The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Tongo Eisen-Martin and Sonia Sanchez in Conversation

(If you notice a mistake in the transcript, please let us know by emailing [email protected].)

Sonia Sanchez: Imagine her words, every great dream begins with a dreamer.

Fred Sasaki: Welcome to the Poetry Magazine Podcast, I'm Fred Sasaki, the magazine's Art Director and Co-Editor. On today's show, I am honored to introduce Tongo Eisen-Martin in conversation with activist, icon, legend, Sonia Sanchez.

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Would you bless us?

Sonia Sanchez: OK, I could.

Fred Sasaki: Eisen-Martin is featured in the December 2020 issue of Poetry as part of a portfolio of work from the book Carving Out Rights from Inside the Prison Industrial Complex, which will be out next month. Both Eisen-Martin and Sanchez appear in the book alongside artists incarcerated at Statesville Prison. Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker, and educator whose curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people called We Charge Genocide Again has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. Claudia Rankine called his poetry resistance as sound, which links him right back to Sanchez. You'll notice some connectivity issues in our sound, but the spirit is all there. Now, here are Tongo Eisen-Martin and her greatness, Sonia Sanchez.

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Your mind seems to just facilitate so much history, so much information at the same time, you know, kind of just in tune with all of the possibilities of languages. It's almost like you're at the intersection of a few avalanches. And I just wondered, how do you experience really almost how do you experience reality, how you experience history? What is that vision like?

Sonia Sanchez: With [Inaudible] history? You're saying?

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Yes, ma'am.

Sonia Sanchez: It's almost hard to experience reality in in America sometimes, but I'm eighty six, my dear brother and I was born in Birmingham, Alabama, which meant simply that there was some things that were very real about born in Alabama. But one of the things that happened when my sister and I, Pat and I went outside to play there was across this big street houses where white folks live and some of the little white kids would come out and they could cross the street. We couldn't cross the street. My grandmother would not let us go across the street and they'd come over and we play for a while and then they would go back home. And one day I came outside, my sister and I came outside and we said, come on, come on over. They shook their head. It was like, come on, come on over. You know, you could cross the street. We can't. And they shook their head. And then I think I said, my sister said, Why? They said because you a [racial slur], you know? So my sister and I went in the house. I said to Mama, what is a [racial slur]? You know, we never heard the word. And she said, Oh, Sonia and Pat, that's what they they say they call us. They say, we know we are a [racial slur]. But the way she said it it was a terrible thing. She had tears in her eyes. We didn't have tears in our eyes because we had no concept of, at that time, of what [racial slur] meant. What's interesting about that is that I can remember that after all those years, very clearly, every bit and you know, my brother, I always carry that with me. But I also remember, you know, when we got to New York City, my dad, who was a former school teacher and one of the first Black musicians of playing jazz in Birmingham, Alabama. I remember my father taking Pat and me to school and the principal telling us that we would have to be put back because we came from the south and my father had been a school teacher, very mild man, got very excited and said, no, they know as much as these kids test them and we were tested. And sure enough, we did know enough that we were put in advanced classes. And that was the first time I saw my father get angry at a white person because he never got angry at white folks, you know? And so all of this herstory, history was traveling with me. I got to a place called The Schonberg with miss Jean Hudson.

Sonia Sanchez: I had asked an ad in The New York Times to be a writer for a firm, they sent me a telegram. My dear brother, do you know what a telegram is? Are you old enough to know what a telegram is?

Tongo Eisen-Martin: I came at the tail end of the telegram era.

