Coolspeak: Joaquin Zihuatenejo " Abuelo's Garden"

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Closed Caption:

my name is Juaquin see what the nail
I'm an award-winning teacher World
Poetry Slam champion
cool poet the most importantly
I and my grandfather's grandson everyone
who's had any success in their life has
it because it's been one person
who believed in them pushed him in the
direction of success
for me personals my grandfather because
you see when my mother
could not and my father would not
raise me but there was me up well
who took me in taught me everything I
know about
life hard work the importance of
education
everything that I am everything that
I've become every bit of success that I
have my life
I O to this man my grandfather was a
very simple man he was a yard
and that means the mod the front and
back yards these far-off
foreign suburbs of Dallas Texas places
that you know existed
because all I knew was the shadows of
downtown Dallas and the body of East
Dallas
we wasn't just a yard he was also a
treasure hunter because he would take
things that people would put on the
out on the curb they no longer wanted
things like bicycles at the rusty chains
and
lawn mowers that wouldn't start no
matter how many times you call the star
chamber
and books his most sought-after treasure
were books
boxes and crates a book that the work
around the curve they no longer wanted
he would bring them back to like us and
in the living room in the south we had
this little simple 22 shipping woodstock
that show for books
and he made me read them
out loud in English to him and he would
get onto means called me when i was just
going through the motions
because sometimes I would just be
reading the book to get the individ-
number one time actually
mustered the courage to challenge him
and said was face
well or why you make me really stupid
books
and never forget we said to me he said
Neil
this body or is surrounded on all sides
by gangs and violence and drugs
but when you're inside the poem when
you're inside the story with your inside
the book you are safe
another that can hurt you and with those
words
spell was broken and with those words
life was saved
mine everyone succeeds
because you have one person who believes
in for me that one person was me up well
my grandfather and most of what I
learned about life:
I learned from him in this and his
simple garden the small plot of dirt
beside our home
spa miss my grandfather
just got up well as garden
and the goal then the
the home in the 200 Savills lost son
neil is gone and done
he I love on a the harness
memories at my grandpas got back to me
differently than other child
above the hood memories memories of my
grandpa has gone come back to me in
well what a voice is in deep chest hymns
that began as a good even the belly
and rise to the throat slowly
I remember little up the day my friends
jump me
in I remember faced clearly than
afterwards those deep
fleshy embraces Boehner latinos know how
to give but grandfather's gun comes back
to me with the romance
with tastes with Cody though some to the
Sun in havana some to the moon the King
both sides have life
the light and the dark for their
bountiful harvest I
deals meal all those nights we know
together Brown it was always about
harmony
about balance he'd in tone
deeply thinking the life-giving soap
which gives not follow suit careful to
not slam through
months and Mia yet about a month so
always making sure metal spade never
touches fragile route
sweets ancient I will eat or how can I
be anything but
a poet at those moments we shared don't
you see
in my grandfather's garden sheila is goo
in my grandmother's garden children
grew in my grandmother's garden poems
prose me ok but the twisted under by
your own a desperately reaching out for
her missing children
in my grandfather's gun all but these
things would rise
slowly because beautiful things take
time to bloom
in my good but this garden all but these
things would rise
slowly like well water voices
like deep chest hymns the beginners ago
deep in the belly and rise to the throat
slowly Singh always seemed
been the to move in the to move in the
Tulsa
the loans Los on my hairless gone and
then
the I love and ideals close on my
hairless gone and done
the lover and I the office