Can you all see me . Okay. Can you all hear me . Even if you cant see me. Thank you for being here. Im delighted to be back. Two today im excited to bring you this book. Im incredibly proud of it. Im working on speaking slower. People. People have to me that i speak too fast. So you can give me some feedback on how this goes afterwards. Okay. The songbook came out of a conversation i had with my father two years ago. I. I asked my dad, i said how does the song point become he looked at me for a little bit and said when i was young there is few people who said beautiful things to me. My father died when i was two years old. My mother took to the mountainside to see her nine children. Ld i was two years old. Growing up i always wish for a father, i used to go to the house of one number neighbor to the next collecting the beat of the things people had to say to each other. One day was speaking to myself, and the song was born. I thought those beautiful. So i said to my dad, i said, maybe thats going to be the beginning of my next book, he looked at me and he said, may be it is the end, and then he and and said nobody then he and and said nobody wants to read a book about when you can read books about barack obama, my father loved barack obama. Then a few years after that afe producer came to our house, she asked my father, how does it feel to give birth to a writer when you are one yourself my dad looked at her and said i can barely read my own name. Ni my daughter writes in english the stories i wish i could read. As i started thinking seriously about men like my father. And i seen him on the streets of new york city when i was standing there, walking up to columbia university. Men like my like my father who worked in the basement restaurant, i saw themn and that grounds work at other colleges like stanford university. Most of this world is built on the shoulders of men like my father. So for me to say that there lives and they have lessons to offer the world, this is just one way of me telling my fathers the song poet that his words, he was my first poet, my first literary experience of the world. It is his words that feed my heart. The the song poem this is the dedication. For the sense arise in the horizons we have yet to see, for my mothers and sisters, my sons sons and daughters, for my father who sings it this lonely song so that when they hear the trembling of the still heart it begins with an appetite. In the words, and impulse to keep the details and episodes of it experience alive and once aching consciousness. To transcend it not by the calm voice of philosophy, but by squeezing from the near cosmic experience. As a form they can be duets, the voices of the fathers and daughters come together, just as averse misses a song. I am taking on my fathers form. In the in the best way knowhow in this book. I do not have a voice work, my father has it beautiful voice. The your voices only vehicle. Or. I dont have that voice. But i was born underneath the umbrella and so this is my best effort of going to read several selections to give you feel for the book. Ok. The first is through my fathers voice. It is a fatherless boyhood. I ran away from home many times. Each time i left i did not think about the coming of my my only plan was to find the telus tree away from the village and climate. I thought i could say stay there forever, somewhere between the earth and the sky. I would sit and scan thehe mountains from my village. I looked at the gentle curve of the valleys and search with a place that my father was barry. All i knew is what my older brothers had told me. Father is on a mountain in the shape of an uneven rectangle going out of the treetops. From the tree are repeated the words ive gathered from friends and relatives, words id id heard my brother say to their children. T words of appeal of lovinghe trae courage. Do not be afraid, everything will be okay. I will not let anything hurt you. As the sun dissented the jungle foliage was thicker and im made out moving shapes. Now they floated down and hovered on the ground of fog. I curled my legs up on the tree limited felt the cool dampness of the mountain error settle into this move park. My shirt was a little armor against the evening win. I recall the stories told. Ing t seeking evaporations from the living. From the safety of the storyteller it had been fun pretending that the fireflies hovering in the nearby brush where the tortured souls alight with anger. In the dark in my tree limb i cannot trust that the links of like i saw blood to fireflies. Er. My courage wavered then i started thinking that perhaps i acted childless sleep. Running away was that the answer, i was no ones fault that i want to i want to the father. But i cannot locate in the world. Each time i ran away i walked back home along the same path i had taken. Y mother a i went over a long list of things my mother did for each of us each day. I started thinking of all milder brothers and sisters, we attended a huge field so he could attend the harvest with his mother andd brothers. He became a teacher so he could share his government salary with everyone in the set. He crawled into bed each night so he could arise early again in the morning and be the first to do the work of the village. He works hard at raising healthy chickens, ducks, pigs, cows of the family so the family could have meet at each new years day. He carried notebooks in his hands at all the time and wrote notes of politics and humor so he could be an example of education to follow. Fo they did her laundry and helped with the house. While she had complaints they never stopped her busy feats from working. They all do do sod much, what did i do . It was too sensitive, a concern over not having enough light not about him but the war. He told himself the brother was simply being a good father. Was not his intention to make anyone sad. Hers wer all his brothers were acting as best they knew how. The sadness sadness was because he did not have a father. Ca nothing less and nothing more. N he told himself he need to expand his heart and thicken and skin and become more of what the family needed him to be, although without his schoolwhet smarts. I ran away so many times because i cannot carry the weight of words, the ones inside of me and the once around me. I cannot use my mind to escape from the actions, conscious and unconscious, conscious and unconscious, a fella who loves me. In the words i yearn to hear nobody was there to say that. I find myself stumbling back and bear spy my child the this. My mother never asked