Sonia Sanchez: At the tip? Well, you mentioned it to other people. They said, telegram. What's a telegram for Sanchez? And you explain. They go: whoa, a telegram. Oh, it came on a Saturday it said report to work. And I reported in my blue suit, my blue hat, my blue pumps, my blue purse and my white gloves downtown. There I was at eight thirty. They said come at night. But I figured I would not come late. I would be there before time. And she let me in and she said, yes, can I help you? And I took out the telegram and she looked at the telegram and she looked at me. She looked back at the telegram. She looked up at me again. She looked back at the telegram for third time. She looked up at me with such a puzzled look on her face, handed it back to me, said, come in and sit down. And I sit down at a [Inaudible] a guy came from behind a door and he says, Yes, can I help you? And I handed him the telegram and a strange thing happened. He looked at the telegram. He looked at me, he looked at the telegram. He looked at me. He looked back at the telegram. He looked at me, handed it to me. Says i'm so the job is taken. And I said, coming from New York City, Oh, I got it. I came too soon. I know what I'll do. I'll go outside the door. I waited to nine o'clock, then I'll come back and things will be OK. He didn't laugh he didn't smile. He said "I'm sorry. The job is taken. That's all I have to say." And he disappears. I turned around and said "discrimination" and nobody answered at that time. I walked out and I got on the subway. I was just bemoaning what had happened. I forgot to get off at Ninety Fifth Street and I ended up on the east side getting off at one thirty fifth street. There was a sign that said Schaumburg Library, my dear brother, a guy was outside smoking [Inaudible] cigarette. I said, Excuse me sir, what is the Schaumburg library now. And he said, Lady, go inside, sign-in, walk up the steps and you see a big hole go inside, you'll see a glass door knock on that door. And I walked in. There was this long, long table and there were nothing but Black men sitting there with stacks of books head down. And I crossed around them, knocked on the door and the door opened. Miss Hudson said, "Yes, my dear, can I help you?" I said, What is the Schomburg? She's Oh, my dear. The Schomburg is a library that has books only by and about Negroes. And I said with my fresh mouth, as usual, there must not be many books in here, huh? [Laughs] But she sat me down and that was my education. She brought me three books Up from Slavery, Souls of Black Folk, and Their Eyes Were Watching God. Eyes Were Watching God was on top. And I started reading that. And you know that Black language is not slang. I couldn't quite get it at first. I had to go over it again, although we spoke the Black language ourselves, but we hadn't seen it written down. And I got up and knocked on the door. I said, how could I be an educated woman and never seen this books? Oh, my dear, go sit down and I'm going to give you plenty of books. And I sit down and as I started to read more, I put my head down and I cried. And I eased up again and I knocked on the door again, I said, no, no, no, no, no. How could I not come across this book or those other books you have piled up? Still, don't worry, I'm going to give you lots of books. And I sat down. This man from Africa said Miss Hudson make this young girl sit down or she has to leave. And I sat down with that herstory and history for the whole summer. I told my dad I'm going out looking for a job and where I went to was the Schomburg and she fed me book after book. And I cried and I got up and I went out and ate and came back and I read and read and read. And then she sent me to Mr. Michaud, who owned this bookstore full of Black books and a brother by the name Brother Richard, a Leptis out of the Caribbean. And he also gave me a bag of books, whatever, and my education began. So, yeah, I didn't know a bloody thing about what it was being Black. Because your parents didn't tell you because they were ashamed, I guess, about our Blackness or they were scared to tell you they didn't know what would happen when they told you. And there I was in the Schomburg reading, reading and Ms. Hudson, Jean Hudson had given me the world from a Black point of view, had given me DuBois whom I would meet years later [Inaudible] grabbed me by the hand and hugged me and said, Thank you, Sister Sonia, for being on this earth and your writing. And I cried out loud because of this.

Sonia Sanchez: I hope that wasn't too long.

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Naw, it was, it was cosmic.

Sonia Sanchez: Henry Carol, Amealia Hollis, Ellis, Emily, Emily Harless, Stewart, unidentified twin girl, and Marie Stewart, Margaret Stewart, unidentified. Twin Girl. Unidentified, unidentified. Unidentified. Unidentified. Unidentified.

"Haiku and Tanka for Harriet Tubman"

[READS AN EXCERPT FROM “HAIKU AND TANKA FOR HARRIET TUBMAN”]

Tongo Eisen-Martin: I was just wondering, you know, so it seems like, you know, spirit was tied in from from the jump, how did poetry kind of enter that dance or was it always there? How did that you know, it seems like a conversation going on between a few things. I wonder how poetry contributed to it?

