I don't well up like I used to.

Yeah.

And I welled up here.

This was simply emotion on a page.

There's something that happens when you create something with a story that's different than when you tell the story.

When you're telling a story out loud, it's hard to separate it from the rest of your life.

But when you turn the language into a poem, it almost like encapsulates it.

And then you separate it from you.

It's outside of you.

And that space allows you to share it differently.

And it allows you to internalize it differently.

We tell stories largely for the benefit of others.

And this exercise, the poem was meant for the benefit of me.

I just happened to share it with you.

That's right.

Do you think the word poem is a liability?

When people hear poem, they're like, roses are red, violets are blue, you know.

Yes.

And when you say, I'm a poet, people are like, oh, here we go.

And when you say, I'm going to have you write a poem, it's a liability, right?

Because the word poem or poetry has baggage.

Yeah.

I mean, my mind goes in different directions to respond.

I mean, the first thing I'd say is some of the best art experiences I've ever had was while I was in the audience watching another poet on stage.

Because I know what it is and I know what it can be.

But that's because I've experienced it, to your point.

When I'm talking to people about what I do for a living, if I say I'm a writer, that's one conversation.

But if I say I'm a poet, they're either super interested, which is very rare, or they just start looking over my shoulder.

Do you like the word I'm a poet?

Do you like the word I write poems?

Or if you got to choose your own word or your job description, what would you rather it say on your business card?

Well, the thing is that it is authentic.

It's the truth.

I am a poet.

And I'm many other things.

I'm an author.

I'm a facilitator.

I'm a songwriter.

But I'm a poet.

And a lot of the foundational work of my art, it really does connect to that term.

Do you have a favorite?

So the real answer is that it's the...

Don't tell me I love all my children equally.

No, I don't.

But it's the one that is closest to creation.

Because that's the one that's closest to source.

Okay.

Will you share it?

Yes.

It's the last one that I wrote.

Alright.

Better up.

I don't know is a perfectly appropriate answer to any question.

I don't know.

And I won't pretend to know to get attention.

I don't know.

Why does everybody have to have a perspective?

I'm not taking a position can be a powerful position.

I don't know.

And I won't be forced to give you an opinion.

I'm allowed to just listen.

Silence is not always indifference.

Silence is not always violence.

Sometimes silence is just fucking silence.

It's okay to be quiet.

It's okay to be patient.

I'm not yet an expert on this specific situation.

I need more education.

I need more information.

I need more conversation.

What I don't need is more posting from a random Jane or Jason living in their parent's basement.

They don't know.

But it's wasting space for me to tell them so.

So I comment in my head instead and try to let it go.

Because I don't want to use my voice to be a part of all the noise.

I cherish freedom of speech but also freedom of choice.

And I won't blindly follow anyone.

Get off our timelines.

You're like what happens after arrogance and ignorance combine.

So I remind myself to get offline and get some sunshine.

I'm not lying to myself pretending everything is fine.

But I do my best to be compassionate, considerate, and kind.

To find the things we have in common even when we're not aligned.

Because two truths can occupy the same space at the same time.

It is not a personal attack on your mind.

Three or four truths can occupy the same space at the same time.

It is not a personal attack on your mind.

More truths can occupy the same space at the same time than we can quantify inside our mortal minds.

And I can empathize with all of them because all of them are mine.

Society is sick but we ignore the truths for dollar signs.

It's gotten to the point where being crazy has been normalized.

They only pay attention when our mental health is monetized.

They're paid for our attention so we scroll until we're hypnotized.

We think we're in control but we believe what we've been advertised.

The co-opting of pain.

But having context is too complex to be made into a meme.

And I don't know is not something that people want to scream.

Because no one wants to die for standing in the in-between.

They want a slogan that will amplify their fever dream.

They want to pacify or justify the rage that they're feeling.

But revenge will make us use an olive branch to choke a dove.

It feels good to hate together.

It's almost like it's love.

But I don't know.

That is powerful.

I hung on every word.

Every word made sense.

One of my great joys is sitting here and watching you get lost in your words.

Like being lost in the notes that are coming out.

And I think that's the true test of if you're being authentic.

The true test of if you're fully present.

Is if you get lost in the things you're saying.

I think one of the reasons I love talking to you is because of what you do.

You and I have shared stages before.

At events.

And you do corporate gigs.

I think it's a very powerful thing that a corporation or an industry event hires a poet.

It says something, I think, about not only the quality of your work, but the power of your art.

I think it's almost redefining what an artist's life could be.

I don't think most spoken word artists think corporate gigs could really help.

