PHIL- NATIONAL
TEETH
“Ojīchama” is what I call my Japanese grandfather. In 1945 his Tokyo home was burned to the ground.
“Granpy” is what I call my American grandpa. In 1945 he was serving in the USS Shangri-la, sending off
American bomber pilots to burn down Japanese houses. Our jaws have not yet healed.
1906, Poland: Granpy’s father is hiding in an oven. He doesn’t know the irony of that yet. He’s heard men
singing on the streets below— hyenas, my family calls them. After celebration drinks and songs, the outside
townspeople come into the Jewish ghetto for a celebration beating: molar fireworks and eyelid explosions.
Even when Granpy’s father grows up, the sound of sudden song breaks his body into a sweat. Fear of joy is the
darkest of captivities.
1975, Tokyo: my father, the long haired student with a penchant for sexual innuendo, meets Keiko Hori, a well-
dressed banker which forgets the choruses to her favorite songs. 12 years later they give birth to a lengthy light
bulb.
1999, California: my mother speaks to me in Japanese. Most days I don’t have the strength to ask her to
translate the big words. “They’ve burned that house down, Mother. Don’t you remember?”
1771, Prague: in the heart of the city, there’s a Jewish cemetery: the only plot of land where Granpy’s
ancestors were allowed to be buried. When they ran out of room, they had no choice but to stack dead bodies,
one on top of another. Now there are hills made from graves piled 12 deep; individual tombstones, jutting out
crooked like valiant teeth, emerging from a jaw left to rot.
1985, my parent’s wedding: the two families sit together, smiling wider than they need to. Montague must be
so happy he can capulet this all go.
1997 on the safety of his tokio apartment Ojīchama scrawls postcards to his old fourposter bed. Haven’t been
able to sleep since you left. Wish you were here
1999: I sit with Granpy’s cousin, 91 years old and dressed in full uniform. I beg with him to until the knots in his
brow. He says: “Hate is a strong word. But it’s the only strength that I have left. How am I to forgive the men
that severed the trunk of my family tree, and used it as timber to warm the faces of their own children?”
2010: Granpy and I sit together to watch his favorite — baseball. In the infertile glow of the television I see his
face wet. Granpy sits on his wheelchair, teeth gasping out of his gums like valiant tombstones emerging from a
cemetery left to rot. The teeth sit staring at me, and I can read them: Louie Burgman, killed at Auschwitz. Sarah
Liz, killed at Dachau. William Kaye, killed at the coast of Okinawa.
“I will never forget what is happened to our family, Granpy”, and he looks at me with the surprised innocence
of a child struck for the first time.
“Phillip, forgetting is the only gift I wish to give you. I have given away my only son, trying to bury my hate in a
cemetery which is already overflowing. There are nights I’m kept awake by the birthday songs of children I
chose not to let live… they all look like you. A plague on both your houses. They have made worms’ meat of
me.”
Phil Kaye - "Canyon"- national
I don’t remember the day my parents stopped speaking Japanese to me maybe sometime in kindergarten when
I had trouble understanding people in English or maybe after some glance I don’t remember any grocery store
parking lot in California holding my father’s semi? Jewish hand as he spoke perfect Japanese to me so I’m
confused how has wise eyebrows shaming us back to this country. Or maybe drink some early play date when
you lay some of the white boy in our living room I just stopped speaking back to them by the time my sister was
born years later the old language had been locked away somewhere in the house and aging holiday decoration
we took out and looked at in season thought about tossing it completely I admit I fantasize sometimes about
being a family that speaks their mothers song a dinner in mixed company over at each other lower our voice
into an octave on the plaid can decide for . Japanese.. Don’t use your hand when you eat lately at the dinner
table my mother whispers amending incantation in Japanese to my sister after silence she says it again speaks
into a canyon with no echo others it one more time makes my sister say in English I don’t understand what
you’re saying and suddenly my grandmother is there shaking her head opens her mouth is mute.
Surplus
My grandfather wasn’t a strong man, but he knew what it meant to build.
