Transcripts For CSPAN3 Reginald 20240704

Welcome to. The free library of philadelphia. My name is Jason Freeman and its my great honor to be here tonight to introduce Reginald Dwayne. Thats referred to by the new york book review as a powerful work of lyric, art and de force indictment of the carceral industrial state. Reginald dwayne betts is poetry collection felon won the acp image award, the american book award and was finalist for the 2019 Los Angeles Times book prize. Also the author of two other poetry collections and a memoir he received the 2019 National Magazine award for his New York Times magazine essay about his journey from prison inmate to becoming a of wales yale school and an attorney. His other honors include a guggenheim fellowship, a 2021 macarthur genius grant, and a radcliffe fellowship from harvard. Hes the founder executive director of freedom reads a non not for Profit Institution devoted to greater access to literature in prison. Dwayne joins us tonight with his latest redaction created in collaboration with visual. Visual artist titus capper. Redaction is a multimedia examination of the relationship between and incarceration in america, specifically addressing the issue of cash bail referred to by its authors as a journey through words and images meant to trouble. One review calls it a brilliant and original condemnation of racial injustice. Tonight, hell be joined in conversation by era dee mathews. She. She is the 2223 philadelphia poet laureate and directs the Poetry Program at bryn mawr college. Her collection and similar to the 2016 yale series of younger poets prize and her work has appeared in the New York Times best american poets gulf coast, Harvard Review and v. Q. A. Among other journals. Her autobiographical poetry collection, bread and circus, will be published this spring. Philly put your hands together and join me in welcoming tonights guests. Its good to see everybody. Welcome, everybody, and welcome our guests, Reginald Dwayne betts. We have the opportunity to have a conversation tonight. We just realized that we go way. We first met in without knowing that we were meeting each other in 2008 in detroit, where im technically or what i own as my hometown. It was my first poetry reading. It was your first poetry reading. And it was well, less people than tonight. But then we went to dinner afterwards. It was all worth it. Yeah. So welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank for making thank you for this book. I thought wed have a little bit of a conversation about book tonight and how this beauty started. Cool. So its a pleasure. Yes. To get the book. You got to show and tell. But this would be like like when you would go to read when you were a kid and, they would show you pictures because these pictures. So ill get to show you some pictures. Exactly. Tell us a little bit how this collaboration started. How did you meet titus . How did it all start . Its interesting, actually, because its the way that we met, but then its maybe the our first artistic collaboration happened before we met. So i was commissioned by the architecture and like Design Magazine to write a piece and i thought it was strange because i didnt know that they wrote pieces and in a Design Magazine. But i wrote a piece about it was essay is actually in this is a short essay about carrying letters and is a guy who got executed in 2000 he was one of the last to be executed for a crime he committed as teenager and and i was writing something and it was about him but the piece ended up not being good really. But point is, i spent the whole semester carrying those letters around. And so when i was asked to a piece, i wrote a short piece about, the letters. And this guy, glenn titus, was asked, contribute some art. And so he contributed a of pieces that are redaction pieces. I dont know the redaction pieces, but im jerome series pieces. So years later, after did redaction together i mean his and i was like oh yeah i got that magazine. Im pretty sure many. He was like, yeah, me too. What did you do . I was like, i cant remember because. And it was one of those magazines designed with plastic. So i dont even know if i open my and i was like, what are you in there for . Hes like, i cant remember the actually do something. So we take the plastic off and we open the book up and they appeared all pieces this piece was like the intro to my piece and so thats our first artist collaboration, even though we didnt even know other at the time. And im glad we didnt discovered into after we Work Together because we probably would have chosen like not Work Together because we felt like it was somebody elses idea. Its like so think we should Work Together. But anyway, years later, we were and we would talk about artists and artistic collaborations with visual artists and people who deal with work, but biggest challenge is always, how do you make the the words not be a substrate, the visual art or art not be a substrate for the words. And so we just kicked it back and forth, but we never thought about doing something. And it just so happens that i was tapping into working around redaction, which is for me thinking about how can you make a text more revelatory by getting rid of the words that are superfluous. Getting rid of the words to get in a way to meaning. And also, i was thinking, how do you turn complaint a literally, you know, civil is a complaint. I thought, how do you turn it into the poetic version of a complaint . And so i was trying to use redaction lines to reveal this. And id say this had always worked visually the with the like doubling of images with with the recognition you could reveal more by making people want to slow with the taking a glimpse into whats behind the thing that you typically see. And so he invited me to this to this college on main. He was in the print shop, so he was trying something new and i was trying to set something and it just ended up working, working. And then came this beauty eventually. And you said that its been in a couple of different. So youve had this displayed and its been exhibited. U. S. Museums, art galleries. My house. Your house. Yeah. So what happened first is, is, was in moma ps1. So its not its i mean, this is a lot of people here, so dont shout at once though. But but who was actually seen the book . So its only one person. So its hard to have a conversation about a about an art object and talk about it in abstract. And you cant actually see it. Whos familiar with a print . What a print is. Now, i wasnt familiar with what a print was, and so it was a learning process for me. And i learned a lot when we we were working on this. Titus is doing etchings and i wont ask you whos familiar with the etching is ill just say it it is its like drawing on piece of sheer plastic with a really sharp pencil and like sharp blade. And then later what you do is you. You wipe the plate with ink and then the ink settles into the crevices, and then you put