why i ran away or where had been. Upon my return i said and she agreed, i had gone to play by myself because i was a loner. I stray stray too far in taken me much longer to get home and it was good for me. Of course i was young and i forgot. Even after the other time she had admonished me and told me to remember. My mother accepted this, always only too happy that i found my way home again. She moved close to me and surround me with the scent of mental ill and try earth. A woman of strong words my w mother did not offer many private interments but when i returned home i made out the beating of her frantic heart. The only person that knew my innocent mistake i saw it in his eyes hopelessness, disappointment, regret, and love. He would Library Still in a platform bed he shared with me, he pulled the blanket up to our next and folded his arms to pillow his head, he stared up at the ceiling, his head did not turn, his, his eyes did not close, he took deep breaths. His bony chest rose high one of his pants and pulled it from the other and he reached out quietly to hold my hand in his own. He gave a tiny squeeze. In the force of those fingers i felt i was not alone. I understood that we had the r sadness together. I realized if that not return to truly be alone. That is when i cried for my own thoughtlessness and endless yearning. I didnt dare make noise. My body jerked in motions and my tears ran down my face. The tears i held back by the firelight, on the track away from the village up high in the tree it became a small salty stream. L through the tears i can see my mothers back turned toward the wall into the dark it seemed her body jerked and little motion similar to mild. I was 12 years old when i began singing poetry. My body was changing. More girls are noticing me in my village. My mind was changing too. I understood that school was onn my arena but i could find other pathways into manhood. The world we lived in was changing. Each day grew certain my future would rest at the point of a gun, not a pen. The drums of the battle with the cries of widows and orphans in our village, the the only wayye can meet their pain was to take it inside of me, melt into my flesh and feel the pull through my veins feel my heart and overflow. When i began singing poetry i could share stories of her tense sorrow. Of anger and betrayal, conscious and unconscious. Intentional or not, my silent sensitivities with those around me. My song my brothers my f brothers and sisters, family and friends, followed their own tears down there treats. The promise of eternal care. Do not be afraid, everything will be out alright. I right. I will not let anything hurt you. In 1992 my father came up with an album of portrait. It was can sitter the bestseller. He made 5000 in his goal wasm. Always that he would use that money to come up with a second album. But i remember very clearly that fall, i knew they had the 5000 dollars, i went to my dad and i said i need i need a new schoolbag. If you dont buy me new colored pencils im not going to go to school because im embarrassed. I dont want want to sharpen the same once youre in and youre out. My father went to the 5000 dollars. Dollars. My older sister needed and wanted things to. And so the younger ones came along and they followed in our footsteps and my father kept on going through the 5000 in the second album never came out. Like children, the the world over whenever asked about the second album. It wasnt until i had become a writer, it wasnt until that one question that the one producers, how does it feel to give birth to a writer when you are one yourself. And my dad answered her, i her, i can barely write my own name. My daughter writes into english stories only wish i could read. This next that im going to reach you is from my most emotional track of this book is called love song. It is in my fathers voice for my mother. I loved it when you said we could get up at three in the morning anymore to go to workou away from our younger children. E you want me to change jobs to get work that would allow me to take care of the children during the day. I wanted to tell you that we were in we did not speak much english in this country. I wanted to ask you who would drive you to work in the mornings. Home again when your shift was through. C we only had one car, you are freighter cars. I want to tell you i was scared to go looking for a job and come home without one. I wanted to tell you i was scared to go to work without you in the same place with me. Who is going to help you move the heavy boxes and the missing parts, what if something went wrong in the factory, who would hold your hand and help you outside . I would ever work in this country, racist childrenren without knowing that you are not beside me. Youre the only reason i felt we had a chance chance goingg forward as a family and you are asking us to partner days for children. I love them too much to speak to my fears so i said i would look for a job. Even at lesser pay, on a different different shift so i could take care of the children. We would have to part with them each morning for work, every night. I love do throughout the years that we couldnt be together because we work different shifts in different places. Each day you continued your old routine, you woke up at three in the morning, you brush your teeth, cook food interests. He put the key in the lot by four, by five you are at work. I took care of the children until you got care of two in the afternoon. N. My shift started at three. We had the minutes in between to say hello and goodbye. I did not get home until midnight. The only light in the house that was on each night i came home was in the kitchen, the small house in her efforts to say warm, the house is quiet because you and the younger children were already asleep. The older girls are done with their homework on the small dining room table they made an effort to get up and give hugs but i always thought about their safety first. I was told them not to come to e close. Factory i was working in the machine factory and i didnt want the residue of the chemicals in the steel particles i worked with to get on them. I knew it could cause cancer. Se i said, after i shower i will give you hugs. Each night i showered and showered and then i kiss my older girls good night. Then i made our way to our room where a was at the edge of the mattress. The three younger ones in between us. Breathing. Breathing my song in the night. And then when you came in at 3i scooted the children over closer to the wall and slept on my back. It was