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Poetry Centered
Poetry Centered
Nicole Sealey: Love’s Big Ideas
In our fiftieth episode, Nicole Sealey chooses poems that speak to the lasting power of big ideas offered generously to one’s community. She shares Toi Derricotte forecasting the spirit of Cave Canem (“I say hello, oracle, kind mother...”), Cornelius Eady responding to racism with defiant love (“Gratitude”), and Patricia Smith reminding us that poetry is a life-affirming art (“Building Nicole’s Mama”). Sealey closes with her piece “The First Person Who Will Live to Be One Hundred and Fifty Years Old Has Already Been Born,” a poem that measures time in the span of open arms.
Find the full recordings of Derricotte, Eady, and Smith reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:
Toi Derricotte (February 19, 1992)
Cornelius Eady (November 6, 1991)
Patricia Smith (November 10, 2004)
You can also enjoy a recording of Sealey reading at the Poetry Center in 2023 and participating in a virtual reading in 2021.
Participate in the 2025 #SealeyChallenge, a community challenge to read one book of poetry a day for the month of August. There's no official sign-up to participate and everyone is welcome to join in! Find reading ideas and other information here and use/find the hashtag #SealeyChallenge on your social channels to follow along and learn more.
Full transcripts of every episode are available on Buzzsprout. Look for the transcript tab under each episode.
Voca is now fully captioned, with interactive transcripts and captions available for all readings! Read more about the project here, or try out this new feature by visiting Voca.
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JULIE SWARSTAD JOHNSON:You're listening to Poetry Centered, the show that brings you archival recordings of poets reading from their work, selected and introduced for you by a contemporary poet. This podcast comes to you from the University of Arizona Poetry Center and from Voca, our online audiovisual archive. I'm Julie Swarstad Johnson, the Poetry Center's archivist. It is a delight to welcome you back to the show, especially because this is our 50th episode. Our first episode came out in July 2020, and we had no idea that we would still be making this podcast 5 years and 50 episodes later. We're still making this show because of you, dear listeners. We've had more than 29,000 downloads, and you've listened from every continent except Antarctica. We never stop being grateful that you're out there. Thank you so much for going on this adventure into the Voca archive with us. For this 50th episode, we are pleased to welcome poet Nicole Sealey as our host. Her most recent collection of poetry is The Ferguson Report-- An Erasure, and with John Murillo, she edited the recent anthology, Dear Yusef-- Essays, Letters, and Poems For and About One Mr. Komunyakaa. Her work has been widely recognized with honors and fellowships, and she's a former Executive Director of Cave Canem, which she'll allude to in this episode. Nicole is also the founder of the Sealey Challenge, a community challenge to read one book of poetry a day for the month of August. There's no official signup to participate, and everyone is welcome to join in. Nicole has entrusted the Sealey Challenge to the Poetry Center since 2023, and you can find more information, including book ideas to get you started, and ways to engage with other participants online by visiting the link in the show notes. We hope you'll join in and immerse yourself in poetry this August. In today's episode, Nicole follows seeds of inspiration, encouragement, and generosity to Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, and Patricia Smith. One of Nicole's selections has an unintended connection to her very first episode, hosted by Alison Hawthorne Deming. Both Alison and Nicole choose Cornelius Eady's "Gratitude," a poem that affirms love as the answer to discrimination and invites all voices into poetry's realm. It's a perfect callback for our episode today. Nicole, welcome. We're grateful to have you here as our guide.[MUSIC PLAYING]
NICOLE SEALEY:Good afternoon. This is Nicole Sealey, and I'm recording this in Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the Fine Arts Work Center. I've been thinking a lot lately about beginnings, how a single idea can lead to art, initiatives, institutions. The Fine Arts Work Center is almost 60 years old. The Poetry Center, which has cared for the Sealey Challenge, a community reading activity I started in 2017, will be 65 in November. Its poetry podcast, Poetry Centered, too, was once just an idea. This episode is its 50th. In celebration of big ideas, I'm excited to talk about three incredible poems by three of the most generous poets, Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, and Patricia Smith. The first recording I would like to