Sarah Kay performs "Ghost Ship" from "No Matter the Wreckage"

it is a titular poem of this book um no matter of the wreckage uh and it is for my little brother who um more than anybody else has been there with me through it all um and is my hero [Music] [Music] and the cold wind and the wind blue when I was in the second grade a song was a handful of orange Tic Tacs rolling around my tongue I knew all the words I could feel them Tangy round and smooth I just didn't care which one was which I could sing back the Beatles perfectly with the words all mashed together I was the first one to memorize any song the music teacher sang us my favorite was called the Ghost Ship the words meant nothing to me but the melody was full of ragged sails and midnight hurricanes it was all port and starboard I sang it till the winds ran out of me my little brother was four years younger but two steps ahead he memorized the sheeps my mouth made practiced them tirelessly we shoved the words at each other as though it were a competition to see who could get them out the fastest who could draw them out the longest and the cold wind blw by the time it was his turn to learn it in music class four years later he already knew the song so well he confused the teacher my fist chested brother a fireplace shotgun waiting for his chance little girls learn to sing the perfect man before we ever know what the lyrics mean strong arms good hair wide eyes Brave heart big money kind can we build model ships in bottles Whispering life into the toothpicks and wire we make plans and blueprints for the one we hope is coming and come they do fleets of vessels battleships and barges they arrive on the horizon and flags to the sky I have seen what can happen when a woman tries to make a dingy into a gallion sometimes a rowboat is all you need sometimes a whaler a fairy our model ships look perfect in their bottles but we do not know if they are seaworthy sometimes the one that reaches your Harbor has already been through the storm sometimes you cannot notice the leaking until you were so close until you were already out to sea trying to batten down the hatches bailing the water pooling at your ankles Manning the rigging alone my brother pushed off from Shore before the tide had ever turned his way always two steps ahead for years I didn't want him going under tried to Anchor him against the storms through him safety nets and buoys trained myself and CPR I have known so many men whose Halls have been made Hollow by the salt of this sea whose Sails are pulled so tightly into the wind whose Rudders no longer point to anything but drowning how do you keep a boy floating how do you keep him above the ache men will drift Eternal men will say it's just a scratch when the Cannons have shot them full of holes they will look at their Driftwood tied with string and say ship they will look at the Broken Wheel between their hands and say captain they will look to the ones who have jumped overboard without them and say crew today my brother is 20 years handsome he is smirk and motor femur strong and decision heavy his decks have been worn down by the feet of others but his comp always points North I can hear the cabins Creek the chains rattle the ladders sag it has been a decade since I heard him say we are in Ireland a country we have never been to I have rented us a car I cannot drive and have been maneuvering us gracelessly through the green green Countryside toward the Cliffs of the western coast the rain is a diligent mother who checks up on us every few hours the sky is endless gray my brother's quiet fills the car like a family holiday I turn on the radio to mask the fog the shoreline arrives beneath us suddenly the way all shorelines do full and vast crumbling away at all our stubborn solidness and there standing against the crashing waves sits the massive body of a shipwreck as though all of history has been gifted to us we are giddy with Adventure we are skipping over the Rocks we are shouting to the wild horses and the oceans Roar the jagged P hole opens to us and we pull ourselves into the boat's hungry mouth it is empty and whole Full Speed Ahead proudest turn for and after we climb until we are scraped and muddy rust children with Lighthouse eyes and together we start to sing the words we have known since childhood as though they have been drifting through Us lost at sea waiting for the right current to find Safe Harbor oh brother no matter your wreckage there will be someone to find you beautiful despite the cruddy metal your ruin is not to be hidden behind paint and canvas let them see the cracks someone will come to sing into these empty spaces their voice will Echo off your insides like a second grader and her little brother 4 years younger two steps ahead singing until the metal vibrates until the Ghost Ship [Applause] Rings wo [Applause] w

Channel: speakeasynyc

Views: 237,129

Keywords: SarahKay, TEDTalk, TED, Urbana, SpokenWord, ProjectVOICE, DEFPoetry, WriteBloodyPublishing, writebloody, slampoetry, slam

Id: YkwRHCD_-2A

Length: 7min 32sec (452 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 23 2014