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 you where i've been. let me tell you where i've

been. i've been places you couldn't imagine. places you think i couldn't been -- have been the places you thought you saw me but that's not where i was. places here and there, places you hear about on the news or on the air. i've been there. even if it was yesterday's tomorrow i've been there. all i go to -- do is go to school and straight home. guess i haven't been anywhere. everything changes one day. soon i can say i've been somewhere the soon i can go somewhere by air the somewhere you wouldn't dare. going to school will get me somewhere. then you will look back at me with a fake grin because i just told you where i'm going and where i've been. >> because this is a writing community for writers who have been with writers corps for a

while and the program is no longer available, i am going to truce them all at once and then they're going to just do their poems. so first i'd like to bring up sandra. sandra? >> hi, how are you, everybody. i home you're enjoying the show and that -- i'm nervous. so -- i think i will cry. i'm just acting. don't worry. and two years ago i came here at the same place and i was reading poetry, but the difference from then to now is that i couldn't speak english. so i read my poem in spanish and i think i missed a lot of the audience because not everybody can understand or speak stash -- spanish.

in restless night that i was thinking how good my professor has been to me. she has given -- given me support without even using hard words. when i'm struggling she holds my hand, letting me know that i can count on her. whenever i feel sad or share a broken tear, she asked me for a hug and it is there in her arms that i feel protected like nothing that dares to touch me could hurt me. there is a power that grows inside me. when i find myself under her wings. under her wings i am calm. and she calls me mija, as if she were saying don't give unon

account of stupid things. don't you see how strong you are? and my pain turns into a sincere smile and my soul doesn't feel hurt any hor. -- more. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> yay. and next up we have annie. annie yu, i'm sorry. annie yu. >> it's ok. so the poem i'm going to read is book of lives. my name is a book of lives. i press leaves inside, scraps of the city, one crumbled bus ticket, a number -- numb washed with rain, a torn photograph of two little girls. my name settle map of the world. a body of continents and stars.

on an airplane i look at the map. flights intersect. travel miles and seas, hours and clouds, a window bird trills by my bed. power lines crisscross streets like threads in the sky. a book of lives is a month of saturdays, a sea-- seahorse from per ru, perfume at my neck. look inside a red suitcase. you'll find letters to no one, objects found and lost, a plastic white fan, contradictory j. -- jade green, city grids, the last bite of an ice cream cone. these are all my names. i savor these words on the tip of my tongue. a book of lives lived in my right hand. i caught your pen in the other. all the rivers flower into the sea. thank you.

[cheers and applause] >> next up is -- next up is marcela ortiz. >> ok. this is the first time i'm reading in front of people. ok. all right. this is a poem to my mom. you're nothing but a group of coffee klatching women. 19 years and the only image that i can think of what i hearl my mother's voice is rosie the riveter with her hand balled up in a fist and her hand underneath her face. coffee klatching women? a bunch of old grandmothers who sit in sewing sirgles and talk about the best blueberry

circles. we banned my mother from the kitchenen -- because of an incident where she had burnt water the the only person who cooked was my father. please keep your peace, mom. yes, my mother say woman but coffee klatching? the term was worse than nails on the chalk board. oh, yes, a coffee klatching woman who has raised three children and never taking shying from anyone. you sure do act like a coffee klatching women with your boots and jeans on, arriving to run a crew of obnoxious men's, because 50% of the men's brains skiptd -- consist of their oh so glorified junk which doesn't

even work right. most of the time. coffee klatching women? sitting around talking nonsense? the same nonsense that finally changed the 19th amendment. yes we can vote. i can see abigail adams sitting and clutching her scorching hot cup of joe, john adams saying sit down and drink your damn coffee, woman. she really was the brains of the outfit. my mother is overworked, tired, but her still solid body stood hard as a rock. i'm not going to cry, as a tear falls down from her face. don't cry, mom, don't cry. [cheers and applause] >> that was her first time

ever. yay! and up next we have indiana telepenova. >> a recipe for water. start with the color magenta, a burning asphalt, of beach ball sighing out its life, a garden grown on accident after accident, add a father painting shelves on the cove, a pinch of guilt, statues of isabella butter flisse -- butterflies, and extinct alpha betts, a teaspoon of autumn leaves, a shepard playing with the winds, some animal begging for snow. mix vigorously like the

mountain mixes up its slopes. preheat the bed of a star to -- 240 light-years away. thank you. and next is -- [cheers and applause] >> next is robin black. >> hi, robin! >> oh, ok. i had to know. this is called "eviction notice." the police turned us away. 11 years old eating baby food. days warm like the occasional free matsoff from next door. no plates the cups were yoplaits.

