamed and hushed. what was left for me, generations gone. a purfume of smoke freshened my nostrils. pastures reached to the head of the bay.

thick roads where locals greeted with slowly raised hands or a nod of a cap to my car the postcard my eye framed in it's longing. moony's pub where i stopped for a pint and slipped my quest. so, you are a to bein accomodating my english. they're all about here. she showed the photograph with dark hair and features unlike my own but a resemblance of an uncle. what was the ring happened on my chance or grace. why not trace through lost norman crests or track dna to tribes 6,000 years gone from the banks. or further back through each human cell to african eve her grunts are tuning savannahs. i felt the gift shared from the

bones later that night in the crowded room when all the instruments had gone silent and a man rose up shyly alone and sang sean moss one of the singer's songs. beautiful country, i take you to by the black water screens of the beast the thrush and the black bird sings sweetly and the wild deer over the mountains branches with fruits and blossom the and hives with honey. and the corn creek lifts it's cries in the grass. [applause] >> your poem has a sense of place and you mentioned earlier the sensation of going to canada and what it felt like to be in that place in canada and in other opportunities to be in that land in ireland. i wonder if you can reflect and

margaret as well, what were the physical experiences you were having and what was the importance ever going to the place by way of informing your story? >> i don't know if anybody seen there is a series on now on called african-american lives? >> yeah. >> and it remindses me so much of my experience and some of the things that were said that rang through for me are things like, if we don't know where we come from we don't know that we are somebody. it's like, the effects of colonization when -- when our story is taken from us. in when our language is taken and we are disoriented and we come to a new country, we are

not literate, it's a way to keep people oppressed. so, part of reclaiming ourselves as irish americans and having the biggest life possible means knowing everything there is to know about ourselves and our people. >> i will talk briefly about the going to saint john i set that trip up and 911 happened. and so i endsed up going on this journey back to where 3450i family came over a week after 911 which was a remarkable experience in itself because the airports were empty much everybody was gone. until we got to canada where there was a crush of people moving through with added security and so forth. when i got to saint johns i went to the perish rejist ree. met the woman i spoke with on

the phone and she gave me complete access to the archives. ship lists and when they came over 1550 or 1851. there was no marriage record. they probably got married on the boat which happened often. that's where i found out that the trade with the merry times and county cork was a lumber trade. they brought lumber over and humans were brought back. profound history that, you know, my ancestors were a part of. not just mine bithousands and millions of people have this story deep in their background. i also found out the location of where my great, great

grandfather was buried in saint johns which is ruinned by acid rain because they built a refinary over it. this is an irish american grave yard a memorial to the experience of coming over her in famine times partridge islands is where they had to go through. i stood about where the plot was which was a mass grave. there was no marker at all. they were buried together with the other poor in a little area. to be standing there in the space where your great, great grandfather was and other members of your family and have no marker they are the grass. they are the grass underneath

your feet or their bodies are. that is a humbling experience. we are part of a remnant if we think we are not we are diluting ourselves that genealogy searchs should humble you. because it's only traces left. there are only signs left. those signs are not empty. you know, they transsubstantiate the lines that were that were there that were gone and yet are somehow encoded in us. >> thank you.

>> hi, my name is katie the my first poem is "chipped blue nail polish." heads of the ground focus on her hands, altern ating expressions, multicolored moods, unpredictable. [applause] my second poem is about pro craffletination. that day i had a panic attack. i spent $20 for my class. running late, half-assepd and i still spent $20 for that class.

red lights almost every black -- block. the traffic nearly made my heart stop. i ran through my class presentation straight out of the cab. i paid 20 freaking dollars for that cab. thank you. >> hi, my name is daniel and the first poem i'm going to read is shadows. ♪ i'm a shadow that moves away from night falls. i'm a shadow that makes other shadows rise. i'm a shadow that sprints, walks, and plays. some shadows are huge and mountains and others are tiny snails. some are old and others young. the sun generates our society. shadow gives a shade of dark to everything. shadows are your reflection on the ground. we are all in one society of shadows. we are all different sizes but aim for the same goal -- to be

someone in this year the shadow is you. >> my michael -- mother say mountain holding up sky for me. she is the sun who gives strength to those who need it. my mother is the hand that helps me keep going in this world of chaos. she is a light that will always shine in my heart." my second one is called it's -- "dear president obama." dear president obama i hope you can change all the problems our world faces, the war in iraq, the war in afghanistan, pal istine and global warming. i am from california and in the valley here, people, especially from latin america, are getting sick in -- working in the

fields for hours every day for little pay and no health care. please help them because without them no one could even be vegetarian the sincerely, natalie. >> sometimes desperate for attention but not rebellious. i don't have bad influences and i try hard not to give in to peer pressure but somewhere along the road someone calms long with temptation close to their side and offers me whatever they got, but do i get the power to say no? always sitting blankly at the sky hoping for a miracle to happen, hoping someone will

come around to understand. i don't want toys anymore and i don't want it show my baby pictures and if i'm crazy and loud then you're insane and rude and if today is not our day, so be it, there is always tomorrow. thank you. >> ok. the average american dream and dreamer built dreams on shatorde hopes and left off on their own spaceships of life. but the average american laws are in a state of corruption. man is allowed to work -- to go to war and kill other. at age 18 but a man can't buy a drink until age 21. i mean the government has money to pay for wars but not to feed the poor. politicians say more taxes will

