“It will alter the way you hear poetry forever. And not in a good way.”

One of the things I took from the show was emotional possibility.

I was a poor, geeky black kid in Indianapolis. There is nothing mythological about that.

You should check out William Shatner’s album The Transformed Man.

Because before that I wasn’t thinking about systems or food insecurity or whatever.

It was in the air somehow. That ownership of bigotry. I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid.

It’s financial of course, but it’s also the lifestyle choices. The more money people have the further away from each other they often want to be.

It made me want to change the kinds of poems I was writing, but I’m terrible at writing overtly political poems.

I wanted to be like Spock because he was unflappable.

I never thought I would type that I learned how to emote in poems from watching Star Trek but there it is.

Bones was a grouch but he was sympathetic. The show worked like a boy band in that way… it had characters who embodied different psychic or emotional positions and that allowed me to see a great range of things

That was one of things that surprised me so much when I was writing the poems.

I had to find a way to be more honest about what happened. And it wasn’t fun to write, even though the poems aren’t 100% autobiographical.

They are 100% the product of the circumstances that led me home.

By that I mean, honest and not trying to amplify some mythological version of myself.

I mean getting people to think about what language actually means before they use it is a good thing.

There is no way I would have written these poems had I not come back.

I can honestly say, after talking about my mom passing away, I got the biggest weight off of my chest.

I feel greatly honored to have a ballpark named after me, especially since I’ve been thrown out of so many.

After winning, most teams become individuals; most teams become complacent.

We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate each other.

How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.

My wife goes to Birmingham five times a week. My mom lives in Birmingham now after moving from Myrtle Beach. It’s not just the job. A lot of people don’t get that. My life is here.

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity.

God looks after children, animals and idiots.