(gentle chiming music) (gentle music) - [Luther] For me, crows become kind of like multiple things.

It's just a bird, a crow, but it becomes Blackness, it becomes an omen, it becomes a symbol for all these things.

Crows are seen as nuisance birds and most black birds are seen as nuisance, actually, the same way Black people are also seen as nuisance, right?

We're all around, but people will see us as a nuisance.

The crow then became a Black person.

(gentle music) In Seattle, they fly a lot, they fly everywhere, so they're also a sense of freedom.

And for me, Blackness is a sense of freedom.

(gentle music) - [Narrator 1] Seattle really is just a big neighborhood, but it was a place for us to grow.

- [Narrator 2] We all have a gift of some sort.

It's just my vision of what I see.

- [Narrator 3] Theater allows you to hit harder and be more.

There's a sense of hope that your story will survive longer than you will.

(gentle music) (bright upbeat music) - I love observing things.

I love just watching things happen.

(bright upbeat music) My feelings are up and down all the time.

I'm very, I'm very, I'm very moody.

Anything can shift my feeling.

I'm a Cancer, like an open door, where if it's open, move shifts.

If it's closed, the move shifts.

And so it just depends on how I'm feeling about that certain thing when I'm feeling it.

Then that filters into my poems because then now, I'm thinking about all these feelings in response to all these things, which is why most of my poems are observing things and my feeling about how I'm observing it.

And so I think, they're complex because I'm also complex.

(bright upbeat music) It feels very homey, very welcoming.

There's a certain level of comfort in Blackness, a certain level of friendliness.

For me, I've always had a Black experience in Seattle.

I've never not known a child to be Black.

I'm from the South, and my background is mostly Black and Asian, of course, 'cause South is mostly Black and Asian.

And so I grew up also dancing.

(laughing) I was part of the dance company called Cutting Up Entertainment.

And they're a local Black dance company, hip hop mostly.

And so a lot of my Blackness kind of filters through that dance company as far as talent wise and kind of like all my talent.

While people know I did poetry, people didn't know I was doing poetry.

So I was mostly known for being a dancer, but I think, being on that company taught a lot about what does it mean to hone your skills.

Because the company was so based in Black culture in Seattle, that taught me how to use that, and then I kind of put that in my writing.

I couldn't be a writer without being on that dance company.

And so the idea of growing up here, and understanding the seriousness behind artistry, and what it meant to be a Black artist specifically in Seattle, and how to really think about the way that Seattle feeds my being and feeds my artistry.

That taught me to think about that in my poetry.

(gentle music) In Seattle, Dwane Anderson-Young and Ahmed Said, Seattle, Washington, 2014, "I walked through an alleyway of saliva sour with smiles.

"A couple asked me, took a picture in front of the Gum Wall.

"The city carries itself passionately.

"So much metal today, "so many frames moving in and out of each other.

"I walk, a friend texts, the news.

"Ah, they have killed me again.

"Art in its truest form repeats.

"Outside the museum, "I static beneath a man as he hammers.

"He is without a face, but sadness still, a history of this.

"Men hammering their grief into me.

"My grief becoming the rarest wine.

"What can I say?

I forget all their names.

"It was bound to happen.

"Everything leaves.

"The wet mouth of rain.

"The throat that threw, "it's never enough to love a thing.

"You must do the work too, "except the trees that in this city become an emerald rush of hands reaching out.

"How many time must it be said, "there is blood parading the streets.

"I reply, "the market bricks with whirs and wears, "the violent churning of noise on its lips like balm.

"I drink a cup of coffee, "sitting on a bench overlooking the sound.

"There is so much blue."

(gentle music) Every poem is centered around love in its full capacity, and not just intimate love or desire, but also loving something or loving someone; The love of nature, the love of a mother, love of a father, a beloved, the love of this person I don't know who passed away.

So I think, it's all about what love possibly can be beyond just the intimate, or the desire, or the sex.

All of these different things, Seattle, crows, there's some goats in there, 7-Eleven is in there.

but also admiring the body, admiring a lot of sex, but it becomes also a smutty book.

So it's really about just trying to understand what love means.

And there's not really an answer.

'Cause I think, writing a book, I was journeying through my ideas of what love possibly is, but I wanted to think about love more than just the another person, right?

Even loving myself, what does that mean to love myself while also wanted to kill myself, right?

So there's other things about love that manifest that has taught me so much about what it means to love and to be in love.

(gentle music) I didn't always think about Seattle as a place to write, until I started missing Seattle when I was away.

It was always about Blackness, about this idea of the city, being Black, and the city feeding my Blackness.

Before moving back to Seattle, it was all about this kinda want, or the trauma, or kind of the bad parts of Seattle.

But when I moved back to Seattle, I was like, "Oh, yeah, this city is beautiful.

"Yeah, I did go through a lot here growing up."

And also, "Look at these crows," also, "Look at these trees."

Like, "Oh, my god, these trees."

It was like there's more than just the trauma and the depression.

It became more complex, then I fell in love.

So it then became, "Oh, not only I felt this trauma," but also, "Now, I'm in love with somebody who's in Seattle," and that's a whole other opening.

Honestly, it's also pretty simple, right?

To love your city can be as simple as loving just the wind.

I used to hate the smell of the rain.

But now I'm like, "The rain does smell really good."

And I think, it's just me settling into, "It's okay to have all these feelings about your city and still be in love with it.

(bright upbeat music) To build community has to be genuine.

Talking to people, supporting people, loving on people.

I think community building is based around loving and adoration.

You just do it because you want to talk to people and wanna be around them.

And that's where a community is built, right?

I think, as people see you as genuine, they wanna around you because you're genuine.

For me, also, I started a blog for Karates of Color.

I have my own lip org for Karates of Color.

I feel like I just want to now be a resource for people and be a platform.

I think my purpose in life is to be a resources for people and to just love anyone who's worth it.

I want people who aren't poets to also feel something when they're reading these poems.

I write poetry for not just poets.

Poetry is bigger than just poets.

I already knew that, right?

There's nothing you don't know.

I want people to love on poets the same way I do.

And if nobody ever loves on me the same way, that's fine.

I don't need that.

That doesn't fulfill me.

As long as I can just show people how much poetry is great and how much people should read poetry, that's all I need.

(gentle music)