only my dreams that we were together, there you reach out to me and held my hand across the heads of our children. There he spoke softly and asked me how i was doing in my new work. There you held me close until man was doing a good job right alongside you. But our life is not like herlike dream. I never asked you what your dreams were. I was scared scared of them as you are mine. On the weekends you are shy, angry, tired and exhausted. Too happy to only be with the children, unsure of how to be with each other. Ch our voices colliding, crashing, pleading, on the weekends we shared the same house, the same children, the same life. It was not until i have gotten married was not until my husband and i woke up to the same alarm every morning that we set opposite each other at the same dining table. D the sometimes wheat lunch and dinner together. That i understood the lone willingness of those longss years of for my mother and father. I understood those weekends when they crowded around us and apart from each other. Ather sa so my father says that he is nothing more nothing less than the father he imagined for himself. That at his best in his worst is only the person this is from a track titled the sunless right. On a dark night our father calls for one more family meeting. He presented to with two choices. Who could return to school or get a job and leave home. Our mother sat on the sofa beside our father find of so she did not touch him. She held pieces of tissue in her hand and push them up to her face to cover her eyes as her father spoke. She she continued her tears. She did not contain her mouth. She had listened in the years had grown too long at the worse she wanted to say to her father had students i. All we could do is watch our mother fight our father for whoh he was fighting for. Our mother said she would rather be safe at home than be in a world that were not welcome him. She said her father could blame him for being too soft if she wanted to but she was not going to let him alone take the responsibility for what had happened in andover. She said her father could blame himself if he wanted because of father has as much to carry as a son. Arry as she said what her father did that work was no different than what he did at school. S he was just pulling through the only reason he did not quit was because unlike him he had children to be. Dr he was no more success in america than his son. If anyone gave him ultimatum and told him to lee. At first our father tried to speak over and say that the meeting was not about him or their relationship. But it was about her brother. Our our mother would not be quieted. Ou she cannot stop. She had her hands over her heart, she ripped the tissues in her hands and just shreds yet her voice to not crack. The words did not slur. Alas she said, im so tired of loving you both so much in america and seen you fall into yourselves instead of getting up for the menu are. The mar mother spoke the smaller father came in front of her. The air he breathed in the from his body with each statement she made. It was her brother who raised his hand to her mother, stop sign. He tried to speak but no words came out. He gestured towards max. He didnt want to leave max he was only four years old. He looked at backs sitting by the stairwell. Our father say, i do not want to be an example for your little brother max and how to survive in this country as a lone man. Perhaps our perhaps our father thought his words would motivate sue. We watch them slicer brother apart. In max heard her fathers words, hes now in fathers direction and sitting by the stairwell should he make the decision to leave. When max heard the words max said, he is he is my brother, he cannot leave me. Life without him is no life at all. I would rather die than live in america without my brother by my side. America his gaze with our fathers he tilted his chin up, he walked to her father and held onto his arm. Our father moved away from exes holden stood up, he could see the pace and he walks with a limp. The balls of his feet burned with each step, the flesh tender and abuse by the long nights beside the machines at work. The. The stress of standing and walking, caring iron and steel. He walked a small stretch of the living room into the light of again. Ing area back he said, this is what happens to feet when they stand and walk without rest. He held out his red hands. A tiny stretch of white lines in his hardline across his palm. He said, this is what happens to human flesh when it cuts into steel. It suffers. He said, i want youe to have a life that is better than mine. I dont want you to become a machinist like me. I dont want you to live life with men and boys far stupider than you telling you that you dont belong here, that you are no good for this country, telling you to return to, telling you to return to a country you do not have. I want you to have a better life than me. I want you to be better than me. He looked at her father, and he said what if youre the best man i know how to be. Our father shook his head, he did not want to accept it. Time for the first time in his life he heard the words of a son to his father, he knew what it was like to your for father to raise a son and make him better thantd you. And he tried to make him safe in a fantasy of father and son but her brother cannot save our father from himself. F. Our father said you cannot be me and survive in this country. My brother said that i cannot survive in this country. Our brother got up and walked where max set and placed his hand on maxs head and offered no words, no goodbyes, he passe by my father and the divide between the living room and dining room. He walked into the dark kitchen and open the cabinet beside the white refrigerator. He pulled out a black garbage bag. He close close the cabinet so lightly it may no sound. He didnt turn off the light in the hallway. O he simply walked into his room, there is no slamming door. It was a horrible nightmare, the nightmare we have been dreading. Where. Where we believed our life together as a family with them. Not because of war were soldiers encroaching because of the remnants of war inside each of us. The battle we fought to survive in america. We ran after him, he held to the end of his shirt and try to hold him still. R they walked in Different Directions turn back to get and stood with their hands of their mouth. Her mother and father watch from the doorway of his room as he stuck a photograph of his grandma and him into the not garbage bag. Theres a a twinkle of naughtiness in his eye