share is Toi Derricotte reading, "I say hello, oracle, kind mother," on February 19, 1992. To my knowledge, this poem does not appear in any of her six poetry collections, including her New and Selected "I," published in 2019. In her introduction to the poem, Toi notes that she wrote it the day before her reading. How cruel of her to say. I joke, but she's caught lightning in a bottle with this poem. Reading a new poem to even the friendliest of audiences is an exercise in vulnerability as the poem itself is raw and therefore vulnerable. With new poems, especially, us poets must have an intimate understanding of our own creative intuition, deciding whether a poem has fully expressed itself or is holding back."I say hello, oracle, kind mother," despite its youth, does not hold back, and to my ear, sounds fully formed. Derricotte prefaces the poem with another, the title poem from her 1978 debut collection,"The empress of the death house." In this poem, the speaker figuratively nurses from her grandmother's breasts."I say hello, oracle, kind mother" similarly captures this kind of maternal care as it reflects on a statue of a native storyteller with its mouth open, as if imparting wisdom, holding babies also with open mouths, symbolizing the transmission of oral traditions across generations. I should mention that "I say hello, oracle, kind mother" is actually untitled, but for reference purposes, its opening line or lines, as I'm not sure how it was written on the page, functions as its title. The poem continues, you who have opened your mouth, who have allowed her babies to open their mouths. I interpret this as a commentary on the responsibility and influence of poets, as a gesture of gratitude for those who have advocated for or encouraged others, perhaps younger or underrepresented writers. It's fascinating to consider how "I say hello, oracle, kind mother" may have foreshadowed the birth of Cave Canem, as its themes mirror the organization's mission, fostering Black poets and cultivating a space for Black voices to thrive. Toi wrote this poem four years before Cave Canem's founding in 1996, suggesting that its creative insights possibly laid the groundwork for the groundbreaking initiative, proving that poems can sometimes serve as forecasts for what is to come. Let's listen to Toi Derricotte read "I say hello, oracle, kind mother."[MUSIC PLAYING][AUDIO PLAYBACK]
TOI DERRICOTTE:I read that in conjunction with a poem I wrote yesterday. I went to a little shop around here that sells some local art, and the woman told me the story of the storyteller, the Doll, or the-- do you know this statue? It's part of an Indian tradition. I'm sure you know loads more about this than I do. But anyway, one of the things I've been doing is collecting women portraits and statues to put around my desk. It started with a Crucian woman who was the-- someone sent me a picture in the mail of a Crucian woman, a very strong, dignified woman, probably about 70. And she's communicating her strength to me. Then somebody sent me Gertrude Stein at 26 years old, and I put Gertrude up there looking at me. She's a rather forbidding presence. And I found this storyteller. And if you see, she always has her mouth open and there are babies she's holding, and the babies all have their mouths open. And she's sitting very flat and the babies are hanging on to her. And I thought about how in my childhood, from a lot of places I was hearing, don't say it. Don't tell it. Be quiet. Don't say the truth. And I was thinking of sometimes how hard it is to peel back the layers and say what it is you need to say. Sometimes you have to go against the people you love, even, sometimes to say what you need to say. And so storyteller, I bought storyteller. I left the store and I said, I'll come back tomorrow, but then I came back and I got storyteller. And this is what I wrote last night. I say, hello, oracle, kind mother, you who have opened your mouth, who have allowed all of your babies to open their mouths. Storyteller of the buried, storyteller of the gods and goddesses, storyteller of the living Earth-grounded, but fixed flat to Earth. From Earth, the voices rise through your anus. You feel your legs vibrate. Your spine the rod of the universe that all the fruit must cling to, each arm a branch of stars. You look at us intensely. We are your mirror. Your words repeat what you hear in our hearts. The secrets under sleeping lids. Your children cling as to a roaring train, though you are still calm. They sense your movement. You will never be at this place again. The Earth falls naked, stripped to dirt mountains. Now we can listen to what we cannot yet hear.[END PLAYBACK][MUSIC PLAYING]
