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- [00:01]
Elise Hu
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- [04:53]
Sarah Kay
Thank you for having me. Thank you for that kind intro, of course.
- [04:57]
Elise Hu
Well, I am amazed and long have been amazed at the way you're able to bring together such vast and sometimes overwhelming topics into a space that really feels safe and relatable. You wrote in your poem Orange about, I'm quoting now, the invisible thread of poetry that so many people are holding on to, even and especially people who may not have anything else in common. In your view, what makes poetry so powerful that so many people are drawn to it and hold on to it.
- [05:27]
Sarah Kay
Oh, that's a big question. Well, I think my relationship to poetry has evolved over my living. But when I am feeling an emotion or going through an experience or revisiting a Memory that feels unlanguageable. And then I discover that someone has found language for it in the form of a poem. That is one of the most magical experiences. And poetry has provided language, certainly, but also camaraderie or belonging or reassurance or community or a lot of things. Poetry offers a lot of things. And then I get to see the way that other people also build lives around poetry for healing, for processing, for activism, for education, for collective experience, for live performance. I mean, it goes on and on. That's my whole thing.
- [06:33]
Elise Hu
Let's talk a little bit about your life and where you began. You grew up going to see spoken word poetry, I believe, being performed in New York City. New York City is a big part of your latest collection. Tell us a little bit about how you became a poet.
- [06:50]
Sarah Kay
Sure. So if I'm going to tell my story and my relationship to poetry, it actually has to start earlier than that, which is that when I was in elementary school, my parents, on a daily basis, would pack me lunch and they would take turns. They would trade off writing a poem and putting it in my lunchbox. And neither of my parents consider themselves writers. Neither of them consider themselves poets. This was not part of a grand plan. They definitely did not think this was going to happen. But that is something they did as one of many things that they did to show me magic and wonder and care and love. And inadvertently, they therefore introduced me to what a poem was. And through that version of poetry, my definition for a poem was something that was a surprise, something that was a secret, something that was as dependable as clockwork, something that someone who cared about me had made for me. Like, that's what I understood a poem was from a very early age. And so that's what I treated poems as. I wrote them in a notebook. They were a secret, and they were a small unit to present to someone I loved, usually my parent. And then when I was around 13, 14 years old, I got a letter in the mail. This is before email times. I got a physical letter in the mail that said, congratulations, you've been registered to compete in the New York City Teen Poetry Slam.
- [08:28]
Elise Hu
Wow.
- [08:28]
Sarah Kay
The poetry slam was a competition for poetry that was performed, which I did not know. I had never seen a poetry slam. I had never heard of a poetry slam. I'm an elder millennial, so we didn't have YouTube back then, so I couldn't look it up. All I knew about this event was that it was for teenagers in New York City who liked poems. And that was me. And so I went to this event, and it was a room full of teenagers sharing poems that they had written and listening to each other and applauding each other and making room for each other. And I had never experience something like that. And the lightning moment was in discovering that poetry, which had previously been a solitary, secret moment, could also be a communal experience. And that is what lit my wick this particular event. They had rented out a dive bar on the Lower east side for this teen competition.
- [09:33]
Elise Hu
Yeah.
- [09:34]
Sarah Kay
And I was so taken with the whole event. I thought, this is the best thing I've ever seen. I want to come back next week and the week after. I want to keep coming back and keep seeing more and keep doing this forever. And there was a little bar flyer on the way out that said, Thursday night poetry slam. And I said, perfect, perfect. I'll come back. But I didn't understand that 364 days a year it was a dive bar. And so I came back the next week as a 14 year old, and I was like, hello, I'm here for the poetry. And they were like, okay, sit over there and don't order any alcohol. And my parents were a little baffled because again, they're not writers and they're not performers. But they were like, okay, this is a thing she seems excited about. We're not going to let her go by herself, but we will go and sit on the other side of the room to not cramp her style. And that is where I went to see poetry. And I kept coming back. And so I spent all four years of high school going to this dive bar and watching poets perform. Mainly poets who were at least a decade my senior. But it meant that sometimes when I'm feeling cheeky, I say, I didn't fall in love with poetry in a book. I fell in love with poetry in a dive bar, which is true. And it also meant that I learned poetry almost in an apprenticeship form. So by watching what was possible and seeing all these different styles and people who either lived in New York or were coming through New York, I got to experience such a wide range of what was possible in poetry. And I got the unbelievable gift of a room full of adults making room for me and my poetry and taking it seriously and taking me seriously, which became the thing that I wanted to share with everybody else.