it down on a sheet of paper and you use some one of those things that you flattened. So it. But this one has like 300 pieces, something, but you basically transfer the lines from the from the plate to the page. And its really lovely because you can get these these really detailed work and typically they dont they dont do etchings on black paper and they dont do prints on black people. So it means i just decided to use black paper. We did two etchings and then we did two silkscreens one silkscreen, which just the words and one silkscreen was just a lattice. And we turned these into prints and we had an exhibit at moma ps1 and we had a separate exhibit and haven and we call this the third exhibit ever redaction. And ill tell you why in a second but the thing that you see when you grab the book is that its of three redaction sections. They have all of the redaction pieces from show the first page, the first four pages allow you to just how that their printmaking that is talked about gets deconstructed. So right now this is like the whole point. And then you take page away and, you see two words and, then you take the next page and see you see the words and you can see the face behind it. You take the next page and you see one face and then you turn the next page away and you see two the last face. And then when you turn the next page. You how the four pages come together to one print. And one of the things we were struggling with is and its on a on a wall is bigger than this. And everybody doesnt have wall space for this. Like 30 by 25 inch print. But to consume the whole thing is 50 prints, a lot of prints. The sort of number in addition is less we wanted to do 50 because we started with the idea of these poems. And so the poems collectively were like 20 some pages and then we just had some other things that we built into the show as well. But what you also see when you get the book is that like you dont see my name at the bottom, you dont see taylors name at the bottom. And then when you turn a page, its not an image on the other side because know we conceptualize this book as a work of art. And so each had a redaction and prints is a redaction print, you know, and with the notion that some people would deconstruct it and they will frame it and they will frame multiple copies. Some people will buy copies and they will just hold one as a work in and of itself. And then they would think about the other one as something that they deconstructed give out to friends. Because, you know, one of the things the whole work was premised on is this notion that you have a show and is at moma ps1 and amazing but only people who know about it being at moma can go see it and if they are in another state and they even if they do know about it, they might not be able get there. But when you turn it into a book like this and when you try to make attention to the details, like having three different kinds of paper, im like having it be closed down that. Is it is a it is your opportunity to experience that third exhibition but a redaction brings exactly and Something Interesting about the soft bound that it can go inside so you can take a soft book or you cant take a hardbound book inside. And so it feels like its an important part of this because its telling a story thats relevant for people who are inside or who are incarcerated and then youve made it accessible for. Those folks as well were the first two readings i read from it have been in prisons in new york. And at the last time i was reading, you know, i was telling story about why it was so about an idea that, you know, we didnt want to create this beautiful thing because typically art books and coffee table books like typically they dont have art in it. I mean, they dont have poetry in it. So theyre not as good as this one. Poetry makes everything. They. But everything also is that know it does really just live on the on on on a table often i like to think that this makes you want to pick it up and look at it. But i also think it becomes Something Different because each one of the pieces, the redaction prints, each poem is like a haiku so its not as if you got to read all it at once. And its just so many different places to step into with it. So absolutely, i thinking about going back to when we were first introduced and i was thinking about when i had a private introduction to your full length work, which with shahid reads his own poem and as with all of your work in my view there a refusal to allow the disappearance of the or the formerly incarcerated. And so the idea that you move into redaction seems layer that even more where theres this idea where theres a refusal to let these people be disappeared is a refusal to let these demands be disappear it in some way. And in fact the beginning epigraph to redaction reads a journey through words and images meant to trouble a poet and a painter refuse to let them black hold the process. And then as we move through the collection to page 149, i was wondering if youd be in reading that. One 4908 notice which is cool red ribbon is that you can use to save your marker. This is like the bible. You. Forget americas stories, then behold this process. How we avoid letting anyone pigeonhole this process. My god, was oh, the weapons done . Whos believes art will console this process in museums only to guys looked like his kin while . We kaphar let the market control this process. My brother say you your man mastered the hustle. I told him only our sweat were bankroll with this process mature you tore and regret what others forget a knife against canvas ready to charcoal this process maybe its the tension between the world and me should i reveal this black soul this process is our journey the and images meant the trouble. Charlotte and titus refuse to them black hole this. How does the work clear the path for people to see what they refuse to confront . Well, you know, its interesting, too, because i in some very real ways, a lot of my is about prison, but a lot of my work is about prison in a way, that prison is a metaphor for what it means to be alive in the world and and when you when you talk about what this book is about and what the work is about and how i worked in that people become invisible, that i feel like, i sometimes disappear by the system. I mean part it is i think this book is a story of family. I think this book is a story community. And i think one of the ways that we dont understand is as a story family, we like to believe that. We understand it as a story of injustice. And i think that is true but as a story of injustice. It gets to exist as a thing that actually doesnt shift considerably. So we talked about 2000 in between year 2000. Now its been radical change in public consciousness about the system, but it hasnt been real radical change in the system itself and not as much as we need or we might demand. And i think part of that is we dont think of our folks lives as whole. We think about lives as just a