if i should have a daughter, instead of "mom," she's going to call me "point b," because that way she knowsthat no matter what happens, at least she can always findher way to me. and i'm going to paint solar systemson the backs of her hands so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, "oh, i know thatlike the back of my hand." and she's going to learn
that this life will hit youhard in the face, wait for you to get back up justso 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 fixedby band-aids or poetry. so the first time she realizesthat wonder woman isn't coming, i'll make sure she knows
she doesn't have to wearthe cape all by herself, because no matter how wideyou 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 upin 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 trailback to a burning house, so you can find the boywho lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. or else find the boy who litthe fire in the first place, to see if you can change him. but i know she will anyway, so instead i'll always keepan extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby, because there is no heartbreakthat chocolate can't fix.
okay, there's a fewthat chocolate can't fix. but that's what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash awayeverything, if you let it. i want her to look at the world through the undersideof a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, because that's the way my mom taught me.
that there'll be days like this. (singing) there'll be dayslike this, my momma said. when you open your hands to catch and wind up with onlyblisters and bruises; when you step out of the phonebooth 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 kneesin disappointment.
and those are the very days you haveall the more reason to say thank you. because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refusesto stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away. you will put the windin win some, lose some. you will put the starin starting over, and over. and no matter how many landmines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of thisfunny place called life.
and yes, on a scalefrom one to over-trusting, i am pretty damn naive. but i want her to knowthat this world is made out of sugar. it can crumble so easily, but don't be afraid to stickyour tongue out and taste it. "baby," i'll tell her, "remember,your momma is a worrier, and your poppa is a warrior, and you are the girlwith small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more."
remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things. always apologize whenyou've done something wrong, but don't you ever apologize for the way your eyesrefuse to stop shining. your voice is small,but don't ever stop singing. and when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip warand hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street-corners
of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they reallyought to meet your mother. (applause) thank you. thank you. thank you. thanks. all right, so i want you to take a moment, and i want you to think of three thingsthat you know to be true. they can be about whatever you want --
technology, entertainment, design, your family, what you had for breakfast. the only rule is don't think too hard. okay, ready? go. okay. so here are three thingsi know to be true. i know that jean-luc godardwas right when he said that, "a good story has a beginning,a middle and an end, although not necessarily in that order."
i know that i'm incredibly nervousand excited to be up here, which is greatly inhibitingmy ability to keep it cool. (laughter) and i know that i have been waitingall week to tell this joke. why was the scarecrow invited to ted? because he was out standing in his field. i'm sorry. okay, so these are three thingsi know to be true.
but there are plenty of thingsi have trouble understanding. so i write poems to figure things out. sometimes the only way i knowhow to work through something is by writing a poem. sometimes i get to the end of the poem, look back and go,"oh, that's what this is all about," and sometimes i get to the end of the poem and haven't solved anything, but at least i have a new poem out of it.
spoken-word poetry is the artof performance poetry. i tell people it involves creating poetry that doesn't just want to sit on paper, that something about itdemands it be heard out loud or witnessed in person. when i was a freshman in high school, i was a live wire of nervous hormones. and i was underdevelopedand over-excitable. and despite my fear
of ever being looked at for too long, i was fascinated by the ideaof spoken-word poetry. i felt that my two secret loves,poetry and theater, had come together, had a baby, a baby i needed to get to know. so i decided to give it a try. my first spoken-word poem, packed with all the wisdomof a 14-year-old, was about the injustice
of being seen as unfeminine. the poem was very indignant, and mainly exaggerated, but the only spoken-word poetrythat i had seen up until that point was mainly indignant, so i thoughtthat's what was expected of me. the first time that i performed, the audience of teenagers hootedand hollered their sympathy, and when i came off the stage,i was shaking.
i felt this tap on my shoulder, and i turned around to see this giant girl in a hoodiesweatshirt emerge from the crowd. she was maybe eight feet tall and looked like she couldbeat me up with one hand, but instead she just noddedat me and said, "hey, i really felt that. thanks." and lightning struck. i was hooked.