In 1947, after he and my great uncles returned from the Second World War, they opened up Union War Surplus
Store. The store slogan, “From a battleship to a hunting knife, we have it, or we will get it.”
My grandfather wasn’t a strong man, but he kept this word. The place was half store, half encyclopedia, packed
all the way to the basement with people that somebody somewhere else might forget about, but not here, like
Richard, Richard, who didn’t work there, but showed up every Sunday afternoon in his full military uniform,
never once bought a single thing, but once brought his little girl, held her hand, said, “This is what it smelled
like when daddy was a hero.”
My grandfather wasn’t a strong man, but he kept us safe. We walked together in the park one night. And a
jagged man with more tattoo than skin walked up directly to my grandfather, said: “Hey, old man. My mom
took me your store once when I was a kid, and you shook my hand like I was a man.”
I still remember that.
They called my grandfather Cheerful Al, with his big belly, bald head, long gray beard. Little kids would see him
and go, “Santa Claus.”
Six years after Union War Surplus Store opened its doors, my grandfather had a son, my dad. He is not a strong
man, but he knows what it means to build.
One summer, when he was a teenager, he built a door in the back. It’s still there.
Forty years after Union War Surplus Store opened its doors, my father had a son.
I’m not a strong boy, but I’m trying to learn what it means to build.
One summer, when I was a teenager, I worked at the store, built this display that went all the way up to the
ceiling. Ran up to my grandfather, showed him what I had done.
“Very good, Phil. Very good.”
When I asked him what to do next, he handed me an old piece of paper, a beat-up pen. When I asked him what
to do with it, he shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
And I began to build the only way I know how.
Suburbia https://genius.com/Phil-kaye-suburbia-annotated
I love this place, the community, the people, and the sense of stability
and this place is amazing, this place is amazing, this place is a maze, is a maze, is a maze.
Scientific fact, law of conservation, energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transferred from one state to
another. 1945, Albert Einstein, scientist, creates the atomic bomb, a hundred thousand Japanese houses
implode and American suburbia explodes.
Read the paper, we're choking, cities' smoking, there is her body, wrinkled, cracking, loose, out there on the
fringe there is plenty, space so empty you can stretch your arms out inside her, thick, overgrown, that's how you
know she is virgin.
1970, this is the 20th century, we knew we'd reach the pacific eventually, this is only new manifest destiny, by
this time the number of people living in suburbia had exploded 300 percent,
locusts, hocus, pocus, poof smoke makes you choke, but at least it is air.
City *slaps face twice* city wakes up mid surgery, the suitcase of her chest ripped open, her highway innards
are scattered around the room, there are a thousand kidneys in the corner, they all look like mine, what are
their names, nurse, nurse, bring me more anaesthesia, I was never truly sleeping just for that moment
American dreaming, the nurse with a rag to my face, breathe, breathe, everyone is happy.
Our little American sequel, seagulls, regal, faecal, illegal, separate, equal, popular real estate text book stress
the importance of social homogeneity,
The thing about weeds, Mr. Kennedy, is their penchant for multiplying, you let just one move into your
community and sooner or later, you'll have one growing in your very own back yard, well then there goes the
neighbourhood, there goes, the neighbourhood,
go, go farther, farther, city on a sill, oops had a little spill, looks like an accident, wouldn't quite call it kill, I'm
choking, cities smoking, give me throat drops or is it Winthrops, city on a pill, father, farther, are little mazes,
mouse-traps, cul-de-sacs, this house is amazing, this house is amazing, this house is amazing, this house is
amazing, this house is amazing, farther, Father, raise me, graze me, open flame me, we are not all the same, are
we, are we?
Run, eat, water, food fence, run eat, fence, run, fence, run, eat, water, food, fence, breathe, breathe, everyone
is happy you are only making this more difficult for yourself.
AMANDA GORMAN- COLLECTIVE
EARTHRISE
On Christmas Eve, 1968, astronaut Bill Anders
Snapped a photo of the earth
As Apollo 8 orbited the moon.