sliver of of some kind of injustice that impossible to truly, truly. And so when we think about it, dont think about the stories of people. And i think thats what i try to do with this book is is all of the poems is about community. Its about family is about dealing with disaster. And even the redaction poems are often telling stories that people dont. This was a 38 year old mother, two. This was a 50 year old disabled man. He lived with his children, you know, and its telling the story of of that that life that actually gets erased sometimes when we when we think about the system. Yeah and when you think about this system, you cant help but think about time. And so i was really curious about the ways that youve mark time in the book itself so the book opens with the first section titled archive in which you entered the conversation discussing the 3 5 compromise in the constitution and then a page later you enter into the letters from Glenn Mcginnis, who you referenced earlier, who was executed in january of 2000. And for me, that time, marker signals, the beginning of a nation and the end of the human. So im wondering how, you want and i was hoping that you might that short essay about glenn and second i was hoping that you might be able to answer some of the questions about you, how you document time it feels like you enter into the text and it feels as if no time has passed but you know that time has how you documenting time as a series of really good questions none of which i thought. When i was writing this book. Thats exactly the thing i was thinking about before. As i said, as i said, i said, i have no interest in knowing your questions before such a mistake. Actually, you one of the things thats beautiful about this is this constant juxtapositions, juxtapositions that happen. So as both poem with art, but as poems with each other and you really took a two poem arc to Say Something about time. And in a way it makes all the sense in the world because you go from christmas addicts to Glenn Mcginnis and, you talking about the passage of hundreds of years and it frames this ultimate question im trying to deal with what is the story of incarceration is this story of incarceration . And through line from, you know, colonial oppression to the Death Penalty . Is it is it is that what the through line is or is it more complicated than that . And if we say that thats the through line, do we do we leave out are we missing something . Redaction tries to answer that question, but it tries to answer it with words in art. So im a read both of these just because i want to read this and just drop where i got this line from. If you know this line comes from but youve got to know the allusion i cant tell you what illusion is. You got to hear it and be like, i know what this is. Its like if you hear somebody, i got debts. No honest man could pay. Who said that . I dont know who that i got debts. No honest man can pay. Said it twice. One album, bruce springsteen. Thank you. So right im a read these two far im a reader christmas addicts one and this is the art that goes with the christmas addicts bone. And christmas addicts to date as vacant as a confederate empty as some of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and every tomorrow somehow its own chronicle each spill lovely and devastating than the last and tell me the story too as a some day man refusing to be a witness and oh lord, this democracy this becoming these amendments that metamorph to kafkas pet some euphemism for longing for a death, for loss, for suffering 3 5 the whole person 3 5 and indians may be excluded from this Union Perspective of members. A portion or 3 5 indians 3 5 not free persons, not free bound to service. And crispus, whose body blair for this democracy becomes jeopardy. Question and oh lord, this democracy this war gathering, not india, but mohegan, mojave manhattan is a not be word not 3 5 and abundance in history and crispus court a bully with his patriotism his dead body count of first as if being counted is a prerequisite to freedom for this america in his graveyards of naming. Now if you get the allusion, you get a free book and this book aint that expensive but is more expensive than i will give you for free. Is so bad though like when you still dont have a post line and people dont get it because because you did this cool thing like like match your shoestrings to your shirt and nobody knew it. You and its like, man. And then if they like the line you feel even more guilty because you like my name, even like me for me, you know, they like me for this person. But ill tell because this is a good friend of mine. The line is from natalie diaz. Its manhattan is a la, not a word. And its interesting though because, you know when you think about time is like whose time are you thinking about . Right. I was reading victor lovells book, new book and and it was talking about how they were given on black folks, letting them become homesteaders in manhattan. And he was telling them, come, colonize these lands is like, what does that mean . You know, what part of what part of the history that we complicate for ourselves when we think about where we position against some horrible hardship. Tragedies occurred. Ill read this one. This is long i got excited because poets dont get to read this long thats why to so many saying but dawn my second so this is the artwork accompanies it. Dawn my second semester at Yale Law School i carried around the letters of a dead man. I began to think of them as small pieces. The prison cells that once held them. The letters were for Glenn Mcginnis. Execute it on january 25th, 2000, for the murder of leonard. And all i know of her is the bullet from mcginnis. From mcginnis that killed her. Every memory of murder, burying so many attempts of it. And the letters convey every emotion but fear, mostly in a time of sided correspondence, came to symbolize my terror. That prison will be the shadow i carried into my death. That semester i took professor stephen Capital Punishment course. Before then my knowledge of death row consisted of mcginnis letters and a story from my time at sussex one state prison. From the pull up, i couldnt help but hear young man news at a compound talking to a friend locked a cell to face the yard. The window in a cell was no wider than what in the palm of my hand . No longer than the length of a tall mans arm. I watched them trying to communicate. They werent talking as much as yelling and reading each others lips. The new asked his friend when he was getting out the response, im on death row for men on death row leave in a cell is not a move to freedom, but one toward death. Mcginnis committed murder at 17. Allison at one at the texas state penitentiary, his home, his letters became a way to escape the cell to held him. These letters speak to the desperation that comes with being haunted by the specter of death. Many begin with poems i dont dare start thinking in the morning