i discovered this baron manhattan's lower east side that hosted a weekly poetry open mic, and my bewildered,but supportive, parents took me to soak in every ounceof spoken word that i could. i was the youngest by at least a decade, but somehow the poetsat the bowery poetry club didn't seem botheredby the 14-year-old wandering about. in fact, they welcomed me. and it was here, listening to these poetsshare their stories,
that i learned that spoken-wordpoetry didn't have to be indignant, it could be fun or painful or serious or silly. the bowery poetry club becamemy classroom and my home, and the poets who performed encouraged me to share my stories as well. never mind the fact that i was 14. they told me, "write about being 14." so i did and stood amazed every week
when these brilliant, grown-up poets laughed with me and groaned their sympathy and clapped and told me,"hey, i really felt that too." now i can divide my spoken-word journey into three steps. step one was the moment i said, "i can. i can do this." and that was thanks to a girl in a hoodie. step two was the moment i said,
"i will. i will continue. i love spoken word. i will keepcoming back week after week." and step three began when i realized i didn't haveto write indignant poems, if that's not what i was. there were thingsthat were specific to me, and the more that i focusedon those things, the weirder my poetry got, but the more that it felt like mine.
it's not just the adage"write what you know." it's about gathering upall of the knowledge and experience you've collected up to now to help you dive into the thingsyou don't know. i use poetry to help me workthrough what i don't understand, but i show up to each new poem with a backpack fullof everywhere else that i've been. when i got to university,i met a fellow poet who shared my belief in the magicof spoken-word poetry.
and actually, phil kaye and i coincidentally also sharethe same last name. when i was in high school i hadcreated project v.o.i.c.e. as a way to encourage my friendsto do spoken word with me. but phil and i decided to reinventproject v.o.i.c.e., this time changing the mission to using spoken-word poetryas a way to entertain, educate and inspire. we stayed full-time students,but in between we traveled,
performing and teaching nine-year-olds to mfa candidates, from california to indiana to india to a public high schooljust up the street from campus. and we saw over and over the way that spoken-word poetry cracks open locks. but it turns out sometimes,poetry can be really scary. turns out sometimes,
you have to trick teenagersinto writing poetry. so i came up with lists.everyone can write lists. and the first list that i assign is "10 things i know to be true." and here's what happens,you would discover it too if we all started sharingour lists out loud. at a certain point, you would realizethat someone has the exact same thing, or one thing very similar, to something on your list.
and then someone else has something the completeopposite of yours. third, someone has somethingyou've never even heard of before. fourth, someone has somethingyou thought you knew everything about, but they're introducinga new angle of looking at it. and i tell people that this iswhere great stories start from -- these four intersections of what you're passionate about and what others might be invested in.
and most people respondreally well to this exercise. but one of my students,a freshman named charlotte, was not convinced. charlotte was very good at writing lists,but she refused to write any poems. "miss," she'd say,"i'm just not interesting. i don't have anything interesting to say." so i assigned her list after list, and one day i assigned the list "10 things i should have learned by now."
number three on charlotte's list was, "i should have learnednot to crush on guys three times my age." i asked her what that meant, and she said, "miss,it's kind of a long story." and i said, "charlotte, it soundspretty interesting to me." and so she wrote her first poem, a love poem unlike anyi had ever heard before. and the poem began,
"anderson cooper is a gorgeous man." "did you see him on 60 minutes, racing michael phelps in a pool -- nothing but swim trunks on -- diving in the water, determinedto beat this swimming champion? after the race, he tossedhis wet, cloud-white hair and said, 'you're a god.' no, anderson, you're the god." now, i know that the number onerule to being cool
is to seem unfazed, to never admit that anything scares you or impresses you or excites you. somebody once told me it's like walking through life like this. you protect yourself from all the unexpected miseriesor hurt that might show up. but i try to walk through life like this. and yes, that means catchingall of those miseries and hurt,
but it also meansthat when beautiful, amazing things just fall out of the sky, i'm ready to catch them. i use spoken word to help my students rediscover wonder, to fight their instinctsto be cool and unfazed and, instead, actively pursue beingengaged with what goes on around them, so that they can reinterpretand create something from it. it's not that i thinkthat spoken-word poetry
is the ideal art form. i'm always trying to findthe best way to tell each story. i write musicals; i make short filmsalongside my poems. but i teach spoken-word poetry because it's accessible. not everyone can read musicor owns a camera, but everyone can communicate in some way, and everyone has storiesthat the rest of us can learn from. plus, spoken-word poetry allowsfor immediate connection.