- [11:40]
Elise Hu
Yeah. Speaking of a room full of adults, by the time you were 22, you were on stage giving your first TED talk. This was 2011. And you began your talk with, if.
- [11:52]
Unknown
I should have a daughter instead of mom, she's going to call me point B. Because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I'm going to paint the solar systems on the backs of her hands. So she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, oh, I know that like the back of my hand. And she's going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by band aids or poetry. So the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn't coming. I'll make sure she knows she doesn't have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers. Your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I've tried. And baby, I'll tell her, don't keep your nose up in the air like that. I know that trick. I've done it a million times. You're just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house. So you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him. But I know she will anyway. So instead, I'll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby. Because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix. Okay, there's a few heartbreaks that chocolate can't fix. But that's what the rain boots are for. Because rain will wash away everything if you let it. I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat. To look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that's the way my mom taught me that there'll be days like this. There'll be days like this, my mama said. When you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly. And the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape when your boots will fill with rain and you'll be up to your knees in disappointment. And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you. Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the Shoreline. No matter how many times it's sent away, you will put the wind in. Win some, lose some. You will put the star in starting over and over. And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. And yes, on a scale from one to over, trust. I am pretty damn naive, But I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily. But don't be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it, baby, I'll tell her. Remember, your mama is a worrier and your papa is a warrior. And you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more. Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things. And always apologize when you've done something wrong. But don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. Your voice is small, but don't ever stop singing. And when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.
- [15:15]
Sarah Kay
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
- [15:23]
Elise Hu
That talk went super viral and has been watched literally millions of times. And you have since described that TED talk as the start of an accidental ambassadorship. What do you mean by that?
- [15:38]
Sarah Kay
Well, I was 22 when I was given that opportunity. And so all I knew was I was invited to a cool conference and maybe I'll learn some smart things. And that's about as much as I understood. And I love performing poetry in lots of strange spaces. That's a huge part of my joy. And to me, this is just another strange space to share poems. And of course, we didn't know that the TED platform would become so global and would become so widespread. And after I gave the talk, the video did go viral, and I started to receive emails from people all over the world, many of whom would say, not only was that video my introduction to you and your art, but that video was my introduction to this art form. I did not know poetry was performed. Are there more people like you? Can I do this? Could you come here and show me how to do it? And it became this unbelievable adventure of getting invited to so many surprising corners of the world to share poems and help people figure out how this art form could be useful in their communities and in their classrooms. And that's the. The accidental ambassadorship that I certainly did not know was coming.
- [17:15]
Elise Hu
You mentioned using poetry in the Classroom. So let's jump to poetry as education. And in education, you have been an educator for much of your adult life. Now, having started Project Voice when you were in college, can you share some of your experiences with poetry in the classroom and what it's like just teaching poetry and the benefits of younger folks learning it? I guess they don't have to be younger even.
- [17:43]
Sarah Kay
Certainly not. I believe you are never too young or too old for poetry. I have taught workshops that are pre kindergarten, and I have taught workshops with the elderly and everybody in between. I really love working in schools, probably because I fell in love with poetry as a young person, and I think it was instrumental in my formation of self. And I love getting to help facilitate and witness someone else falling in love with poetry and discovering that there is room for them in the house of poetry. And so that's the drive. That's what continues to bring me to all these different schools and corners. And so trying to think of, you know, stories from the classroom, we could just talk about that for the rest of the time together. But I'll tell you something that just happened. Well, it started back in 2014. I was teaching at a school in rural Georgia with another poet named Franny Choi, who I love and who was working with me at Project Voice for a while. And we did performances and we did workshops. And then after school, we were invited out to dinner by some of the English teachers, which often happens. And at the dinner, they had brought along two high school boys, two students. And that's unusual. Usually after hours, the students are home, but they brought them along to dinner, and we had a lovely dinner, all of us together. And after dinner, one of the students who I want to say was maybe even, like, on the high school football team or I think he was an athlete. He was like a polite, you know, Southern gentleman who asked if he could walk us from the restaurant the three blocks to our hotel to make sure we got home safe, which we thought was very sweet. And when he walked us home, he handed me this letter that he had written on notebook paper. And the letter was about how much my poetry had meant to him and how excited he was about poetry. And he used lines from my poems in the letter.