i dont dare start thinking in morning another begins my luck is short like dust. Neither poems nor the letters will on the small details of a death sentence, the hours in a cell, thinking of ways to save yourself, the fear of friends execute. Since the waiting for word from the governor, waiting for the miracle that rarely comes nearly everything about a prison can be hidden in a letter. Mcguinnesss letters bury his sadness, but sometimes it comes to mr. Key told me that my have been exhausted. He has hope for me of getting off death row. The letters in my bag reminded me again. How legal theories can hasten prisons are places where possibility goes to die but the lives men live and the letters. The letters they write push against it. I can not disconnect itself. The letter back then we call it letters case as if ambition and hope alone could give wings. And it was true. Words could escape darkness that assail the paper the envelopes, the very enthusiastic those words into existence carries with it, the funk of prison and a memory of a jail cell. Mcguinness says. Let us collapse to inexorable distance between me and prison relics from ourselves, that he has served time. His letters allow me to think of the prisons architecture as defined by words that escape still the details haunt in a letter where mcguinness talks about his appeal has been exhausted, he writes i apologize for not being able to write you a more gracious letter. Prison snuffs out light. This is what i know from a cell. You begin writing about your troubles, realize the burden of your words. And so you hold back. Mcguinness letters came to me nearly a decade after they were written. He was already dead. They made me how much . I held back. All the pain and anguish. His letters came before i decided to go to law school. I could possibly understand their legal what it means to be sentenced to die for a crime you committed as a teenager. On the last class, professor bray played a video of steve earles listening one oh have become a correction officer in a texas state prison before becoming a country singer. Mcguinness letters were in my backpack in the same way they may scratch their names, their lives on cell walls that remind people that they were there. He is part of life and letters and swofford. The Supreme Court ruled in Roper V Simmons that executed people for crimes committed before they 18. At least eight. The members prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. If mcginnis had been on death in just about any other state in the country his appeals would have been taken taken a few years longer. And we have lived to see the he would have lived to see the Supreme Court decision. Today only his letters are left. His letters and memories. Thank you. Its gorgeous. There is a line in mary about you. Take out a line from one of mcguinnesss letters and it talks about. And so this next is really hitting on these ideas of light and texture inside text. So when the reader to the second section, which is redaction one, theyre very encouraged to shift their mode of understanding their mode of reading and kind understanding the deep structures of incarceration. But more than that, before the incarceration, the deep structures of the system and so were more fully entered into the erasure and there is clearly two types in that redaction section where there the transparent page, you talked about it earlier, theres a transparent page where you interact with the textual absence and whats left behind. And then there is what happens in the layered illustrations of the human subject. So titus layered illustrations that are juxtaposed with the opacity of a dark, some kind of wondering how light, darkness is layer and texture, further complex. The argument about human in this is interesting. This is truly a question that ive been like tired as you got that. But but you know one thing is interesting is using one by using black paper. I that was already something that was trying to like depth and depth in texture and do some of what the work image is trying to do, which is just to say that typically prints on white paper, but also by putting the prints on black paper, a trebles what it is that you think you see because if you were to assume that all etchings were black folks, then youll making a mistake. And its argument in some ways that the black the page brings in more light because becomes a conduit for revelation. You have to look closely and the closer you look youll be able to find, you know, in your own settings. The way in which the person reflects somebody back to you that reminds you of an aunt of a cousin of a sister. And thats no matter who you are. And one of the reasons why that happens, i think, is because of the way in which the image is interacting with the story. A 23 year old woman mother of two Police Officers came arrest her. She owed the city officers took her two children. And if you hit out those words and you see the image and you dont you dont think about some connection to yourself that i think is a real challenge to your humanity, that the book is helping to be a bridge for. And and i think finally, you know, we think about light in the center on a piece of that as the as a work let you see that youre looking at more than one person and the reason why titus is thinking about redaction as a way to reveal as you conceal something is typically when you look at somebodys mug shot, you completely reduce them to your understanding of the trope, a mug shot. So by doubling images, one, it pulls you closer. And so i think you become you begin to recognize something more complicated by seeing that you have to look closely to even disentangle who these two people are. Yeah. And that attention becomes active generosity. Right. And theres a sense of a deeper inside the inside the entire collection because thinking about how its in conversation with 2019 felon. So it which proceeds this endeavor of course but you have poems like in alabama, in houston, in california sonia in felon. And im curious to know how those redactions kind of deepened your engagement with collection. I mean, it was the center of it in a way, though, because, you know, the prints themselves were based on those poems. Right. And and that work, though, was also based on me thinking about its a lot of work about incarceration, but i dont we always know what we mean when we try to like really pinpoint what bothers us in this work was about people being incarcerated for money. Bill excuse and what was great about it was a way to step back and think about the problem in a system in a discrete area and these are people who are being incarcerated and after being released but theyve been incarcerated for some period of time because they are trafficked is because they are old fans, because couldnt pay small bills. And so awesomely everybody these lawsuits was like at home when a lawsuit settled because these are people thats doing, you know, between two days or a