Sonia Sanchez: Right. My grandmother was a head deaconess in our church in Alabama, so my sister and I went to Sunday school, the regular church, and then we'd come home and eat then go back for the evening. I always picked up the books around the house and Mama finally said to my aunties who lived with us, teach this girl how to read. She keeps bothering me. And so I would pick up books and begin the reading process. But a strange thing happened. I was told later on by my aunties that I start asking for paper and I started to write these little ditties, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And one of them picked it up and showed it to Mom and said she writes poetry and everyone went around and got, oh, she writes poetry. And what was interesting about that is that I was known as the child who went outside and got dirty and came back in with clothes torn. I had a sister. My dear brother was so beautiful that people would come to the house and a mouse would drop. You know, when I was young, I would say, oh, why are they always talking to her? They're not talking to me. So I had something that Mama helped give me, that I had a place also in the family. My sister Patricia, you know that I will write a haiku for after her death, I said, you know, it is hard being a beautiful girl, especially if you have no protection because people want to touch beauty. Always, always. But no one wanted to touch me because after Mama died, I began to stutter. You know, I would go, what...to, but it protected me. No one bothered me. People used to say give her a book and she'll be okay [laughs]. My dear brother, I was a dreamer. You know, I would go into my room and I would daydream, and I always dreamed, quiet as it's kept, about two things: I dreamed about being on stages. Can you imagine saying something? I saw me. I saw the image right. And I heard applause, you know, and I would dream about that. I didn't know what it was I was doing. I didn't even know. I didn't see a book in my hand, whatever. But I was walking on stage, you know. But I also heard music and voices, which I never used to talk about because people think it was strange. Right. But there was always that voice of mama and that voice also. I would dream of the people from the past, like always, that herstory and history walking with me that I knew was posited in Africa. Right. I knew at some particular point that I thought this was my mother. I finally said my mother who had died. Right. But this is my mother and my mother and my mother and my mother and my mother. This is my historical mother there. And that was important to me. The thing about Harriet Tubman when I did the Harriet Tubman Haiku, you know, the haiku is such a magical form. When I started to write this thing, I written I read a lot of things about Harriet Tubman, you know, and some of the things written about her. I had never written anything about her, but all of a sudden via the haiku, I could see her emotion in her movement. I could hear her breath being breathe. I could hear her turning around, saying to someone, keep that child quiet, give her something. Otherwise I'll have to quiet her in my own way. Woo, you know, and I said, how could she say it like that? But, you know, she's saying, like, we're on a train and this train cannot stop. It's a freedom train, whatever. And if you can't quiet that child, you know, whatever, you know, I can't leave you behind. There's some danger attached to that. So, girl, woman, you need to quiet that child down because this is a train towards freedom. And that freedom means that we have to stay in sync with each other, you know? And so I start being romantic about these people. There's no romance about freedom, you know what I mean? There's no romance about traveling with children. The reality is that quiet child down! Put something in her mouth, put a sugar, put her breasts in the mouth, quiet child we're on the move. We're on the move for freedom. She cannot scream. She cannot cry. You cannot cry. You cannot moan when she bites that breast when you're moving. This is a freedom train and we got you on here. If you get off, you're not going to be alive. Probably when you get off. Come on. Keep on on this freedom train. And I also manage things that I had about being enslaved, about people escaping. Whoa. Disappeared, you know, at all. And I understood what it is that I cannot walk with a romantic idea about us being, you know, free in America, getting the kind of freedom that we all need. Black, white, brown, all of us, you know, Latinos, you know, Asians. This is a hot fight. No romanticism is allowed here because I wrote a poem about Harriet Tubman who said, you gone get off my freedom train, but it won't be a happy way getting off. And I'm saying all of us have got to look at it in this fashion. It's not an easy thing that we do. I hope that makes sense.

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Plenty. Have you ever dealt with a low tide?

Sonia Sanchez: [Inaudible]

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Oh, my bad. My bad. [Laughs].

Sonia Sanchez: A low tide of what? What do you mean?

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Nah I got you. I'll get to the question when I do the poem and then I'll hit you with the question.

Sonia Sanchez: OK, thank you. Love to hear you.

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Right on.