- [20:00]
Elise Hu
Wow.
- [20:01]
Sarah Kay
And I have a line in an old poem. There is a girl who still writes you. She doesn't know how not to. And he ended his poem by saying, there is a boy who still writes poems. He doesn't know how not to. And there was something about the letter that just really got me, and it was Sort of like when I'm writing poems. I don't think I'm writing poems for a high school senior on the football team in rural Georgia, but also, maybe I am. You never know who needs a poem that you're writing, and you never know who is on the other side of a door that you can open for them into poetry. And it was so meaningful to me that I kept the letter and figured I'd never see this kid ever again, but was grateful to him. And last week I had a show about 30 minutes south of Atlanta for my new book. And I was at the table signing books afterwards, and this young man walked up holding his phone in front of him to show me a photograph. And he was like, hi, I'm sure you don't remember, but I actually met you a long time ago. You came to perform at my school with Franny. And I looked at the photograph and I was like, wait, did you write me a letter? And he was like, yeah, I did. And I was like, of course I remember you. And he was like, I can't believe you remember that. And I was like, I can't believe you're a whole grown up. I'm a medical doctor. Oh, so he's a family doctor. His wife was there. I got to meet her. She's a third grade teacher. It was so lovely, because when I teach poetry workshops, I'm not teaching them with the belief that all of these kids are going to become poets, you know, and maybe some of them will never write a poem ever again. Although that would make me sad. But even if they don't, even if it was just the time that I got to have with them, one of the things that I love about poetry is that teaching poetry or facilitating poetry is a way of teaching so many other things that is useful to you, no matter what you end up doing, right? Like when I'm working in a classroom with young people, really what I'm doing is helping them figure out what they really care about, what is important to them, helping them find language, to talk about it in a manner that is authentic to how they actually communicate, how to present it with joy and confidence to a room of their peers, to be able to bear witness to each other, to be able to be a good listener, to be able to learn empathy for a foreign narrative, to be able to collaborate, to be able to receive criticism and give helpful feedback. And all of those things are going to be useful, even if you do end up a family doctor.
- [22:56]
Elise Hu
What a beautiful story. Let's get practical then. How do you think readers should engage with poetry? Do you have a preferred way of teaching folks how to approach a text?
- [23:08]
Sarah Kay
Oh, wow. I love that question. I think because I use the metaphor of having been welcomed into the house of poetry myself and how I'm always thinking of ways to try to open doors for other people into the house of poetry, to me, I also think there's no wrong way in. And so whatever door feels open to you into poetry, try that door. And I'm also always trying to think of new doors. So, for example, if you're the kind of person who is never going to pick up a book of poems, that's fine. Maybe you're the kind of person who would listen to an audiobook. I made one of those for you. And if you're like, no, thank you, I don't want a whole audiobook to listen to, but I would maybe watch a YouTube video of a three minute live performance. I've got a few of those for you. And if you're like, no, I don't want to watch a live performance video, but I would maybe watch a beautiful animation. I actually got to collaborate with the folks at Ted Ed a few years ago and we made this beautiful web series that I'm still really proud of, which is called There's a Poem for that. And it's a collaboration between animators and poets. And so maybe you would watch an animation and if you're like, no, thank you, I would like to read a poem, but maybe that's new to you and you're a little nervous about how to read poem on the page and it looks different than you're used to and you're worried that there's a wrong way of doing it and you'd like someone to show you. There's also a beautiful web series that I helped curate, which is called Hours Poetica. And the visual is the text on the screen, but the audio is either the poet who wrote that poem or somebody who loves that poem so much reading it for you. And so you get to see how this person would read this text on page. So I'm. I'm always trying to figure out, where can I meet you person who perhaps doesn't know that poetry might be for you yet.