NICOLE SEALEY:The second recording I would like to share is Cornelius Eady reading "Gratitude" from his second poetry collection, The Gathering of My Name, on November 6, 1991. In the poem, the speaker reflects on coming into consciousness as a Black writer, and his responsibilities as such. His perspective highlights art as both a personal journey and a social service. The poem's speaker, a 36-year-old Black male American poet, meditates on the complexities of his success in relation to societal expectations. In the face of those who have doubted or diminished him and his successes, the speaker emphasizes the importance of living honestly and with gratitude. The poem reads, and to the famous poet who thinks literature holds no small musics, love. And to the publishers who believe in their marrow, there's no profit on the fringes, love. The answer for the speaker is always love. The answer for the author has always been love. Emphasizing that love and grace are some of the most powerful and enduring responses to anything. The poem continues, and to the bullies who need the musty air of the clubhouse all to themselves, I am a brick in a house that is being built around your house. Visually, the poem's lines are stacked one on top of the other, creating the appearance of a structure under construction. The house being built around the house is, I believe, Cave Canem. Like Toi's poem, Cornelius's "Gratitude" reads as a poetic precursor to the organization. The poem's close temporal proximity to the organization's beginnings suggests that it could have inspired or reflected the cultural and artistic momentum that led to Cave Canem. Additionally, "Gratitude" takes up the tradition of affirmation poetry, exemplified by Clifton's, "Won't you celebrate with me," and Komunyakaa's "Thanks," both of which embrace gratitude as a powerful act of self-affirmation. Here is Cornelius Eady reading "Gratitude."[MUSIC PLAYING][AUDIO PLAYBACK]
CORNELIUS EADY:This is from The Gathering of My Name, and these poems are, again, dealing with the idea of becoming more conscious of yourself as a Black writer, but also as the idea of-- I think, maybe more to the point might be the idea of the question between your responsibility as a poet to your community, or maybe even to-- another way of putting it is the idea of the responsibility of the social poet, which we don't seem to have that much of anymore. Or maybe if we do have this, it doesn't seem to be paid much attention to. So this first poem I'm about to read is about a lot of stuff. It's about the idea of your idea of identity. It's also about the way of, when you get to a certain point, being able to look back and see how other people look at you, but you weren't really paying attention to, luckily, because they weren't expecting much. And also the idea of saying thanks because you have to do that. It's necessary. This is called "Gratitude." I'm here to tell you an old story. This appears to be my work. I live in the world, walk the streets of New York, this dear city, I want to tell you, I'm 36 years old, I have lived in and against my blood. I want to tell you I am grateful because after all, I am a Black American poet. I'm 36, and no one has to tell me about luck. I mean, after a reading, someone asked me once, if you weren't doing this, what, if anything, would you be doing? And I didn't say what we both understood, I'm a Black American male. I own this particular story on this particular street at this particular moment. This appears to be my work. I'm 36 years old, and all I have to do is repeat what I notice over and over, all I have to do is remember. And to the famous poet who thinks literature holds no small musics, love. And to the publishers who believe in their marrow, that there is no profit on the fringes, love. And to those who need the promise of wind, the sound of branches stirring beneath the line, here's another environment poised to open. Everyone reminds me what an amazing odyssey I'm undertaking, as well they should. After all, I'm a Black American poet, and my greatest weakness is an inability to sustain rage. Who knows what will happen next? This appears to be one for the books. If you train your ears for what's unstated beneath the congratulations, that silence is my story. The pure celebration and shock of my face defying its gravity, so to speak. I claim this tiny glee, not just for myself, but for my parents who shook their heads. I'm older now than my father was when he had me, which is no big deal, except I have personal knowledge of the wind that tilts the head back. And I claim this loose-seed-in-the-air glee on behalf of the social studies teacher I had in the 10th grade, a real bastard who took me aside after class the afternoon he heard I was leaving for a private school just to let me know he expected me to drown out there. That I held the knowledge of the drowned man, the regret of ruined flesh in my eyes. Which was fair enough, except I believe I've been teaching far longer now than he had that day, and I know the blessing of a narrow escape. And