[Reads poem]

Sonia Sanchez: I'm going to say a woman [laughs], a man, a man, a woman. Thank you. Thank you. I tell you, it is something to hear you younger poets, you know, and one of the things that you always worry about is to make sure that people continue this great legacy called Black poetry and the joy of my generation. We came along, you know, with people like Baraka and Haki and Alice and Audrey and June Jordan, you know, all these people coming along with us, you know, saying, you know, like, I'm talking for myself. I'm not I'm not looking through the prism of America. Like, you know, I jumped to the front. I ain't at the back, you know, trying to figure out who I am and what I am, because we came out and say I is like that little girl that I is here, you know? Well, we said I is here. You know, and we ain't going away and I hear it in your young people, you know, here's my words. Here's my energy. Here is my love for myself. But also here is my anger that you got to deal with it eventually because I've dealt with it, although I'm writing about it. But here it is. Here it be. You end up you know, I be here. You gone have to deal with the family at some point. You know, the whole bloody country has got to deal with it finally, you know. So I thank you for your love, you know, and the influence always from hip hop, you know, that that when we when Baraka and I went out, Baraka and I, they [inaudible] the Black Student Union to read an afternoon. We fed people to bring people in. And so they got up and read and, you know, we read fast. You know what I mean? I'm hearing you read fast and I'm smiling. But, you know, and we knew we were bad because we're from New York, you know, or New Jersey or back east. And a hand went up and said, would you mind reading those poems again because you went so fast? We didn't quite understand that. And I looked at Baraka and went woah. And I remember whenever I went beyond a certain point, out west I would slow down my reading. Isn't that something? But what hip hop did...

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Spit everything out.

Sonia Sanchez: Everything like, you know, and what so many younger poet began to do is that they went [inaudible] they did, what we did, whatever. And by the time you got back out, people's ears were tuned to that fast paced whatever. And don't forget them. That was in nineteen sixty something. OK, all right. But you and I know today there is a tune to it, right. I mean, I mean remember brother Rakim?

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Mhmm.

Sonia Sanchez: I love brother Rakim. A basic training train for torture. Take no prisoners and I just caught you addicted to murder sent in more body bags. They can't identify him. Leave the name tags. I get a rush when I see blood, dead bodies on the floor, casualties of war every morning, you know. Nineteen ninety. I had to hear that. Casualties of war that we were dealing with. You know, they showed us body bags and you know, at some point when Rakim and other people begin to talk about it, they don't ever show body bags anymore. They don't ever show casualties of war. They talk about it because they understand if they say a thousand people were killed a day or fifty thousand were killed today, people can't comprehend that. But we saw the body bags being lifted off planes and Rah and company could see that also, too. But you come out of the [inaudible] of Baraka and all of us from the sixties. My dear brother, you know, trying to say things in a way that people truly understand. You also come out of tradition of the Harlem Renaissance that people want to forget. I did a reading in the village many years ago and someone brought me over to a table and they were these IRA people. And they both stood up and they said, we've never I do a litany of names and some of the names I did was some of the IRA men, some who were in prison, who were on a fast and one who died. And they said they never heard of a Black person say anything about their movement. And I said, au contraire. I said, my dear brothers, I said, the Harlem Renaissance poet are Langston Hughes and others, like, went over to Ireland and they sent money for that freedom fight. Wherever there is a fight for freedom, you're going to see some Black folks supporting it. And I remember hugging and they were the two men had tears in their eyes because they had heard their names put with people like DuBois, you know, and Langston Hughes. And at that time Leroi Jones, you know, people who were moving, trying to say that this is what we do, and world that we are talking about when we talk about our freedom, we're talking about freedom for everybody else who who are enslaved economically, their countries are being settled by Englishmen, you know what I mean? This is what we do. And so when I hear you, and I hear your words, I smile, and my stomach smiles and my womb smiles and my toe jam smiles, you know, on my hands smile, you know, and my eyes smile. I said they're there. That they heard they heard the words before. They're there. Listen to them. That is the joy that I feel when I hear you younger poets read, yeah.

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Right on. Well, please, please, please give us another one.

Sonia Sanchez: OK, let me see. I talked about the haiku so maybe I should do a haiku from a book called Morning Haiku. This is for the great Max Roach, a dear friend of our family. Max is buried up in Woodlawn Cemetery. There's a musician's row in that cemetery where brother Duke Ellington and Miles Davis and [inaudible] and up on the hill is Celia Cruz and her husband. They're in a big crypt someplace, whatever. And an aside, Miles Davis said, “I want to be buried there. I want to be buried right next to the great Duke Ellington.” And someone said, “That's impossible, man.” But but, you know, even in death, Miles was cool. He's right there [laughs] "10 Haiku for Max Roach."