- [25:14]
Elise Hu
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- [26:27]
Sarah Kay
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Elise Hu
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- [26:37]
Sarah Kay
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- [26:39]
Elise Hu
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- [26:47]
Sarah Kay
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- [26:48]
Elise Hu
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- [26:55]
Sarah Kay
You.
- [26:58]
Elise Hu
Let'S talk a little bit about the writing process. You now have five collections of poetry out. You're very prolific. What does the process of writing and gathering or curating a collection of poetry look like for you?
- [27:14]
Sarah Kay
Well, two different things. The writing looks different from the collection creation. The writing of each individual poem is, I think, for me, I have learned that I have been reaching for poetry my entire life and the reasons I reach for it are sometimes new and the moments in which I reach for it sometimes new. But the reaching is not. And that might be one of the oldest parts of me. And I think a common denominator of the instances in which I'm reaching is often when I have something that I am trying to figure out. And I often think of poem as a verb. And sometimes when I can't understand something and I'm wrestling with it, I have to poem my way through it. And then I get to the end of the poem and I go, oh, that's what was going on. And sometimes I get to the end of the poem and I still don't know what's going on. But at least I have a new poem out of the situation. And so for me it's it's not super romantic. It's not like, oh, I'm inspired and the muse visits and out comes a poem. It's more like math. It's more like I'm doing a math equation in another language. And as soon as I poem my way through it, that's the puzzling. And so I write the poems for my own brain and heart. It's a navigation tool. It helps me maneuver my way through my own living. And sometimes that's what the poem is for. Sometimes I write a poem and I just needed to write it, and then I go, thank you for your service, and I put it in the drawer, and that's the end of that. And sometimes I write a poem, and there's something about the poem that I think someone else might get something out of this poem. And then I get to decide, okay, well, does this poem want to live on the page? Does this poem want to live out loud in front of people? Am I thinking about what the words are doing physically on the page and the way my eye is pulled across the words, or am I thinking about what my face and my voice and my intonation and my hand gestures are going to be? What are the tools at my disposal when I start to think about sharing this poem with other people? If I decide to share it, and then if I get all the way to. And now we're building a collection, then it's a whole different set of questions. What is this collection for? What is this collection doing? Is there an arc? And what poems serve the arc? And I want a person reading this collection to go on a journey that they are rewarded for reading poems in the order in which I place them.
- [30:14]
Elise Hu
Well, let's apply those questions to your latest collection, A Little Daylight Left. What are those poems for? What are they doing? What is the arc?
- [30:24]
Sarah Kay
Great, great. Don't be theoretical about it. Be specific. So, yeah, for this collection. So you are correct that I have five books, but I actually, three of those books are single poem hardcover books that I made with my lifelong collaborator, Sophia Janowitz, who provided beautiful art for them. So three of them are like one poem each. But I actually only have two collections. The first one came out 11 years ago, and then this one just came out in April. And so it's been a decade of.
- [31:02]
Elise Hu
Totally different fate, totally different era, if you will.
- [31:05]
Sarah Kay
Different era, different everything. Yeah. And you write a lot of poems in 10 years. And so when I started looking at all of those poems and with my amazing editor, Maya Millet together, we noticed this theme of a person reaching for poetry to process whatever was happening at that moment in her life.
- [31:34]
Elise Hu
Yeah.
