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Duration:11:22
Uploaded:2022-08-12
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Andy Powell (he/him/his) reads his poem, “My Heart Is A Public Park.”

Andy Powell:
https://twitter.com/_andypowell
https://www.instagram.com/and_y_powell
https://linktr.ee/andypowell

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Hi, I'm Andy Powell.

I'm a poet. I'm a poet in the schools for DreamYard.

And today, I'm going to read you a sort of giant hug of a poem I wrote in early COVID times when I was missing all my loves, called, "My Heart Is A Public Park" that strives for something like accountable abundance. It uses the metaphor of the public park, one of my favorite things in the world and includes an interrogation of the "public" and public park. Like many things in this country, there are questions about who gets to access public things.

It's a version of my heart at a particular moment in time—disclaimer—so I don't get in trouble with any friends. And rereading the poem earlier this week, I encountered in it a dear friend who was alive when I wrote it, and who I would like to dedicate it to: Kamilah Aisha Moon.