I could spread my message this way.

Maybe when I was younger I would have had judgment around it.

But now I think it's one of the most powerful and important parts of me sharing my art.

Is getting a chance to connect with people.

I would argue that it's actually more powerful because when you go to a poetry slam the audience is filled with the converted.

When you go to a corporate audience you're proselytizing.

It's more powerful because it only took one person to hire you but the rest of the audience is like, huh?

They immediately hate me.

I mean you come in and your name is in queue.

They don't even know how to call you, Mr. Q.

But isn't it more gratifying to watch people change their preconceived notion of what could be in front of your eyes by you just showing up and telling the truth and then surprising them?

Because often times when I'm doing the workshops I then get people who don't consider themselves poets at all to create their own poems that are meaningful to them and to share them with their coworkers in a way that shocks them.

So now they're like laughing, they're crying, and they literally can't believe it.

What do you have to do in a workshop to take someone who has a left brain job they're in finance, they're a lawyer, that you get them to a place of presence and creativity where they allow that right brain to flow to access that part of their brain and discover that they have a creativity they never knew they had?

Well one thing that I learned a long time ago is that if you want someone to be vulnerable with you, you have to be vulnerable first.

And if you are vulnerable first and they don't respond well, they might not have the capacity, it might not be the right container, or they might be an asshole.

And all of the above are okay.

I don't need to convert everybody.

What I have to do is continue to show up over and over again in the time that I have the session with them.

And eventually almost like a Rubik's Cube, it clicks.

In the workplace a lot of miscommunication comes from lack of context.

People actually don't know who they're working with.

And so if you have more context and you have a human container where they can have an experience together it can lead to better communication, better collaboration, and better creation.

If people were vulnerable in the workplace all the time literally nothing would get done.

But being vulnerable none of the time isn't working either.

So that's really why people hire me is to come in and give them a container for that moment.

A moment for it.

Exactly.

And I kind of get to sit back and smile because I know what's going to happen every single time as long as I lead by example.

Okay.

So we're going to have a little fun here.

I'm going to write a poem.

Great.

So I'm going to follow your methodology which means you have to go first.

Okay.

Well, you might actually have to turn off the cameras at some point so you can actually do it.

You can take the five minutes to do it.

We can do that.

Or the ten minutes.

I'll take five minutes and come back.

Yeah.

I mean, why not?

Sure.

I'll report on how it went.

Alright.

I'm going to do a poem.

You're going to start first and you're going to do a poem.

Yes.

You're going to be vulnerable.

Show me how it's done.

The prompt that we're going to use today is to choose a moment in your life.

By the way, team, we're all doing this.

So, you know, stand by.

Everybody's writing a poem.

Charlene ducked out.

Okay.

We're going to choose the prompt of thinking back to a moment in your life that changed who you are in a drastic way.

So it's a moment where you walked into it one person and you walked out another person.

It could be good or bad.

But it has to be moving and meaningful to you.

So it has to be something that you wouldn't normally talk about after 15 minutes at a dinner party.

It has to be a layer deeper.

Because if you choose something that's moving and meaningful even in the 5 or 10 minutes that we do this, the poem will start to write itself.

The second thing is don't try to make something great.

Make something true.

And trust the process.

I'm going to do my example of the prompt.

It's a poem about meeting my father for the first time when I was 15 years old.

And when I'm doing this piece, I not only want you to think about the piece, but I want you to think about what it is that you would want to explore.

I'm staring at the number wondering if I should call.

I can hear the tick-tock from the clock on the wall as it meshes with the thump-thump beat of my heart.

Sometimes getting something started is the hardest part.

I didn't meet my dad until I was 15.

I had seen his photograph, but his image was sickening.

A coward with a dick, but no balls to back it up.

See, when he left me as a kid, I had cause for acting up.

The funny thing about hate is the person you hate doesn't feel that hate.

You feel that hate, but wait, the wait can be too much for a person to take, and personally I was hurt so I just locked it away.

I was angry all the time.

And I didn't know why.

I couldn't handle my own rage so I would hide it inside, pretending everything was fine and it became a daily pastime.

Time passed and I started to believe in my own lies.

I took it out on my mom because she raised me alone.

The rage that I couldn't own had left me totally numb.

It was like landmines in my mind that I didn't understand so when the boy inside cried, the young man outside yelled.

I think I learned about my masculinity from TV.

The people weren't real so I knew they couldn't leave me.

I would sit there for hours, right in front of a tube.

The images that I saw were my depiction of truth.

It was manhood in a box, and I bought into it.

The censorship of anything inside of me that's sensitive.