- [31:35]
Sarah Kay
So this book ended up being sort of like a chronology of my reaching for poetry. And the book is in three sections. The first section shows the way that I reached for poetry as a young person moving out of childhood and specifically to help me process the introduction of violence into my consciousness and my life. Personal violence, gendered violence, systemic violence. And then the second section is using poetry to process falling in love and spoiler alert heartbreak, and also reaching and searching in the way that I did as a young person. And then the third section of the book is a reflection of where I am now, which is reaching for poetry to help me process aging and mortality and the sort of newer moments in which I reach for poetry. And that became the project of the book. And once I found that sort of spine, then I was able to see which of all these poems help show that chronology, like little ticks on a timeline.
- [32:52]
Elise Hu
Okay, well, as we talk about this timeline, we have a really great question from Miriam K. Who's one of our TED members, who asks if you, Sarah in 2025, who just gave her fifth TED talk, could give advice to the Sarah in 2011 who was about to give her first, what would that advice be?
- [33:14]
Sarah Kay
Oh, you know what's so funny? I wouldn't. I wouldn't say a single thing to her because the only reason it worked is that I knew absolutely nothing about what was going to happen. I was so naive, and I was so genuinely present and just happy to be there. And you can see it when you watch the video. You can see. Yeah. Who's just like, wow, here I am. What a day. And I think if I tried to say anything, it would. It would betray too much to that kid and it would trample it. And so I wouldn't. I wouldn't say a thing. I would just. I would just watch.
- [33:58]
Elise Hu
In your acknowledgments, you wrote, thank you to the many poets who provided doorways through which I could and needed to walk in order to find these poems of my own. Which leads me to ask, what is your relationship to your ancestors, your teachers, both alive and no longer living, and why is their influence so important to your poetry?
- [34:23]
Sarah Kay
Well, poetry is this ancient, ancient art form. It's as old as we are. And there are so many poets who were maybe even not allowed the title of poet or were not concerned with the title of poet, and we're still reaching for language, for the unlanguageable.
- [34:50]
Elise Hu
Yeah.
- [34:51]
Sarah Kay
And I think because I fell in love with poetry in a dive bar, so much of my love of poetry comes from its communal possibilities, both as shared experience of live performance, but also opportunity for community building, opportunity for healing, opportunity for naming, opportunity for showing each other ourselves and our vulnerable humanness and our bravery. And I would not be here if a room full of adults had not taken me seriously as an artist before I took myself seriously as an artist. And so I'm so aware of the many shoulders upon which I stand, many of whom are also standing next to me. You know, I think an accidental, incredible gem of a gift of being in that dive bar is it allowed me to have intergenerational friendship, which is rare. But because I was 14 in a dive bar, I became friends with people who were at least a decade my senior, sometimes more. But they were my friends, they weren't my parents friends. And so having intergenerational friendship from the beginning then became so ingrained in me, as important as a way to learn from someone whose life is at a different stage than yours. And so now I also have friendships with people who are, you know, generationally younger than me. We are both descendants of and ancestors to at the same time, all the time. And I hold both of those roles with great esteem and importance and responsibility.
- [36:50]
Elise Hu
So for someone listening to this, maybe they're feeling inspired to write or create, but doesn't know where to start. What would you tell them?
- [37:00]
Sarah Kay
I would tell them the best thing about poetry is there are no locked doors in front of you for trying. There's so often barriers or obstacles or equipment standing between you and the art you're curious about.
- [37:21]
Elise Hu
Right, Right.
- [37:22]
Sarah Kay
Not so with poetry. The starting is in your pocket. It is waiting for you. And the great news is, if you wanted to be a filmmaker, you would watch a lot of movies. If you wanted to be a novelist, you would read a lot of books. Movies and novels take a long time, but poems are quite small, and you can read many of them pretty quickly, and you can watch many of them pretty quickly. And so watching and reading and listening and seeing you know, as many different kinds of poems from as many different kinds of people is the best way to just learn about what is possible. And then you can expand on what is possible.
- [38:09]
Elise Hu
Great advice.
- [38:13]
Sarah Kay
G' day, America.
- [38:14]
Elise Hu
It's Tony and Ryan from the Tony and Ryan podcast from Down Under.
- [38:17]
Sarah Kay
Today we want to talk to you about Boost Mobile, the newest 5G network in the country.