it's not uncommonto feel like you're alone or that nobody understands you, but spoken word teaches that if you have the abilityto express yourself and the courage to presentthose stories and opinions, you could be rewarded with a room full of your peers, or your community, who will listen. and maybe even a giant girl in a hoodie
who will connect with what you've shared. and that is an amazingrealization to have, especially when you're 14. plus, now with youtube, that connection's not even limitedto the room we're in. i'm so lucky that there'sthis archive of performances that i can share with my students. it allows for even more opportunities for them to find a poet or a poemthat they connect to.
once you've figured this out, it is tempting to keepwriting the same poem, or keep telling the same story,over and over, once you've figured outthat it will gain you applause. it's not enough to just teachthat you can express yourself. you have to grow and explore and take risks and challenge yourself. and that is step three: infusing the work you're doing
with the specific thingsthat make you you, even while those thingsare always changing. because step three never ends. but you don't get to start on step three, until you take step one first: "i can." i travel a lot while i'm teaching, and i don't always get to watchall of my students reach their step three, but i was very lucky with charlotte,
that i got to watch her journeyunfold the way it did. i watched her realize that, by putting the things that she knowsto be true into the work she's doing, she can create poemsthat only charlotte can write, about eyeballs and elevatorsand dora the explorer. and i'm trying to tellstories only i can tell -- like this story. i spent a lot of time thinkingabout the best way to tell this story, and i wondered if the best way
was going to bea powerpoint, a short film -- and where exactly was the beginning,the middle or the end? i wondered whether i'd getto the end of this talk and finally havefigured it all out, or not. and i always thought that my beginningwas at the bowery poetry club, but it's possiblethat it was much earlier. in preparing for ted, i discovered this diary pagein an old journal. i think december 54thwas probably supposed to be 24th.
it's clear that when i was a child, i definitely walkedthrough life like this. i think that we all did. i would like to help othersrediscover that wonder -- to want to engage with it,to want to learn, to want to share what they've learned, what they've figured out to be true and what they're still figuring out. so i'd like to close with this poem.
when they bombed hiroshima, the explosion formed a mini-supernova, so every living animal, human or plant that received direct contactwith the rays from that sun was instantly turned to ash. and what was leftof the city soon followed. the long-lasting damageof nuclear radiation caused an entire city and its population to turn into powder.
when i was born, my mom saysi looked around the whole hospital room with a stare that said,"this? i've done this before." she says i have old eyes. when my grandpa genji died,i was only five years old, but i took my momby the hand and told her, "don't worry, he'll come back as a baby." and yet, for someonewho's apparently done this already, i still haven't figured anything out yet. my knees still buckleevery time i get on a stage.
my self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons mixed into my poetry, and it still alwaystastes funny in my mouth. but in hiroshima, some peoplewere wiped clean away, leaving only a wristwatch or a diary page. so no matter that i have inhibitionsto fill all my pockets, i keep trying, hoping that one day i'll write a poem i can be proud to let sitin a museum exhibit
as the only proof i existed. my parents named me sarah,which is a biblical name. in the original story, god told sarahshe could do something impossible, and -- she laughed, because the first sarah, she didn't know what to dowith impossible. and me? well, neither do i, but i see the impossible every day.
impossible is tryingto connect in this world, trying to hold onto others while thingsare blowing up around you, knowing that while you're speaking, they aren't just waiting for their turnto talk -- they hear you. they feel exactly what you feel at the same time that you feel it. it's what i strive for every timei open my mouth -- that impossible connection. there's this piece of wall in hiroshima
that was completely burntblack by the radiation. but on the front step,a person who was sitting there blocked the rays from hitting the stone. the only thing left now is a permanent shadow of positive light. after the a-bomb, specialists said it would take 75 years for the radiation-damagedsoil of hiroshima city to ever grow anything again.
but that spring, there werenew buds popping up from the earth. when i meet you, in that moment, i'm no longer a part of your future. i start quickly becomingpart of your past. but in that instant,i get to share your present. and you, you get to share mine. and that is the greatest present of all. so if you tell mei can do the impossible -- i'll probably laugh at you.
i don't know if i can changethe world yet, because i don't know that much about it -- and i don't know that muchabout reincarnation either, but if you make me laugh hard enough, sometimes i forget what century i'm in. this isn't my first time here.this isn't my last time here. these aren't the last words i'll share. but just in case, i'm trying my hardest to get it right this time around.
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