day, a week and six months. But you its hard to even understand a tragedy that if you a layperson and so i had the documents, you know, and i was like i was like, really, people want to read this. This great. And then i realized that it was a civil and class. And 50 pages of dense legalese and like nobody wanted to read it ever, you know, so, so the first thing was like, how do i make this saying, how do i make it a poem . And a reason why it relates to this book is because that was prince. And those poems became a crucial of the prince, which i this is art. But then this book became a way to to use this as a vehicle to Say Something about, our broader work. And so you see a lot of places work. Titus has work where he has these photos. You see a lot of his work where he has other types of, where he makes use of the principles of redaction. You see his color work and some of the stuff you see and you wont even you even recognize certain things about because because its an inside conversation. So so for instance think is i think it precedes this so this piece right here is is called enough about you and the reproduction of this famous that was hanging up at yale and it was like these three white men talking and this little kid beside. And that was like the servant person that was like meant to be seen as object of history, but really not meant to be seen. And so both in history and, history in real history, he was meant to be there but not seen but then in the reproduction of the pain, it reproduced that same quality because the people that you focused on in a painting were again, not this boy, but the people he was quote unquote, serving. Mm hmm. Now what titus was he he did it and then boarded up and called it enough about and framed a boy and a piece but the boy is my son my son. He painted my son for piece. And so it says something me that like nobody else publicly really know because you know once you notice my kit, youll recognize. But its my kid from when he was like seven. And so, you know, you wont even, you know, you just wouldnt recognize it. And so as a way in which this whole conversation is messing around with yeah. And this is a way right here, to go to your first question, where titus was messing inside because he literally put you 20, 2016 in in in an artwork with like, you know, 1860, right. And then a that the poem that accompanies is opponent i wrote for my son. So i think thats another thats going on in terms of how those those redaction pieces arent just you know, they do specific things as art, but they also Say Something in terms of being a symbol for for our deepening partnership. And so it becomes a bridge this because it lets us like do the same thing. Yeah. And i just of want to play off that idea of your deepening partnership because although the book makes a compelling argument about the intermingling of privilege and capitalism and the Justice System and how the eighth amendment is imperiled under the current system, it also and importantly articulate a fuller narrative around male hood and tenderness this really beautiful way. And i just wanted to ask you why, do you think thats an important narrative forward in the dialog around masculinity and think . I think though if we was going to translate that, its like, you know, its like you wrote some dopest poems. You did this, thats what you did all and you know, but what was interesting, though, was like of the things and i try, i mean, its really hard not to talk about own work and comparison and things i did in the past because but you are always trying improve it and we do a lot of conversation about like i dont wait for audience and its something precious about saying that know, i mean as a lawyer you always youre communicating for audience. Now, i run a nonprofit called freedom reads. I have to raise money and im definitely communicate with the audience. Like, imagine if im about to ask to donate to freedom reason. Im like, i mean. It is a lovely day outside. You know books are amazing are you should yeah you should check out my organization and at some point in i leave in my Development Person will be like what exactly was that . You know, did you did you tell them about the work . Did you did have a pitch deck . Did you have an ask. No, you were not communicating into an audience. You were you were communicating a space somewhere, but you had no intention and. And i mentioned that because as a lawyer and sort of as a as a fund raiser, know that you have to know who youre communicating. You have to have some sense of what you want them to walk away with. Now, in raising sometimes people walk away with something thing you intend, but they give you money you because its not didactic. I guess my point and even the firm reason bit of it is not didactic. You want to open room for them that theyll enjoy a lot of aspects of the room and you want them to come the room on their own. Mm. Well when i was writing these poems i reading them particularly for all kinds of reasons. The pandemic was going on. I wanted to grasp joy. I was writing poems for a friend that that was going through chemo. So i just wanted and then if you sent in somebody a poem to them when they going through chemo, it has to have light in a poem. You cant write a poem that is as troubled by darkness, right . Or overwhelmed by darkness. And so i had a different intention when was writing the work. And i think all of those things out to be me being vulnerable because one way to have something in it that was complex was, was that there was the struggle to be vulnerable. So that becomes a thing that allows it to have it and i think that allows have textualist to slightly different from some of my other work but its also where you get the argument from about people the system that we are living for lives and we are like like striving to be members of a community in all kinds of complex ways and that were going to be reduced reduced solely to the pain cause others slowly to the pain solely to the pain that weve experienced for being in a system or from having family members or of good friends. Right. Thank you so much for that. I want to open it up to the audience to, see if there are any questions out there. I would be happy to hog the time with, reginald, but i want to make sure that have the opportunity to ask any questions that you any questions in the audience. In the back there there. I not i dont know anything about poetry, but i know a little bit about legal writing. So curious about in legal writing, obviously you want to have clarity of idea thought. And i imagine that part the advantage of having a redacted along the lines of what you describe is being able to clarify a lot of the the complication that is inherent legal writing. But i also know in legal writing you rewarded for some of that complexity either in demonstrating a particular complex idea or confusing the issue to advantage. So im curious about with your legal training, your legal writing