solve everything -- everything the politicians say vote for me and i'll set you free. but then, dear politician, why are innocent men and women being arrested for helping a dying man on the street? men and women create but we got our name from our women and then we take from our women. when did we get to the point where we're buying everything but can't pay for anything? we have credit cards or checks and check books but not a dime in our pocket? we had dreams in the beginning but let them fizzle in the end so when the ship goes down we better get ready. thank you. [applause] >> ok the so it's called this guy. so there's this guy, right, and he has a smile that can turn my

day brighter than bright and the scent he wears i can no longer bear because it gives me that sensational floating on cloud nine feeling. i try to restrain myself from pulling and grasping every bit of my attention toward it. notice how i said base hit not home run because in the end when the play is done there still wasn't an end run. you see, this guy i'm talking about, he makes me want to take a different route, a different sky, sing and dands -- dance and run and shout all at the same time. he makes me feel nothing but pure ecstasy whether he -- i think about him kissing melt he makes me want to find a cure for cancer and every question an answer. i will always be with him to the very end but him and me

we're a different kind of friends, you see, him and me, there's this magnetic pool tonight -- attraction between us. if i knew he was here tonight i'd turn on my red light and probably have stage fright. but he's something new. maybe he's scared of change but if he would just let me, perhaps i could help him real estate range his thought process. so how about we put this game on pause instead of sneaking around like mice because we can focus on making an amazing display of something 35eusing, earth taking, something unfailing, smag maysing the but -- something amazing. but i can see it's impossible,

unimaginable, and very unexplainable. i may not like it. i may hate it, hate it with every inch of movie body, with every atom that makes up my existence, every molecule, every cell in my system but life isn't like one big, bird and you can't always have things your way. before i say goodbye, there's this guy and when he smiles, everything just seems all right. [cheers and applause] >> up next is my girl lajenae. >> ok, well, my name -- the majority of people call me la. i wrote this poem this morning and it's dedicated to a couple of people in the audience right

now. so -- never had someone like you. i understand you can only be you but does you include us? does you include the ones you are supposed to cherish? i remember those days we used to go to the zoo. nowadays you're mostly with boofment don't get me wrong but missing you and the way things used missing you and the way things used to be -- wow -- sorry, missing you and the way things used to be, now it's like we're paying the fees while you go where you please. now i'm asking for one thing and that one thing is please don't take my sister away from me. >> up next we've got talia baby. >> all right. all right.

what's up? what's happening? >> i'm -- doesn't really need a time. if you should love a trip, i'll give you a clip but babe this, buttercup that, i've heard it all before. i'm in love with prada and christian dior. you see, i'm way ahead of your plan. not trying to have you as my man. my cell, please quit calling it. you see i ignore the calls. you can't play me. i'm done with games. stop with the kid games. got you heated because i'm done with you and you know i'm on to the next dude. love nobody, trust nobody, and most definitely near fear nobody. it's a cold game. play your part the you ain't even on topic. let's not speak about it. i do what i do and i does it with. i saw your mommas.

i got me one and i call them daddy instead of papas. you ain't with it, you in the past. since i guess you have nice things well you whack and because of that aspect i never ever slacked. not the female you used to date. i got a unique type situation. i'm so glad these birds they just bloop me. i speak fluently. she busy with all that blah, blah, blah. hear me out though. i'm going to leave you stern. [applause] >> in an urban high school in the science laboratory lab, two girls are discussing their project. >> you don't even know what you are doing the -- doing. you're dumb. >> you test too much.

>> the day has come. the projects are to be returned. >> see, i told you? mine was the best. i told you, dummy. besides, let me see what you guys have. >> you know, i'm leaving. after school, alice and delores park thinking about human behavior. >> i don't know what people want to -- from me, for real. i have to say i think people just want me to be perfect. but you know what? i am capable of doing anything. it doesn't matter who i am or the way i look. what matters is the effort. i will study more. >> alice studied hard. she gets automatic a's. she's on the honor roll!

-- she gets all a's. she's on the honor roll. >> oh, my god. i can't believe it? you see? i am capeable. don't call me dummy. now who do you think schnur i am a girl with just good grades. >> the morale of this story is that no matter what people think about you, all you have to do is show who you really are. even if the situation isn't good for you, you must make the best effort you can and you will succeed in this life. jenny chuasiriporn did -- life. [cheers and applause] >> all right. yell about the shooting, about the killings. mothers don't remember reality. phone call.

angers, her client. who the media pictures fighting and screaming. wife drops the bottle. neighbors. let mep put some ink in your mind. blue, red, purple, green, black, so many colors of ink i'm going to start an art gearly. google me. violence is my silence. >> all right. i see a room with darkness. i see the color white. poems are made in darkness. poems are p white. poems are shadows. all poems are what you want them to be 79 all poems ar another -- another way to express yourself. i stay active. if i see something i like i'm snatching the if you put up a fight, i'm basting. you're going to be on the floor

sleeping and i'm going to be standing over you blasting the poems are funny. i hear people screaming, i hear cops coming, so i start running the i get tired of running so a get a bought fble water and start dranking -- drinking the i see the cops again so i break to fleefment poems are made to flee. poems are diaries. poems are made to go hard or go home. poems are made to influence. poems are made to touch lives. poems catch lives. poems are alive. >> all right. my poem is called let me tell yo