1
00:00:03,833 --> 00:00:04,733
- We

2
00:00:05,733 --> 00:00:06,666
We

3
00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:09,600
We over...

4
00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:10,833
We are... 
We're...

5
00:00:10,833 --> 00:00:13,166
We overcome... 
We are...

6
00:00:13,166 --> 00:00:15,433
We are in whole 
wide, whole wide.

7
00:00:15,433 --> 00:00:18,333
We are deep in... 
We are deep, overcome

8
00:00:18,333 --> 00:00:21,100
There was all this debate 
about page versus stage

9
00:00:21,100 --> 00:00:26,200
and I was always thinking to 
myself, well, why can't...

10
00:00:27,333 --> 00:00:28,566
Why does it have to 
be one or the other?

11
00:00:28,566 --> 00:00:31,666
What happens if we turn 
the page into a stage?

12
00:00:31,666 --> 00:00:35,366
Someday, someday, some day...

13
00:00:35,366 --> 00:00:38,366
We, we are over... 
We are, we are...

14
00:00:38,366 --> 00:00:40,733
Is this what the wanted 
unwanted don't want.

15
00:00:40,733 --> 00:00:42,066
We are over... 
Some day...

16
00:00:42,066 --> 00:00:44,000
Oh, deep we are overcome...

17
00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:45,233
Aye! we are over...

18
00:00:45,233 --> 00:00:47,200
Someday, someday...

19
00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:49,666
Ain't, what? Someday, ain't...

20
00:00:49,666 --> 00:00:53,233
Any designed piece of 
text that you read,

21
00:00:53,233 --> 00:00:55,033
whether it looks 
conventional or not,

22
00:00:55,033 --> 00:00:58,700
is self-consciously sort 
of scoring something.

23
00:00:58,700 --> 00:01:00,066
It's telling you how to read it.

24
00:01:00,066 --> 00:01:02,666
All over... 
Someday, someday, someday...

25
00:01:02,666 --> 00:01:04,333
Walloped up into dream upended

26
00:01:04,333 --> 00:01:06,633
and marched into 
houndstooth of knit elbows

27
00:01:06,633 --> 00:01:08,833
or garden of a 
million clenched buds,

28
00:01:08,833 --> 00:01:11,000
the doubled vox redouble 
into synced redoubt

29
00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,833
and sinks into that 
old silencing rite.

30
00:01:13,833 --> 00:01:15,300
Shh, some... 
We are...

31
00:01:15,300 --> 00:01:17,433
Shh, what? Shh.

32
00:01:17,433 --> 00:01:18,766
I am, shh... 
(indistinct)

33
00:01:18,766 --> 00:01:20,466
I wanted to have the 
same sort of effect

34
00:01:20,466 --> 00:01:22,600
that I feel when I'm 
listening to a rap song

35
00:01:22,600 --> 00:01:25,133
that samples a vocal 
line underneath the rap

36
00:01:25,133 --> 00:01:26,633
that's being said,

37
00:01:26,633 --> 00:01:28,933
or like people talking me over 
each other at a barbershop.

38
00:01:28,933 --> 00:01:31,500
Black lives matter.

39
00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:35,633
So I wanted simultaneity.

40
00:01:35,633 --> 00:01:37,933
And so that led me 
to doing this work

41
00:01:37,933 --> 00:01:39,800
that I've been calling 
performative typography.

42
00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:41,500
Bow wow, shh, shh.

43
00:01:41,500 --> 00:01:44,133
I can't. Shh, shh.

44
00:01:45,766 --> 00:01:49,500
Hashtag Black Lives 
Stutter. Shh, shh, shh.

45
00:01:49,500 --> 00:01:51,900
What we want is to not 
be your what's unwanted,

46
00:01:51,900 --> 00:01:53,766
your whats or your un...

47
00:01:53,766 --> 00:01:56,000
We want what's 
what to be unyours.

48
00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:00,233
We want you to won't what your 
want to want. Shh, shh, shh.

49
00:02:00,233 --> 00:02:03,133
I can't. Shh, shh.

50
00:02:03,133 --> 00:02:05,466
Bow wow says the dog. Shh, shh.

51
00:02:05,466 --> 00:02:08,866
Day and night policeman 
work. Shh, shh.