- [38:21]
Elise Hu
These guys are no longer the prepaid wireless company you might remember. They've invested billions into building their own 5G towers across America, transforming the carrier into America's fourth major network alongside the other big dogs who.
- [38:36]
Sarah Kay
Yep, they're challenging the competitors by working harder and smarter, like this amazing new network they've literally built.
- [38:43]
Elise Hu
The Boost Mobile Network together with their roaming partners covers 99% of the US population, but 5G speeds not available in all areas. Yep.
- [38:52]
Sarah Kay
They have blazing fast Internet and plans for all the latest devices. Visit your nearest Boost Mobile store or find them online@boostmobile.com now at Verizon, we.
- [39:02]
Elise Hu
Have some big news for your peace of mind. For all our customers, existing and new, we're locking in low prices for three.
- [39:08]
Sarah Kay
Years guaranteed on MyPlan and my home. That's future you peace of mind and everyone can save on a brand new phone on MyPlan. When you trade in any phone from one of our top brands, that's new phone peace of mind.
- [39:21]
Elise Hu
Because at Verizon, whether you're already a customer or you're just joining us, we got you.
- [39:25]
Sarah Kay
Visit Verizon today. Price guarantee applies to then current base monthly rate. Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers. Ready to order? Yes. We're earning unlimited 3% cash back on dining and entertainment with a Capital One Saver Card. So let's just get one of everything. Everything. Fire everything. The Capital One Saver card is at table 27 and they're earning unlimited 3% cash back.
- [39:46]
Elise Hu
Yes, Chef.
- [39:47]
Sarah Kay
This is so nice. Had a feeling you'd want 3% cash back on dessert. Ooh, tiramisu. Earn unlimited 3% cash back on dining.
- [39:55]
Elise Hu
And entertainment with the Capital One Saver Card.
- [39:57]
Sarah Kay
Capital One, what's in your wallet?
- [39:59]
Elise Hu
Terms apply. See capitalone.com for detail. Now we're going to transition into the closing section of this conversation, which I'm super excited about. We're going to do a version of something that you used to do with the Paris Review, which I think is pretty brilliant. So before we get started, can you tell us a little bit about what we're about to do, what Poetry Rx means, where the idea came from, and what it means when you say to reach for a poem.
- [40:31]
Sarah Kay
So Poetry Rx was a column that I got to co write with two other poets, my dear friends Kaveh Akbar and Claire Schwartz, for a little while at the Parish Review Online. I think all the archives are still online, so you can still find it. And it was sort of a faux advice column, but really what it was is people would write in and tell us about their very specific heartache and then we would prescribe them a poem for their troubles. And again, I think because one of my favorite moments of living is when a poem reaches me at the exact moment I needed it.
- [41:14]
Elise Hu
Yes.
- [41:15]
Sarah Kay
And I go, oh, I didn't even know I needed language for this. And they found it and now it's in my hands. Nothing feels more lucky or aligned for me personally. And so I love the challenge of trying to create that or something close to it for other people. And so we asked folks to write in with their very specific current heartache or heart question, and I tried to find them a poem for their troubles.
- [41:47]
Elise Hu
We had so many thoughtful submissions when we asked you all to write in to Sarah. So here's the first one I have for you. Sarah Kay. It is from Angela S. They are asking about how to manage an immigrant's distress in the current state of America. Angela writes, it's hard to feel grateful for the opportunities this country has given while also feeling afraid and unwelcomed. That kind of emotional conflict is hard to explain to people who haven't lived it. It's like holding your breath in a place that's supposed to be home.