training, the amount of writing you have to do, how is that affected you . Think, construct and draft poems. So basically write to translate the question. Its like, you know, being a lawyer trained in some ways to be a really skilled hire, how do you prevent yourself from approaching your more Creative Work with the same intentionality of a Supreme Court. Clerk . You honestly dont think that like the best. Truly believe something that they need to say. And and this is why a lot of legal writing is not meaningful the public because you could deeply and you know what you just deeply mean it believe that this statute is being violated or not and you focus your attention on answering that question instead of answering the question about whether what happen based on that determination, if it is just if the things that will happen to people are just but i think the skills are the same. No. So then as a writer, im thinking about how to do the same. You know, how to focus on i had a dog. So some of these point i still have a dog. I have a puppy. Shes two now. But when she was a little dog and we never had a dog before, i was experiencing all of these, these like black men in public with a dog things. And i, i was like never more lovable in my life than when having this little white dog, you know . And, and people would know, you because you walk in American Neighborhood and it wasnt even it was just because now all of a sudden they see you to see you every day. You the person who you actually do clean up after your dog and you do it when people are watching and when nobodys watching, you know, or they just see you being nice to other. But the point is i was trying to notice those things because they were so new and so fresh to me and sometimes in a deep noticing, the poem would turn somewhere else about it means to be vulnerable. So its the same, i think, thing as you do a legal right, except i have more choices. I dont have to focus on a statute i can focus on peonies. I mean, we bought this house and we didnt know that it was a perennial garden, that the house is a perennial garden. So you wake up one morning and its a honey tulips and your yard and youre like, i believe, you know, literally, you know, you know, like a peony is impossibly beautiful and is not in it is not a that is coming, you know, you just like so this fall sold me some sticks and then the next day they bloom you like whats and so and those will become poems but its because of focus on those things and as a legal writer sometimes you dont get to choose what you what you will focus on. And thats why one of my one of the more Creative Things i saw was brad stevens. And i had a piece that was like an imaginary emotion. He was like, move for the court to my 14 year old client. Like they were 85 year old millionaire. And that was him breaking out of the legal form to focus on a different kind of question. But it was actually pretty compelling right on. Its a great question. Yeah, next question. Question freedom reads and you are speaking at the free library, philadelphia. I originally introduced to you in your appearance, your Award Winning in 2020 on the podcast icon talk. And so with that introduction of freedom reads and you again being here now the free of philadelphia its just one of you could speak to that harmony or disharmony. Yeah so its so freedom of organization and i started and we built libraries in prisons and and its in its a lot to that so first a lot of prisons libraries but they tend to be libraries that are distant from from where the population is. And so if you got a job, you might not be able to go to libraries, open 9 to 5. So you cant go after hours if you if you other competing interests you want to play sports, you want to exercise, you want to watch tv might not go to the library, but more it becomes a crew of folks that go the library and you find your people. But what about learning with people you are. And so we want to put these libraries on housing units. I recognized that it was a lot of legitimate reasons for people not to be able to go to the library, including the fact that if everybody wanted to take advantage of it every day, they wouldnt had a capacity to serve everybody. So i said, okay, well, lets build a library and put it in a housing unit. And then we would take restraints and create opportunities so the shelves couldnt be more than 44 inches high because of print, because of concerns of violence. And in sort of getting, in a way, a sight sightlines. So we said, okay, well make a 44 inches, but why put it on the wall . You put a bookshelf and wall. What you do is create an opportunity for one person to have a private moment with themselves. But what if we made of 44 inches and then we made an accessible from both sides . So it had to be in the center, a space because if you been into prison, you know that and you seen like a bookshelf on a housing unit, its like out of the way is where people go in a corner. They go look for books, but theres no community there. And so we put alkurd and then we, we make them curved because again, its nothing curved in prison, just like Straight Lines and right angles. And we make it suggest a kind of softness that their shapes communicate, and then we make them out of wood, out of maple, out of oak out of cherry, out of walnut, because theres nothing in prison that is that that is built to last, that long. But its also a symbol of of life is also a symbol of capacity of forgiveness. And so that was the idea we make it 500 books because i think that you could you could like take a deep deep journey and know who you are by reading you know some a subset of these 500 books which is a mixture of, you know, a lot of poetry classics, you know, your faulkner, your morrison your james baldwin. Its a run a detective novels. Those first person really detect novels that has, you know your essay cosbys alongside the maltese falcon alongside chester himes. And so we started from this idea and at this point weve done 90 libraries across 23 prisons and in eight states. And was fascinating as we went from like people telling me, you cant convince the d. O. C. To do this to two prisons called in. Theyre saying, you know, we really those libraries on the housing because they recognize that it brings some it brings huge opportunity ease and its just a moment a woman you know a guy wrote me a sit in a 25 years ive been locked up ive never seen anything. This this impact will happen. And when we was in his womens prison, california, this woman came up to me and said, you did this. I was like i mean, i didnt do it by myself. I mean, that i did drive an 18 wheeler from connecticut to get here at the library as well, and a handmade shell was most of it. I was like, now, of course, i didnt do those things. I was like, but ive run it. And i mean, im making a joke. You and shes weeping and shes trying to talk. Shes like, im sorry, im sorry. And that was kind of funny. But like i say, like i