Why we still need poetry — and how it saves us | Kwame Alexander | TEDxMidAtlantic

Key Concepts

• Poetry's Transformative Power: The central theme is the profound impact of poetry on individual lives and society, from early childhood development to rehabilitation and personal expression.
• Personal Journey with Poetry: The speaker recounts their own experiences with poetry, highlighting its role in their upbringing, education, career, and personal relationships.
• Overcoming Reluctance and Misconceptions: The narrative addresses the common perception of poetry as difficult or uninteresting and argues for its accessibility and vital importance.
• Poetry as a Tool for Voice and Connection: The speaker emphasizes how poetry can empower individuals to find their voice, express themselves, and connect with others on a deeper level.
• Legacy and Remembrance: The speaker reflects on the enduring influence of poets like Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, and Maya Angelou, and the personal impact of their mentorship and work.

The Power of Poetry: A Personal and Societal Imperative

This transcript details the speaker's passionate advocacy for poetry, illustrating its multifaceted importance through personal anecdotes, professional experiences, and reflections on its societal role. The narrative traces the speaker's lifelong engagement with poetry, from childhood immersion to its application in challenging environments and its role in processing grief.

Childhood Foundations and Early Encounters with Words

The speaker's early life in New York City was steeped in literature, with parents who were graduate students at Teachers College, Columbia University. At the age of three, the speaker was exposed to poetry through readings by Lucille Clifton, Nikki Giovanni, and Dr. Seuss. A particular favorite was Dr. Seuss's "Fox in Socks," which the speaker memorized and recited with enthusiasm. This early engagement with rhyme and rhythm is presented as a foundational element in learning to read, write, speak, and listen.

An illustrative anecdote from preschool at the Riverside Child Development Center highlights the formative power of words. After a classmate destroyed a block house built by the speaker, the speaker responded with a rhyming, Dr. Seuss-inspired retort: "Those were your blocks that you flipped. Lest you want a quick payback, better fix my quick block stack." This incident, while leading to a teacher's concern about the speaker being "arrogant" and "intimidating," was reframed by the speaker's mother as a positive demonstration of finding one's voice, stating, "Thank you." This underscores the speaker's belief that poetry can be a vehicle for learning to use words effectively and to advocate for oneself.

The Dichotomy of Parental Influence: Function vs. Art

The speaker contrasts the influence of their parents. While the mother fostered a love for poetry and made words "cool and fun," the father emphasized the functional aspect of language. He required the speaker to read the dictionary and Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia, and his dissertations from Columbia University. This approach, coupled with teachers assigning "stayed and incomprehensible" books like "Tuck Everlasting" and "Anne of Green Gables" (which the speaker found uninteresting at the time), led to the speaker being labeled a "reluctant reader." The speaker clarifies this label, stating, "I'm not reluctant. I'm just not interested."

The father's profession as a book publisher, owning PCE Book Service, further immersed the speaker in the world of books. Working at trade shows, the speaker learned to engage with books by reading their jackets and understanding their content.

A Life-Altering Accident and the Discovery of Muhammad Ali

A pivotal moment occurred during a family trip to New York City for a book fair. While driving on the New Jersey Turnpike, the family's red Thunderbird overturned three times. Amidst the chaos, the speaker's immediate response was the expletive "Damn." The father, despite the accident, cautioned, "Watch your words, Wami." While collecting scattered books, the speaker discovered Muhammad Ali's autobiography, "The Greatest," with its striking yellow, red, and black cover.

Reading Ali's autobiography proved to be a turning point. The speaker was captivated by Ali's "brash, confident, strong, and beautiful" persona. The discovery that Ali was also a poet, with verses like "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can't hit what the eyes can't see. I done wrestled with alligators and tussled with the whale. I done handcuffed lightning and throwed thunder in jail," sparked a realization: "Maybe poetry is the thing that I want to read. Maybe I haven't fallen out of love with reading. Maybe it's that books are amusement parks and sometimes you got to let kids choose the rides." This led to a conscious choice to explore poets like Pablo Neruda, Sonia Sanchez, and E.E. Cummings, particularly love poems, as the speaker entered college with the initial intention of becoming a doctor.

Academic Pursuits and Mentorship by Nikki Giovanni

In college, the speaker encountered organic chemistry and, crucially, Nikki Giovanni, who became a professor at Virginia Tech. The speaker enrolled in Giovanni's poetry class, aiming to learn as much as possible about writing and performing poetry. However, their relationship began with a challenge when Giovanni gave the speaker a C-minus in advanced poetry. When the speaker protested, Giovanni famously stated, "Wami, I can teach you how to write poetry, but I cannot teach you how to be interesting. Now get out of my office." Despite this initial adversarial start, their relationship evolved over 37 years into a deep friendship, with Giovanni eventually calling the speaker her "literary son."

Poetry in Action: Workshops and Real-World Impact

After graduating from Virginia Tech and publishing poetry books, the speaker began teaching workshops through a "poet in the schools" program around Washington D.C. This experience provided firsthand evidence of poetry's transformative potential.

A significant real-world application of poetry's power was observed at the Maya Angelou Academy, a juvenile detention facility in Washington D.C. Initially hesitant to enter such an environment, the speaker was compelled to go. The initial session was challenging, with disengaged youths. However, a breakthrough occurred when the speaker responded to a comment about their sneakers with a spontaneous, rhyming verse: "Oh, thanks. You like my kicks? Yeah. Kicks so hot his feet glow. Move so cold you see snow. Tall as a cypress tree, bro. Game so lit, make seeds." This sparked engagement, with a student completing the rhyme: "Grow." The speaker then continued, "In your face 3D show game so deep it's below. Air so swift you breathe slow. Watch me fly from the free throw. Superman is sweet, yo, but Wami is my hero." This ignited the students' interest, with one exclaiming, "That's poetry."

For the next 87 minutes, the speaker conducted a workshop, teaching haiku and tanka. The experience was described as "the hardest thing I've ever done and the most rewarding." This led to a commitment to return for six months, teaching the boys to write and publish a book titled "Concrete Dreams." Upon their release into a halfway house, eight or nine of these young men expressed a desire to sell their book, demonstrating its tangible value and impact. One former student, Sloan, who is now a Starbucks manager, even contacted the speaker to "re-up on [his] poetry books," using drug terminology to signify the high demand and success of the books.

The Enduring Significance of Poetry

The speaker posits that poetry, as Marcellis stated, is "serious and playful and eternal and divine." The speaker further asserts that "poetry may not be the answer, but it is an answer." The speaker's mother taught them to use words, their father taught them to make them meaningful, and Nikki Giovanni taught them to make their words "dance on the page."

The transcript concludes with a poignant reflection on Nikki Giovanni's passing on December 9th, 2024. While writing her obituary in her office, the speaker discovered two iPod shuffles filled with music Giovanni loved. Listening to these revealed a new dimension of her personality and her appreciation for "sexy music." The speaker also discovered a previously unknown poem by Giovanni, "Still Life with Apron," which was recorded with a jazz band. This poem, detailing the desire to witness a partner's engagement in the domestic act of cooking, highlights poetry's ability to capture intimate human experiences.

The speaker emphasizes that "Poetry is lifegiving and it's life-saving. It's the thing that allows us to deal with the heavy, weighty experiences in our lives. That perhaps it's the thing that can save us when the world is not so beautiful, when tomorrow is not certain. When the children no longer read, when the politicians have forgotten how to love, at least we have poetry." Poetry is described as "a gathering of words, a get together of ideas, a gathering of emotion, a font of love, hope with wings, poems that help us make this world a better place. one word at a time."