- [42:23]
Sarah Kay
Thank you for writing this prompt. The poem that I chose for you is one of my favorite poems. It's by the poet Safiya El Hilo, who's a Sudanese American poet, and her poem is called Self Portrait with no Flag. I pledge allegiance to my homies, to my mother's small and cool palms, to the gap between my brother's two front teeth and to my grandmother's good brown hands, Good strong brown hands gathering my bare feet in her lap. I pledge allegiance to the group text. I pledge allegiance to laughter and to all the boys I have a crush on. I pledge allegiance to my spearmint plant, to my split ends, to my grandfather's brain and gray left eye. I come from two failed countries and I give them back. I pledge allegiance to no land, no border cut by force to draw blood. I pledge allegiance to no government, no collection of white men carving up the map with their pens. I choose the table at the Waffle House with all my loved ones crowded into the booth. I choose the shining dark of our faces through a thin sheet of smoke glowing dark of our faces slick under layers of sweat. I choose the world we make with our living, refusing to be unmade by what surrounds us. I choose us gathered at the lakeside, the light glinting off the water and our laughing teeth and along the living dark of our hair. And this is my only country.
- [44:20]
Elise Hu
Thank you so much for sharing that. Our last prompt for today is from Robin S. Who shared with us when I get a whiff that something beautiful is happening. My mind automatically warns me that it will not last or that maybe I am mistaken. What is your advice? And just full disclosure, I totally relate to this. I'm always like, is there another shoe about to drop? So give us a poem for this, Sarah.
- [44:49]
Sarah Kay
Certainly. This is a poem by Palestinian American Hala Alian that I love, called Spoiler. Can you diagnose fear? The red tree blooming from my uterus to throat. It's one long nerve. The doctor says there's a reason breathing helps, the muscles slackening like a dead marriage. Mine are simple things. Food poisoning in Paris. Hospital lobbies my husband laughing in another room, the door closed for days. I cradle my breast and worry the cyst like a bead. There's nothing to pray away. The tree loves her cutter. The nightmares have stopped. I tell the doctor I know why they stopped. Because I baptized them. This is how my mother and I speak of dying, the thing you turn away by letting in. I'm tired of April. It's killed our matriarchs. And in the backyard I've planted an olive sapling in the wrong soil. There is a droopiness to the branches that reminds me of my friend, the one who calls to ask, what's the point? Or the patients who come to me swarmed with misery and astonishment, their hearts like newborns after the first needle. What now? They all want to know. What now. I imagine it like a beach. There is a magnificent sandcastle that has taken years to build, a row of pink seashells for gables, rooms of pebbles and driftwood. This is your life. Then comes the affair, nagging bloodwork, a freeway pile up. The tide moves in. The water eats your work like a drove of wild birds. There is debris, a tatter of seagrass and blood from where you scratched your own arm trying to fight the current. It might not happen for a long time, but one day you run your fingers through the sand again, scoop a fistful out and pat it into a new floor. You can believe in anything, so why not believe this will last? The seashell rafter like eyes in the gloaming. I'm here to tell you the tide will never stop coming in. I'm here to tell you whatever you build will be ruined, so make it beautiful.
- [47:28]
Elise Hu
Thank you so much for that. You know what a special and sacred time that we all get to spend together in community. Before we wrap, a lot of people have been asking questions questions and submitting questions too, so I want to just end our hour with as many questions as we can get to. First, from Zainab. I feel hopeless as a young person living in a world that's going through wars, genocide, inequality, uncertainty, capitalism in a world that's in a state of despair. What do I do as an individual? What does art stand in here?
- [47:58]
Sarah Kay
Well, I think large, systemic fires cannot be put out by individuals, but individuals can be responsible for offering what they have to offer. The poet Eve L. Ewing has this beautiful call to action, which is to always be teaching someone and learning from someone. And so to ask yourself, what do I know how to do that I could teach someone else how to do.
- [48:31]
Elise Hu
Yeah.
- [48:32]
Sarah Kay
We often put education in only formal settings, but learning is lifelong and happens outside the classroom all the time. It happens everywhere. Happens in your community, happens with your neighbors, happens with your nieces. What are the things you know how to do, how to see, how to explain? And how can you teach people what you know that's something you uniquely are qualified to do and can offer? And then always also trying to learn from other people what they can uniquely teach you? I think that's something that feels actionable and focusable.
- [49:12]
Elise Hu
Yeah. Tricky to just list off, But Laura asks, which poems are on your life soundtrack? Which poems could be credited with moving or changing you the most?
