Transcript

I’m Ada Limón and this is The Slowdown.

I once was on a panel discussing race in poetry. It was in a huge cavernous conference room and people read papers and made interesting remarks. It was all very intense but civilized. I talked about discrimination in the academic world, and opened up about hard personal topics. 

Afterwards, there was a moment where the writers of color all gathered around and someone said, “Now this is where the real conversation begins right?” I think about that comment all the time. It was the difference between what we’d say into a microphone and what we’d say in our home, at the bar. How safe could we feel to be truly free in public?

What is privacy these days? My phone knows when I’ve been searching for cookware or suitcases. Everything I say online is monitored. Sometimes I even wonder if we are ever really alone anymore. Like truly, alone. 

Today’s poem deals with a specific idea of privacy in a community that is constantly surveilled, and constantly being watched by law enforcement. Someone is always waiting for the other shoe to drop, someone is always sure it will. In this tender and powerful poem, we see the speaker’s sister try to have a sense of privacy when the probation officer drops by unannounced. 

The poem asks how do you build community when everything you are doing is being watched, when all around you is the sense that you and people who look like you are about to do something wrong. When are we allowed to close the door, or not answer when someone is knocking, when are we allowed to protect our families, and be alone in our own world with our own sense of safety? Deep at the core of this poem is not just the question of privacy, but the question of freedom. What does freedom really look like?

[Somewhere In Los Angeles] This Poem Is Needed
by Christopher Soto

She charges her ankle bracelet // from the kitchen chair
          & Sunflowers in the white wallpaper [begin to wilt].

I wilt with them // before my sister // & her probation
         Officer [who comes over to the house unannounced].

Just as we are // preparing dinner // & what are we supposed to
         Do now. Cook for him?! Invite him to eat with us??



I am hacking the heads [from broccoli stems] & pretending
         His body is spread across the cutting board. [Ugh].

This officer keeps talking nonsense & nudging his eyes around
         The apartment. Looking for—drugs, alcohol

Alchemy. My sister waits for him to leave & then begins to rant.
          Ramble about // her childhood // & how she used to be

 [Before house arrest]. The confines of these plastered walls
         & Her monitored route to work // where

Every corner has a cop [coddling a liquor store]. Protecting their
         Notion of freedom. // My neighborhood eats fear.


 
Mothers are getting // handcuffed & harassed. Homes are being
         Crushed [like cigarette butts]. Everyone I know

Hates the racist police & wants a revolution. // But we seldom
          Aim the gun... Have you heard // how the bullets

Sing their anthem // throughout the body?? // It sounds like
    God shutting the door— Bang. Bang.


 
When it’s dinnertime in heaven [& your officer’s knocking]
         Ignore him sister— let the door bruise.

[Let the bears devour our enemies]. We have no obligation
       To open // ourselves // for those who do us harm.

"[Somewhere In Los Angeles] This Poem Is Needed" by Christopher Soto. Used by permission of the poet.