[Reads haiku]

Tongo Eisen-Martin:

[Reads poem]

When a when a drummer is present. They are God. I am not an I. I'm a Black commons. I'm writing my new tattoo out on bus station glass, making tattoos all afternoon, trying to talk myself into seeing the decade through, I must really be the devil's front man staring at an empty bus that I imagine, in fact, carries paintings of people. And a man drunk behind the wheel has to choose between a Black and white toddler after school in America on a California street that doesn't need a name, nor a California. No one on the street has a job and therefore no one is there. I colored my pressure’s gun and dance floor for him in the same day, the joke began. The walk on the bus, which is fine by me as long as I get to the front. The joke concluded in Tuesday's Rotten Soup of Downhill Entertainment, a commotion in the ashtray the day that jail quotas get filled to the day that the planet place flat. And maybe a capitalist set stadium seats on fire, calls it economic progress a communist got plenty of time to finish their cigarette and lie to their boss. A killer lying down in front of a tank out of a small statue built in my chest and also an anchor upside down in the air worried about the walls. I forgot that the ceiling was closing in on me too. That's my take on my alcoholism. I'm hunched over a meal I ate five years ago. That's my take on the look on my face. A curse got a little and took another step up the staircase. And for a second I forgot all occupants of the world, beginning with this house. I'm an action hero of one street proportion. I mean rap music is the way to count blessings. The 80s were better than his fiction. I have a piece of fence [inaudible] through my skull. I'll be half-eaten my entire life, always walking beside myself with a gun in my head and another one pointed at passersby. And it's like half a me, all of you walking in and out of myself. But aye I'm always happy to see what a miraculous route you took through my threat. Honest, pay a knife in my arm, honest pay in my chest, a broken lock on a monument, you know, tell you the truth. I forget what my hands look like what I did with them, or what kind of third eye, what kind of third eye the handcuffs cut into my wrist. I go to the railroad tracks and follow them to the station of my enemies. A cobalt tube man pitches, pennies that my mugshot negative all over the United States. They're toddlers in Iraq. And I say why everyone out here gotten the big cosmic basket and why blood agreements mean a lot. And why I get shot back at? I understand the psycho spiritual refusal to write white history. It take the glass freeway. White skin tattooed on my right forearm, ricochet sewage near where I collapse into a rat infested manhood. My new existence is living graffiti in the kitchen with a lot of gun cylinders to hack up. House of God and [inaudible] no cops [inaudible] my body brings down a Christmas. The new bullets pray over blank is made from the old bullets pray over the 28th hour's beauty mark. Extrajudicial Confederate statue restoration the waistband before the next protest [inaudible]. By the way, time is not an illusion. Your Honor, I will save your desk for last. You're a [inaudible], Your Honor. You're moving money again, Your Honor. It is only raining one thing. Non-white cops and prison guards shadows reminded me of spoiled milk floating on an oil spill, a neighborhood making a lot of fuss over its demise. A new lake for a Black Panther Party. Malcolm X's ballroom jacket slung over my son's shoulder. The figment of village. A new news to a new white preacher, all in an abstract painting of a president. They bought slaver some time, didn't it. The military bolts and election Tuesday cars, a cold blooded study in leg irons. Proof that some white people have actually found the nooses, the sun, how couples made their vows of love, of an opaque piece of plastic and bolt action audiences. The Medgar Evers second is definitely my favorite law of science. Fondles news clippings and primitive methods, man my arm changes imperialism, simple policing versus structural frenzies, elementary school script versus even wider wide spectrums or less bleeding. And the challenge of watching civilians think and terrible ritual they have around a corner. They let their elders beg for public mercy. Imma go ahead and sharpen these kids heads and the arrows myself and see how much gravy spills out of Family Crest [inaudible] fans of war [inaudible] with their t shirt poems and t shirt guilt, and me, me having on the cheapest pair of shoes on a bus. I have no choice but to read the city walls for signs of my life.