I claim this rooster-pull-down-morning glee on behalf of anyone who saw me coming and said, yes, even when I was loud, cocky, insecure, even when all they could have seen was the promise of a germ, even when it meant yielding ground. I am a bit older than they were when I walked into that room or class or party, and I understand the value of the unstated push. A lucky man gets to sing his name. I have survived long enough to tell a bit of an old story. And to those who defend poetry against all foreign tongues, love. And to those who believe a dropped clause signifies encroachment, love. And to the bullies who need the musty air of the clubhouse all to themselves, I am a brick in a house that is being built around your house. I am 36 years old, a Black American poet. Nearly all the things that weren't supposed to occur has happened anyway, and I have a natural inability to sustain rage despite the evidence. I have proof and the job that comes as simple to me as breathing.[APPLAUSE][END PLAYBACK][MUSIC PLAYING]
NICOLE SEALEY:The final recording I would like to share is Patricia Smith reading "Building Nicole's Mama" on November 10, 2004. This opening poem from Smith's 2006 collection, Teahouse of the Almighty, functions as an ars poetica, considering poetry's purpose in our daily lives, questioning for whom poetry is intended, and what impact it can have."Building Nicole's Mama" argues that poetry is for everyone, while also emphasizing the poet's responsibility to make meaningful work that reveals challenges and/or consoles. The poem underscores that poetry is essential, and that it is an active force in our experience. Patricia skillfully employs dialogue in her poem to capture her students's voices, demonstrating her deep understanding and genuine connection with them. Her ability to see, hear, and know her students ensures they are portrayed as real individuals rather than caricatures, adding to the poem's emotional resonance and authenticity. Nicole asks the speaker, can you teach me to write a poem about my mama? With this request, the girl seeks a way to preserve her mother's memory, showing poetry's role as a vessel for personal history. The poem's title implies a focus on Nicole's mother, but its deeper message emphasizes the importance of poetry as a vital, life-affirming art, an instruction in how language can help process grief, celebrate love, and keep memories alive amidst loss. Now that the Nicole's of the world know that poets and poetry exist, we must all do right by them. Smith inscribed a copy of her collection Close to Death to me with the following message, I hope the voices here inspire you to raise your own."Building Nicole's Mama" offers that same advice, that same big idea to readers, if not to raise our voices for ourselves, at least, to raise them for little girls like Nicole. Ask anyone, Patricia Smith's influence on emerging poets, especially those from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, is profound. Her presence and mentorship have inspired many, including myself, to see themselves as legitimate poets. Here is Patricia Smith reading"Building Nicole's Mama."[MUSIC PLAYING][AUDIO PLAYBACK]
PATRICIA SMITH:We'll do a mixture. Thank you very much. That was wonderful. We'll do a mixture of some old stuff and some new stuff. God, you guys are intimidating.[LAUGHTER] I start all my readings out with the same poem. I used to teach residency to a group of sixth graders in Miami, and when I first came bounding in saying, well, I'm here to teach you poetry, I realized that the area I was in had a high incidence of drug use, so a lot of the kids had lost parents or siblings to AIDS. And there was a little girl in the class whose mother had just died the week before, and she was already back in school. So I do this poem because it reminds me of how powerful poetry is, how it can take you from one place in your head to a safer place, and this little girl who came up to me and asked me to teach her to write a poem about her mother so that she had something to remember. So this is dedicated to the sixth grade class at Lillie C. Evans Elementary School, Dade County, Miami, which they made me promise to say every time I did the poem, and they would know. I am astonished at their mouthful names, Lakinishia, Chevellanie, Delayo, Fumilayo, their ragged rebellions and lip-glossed pouts and all those pants drooped as drapery. I rejoice when they kiss my face, whisper wet and urgent in my ear, make me their obsession because I have brought them poetry. They shout me raw, bruise my wrists with their pulling, and brashly claim me as mama as they cradle my head in their little laps, waiting for new words to grow in my mouth. You. You. You. Angry, jubilant, weeping poets, we are all saviors, reluctant hosannas in the limelight, but you knew that, didn't you? So let us bless the sixth grade class, 40 