- [49:21]
Sarah Kay
Okay, well, an easy one is, is there's two epigraphs at the beginning of A Little Daylight left. One is a quote from the poet Laura Lamb Brown Lavoy, and it comes from her poem that the whole title is, on this, the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we Reconsider the Buoyancy of the Human Heart, which is one of my favorite poems. And you can find a video of me reading it online. That's a poem that I revisit multiple times a year.
- [49:51]
Elise Hu
Yeah. Okay. From Kat H. Is there a moment when your poetry gave you a revelation or offered you a revelation that frightened you?
- [50:03]
Sarah Kay
The poet and writer Hanif Abdurraqib has a story in one of his books where I think it's in. There's always this year where he talks about getting to meet a famous astronaut. And he got to ask one question. And his question was, when you were up there, were you scared? And his answer was, yes, of course, but never more than I was curious. And I think that that's really helpful as a guideline for me. Like, yeah, realizations and self realizations and discoveries about the world can be scary. And I am so curious about myself and the world that I live in and letting that curiosity take the Steering wheel, like fear can be in the car, but it doesn't get to drive.
- [50:57]
Elise Hu
Yeah. Okay. This is very TED question from Mariangela A. How will AI change the way we make poetry?
- [51:07]
Sarah Kay
I don't know. That's a predictive question that I. A prediction I won't make. But what I would say is it makes me sad when people delegate the parts of themselves that make them human to the non humans because it means you're robbing yourself of those opportunities to be as human as possible. And so, like, you know, when people are like, oh, you can just get the AI to write your wife a love letter, I guess. But do you think your wife wants, like, a well scripted AI written love letter? Or do you think your wife wants, like, you to be vulnerably stumbling through trying to find language for your feelings for her? You know, like, that's the human part. And to give it away robs you of that opportunity. So I think you could read AI poems, I guess. But I think when we read a poem written by a human, we feel their humanness through the language. And it is their mortality and it is their unique life and living that is only theirs that made that poem possible. That's what we're interested in and excited about, not predicting what words belong in what order.
- [52:33]
Elise Hu
Well, Sarah Kay, that brings us to the end of our time together. Thank you so much for this incredibly moving and soul nourishing conversation. Thank you. Thank you a million times over.
- [52:45]
Sarah Kay
Thank you, Elise, so much. Thank you to everybody at ted. Thank you.
- [52:48]
Elise Hu
Bye, y' all. That was Sarah K in conversation with me, Elise Hu, for the TED Talks Daily Book Club, hosted in partnership with our TED membership. Thank you to our wonderful TED members for joining our live virtual event. To watch the conversation on video, all you have to do is visit ted.com finally, if you want to be part of our next live book club event, please sign up for a ted membership@go.ted.com membership. You'll get live access to virtual podcast recording sessions and the chance to ask writers like Sarah your burning question. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced by Lucy Little and edited by Alejandra Salazar. The TED Talks Daily team includes Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Greene and Tanzika Sangmarnivong. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Balarezzo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feet. Thanks for listening. Hey, Kristen, how's it tracking with Carvana Value Tracker. What else? Oh, it's tracking, in fact. Value surge alert. Trucks up 2.5%. Vans down 1.7. Just as predicted. So we gonna. I don't know. Could sell, could hold the power to.
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Sarah Kay
Always know our car's worth.
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Elise Hu
Exhilarating, isn't it? Tracking Always know your car's worth with Carvana value tracker.
- [54:37]
Sarah Kay
Ready to order? Yes. We're earning unlimited 3% cash back on dining and entertainment with a Capital One Saver Card. So let's just get one of everything. Everything. Fire. Everything. The Capital One Saver card is at table 27, and they're earning unlimited 3% cash back.
- [54:52]
Elise Hu
Yes, chef.
- [54:54]
Sarah Kay
This is so nice. Had a feeling you'd want 3% cash back on dessert. Ooh, tiramisu. Earn unlimited 3% cash back on dining.
- [55:01]
Elise Hu
And entertainment with the capital One saver card.
- [55:04]
Sarah Kay
Capital One what's in your wallet?
- [55:05]
Elise Hu
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