Those three guys
Were surprised
To see from their eyes
Our planet looked like an earthrise
A blue orb hovering over the moon’s gray horizon,
with deep oceans and silver skies.
It was our world’s first glance at itself
Our first chance to see a shared reality,
A declared stance and a commonality;
A glimpse into our planet’s mirror,
And as threats drew nearer,
Our own urgency became clearer,
As we realize that we hold nothing dearer
than this floating body we all call home.
We’ve known
That we’re caught in the throes
Of climactic changes some say
Will just go away,
While some simply pray
To survive another day;
For it is the obscure, the oppressed, the poor,
Who when the disaster
Is declared done,
Still suffer more than anyone.
Climate change is the single greatest challenge of our time,
Of this, you’re certainly aware.
It’s saddening, but I cannot spare you
From knowing an inconvenient fact, because
It’s getting the facts straight that gets us to act and not to wait.
So I tell you this not to scare you,
But to prepare you, to dare you
To dream a different reality,
Where despite disparities
We all care to protect this world,
This riddled blue marble, this little true marvel
To muster the verve and the nerve
To see how we can serve
Our planet. You don’t need to be a politician
To make it your mission to conserve, to protect,
To preserve that one and only home
That is ours,
To use your unique power
To give next generations the planet they deserve.
We are demonstrating, creating, advocating
We heed this inconvenient truth, because we need to be anything but lenient
With the future of our youth.
And while this is a training,
in sustaining the future of our planet,
There is no rehearsal. The time is
Now
Now
Now,
Because the reversal of harm,
And protection of a future so universal
Should be anything but controversial.
So, earth, pale blue dot
We will fail you not.
Just as we chose to go to the moon
We know it’s never too soon
To choose hope.
We choose to do more than cope
With climate change
We choose to end it—
We refuse to lose.
Together we do this and more
Not because it’s very easy or nice
But because it is necessary,
Because with every dawn we carry
the weight of the fate of this celestial body orbiting a star.
And as heavy as that weight sounded, it doesn’t hold us down,
But it keeps us grounded, steady, ready,
Because an environmental movement of this size
Is simply another form of an earthrise.
To see it, close your eyes.
Visualize that all of us leaders in this room
and outside of these walls or in the halls, all
of us changemakers are in a spacecraft,
Floating like a silver raft
in space, and we see the face of our planet anew.
We relish the view;
We witness its round green and brilliant blue,
Which inspires us to ask deeply, wholly:
What can we do?
Open your eyes.
Know that the future of
this wise planet
Lies right in sight:
Right in all of us. Trust
this earth uprising.
All of us bring light to exciting solutions never tried before
For it is our hope that implores us, at our uncompromising core,
To keep rising up for an earth more than worth fighting for.
INAUGURAL
Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world, when day comes we
ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry asea we must wade. We’ve
braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. In the norms and notions of what
just is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve
weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and
a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming
president only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that
is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures,
colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what
stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences
aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and
harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as
we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried that will forever be tied together victorious. Not because
we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make
them afraid. If we’re to live up to her own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve
made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a
pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a forest that would shatter our
nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. This effort very nearly
succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this
faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just
redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but
within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once
we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly
prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised, but whole,
benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we
know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their
burdens. But one thing is certain, if we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our
legacy and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than one we were left with. Every breath from my bronze-pounded
chest we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the
West. We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise
from the Lake Rim cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild,
reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country our people diverse
and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and
unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If
only we’re brave enough to be it
PHIL- PERSONAL (divorce/ childhood)
REPETITION
My mother taught me this trick: if you repeat something over and over again, it loses its meaning.
For example: “Homework, homework, homework homework homework, —“, see? Nothing. Our lives, she said,
are the same way. You watch the sunset too often and it just becomes 6 pm. You make the same mistake over
and over and you’ll stop calling it a mistake. If you just “wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up”, one day you’ll
forget why. I should’ve known: nothing is forever.