Sonia Sanchez: Hmm. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Right on. You [inaudible] just such a mighty time in the modernization of poetry, the modernization of music. How was that? How were those kind of those gatherings that the contracting how did you dance with each other, influence each other? Stay away from each other? What was that? You know, what was that like?

Sonia Sanchez: Well, we were blessed to be at a time when what influenced us were actually two people, Malcolm and Coltrane. And although I was trained by Louise Bogan, you know, and I never published anything, you know, at all, period, and I would go into these workshops and I would be the only woman and the only Black in a workshop, believe it or not, in New York City. And I would make a comment and no one would ever respond to my comment about it. I would ease out. And I found when I went to do grad work at NYU, there was this poetry course, taught by Louise Bogan. I didn't register. I just kind of went in just to see what was happening. And she had this very proper way of speaking. And there were forty five people in that classroom as she asked us to read some of our poetry. And I raised my hand and when I read my poem, all the heads went up. People were responding. And that was a class of all males, white males, one white female poet. But Bogan opened up that class. I mean, she responded to us in the midst of that was all of this music. And I walked into one of the jazz joints. I heard this voice that Sanchez and someone said "that's Leroi Jones" and I turned around, you know, and I could hear the stutter coming up, you know. Right. I said you can't stutter, you idiot. You can't stutter. You know, he said, I'm editing an anthology, send me some of your poems, and I'm standing there like an idiot, he said, did you hear me? Like I said, oh, I said to the group, I'm going home. I get in my little Volkswagen. I zoom up the West Side Highway in five minutes. I got to my apartment, pulled down my Olivetti and pulled up my Birkenstock, typed it up. And I got about two weeks later a letter addressed to me from Baraka and it said, Dear Sanchez, yeah, it's all right. So I was I was down in the village in a workshop. I was also in the village listening to music, whatever. And the music was in my head and I needed to get it out. So I knew I couldn't sing, but I began to hum and make noise. I did a piece called Middle Passage, right where it's all sound.

And I wanted to take the words and say, OK, I know how to write it that other way, that Western way, but let me take it and sing it. Let me stretch it out. Let me put a screen there. But I will write screen. But let me scream it out so you can understand that this was nothing simple that happened to a people. Oh, so a lot of people, when they began to read us, thought that we could not write poetry because we began to deal with the sounds that we were hearing. Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach, Freedom Now Suite. And it begins with her going [screams]. This African woman being raped, enslaved, being beaten. Right, and you could not hear that, you know, without trying to get that tone also too. And so I would do this piece going,

[screams]

I, I. I am. I am.

I am. I was. I am. I am. I was. I was. I am. I was I aaaamm

It was it was the coming, it was the coming that was that it was it was it was like coming across the ocean.

That was that. It was becoming. It was becoming. It was becoming. That was. But it was the packing. It was packing. It was the packing. That was that. It was the packing, the packing, the packing ship that was made. It was the packing, the crossing, the crossing the sea. The crossing, the packing, the packing. The crossing, the crossing, the crossing. That was baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

It was a raping that was bad, it was the raping that was bad, it was the raping, the raping, the raping, the raping that was that.

It was it was the silence. It was a noise.

It was the silence, the silence. The noise. the the the silence. The noise [laughs]

I am. I am. I am. I am.

I was. I was. I was. I was.

It was about it was the boat was the boat. It was the ship. It was the ship.

It was the landing. That was bad. It was the landing. That was bad. It was the landing. It was the land. It was a landing.

That was it was standing on auction blocks. That was bad. It was just standing on auction block blocks, blocks, blocks. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't touch me.

Don't, don't, don't, don't don't touch me. Don't touch me, don't don't touch me. Oh oh oh yemaya.

Oh cool. I saw Jesus Jesus. It was the standing standing that was bad. It was, it was, it was the giving birth that was bad. It was the giving birth that was about nine months, every nine months, every nine months, every nine months [laughs]

I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am.

And I was. I was. I was. I shall be. I shall be. I am. I am. I was. I shall be. I was. I shall be.

Or ba ba ba ba ma ma ma ma.

They know what they do here. Do their do their. You want to know who I am. I want to know who I am. I look at you see who I am how can't and you see who I am. Don't you know who I am. Can't you see who I am.

