Sarah Kay

Now, it is tempting, once you've figured this out, it is tempting to keep writing the same poem or keep telling the same story over and over once you've figured out that it will gain you applause. It's not enough to just teach that you can express yourself. You have to grow and explore and take risks and challenge yourself, and that...

is step three, infusing the work you're doing with the specific things that make you you, even while those things are always changing. Because step three never ends. But you don't get to start on step three until you take step one first. I can.

I travel a lot while I'm teaching, and I don't always get to watch all of my students reach their step three, but I was very lucky with Charlotte that I got to watch her journey unfold the way it did. I watched her realize that by putting the things she knows to be true into the work she's doing, she can create poems that only Charlotte could write about eyeballs and elevators and Dora the Explorer, and I'm trying to tell stories only I can tell.

Like this story. I spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to tell this story, and I wondered if the best way was going to be a PowerPoint or a short film, and where exactly was the beginning or the middle or the end, and I wondered whether I'd get to the end of this talk and finally have figured it all out.

or not. I always thought that my beginning was at the Bowery Poetry Club, but it's possible that it was much earlier. In preparing for TED, I discovered this diary page in an old journal. I think December 54th was probably supposed to be 24th. It's clear that when I was a child, I definitely walked through life like this. I think that we all did.

I would like to help others rediscover that wonder, to want to engage with it, to want to learn, to want to share what they learned, what they've figured out to be true, what they're still figuring out. So I'd like to close with this poem.

When they bombed Hiroshima, the explosion formed a mini-supernova. So every living animal, human or plant that received direct contact with the rays from that sun was instantly turned to ash. And what was left of the city soon followed. The long-lasting damage of nuclear radiation caused an entire city and its population to turn into powder.

When I was born, my mom says, I looked around the whole hospital room with a stare that said, this? I've done this before. She says, I have old eyes. When my grandpa Genji died, I was only five years old, but I took my mom by the hand and told her, don't worry, he'll come back as a baby.

And yet for someone who's apparently done this already, I still haven't figured anything out yet. My knees still buckle every time I get on a stage. My self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons, mixed into my poetry, and it still always tastes funny in my mouth. But in Hiroshima, some people were wiped clean away, leaving only a wristwatch or a diary page. So no matter that I have inhibitions to fill all my pockets, I keep trying.

Hoping that one day I'll write a poem I can be proud to let sit in a museum exhibit as the only proof I existed. My parents named me Sarah, which is a biblical name. In the original story, God told Sarah that she could do something impossible, and she laughed. Because the first Sarah, she didn't know what to do with impossible, and me...

Well, neither do I. But I see the impossible every day. Impossible is trying to connect in this world, trying to hold on to others while things are blowing up around you, knowing that while you're speaking, they aren't just waiting for their turn to talk. They hear you. They feel exactly what you feel at the same time that you feel it. It's what I strive for. Every time I open my mouth, that impossible connection.

There's this piece of wall in Hiroshima that was completely burnt black by the radiation. But on the front step, a person who was sitting there blocked the rays from hitting the stone. The only thing left now is a permanent shadow of positive light. After the A-bomb, specialists said it would take 75 years for the radiation-damaged soil of Hiroshima city to ever grow anything again. But that spring, there were new buds popping up from the earth.

When I meet you, in that moment, I'm no longer a part of your future. I start quickly becoming part of your past. But in that instant, I get to share your present. And you, you get to share mine. And that is the greatest present of all. So if you tell me I can do the impossible...

I'll probably laugh at you. I don't know if I can change the world yet, because I don't know that much about it. And I don't know that much about reincarnation either. But if you make me laugh hard enough, sometimes I forget what century I'm in. This isn't my first time here. This isn't my last time here. These aren't the last words I'll share. But just in case, I'm trying my hardest to get it right this time around. Thank you.

Oh, that's a big question.

Well, I think my relationship to poetry has evolved over my living.

But when I am feeling an emotion or going through an experience or revisiting a memory, that feels unlanguageable.

And then I discover that someone has found language for it in the form of a poem.

That is one of the most magical experiences.

And poetry has provided language, certainly, but also camaraderie or belonging or reassurance or community or a lot of things.