i stepped on a nail taking my sister through the yard the drinking from beer bottles that tasted like warm quarters the i caught fleas from cookie puss sleeping on my stomk keeping us both warms. at that age i lost the comfort from lies. stranded on a crescent move, floating in a sea of ash littered with diamonds the i swallowed past lives to spit these alternate futures. >> one more big round of applause for our very talented apprentice program. fantastic.

>> one of the most extraordinary things to me about this program is we are going to be treat todd an extraordinary

panorama of style and diversity. we will start off with mr. james cagney. please, welcome the poet james cagney. [applause] >> there is sun. there is sun. there is a snake on the path sunning. there is sun. there is water in the stream, there are daisies, there are sun. there is a snake on the path sunning, there is sun. there are trees, there are daisies there is a feather there is sun. there is the feather that she gave me there is a feather there is sun. there are daisies there are words trees things there are more things than words, there is sun, there is sun. there are fox tails there are blank there are irises that are blank there is a snake on the path in the path sunning. there is a squirrel in the trash, there is sun. there is water in the stream,

there is a squirrel in the strash, there is a snake in the path on the sun sunning. there is is sun. there is song, there is a song being sung by the birds in the sun. there is flavor, there is a feather. there is hair in my mouth from her hug in the sun. there is sun. there is flavor on my tongue. there is singing there is sun. there is a snake on the path singing in the sun. there is song, there is sun. on the path there is a squirrel in the daisies there is blank in the trash there is a song, there is sun. on the snake there is a squirrel on the blank there are daisies in the trash, there is a snake in the stream singing, there is sun. there is sun. there is a path in the trash, there is hair in the feathers, singing, there is song, there is song, there are birds there is hair in my mouth there is a snake on the path sunning, there

is sun, there is sun, there is hair, in my mouth there is singing on the path there is a snake in the trash singing, there is song, there is sun. there are feathers in her hair. there is flavor in the stream, there is a snake on my tongue in the sun, sunning. there is sun. there is sun, there is sing on the sun. there are birds on the grass, there are squirrels in the trash, there are trees with feathers singing. there is sun. there is a snake on the pass sunning. there is sun. all right. [applause] >> this past saturday at the farmer's market. >> an african brother shoved a basket of boysenberies as if paying a debt they bleed on our finger tips the man smiles

proper his hand a gift says too complicated we buy 9 dollars in cherries quite and red and spotd and sweet and sour too, flavors turning in our ouths anxious as police lights we trip over the sister pushing a baby carriage. we know her but couldn't pull her name from nothing. baby sleeping cheeks soft with petals. 3 year old son digs into our kettle corn sack. later. fish tacos for her. him layian curry chicken for me. watching children bounce in the fountain. pickled cool in water, giggles going off like chinese fire crackers. tiny teeth grudge mashing. 5 you want to fried chicken bites so golden brown.

pity another poor mother her catfish, mango shake shook every wrchlt the little girl on the straw never blinked channelling opiuman cesters through the ecstasy of fruit sures. this is us at farmer's market. brother too complicate who had offers an arm for her and me. a chain of chins along his shoulders. where have you been and why has it taken you so long to come back? >> the piece dedicated to my foster father and cousin on my adopted side. 1, daddy. old crow, jack dan jells understood my father mouthfuls at a time. jim beam and old forester where uncles rolled up in the

sufficiented hennesy take it's first breath and hound dog laughter and dominos falling like hail on the dining table. relatives existed through stories and memory ease in like zombies on ropes of camel smoke and demand a texas holdum. no wonder they call it spirits. spirits vad my father with cower vas yea. spirits made him burn rubber screaming in the driveway. the marianet and tongue were skillets at mid night. i wouldn't see his ass again until the next afternoon. twoshgs johnnie. gee my cousin john edwards volunteered for possession every week. he was certified.