cracking voices, 40 nappy heads, and all of them raise their hands when I ask. They have all seen the Reaper, grim and his heavy robe, pushing the button for the dead project elevator, begging for a break at the corner pawn shop, cackling wildly in the back pew of the Baptist church. I ask the death question, and 40 fists punch the air, me, me. And O'Neal, matchstick crack child, watched his mother's body become a claw. And 9-year-old Tiko Jefferson, barely big enough to lift the gun, fired a bullet into his throat when mama bended his back with a lead pipe. Tamika cried into a sofa pillow when daddy blasted mama into the north wall of their cluttered one-room apartment. Donya's cousin, gone in a drive-by. Dark window, click, click, gone, says Donya, her tiny finger a barrel, the thumb a hammer. I am astonished at their losses, and yet, when I read a poem about my own hard-eyed teenager, Jeffrey asks, is he dead yet? It cannot be comprehended, an 18-year-old still pushing and pulling his own breath. And 40 faces pity me knowing that I will soon be, as they are, numb to our bloody histories, favoring the Reaper with the thumbs up and a wink, hearing the question and shouting, me, me, Miss Smith, I know somebody dead. Can poetry hurt us, they ask me, before crawling into my words to sleep. I love you, Nicole says. Nicole, wearing my face, pimples peppering her nose, and she is as Black as angels are. Nicole's braids kissed with match flame to seal them, and can you teach me to write a poem about my mama, Miss Smith? I mean, you write about your daddy and he's dead. Can you teach me to remember my mama? A teacher tells me this is the first time Nicole has admitted that her mother is gone, murdered by slim silver needles and a stranger rifling through her blood, the virus pushing her skeleton through for Nicole to see. And now this child with rusty knees and mismatched shoes sees poetry as her scream and asks me for the words to build her mother again. Replacing the voice. Stitching on the lost flesh. So poets, as we take the stage, as we flirt and sin and rejoice behind microphones, remember Nicole. She knows that we are here now and she is an empty vessel waiting to be filled. And she is waiting. And she is waiting. And she waits.[APPLAUSE][END PLAYBACK][MUSIC PLAYING]
NICOLE SEALEY:Given all these references to maternal care, to love, to mentorship, I think I'll read a poem for my mother. It's called "The first person who will live to be one hundred and fifty years old has already been born." Scientists say the average human life gets three months longer every year. By this math, death will be optional, like a tie or dessert or suffering. My mother asks whether I'd want to live forever. I'd get bored, I tell her. But she says, there's so much to do. Meaning she believes there's much she hasn't done. 30 years ago, she was the age I am now, but unlike me, too industrious to think about birds disappeared by rain. If only we had more time or enough money to be kept on ice until such a time science could bring us back. Of late, my mother has begun to think life short-lived. I'm too young to convince her otherwise. The one and only occasion I was in the same room as the Mona Lisa, it was encased in glass behind what I imagine were velvet ropes. There's far less between ourselves and oblivion. Skin that often defeats its very purpose. Or maybe its purpose isn't protection at all, but rather to provide a place similar to a doctor's waiting room in which to sit until our names are called. Hold your questions until the end. Mother, measure my wide open arms. We still have this much time to kill.[MUSIC PLAYING]
JULIE SWARSTAD JOHNSON:You've been listening to Nicole Sealey, and this is Poetry Centered. Nicole, thank you so much for sharing this encouraging vision of poets work in the world with us. Listeners, thank you for the encouragement of your listening. You are why we make this show. This is the first in a new series of episodes, and we hope you'll join us over the next few months as new episodes are released every two weeks. Look forward to upcoming episodes hosted by Harmony Holiday, Samuel Ace, Leila Chatti, and Dawn Lundy Martin. Until then, enjoy our back catalog of episodes, maybe even in Antarctica, and explore Voca on your own. We'll see you next time.
ARIA PAHARI:Poetry Centered is a project of the University of Arizona Poetry Center, home to a world-class library collection of more than 80,000 items related to contemporary poetry in English and English translation. Located on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson, the Poetry Center library and buildings are housed on the Indigenous homelands of the Tohono O'odham and Pascua Yaqui. Poetry Centered is the work of Aria Pahari, that's me, and Julie Swarstad Johnson. Explore Voca, the Poetry Center's audio visual archive online at voca.arizona.edu.[MUSIC PLAYING]