My parents left each other when I was 7 years old. Before their last argument they’ve sent me off to the
neighbor’s house, like some astronaut jettying from the shuttle. When I came back, there was no gravity at our
home. I imagined it as an accident: when I left, they whispered “I love you” so many times over, that they
forgot what it meant. “Family, family, family, family…”
My mother taught me this trick, that if you repeat something over and over again, it loses its meaning. This
became my favorite game. It made the sting of words evaporate: “separation, separation, separation—“, see?
Nothing! “Apart, apart, apart, apart—“, see? Nothing!
I’m an injured handyman now. I work with words, all day— shut up! I know the irony. When I was young, I was
taught that the trick to dominating language was breaking it down, convincing it was worthless. “I love you, I
love you, I love you, I love you—“, see? Nothing!
Soon after my parents’ divorce, I developed a stutter. Fate is a cruel and efficient tutor. There is no escape in
stutter. You can feel the meaning of every word drag itself up your throat. “S-s-separation”. Stutter is a cage
made of mirrors. Every “what you said?”, every “just, take your time”; every “c’mon, kid, spit it out!” is a glaring
reflection of a existence that you cannot escape. Every awful moment trips over its own announcement again,
and again, and again, until it just hangs there in the center of the room, as if what you were to say had no
gravity at all.
Mom, dad: I’m not wasteful with my words anymore. Even now, after hundreds of hours practicing away my
stutter, I can still feel the claw of meaning at the bottom of my throat. Listen to me. I heard that even in space
you can hear the scratch of a “I-, I-, I-, I… love you.”
Beginning Middle and End
Every great story has a beginning middle and end. Not necessarily in that order. We are all great stories.
Chapter 389, the boy ,still hair long and fingers too short. is 98 years old. Sits at the restaurant alone.
The stranger next to him is eating something that looks vaguely delicious.
The boy takes his fork, sticks it in his meal and takes a bite.
He says “I’m 98 years old, go ahead say something… asshole.”
Chapter 14, the boy is eight years old, he and his best friend come up with a great idea for a prank.
They are sure they will not get caught.
The next morning, every house on his street except his own has toilet paper on their front lawn.
They get caught.
Chapter 146, the boy and the girl live happily ever after
Chapter 231, the boy and the girl vow to never speak to each again
Every great story has a beginning middle and end. Not necessarily in that order.
We are all great stories, but not all written as chapter books.
I know, there are moments not meant to be bound.
That we scribble too much in the margins to read our own page numbers.
Like the nights you thought we were invincible.
Ran out into the lightning storm with a million keys
Tied to a million kites with a clench in your jaw that said “take me with you god damn it. I dare you”
In the weeks, when you finally reached out to feel your father’s cheeks and just found paper cuts.
I know the nights we shatter hourglasses to fall asleep.
In the afternoons, we take photographs of our own shadows just to prove that we left a mark.
I know the wetness of your lips.
Know that you are a leaf off the tree of your parents’ first kiss.
As you hold your shrubs to the sky you can see their veins there.
Know that in later chapters you will complain about how things were better back in your day
- give yourself lots to complain about.
Know; that your legs were made to run, your bones were made to heal, so let yourself
fall so deeply into somebody else you do not know which way is up
- knowing, that one day you may fall out, know exactly which way is down, call your mother, crying
like the first day you were born.
“Baby,” she will call you.
“Baby, it is okay. Every great story has a beginning, middle, and ending. Not necessarily in that order.”
Chapter 189, the boy too old now to celebrate his birthdays and too young to treasure them uses his fist to
punch his own reflection to see if it’s real.
Breaks his hand into back into the opposite of a fist.
A conch shell city.
He holds it into his ear and can hears the ocean of his own bloodline.
“Stand up boy and not just with your legs”
You, be your own story. 600 words per minute.
You, glasses by age seven
You, never stop to read the back cover even if you know what happens in the end.
Chapter 431, once upon a time there was a boy, he’s not here anymore.
But the branches that he left all holds the leaves to the sky
You can see the outlines of his shadow on the side walk
Chapter one, once upon a time there was a woman and a man.
The first night they kissed, a seedling blossomed on the back of her neck