What, what, what where where are you, America? Where are you, America? There you are. There you are. I thought I lost you, huh?

There you are looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. I'm looking at you. I'm not looking at you. I'm not looking at you. I'm not. Looking at you. You're looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me. Looking at me.

Looking at me. Whatever I remember I forget. Whatever I forget I remember whatever. I don't want to remember. I forget whatever. I want to forget.

I remember. I remember. I remember. I remember. I remember.

I am here. They are here. I am here. They are here. They are here Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee.

Love, love, love, love, love. What is it, America. You don't know. You don't know.

You know we know who it was the coming. That was bad. It was the coming that was bad.

Across oceans. Across seas. Across eyes staring. It was the coming, coming, coming dying, dying living, living, dying, living, living, living, living, dying dying how to live.

How to live, how to live live live Blacks, how to live live live live live whites, how to live live live live Africans, how to live live live Latinos how to live live live Native Americans how to live live live Asians how to live live live gays how to live live live lesbians, how to live live live Jews, how to live live live Muslims, how to live live live transgenders, how to live live live Chicanos, how to live live live bisexuals how to live live live lesbians how to live live live gays how to live live live African Americans. How to live African Americans.

How to live live live love love live live liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive.

Tongo Eisen-Martin: You got me frozen in time. [Laughs]. You got me in a trance.

Sonia Sanchez: Can I hear poem?

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Mhm.

Sonia Sanchez: You want to read a poem? Did I make sense to you? Did you did you hear what we were trying to do at that time? Because a lot of us were doing it, especially Baraka. Baraka was doing a lot of that also, too, you know, you know, putting the the music, you know, into the words, whatever, etc.. Oh, yeah.

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Yeah no, that um, what you're saying makes all kind of sense. Before I say this poem, I just want to thank you. Not just for taking this little walk with me, but, you know, just for the million mountains you've channeled along the way and it just it feels like the opportunity to thank you is also the opportunity to thank not just everything that came before, but also everything that will come after and after me. Again, you sit at this...you sit in one of the most beautiful pockets that I've ever seen facilitated, but in conclusion...

[Reads Faceless to Faceless]

Sonia Sanchez: Mm hmm. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Much love

Sonia Sanchez: I know that listening to you, you know, this poetry is in good hands, right. You know, that's a good good feeling. I was told that by a poet, an older poet, you know, who said we know poetry is our poetry. Our poetry is in good hands. And I say to you, our poetry is in good hands. Poetry is in good hands, my dear brother. And I am honored to be on the program with you. And I thank you for asking me to be on here with you. I'm really so honored that you wanted to have a conversation with me.

Tongo Eisen-Martin: Aw man, much love, much love. 

Fred Sasaki: A big thanks to Tongo Eisen-Martin and Sonia Sanchez. Eisen-Martin is the author of Heaven is All Goodbyes from which you heard two poems, which is published by City Lights Books in 2017. The poem "I Did Not Know the Spelling of Money" is from a forthcoming manuscript. To read the poem "Pennies for the Opera," check out the December 2020 issue of Poetry in print and online. Poet, playwright, professor, and activist Sonia Sanchez is one of the foremost leaders of the Black Studies movement. She is the author of over 16 books, including her first book, Homecoming, published in 1969 and her most recent book, Morning Haiku, published in 2010. You can read "Haiku and Tanka for Harriet Tubman" in the April 2018 issue of Poetry. The Poetry Magazine Podcast is produced by Rachel James. The music in this episode come from Reservoir, Alabaster de Plume, Rob Mazurek, and Irreversible Entanglements. All these songs were released by the Chicago-born record label International Anthem. You also heard a drum solo by Max Roach. We'd love to know what you think of the new season, you can get in touch a number of ways, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, which is great because it helps other people find the show. You can also e-mail us at podcast at PoetryFoundation.org. Are you thinking of buying someone a book for the holidays? Have you considered giving them one book every month for an entire year? We've got you covered. For a limited time, buy one subscription to Poetry magazine and gift one free. That's two subscriptions for the price of one. Give the gift of poetry today. Go to PoetryMagazine.org/podcastholiday. That's PoetryMagazine.org/podcastholiday. OK, that's it. Until next time be well. Stay safe and thanks for listening.