Transcript

I’m Ada Limón and this is The Slowdown.

I have a love of those small words we take for granted every day. I once wanted to call a whole book “With, w-i-t-h” just “With,” but then when I said the word over and over it lost its meaning and I couldn’t even remember how to spell it. With. With. With? Even if I do it right now, I might lose the thread of this episode and the thread of language all together. Once, too, I wanted to call a book, “As If,” which might be a good title, but again, once I said it out loud I could only see it as a part of language and not language itself.

Still, you see what I mean about loving these little parts of language that get sucked up and swallowed by the bully nouns and those hard working verbs and all those abundant adjectives and adverbs decorating our walls. But, all words are a wonder, aren’t they? Even, the word “but,” I love how it turns a sentence or a line into something entirely different. We are on the road, in the car together and then someone says “but” and there we go veering off in a whole new direction. My husband has an ex-girlfriend who said, “You know, I don’t think you can say, I love you but..” and I’m grateful to that ex-girlfriend. As Ned Stark once said, “Everything before but is a lie.”

And then there is my favorite conjunction in all of the English language... And. If I could start every sentence with “and” I would. In improv acting class, there’s the rule of “Yes, and,” which means you are always adding to the scene that’s in progress, always forwarding the momentum. “Yes, and” is also about not saying no. (Yes, I was in an improv group in college and we were called the 5:30 Fishsticks and I was the only girl and we went onstage at the Drama School at 11:30pm on Saturday nights.) But, I digress. Back to “and.”

“And” is a word that I’m fond of for more reasons than just its engine of continuation. “Yes and,” is so much better than, “Yes but,” for example. I love its abundance. “And” is generous, it’s ongoing, “I’d like eggs and we’d like pancakes for the table.” (Pancakes for the table is gamechanger by the way, something I think we can all learn to appreciate come brunch time.)

And today’s poem is about the word “and,” and not how it works in a sentence, but how it functions inside words themselves. If you listen carefully you can hear the word throughout the larger words. I love how this poem celebrates the word and the music of language.

And
by Nicole Sealey

Withstand pandemonium
and scandalous
nightstands
commanding candlelight

               and 
               quicksand

and zinfandel
clandestine landmines
candy handfuls
and contraband

               and
               handmade

commandments
and merchandise
secondhand husbands
philandering

               and 
               landless

and vandal
bandwagons slandered
and branded
handwritten reprimands

               and
               meander

on an island
landscaped with chandeliers
abandon handcuffs
standstills

               and
               backhands

notwithstanding
thousands of oleanders
and dandelions
handpicked

               and 
               sandalwood

and mandrake
and random demands
the bystander
wanders 

               in
               wonderland.

"And" by Nicole Sealey. Used by permission of the poet.