52
00:02:08,866 --> 00:02:11,700
Fireman points the 
water. Shh, shh.

53
00:02:11,700 --> 00:02:13,400
Bow wow, says the... 
Bow wow, says the...

54
00:02:13,400 --> 00:02:18,500
Bow wow... 
Why won't you shh?

55
00:02:23,366 --> 00:02:25,866
(calm music)

56
00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:30,200
It was the summer 
of 2021, I think,

57
00:02:30,200 --> 00:02:33,633
that I received my 
diagnosis, you know,

58
00:02:33,633 --> 00:02:36,466
I got my papers for ADHD.

59
00:02:36,466 --> 00:02:39,233
At that point, I 
began to think about

60
00:02:39,233 --> 00:02:41,400
how so often in my work

61
00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:44,466
I was trying to break 
a sort of linearity.

62
00:02:44,466 --> 00:02:47,966
I was trying to work in a 
way that I would describe

63
00:02:47,966 --> 00:02:51,233
as almost kind of fractal, 
where if you tell somebody,

64
00:02:51,233 --> 00:02:53,366
you can read this poem 
any way you want to,

65
00:02:53,366 --> 00:02:55,133
but you're still 
basically saying,

66
00:02:55,133 --> 00:02:56,866
start at the left top corner

67
00:02:56,866 --> 00:02:58,733
and end of the 
bottom right corner,

68
00:02:58,733 --> 00:03:03,300
you're actually still having 
a normative reading, right?

69
00:03:03,300 --> 00:03:04,433
You've just sort 
of jazzed it up.

70
00:03:04,433 --> 00:03:06,033
And I wanted to create something

71
00:03:06,033 --> 00:03:09,400
that felt really like 
what I was believing

72
00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:13,066
and wanting readers to be 
able to experience in my work.

73
00:03:13,066 --> 00:03:17,266
That the stuff on the page 
looked and sounded closer

74
00:03:17,266 --> 00:03:19,966
to like how I think about it.

75
00:03:19,966 --> 00:03:22,966
Like layers, 
there's just layers.

76
00:03:22,966 --> 00:03:28,066
I mean, I was very interested 
in the way that text looks,

77
00:03:28,866 --> 00:03:30,600
the different sort of artifacts,

78
00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:32,266
different sort of 
rough edges there.

79
00:03:32,266 --> 00:03:35,200
And that's when I began 
using collage techniques.

80
00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:36,933
So writing these collage poems

81
00:03:36,933 --> 00:03:42,033
that allowed me to just 
literally take pieces of text,

82
00:03:43,133 --> 00:03:44,366
of images, things 
that I remembered,

83
00:03:44,366 --> 00:03:46,533
things from comic 
books, movie posters,

84
00:03:46,533 --> 00:03:47,933
and then overlap them

85
00:03:47,933 --> 00:03:51,366
in a way that reminds me 
of like a bathroom wall

86
00:03:51,366 --> 00:03:53,633
with graffiti on it, 
or a graffitied train

87
00:03:53,633 --> 00:03:56,600
or dense advertising spaces.

88
00:03:56,600 --> 00:03:58,266
That kind of simultaneity

89
00:03:59,466 --> 00:04:02,333
also feels more like 
how I take in the world.

90
00:04:03,166 --> 00:04:05,000
So making these poems this way

91
00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:09,600
is a way of saying 
this is still a poem.

92
00:04:10,533 --> 00:04:12,466
It doesn't and may not look like

93
00:04:12,466 --> 00:04:16,366
or be structured like 
someone else's poem,

94
00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:22,633
but if certain kinds of poems 
are reflecting a mind at work,

95
00:04:24,100 --> 00:04:29,166
that's my mind at work, these 
poems are my mind at work.

96
00:04:29,666 --> 00:04:31,800
(calm music)

97
00:04:37,766 --> 00:04:40,166
- [Announcer] This program 
was produced in collaboration

98
00:04:40,166 --> 00:04:41,933
with the Center for 
the Art of Medicine

99
00:04:41,933 --> 00:04:44,433
at the University of 
Minnesota Medical School.

100
00:04:44,433 --> 00:04:47,766
And funded by the Minnesota 
Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund

101
00:04:47,766 --> 00:04:49,600
and the citizens of Minnesota.

102
00:04:50,500 --> 00:04:53,100
(calm music)