Spoken word artists are more popular than ever.

yeah i think um deft communication is more necessary than ever um we are in a landscape that is anti-historical and anti-intellectual we also are in a landscape that prioritizes visual mediums.

So, you know, the adage that a picture is worth, you know, a thousand words when you have platforms like Instagram and TikTok that, you know, our technology and the integration of our technologies, I think echo that.

But all the while, When you reach for a moment to capture love at a wedding or loss at a funeral or joy at someone's birth, you turn to the poet.

you turn to the folks in our history that are able to capture and codify these, you know, magnificently huge moments into smaller, digestible, pithy, efficient, and illuminating ways.

um and i think that there's a human need to go back to that so while poetry on the page is extraordinarily um important and representative i think of that ethos and that vector in our community the spoken word artist can take that same responsibility and deliver it in a very public and populist and aligned way.

They can do it in a way that works at the velocity of our current social mode.

And one of the first sessions, I know that you feel the importance of of making sure that young poets out there are understanding what you think is relevant, what other people think should be relevant, just to get them engaged in poetry, spoken word and artistry, right? Yeah,

Why do you think this president is so hell-bent on putting his name on it, on transforming it, to the point where he would consider demolishing it if he cannot get his way?

Yeah, it's pretty petulant behavior and beneath the office of of the president.

I am not a mental health professional, so I won't begin to speculate as to why.

But I can say from an infrastructural standpoint, in terms of the infrastructure of our democracy, the Kennedy Center is part of an ecology that includes the Department of Education, the Smithsonian, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for Humanities, the attack on universities.

that all are citadels of curiosity.

Curiosity is a sustainable element.

And I believe that inspiration is guaranteed to us through the 14th Amendment, that you cannot actually have enfranchisement in this country if you don't have access to the impulse of creativity.

What do you think, I guess, if what this is, is a fight against or a pushback against our curiosity, our inspiration, what does that tell us about who we are as a nation right now, where we're going?

Your response to the demand and the actual removal of Trump's name from the Kennedy Center and the judge ruling it cannot be closed or renovated the way he had planned.

First of all, good morning, and thanks for having me.

Thanks for having us.

I guess I would say that I have lots of feelings.

I have three primary responses.

The first is intimate and visceral.

The feeling of the reversal of a particular defilement of a national memorial and the striking of a person's name who has contracted the American horizon.

Could you talk about that firing and the work that you were doing that was so vital to the Kennedy Center?

Your response to the demand and the actual removal of Trump's name from the Kennedy Center and the judge ruling it cannot be closed or renovated the way he had planned.

First of all, good morning, and thanks for having me.

Thanks for having us.

I guess I would say that I have lots of feelings.

I have three primary responses.

The first is intimate and visceral.

The feeling of the reversal of a particular defilement of a national memorial and the striking of a person's name who has contracted the American horizon.

Could you talk about that firing and the work that you were doing that was so vital to the Kennedy Center?

Your response to the demand and the actual removal of Trump's name from the Kennedy Center and the judge ruling it cannot be closed or renovated the way he had planned.

First of all, good morning and thanks for having me.

Thanks for having us.

I guess I would say that I have lots of feelings.

I have three primary responses.

The first is intimate and visceral, the feeling of the reversal of a particular defilement of a national memorial, and the striking of a person's name who has contracted the American horizon.

whether it's the defunding of cancer research or the national parks or the Department of Education, having that particular person's name above a poet of a president like John F. Kennedy was an affront to us all, and reversing that decision is somewhat emboldening.

Could you talk about that firing and the work that you were doing that was so vital to the Kennedy Center?

Talk about what's happening to the Kennedy Center.

Peace, Amy.

Good morning to you and good morning to everyone listening and watching.

I feel so privileged to be the child of immigrants, and having lived in the state of California for a long time, moving to D.C. infused me with a different sense of patriotism and connection to the American promise, to the plurality that makes this country truly great.

There has been, as you've distilled, an infusion of a kind of binary political discourse into what's supposed to be a sanctuary for freedom of thought and freedom of creative expression.

The Kennedy Center, it should be said, has not officially canceled any performances or explicitly, contractually canceled remove themselves from relationship to any artist.

But as you've been describing so diligently and so bravely over the course of your entire career, we create atmosphere through rhetoric.

What is American or not?

Talk about what's happening to the Kennedy Center.

Peace, Amy.

Good morning to you and good morning to everyone listening and watching.

I feel so privileged to be the child of immigrants, and having lived in the state of California for a long time, moving to D.C. infused me with a different sense of patriotism and connection to the American promise, to the plurality that makes this country truly great.

There has been, as you've distilled, an infusion of a kind of binary political discourse into what's supposed to be a sanctuary for freedom of thought and freedom of creative expression.

The Kennedy Center, it should be said, has not officially canceled any performances or explicitly, contractually canceled remove themselves from relationship to any artist.

But as you've been describing so diligently and so bravely over the course of your entire career, we create atmosphere through rhetoric.

What is American or not?