just cant believe you done this, you know . And shes standing in front of me crying. And so so yeah, its been its been pretty powerful and really impactful and across all programs. But i really love notes. We got this Freedom Ambassadors program where people come in with us and they dont come in, you know, most organizations. Have you been of prison . Ive been inside a bunch of usually go in as a voyeur even when you dont want to even when you know youre trying to go do good work and trying study problem. If youre not teaching and providing direct services, somebody feels voyeuristic no matter. What you know and what i love about our work is you get to come in and its just work. You know, if we do 18 libraries, we do 18 libraries at one prison, thats 4000 books. And a books are up in like library one library, two library, three on it, but is embossed boxes and is in plastic. And you got to open those boxes and you got to take the books out of plastic. So we bring people in with us who serve as ambassadors and they do the work for the day and they are community with the ceos. We got pictures back from one of these bats and you see like all these Smiling Faces and its not a prison. Stop being prison. Nobody believes this. Stop being prison. But you can have a moment of joy around books and when our motto turns the books into a coffee table and you dont sit across from somebody and they have coffee in their hand and you dont smile, you know. And so when you sit across from somebody and they got book in their hand, you dont look at them and speak, you know, and you just never know. The conversation might go. So weve been doing and obviously we still need support. Obviously you can go to the website ww that freedom reads that all to read more about initiatives but im happy to say its fantastic man and it was a cat that used to send us fat every month. Found out bill because he recognized, you know what, this is halfway to a book, right. And this is what i could contribute every. But it was symbolic. It represented the same kind of initiative that folks have had. Theyve decided to give 10,000 or 20,000 or 50,000. So, you know, if anybody sees this and you decide that you get an extra 25,000, go to ww that freedom raised, you know ww freedom reads that org and hit donate ww w that that work that work yeah another question in the back yeah i want to ask if i may about the short film that titus made shut up in pain that you heavily in. And theres a scene in that where youre kind of talking about your work perhaps being not as accessible as both of you would like. And that seems to be kind of the premise of him wanting to make a film in the first place. And more people can see it then can go to an art gallery or Something Like that. Im just curious if you have thoughts on how that conversation have evolved and what your feelings and thoughts are on that now . Yeah, i think so. So i tell people like we made this book and a book has a price point just had in most hardback books. Sanjar a book, but i tell them why they should get two copies. I say get one copy and you take these and you deconstruct them and. You frame them and give them to the people that you love. I them you cant afford a titus kaphar. You cant afford 50 of them. And if you can, should buy 50. But you know, this is an opportunity to to bless other people with this story and. The way that i wrote the poem is that each print his own haiku, each is his own poem. Its not a hacking, technically, but its haiku ish. And but i said it so you dont have to feel like you have to hang a whole sequence your wall to get something you. The second thing i say and i think we think seriously about like audience and accessibility is accessibility in two ways. So one, accessibility is just like can reach it, you know, is the museum outside of, you know, circumference of your everyday activities. And often that is if you live in a city where the museum is. So the book addresses that accessibility in some way because you could hold this you could pick it up from store every time you know us being on Good Morning America, two black men on Good Morning America talking about art. Right, is also a powerful gesture to to say that, you know, part of accessibility is is is winning the attention battle. And so thats the first part of a part is accessibility terms of content. And i think that our work has been deeply complex and deeply accessible and both at the same time and i think work can do that. So i think the poems are rich. Theyve rich with allusion, theyre rich with depth. And i think the average was story as well. And because im more of a narrative poet, i think that that helps my work become accessible on multiple levels to people just because we crave story and we to hear stories. And i know that these poems are deeply interesting and a meaningful one. So well see. But the jury out, you know, were doing our work. Were trying to say, check this out. Im trying to say you know, and truly, one of the questions was like, you know, we only got a packed audience today. I was like, i dont care. I love the people who showed up. If it was seven people here. Am i going to rock the house for the seven people that showed up . You know, because ultimately that that accessibility bit and winning the attention battle part of it is just showing up and were freedom reach we say the first metric of success is showing up people dont show up prisons. You know, sometimes artists dont show up to spaces to make sure that their work could be hit, could get hurt, because is sometimes a hassle. You know, sometimes you you do get disappointed if you dont have a lot of people in audience. But if you recognize that showing up is the first metric for success, then i think you could, you know, keep getting at that that that attention battle and maybe when it. Thank you another question in the back. First i want to thank you ive enjoyed your talk and i enjoy the genuine ness of what you share there is a incredible honesty to the presentation that i find refreshing so ive been listening to you both of you actually, that was for both of you. Your questions were spot on and i have enjoyed that so thank you. I come away just being introduced to you well not just but in the last few months or so so your body of work im with you were pedigree or lack thereof. Im im familiar with im looking at your book. Im listening to what you tell me and im wondering what is it that you want people to come away with after they have gone through redaction or is is the folk is to be the Prison Industrial Complex and how that impact the community is the that within the community there within this specific community there is both passion intensity and art. Is it is it all of those things or none of those things when they get to the end of your book and theyve taken this journey with you, where should they be . So this is thank you. Thats a lovely. So this is the last column in the book is brother is death in the city. His