ex exor citizenim did nothing. colt 45, crazy horse they demand the sacrifices in blood so bottles would go to the couch friday night. walls kicked until straight jackets lay waiting on the lawn. mama would site visions of gang boys with metal vent as if it explained anything. it didn't between dusk from the and dawn saturday he was ready to blow the -- up. do you want some of this? oh , no, yes oh , no or yes , i will be damn, i will be damn, i will be damn. [applause] >> this is called someone else's child. and i guess it's a sort of an

imagined conversation with a took place in a real moment in my father's hospital room in a matter of weeks before he died. my father is my foster father and there was always in my life this level of awkwardness because i was not biologically his own son. and he and i never got to have the conversation that i imagined here on page in this piece. so, there is a lot of truth in it. and here we go. someone else's child. >> i'm going to write a poem about you, i said. shall i tell the truth or make something up. what would you write about me. i'd write about the small things like catching my first perch on a cane pole and slapping you up side the head with it.

it was the last time i fished you know that you cussed the water black mad. i never touched a fishing pole again. why would you want to write that? silence. do you remember when mom tried to teach me how to ride a bike? no, he said, let me hear it. why i can't ride a bike. i out weigh my mother by 50 pounds though her effort to help find my balance is more colossal than any man. my father root indeed pockets watches us at a distance like we are on a channel he'd like to turn. that's a sad poem, he said. cant you write nothing happy? not with you in it, i said.

but i ain't never hit you, thumped our head once or twice. mostly, i'm stuck remembering what we never did, share something. play catch, even. was not athlete. tried teaching you how to drive. sitting next to me on the freeway holding the steering wheel sdont count. well ain't had no one to teach me none of those things neither. did you ever hold me when i was a baby, i asked? gnaw, afraid i'd drop you sides you were someone else's child didn't think we would keep you long. thought she was take you back to your people. if you wrote a poem about right now, he said, about us here in this room, how would it go?

>> last rights. while sitting with my father waiting for his end white tooth sprouting from his wintry branches i watch the hospital clock. see us men watch one another and not look at each other for an hour and 15 minutes. it never occurred to either of us to even say, i love you. all you write, he said, are sad poems. what would you have me write? the truth. your poem ought to be called, with no seat and go like this. he did the best he could with what he had and he ain't had

nothing accept the blues. >> [applause]. >> the book was published this year by the university of georgia press. it is available at the back of the auditorium this afternoon. it is called blood ties and brown liquor. and he is also been the finalist for the 2006 poetry prize. please, join me in welcoming mr. sean hill. [applause]. >> i want to read from blood and brown liquor today. this book is about my home town in georgia. it's also where [inaudible] is from. and i started researching the history of [inaudible] and sort of fell into the history of black people there because it was not taught in school. so -- in order to write about the history i had to invent a

character to explore this history. the character's name is si loss wright. >> first poem i will read is titled silos write at age 71914. it's about silos follows a fishing riggel in the shallows. he describes the line in his tablet as much pride in that line as a man and his son. he giggles and goes on. the next letters come easy. with this he will have more than a mark to bind. rambling across the page again and again in messy rows along it flows until he goes off the page's edge. he smiles. he's surprised to hear when his mouth opens.

that's mine. so, this really lovely book that georgia put together for me has great painting on the cover. a painting of mcintosh street in georgia painted in the 1940's by a man, frank stanley herring. i saw this painting after i had written this next poem and after i talked to my grand mother and she mentioned this street to me. i didn't know it existed because by the time i was coming up the black business district was gone. and the past few years i think they erected a monument to it. nigger street. 1937. mcintosh street the sign reads like the apple. red but not red delicious red

but like red on red eyes gravy on grit the and stop lights and green and yellow. and red like those powders and syrups kept behind the counter at blocks pharmacy. red. and red like the stripe on richard's barb bar pole and the stitches on button holes on over alls of those coming to down on saturday. solid red at the blue moon and red like the eyes of the late staying patrons on sunday mornings. and in church the red of the edge of white pages in a black bound bible coming together, closing. red as a congregation rises. [applause]. >> this references a lynching. the lynching of 2 couples in monroe, georgia occurred july

25, 1946. it's now referred to has the morris ford lynching. insurance man, 1946. silos you might not be here april. ain't none of us never promise said tomorrow. if you died you would need a will. that way you control your nickel when you are gone. get your ducks in a row you might not be here come april. yeah, your policy is up-to-date and we will pay say if you lose an arm at the elbow at the mill. if you died you need a will. double pay for accidental deaths we have you down. your wife will not need to borrowo. you might not be here come april. being alive is enough to get you killed. do you hear about the folks in nr