boy here the only some of us will see on his wedding day his body draped in the colors of heaven and each limb living in every borough at once. How i wanted to be free when i tell my son about his brother and how a scar from forehead to his lip was not nearly the most interesting thing about, i think of his feet and wonder how to beat kind of honesty and winning within a moment everything that matters. I want to be somebodys child again and young enough to stand before a mirror until my body moves. I believe may save me. Maybe nothing saves us save being witness to someone else so free at i think the thing i find complicated about the question is is is the thing that people challenging about poetry in every collection of poetry unless its just a unified narrative it is usually not one story not 100 stories but, exponentially more stories than they are even poems. And that poem was written for Michael K Williams. Then when you get the book, youll notice that the poems dont have titles on it because the art doesnt have titles on it because they always had his works list a section, and i was like, my poems are too. Im not putting my title is up there. This is a work list. You know, know. And whats interesting is that way too, poems become a sequence they become unnamed in a number sequence that they all tell these thousand stories but suggest that there is a connection that runs through these stories. And i think about that last poem as exemplar because. Thats a poem that i wrote on a night in my 42nd birthday. You know, i, you know, we had dinner or whatever. We went out and and i saw this video of Michael K Williams and he on it was he was dancing in a park and i didnt know he could dance. I knew he was an actor and i seen all his work and i had actually met him a few months before i interviewed him a podcast about democracy and so we had like chopped it up and i and i knew him and so on my birthday i saw this video. I was thinking about this video because i cant dance at all. It got real. So i got somebody wanted me to write a piece about it. I wrote like a 3000 word piece about this and i got a dance instructor and i was learning how to do the dance from, the clip. You know, i had this woman that was teaching, i could do it to him that, but i could i had my kids can come came with me to one of the dance lessons and dance and its exhausting if you over 40 and your knees are you know you get to minute 32 when you like but the point is i write this poem him because im searching for something beautiful to say to somebody else, just going through something and and then it crushed me when he passed and i forget that i wrote that poem and, and i was supposed to write a piece about, about somebody. And i realized at the times that he had passed and somebody had to write about him. And so i called the folks and i was like, no, i got one. And remember writing a piece and then spending a lot of time arguing with him about like what i say. Michael k williams overdosed in a piece. I was like, im not saying that. You dont have to say that. And we went back and forth. But the point is, i ended up in india from an image about, you know, his feet being on every barrel at once. And then months later, as im finishing, i find this poem that i have wrote just on my phone. I had the line in it, and i was like, this is a good poem. And we ended up putting it in a book. So what i want people to walk away with is way in which some subset of, these exponential stories, they get contained the poems and contain in art speaks to their life because its not just a book about the criminal Justice System, but its like when you were a kid and you had an encyclopedia and you had a one volume encyclopedia, and you could get endless days of delight by just looking up things and studying them and them. And you didnt know before you picked up that encyclopedia this literally is like an encyclopedia and the subject is the creativity of titus kaphar and reginald betts. It is like looking into the minds and our minds and to the degree that we have interesting things to say about the world, that gives captions both visually and through words, and it is captured in a way that that offers you, i think, something as deep, fully engaging for those who are nerds as an encyclopedia. And he knows youre not a nerd, you know, like the first encyclopedia i read. The first book i read was a basketball encyclopedia and i would use the moves on the street. So even if you not in there could use these moves and here in your life whether you in the courtroom or the boardroom or, you know, so thank you for that. I think ill end on one last question that i ask you. Can you give us all tips in life about how to move from brutality into, beauty . Oh, this perfect, this poem. The other thing that happens is people can ask you questions and you just flip pages of stopping a poem and be like, this one asks, you know, so. So this is the image, right . And and then im a read, a poem that goes with it. The images is a woman whos standing in the middle of two shrouded figures and this also painting in the back that has three people. They look like they fleeing and are they fleeing towards freedom . And its this riff on the one who is going to be doing what she needs to do to, protect her family. And so you can get multiple even even though that work, even like subtle things, it looks like its in the shadow. A man here who might be the threat that she has to go for it. So theres a lot going on inside this is where it it really fascinating but but so part of my answer is you remember this which is that is the thing in the poem. Thats one way that its a whole something gentle and vulnerable and safe in a world that is often desperate, violent, a of almost anything has a name crows are murder and flamingos are flamboyance. Most of the others i dont know. A group of empty shot glasses is called a disaster of empty rooms. Yesterday, a collection of tomorrows, even if dreamed, if desire crave for like some small child want more story at bedtime is called hope too many nights when all i was hope no collective noun exists to hold or the people love if we name it at all. Wouldnt it be abundance . I have an abundance of loves and even when i am lonely, especially then they show up. It rains outside everyone i love sleeps there is no word for listening to them breathe. But if there were, it would be the antithesis of murder. Crows always remember a is what i read once and can recall it as if a of a dream. And so ive always thought a house full of loves is a dreaming. And what better word for listening to all your loves breathe at night than a dreaming. What more any of us eggs at a desk thank so much thank philadelphia for coming out to your Reginald Dwayne betts its been a beautiful night, an intimate night if you will will, a dreamy night. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your love with us tonight. We appreciate you. My pleasure. Thank you, guys for coming