"Marigolds," a poem about wonder | Safiya Sinclair

0:06You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Today, we're bringing you a poem written and performed by poet Safia Sinclair. She shares that nature is the natural archway to wonder and asks us to consider the fragility and joys of life and to reflect on the enduring presence of our ancestors who have passed before us. And stick around after her performance for a brief Q &A between Safia and Ted's head of media and curation, Helen Walters.

0:48Marigolds, a letter to wonder. Dear V, I'm thinking of the garden again. White bougainvillea that made you sing, light anointing the trees, dew on the leaves, the morning wearing your promise like a veil. Here we learnt many names for joy. My sisters, my brother, and me Our knees in the soil under the cherry tree Pressing our hands into the dirt For we were holy Our hair budding crowns Flecked with hibiscus fringe Anansi silk Oleander milk And the golden herb of our names Each day we woke in awe To a bouquet of warblers and the two orphaned pups we'd named by closing our eyes and trying to imagine the future.

1:48This was as close as we came to prayer, Mom said. Our hands in the dirt, our wants at sea, vast and untamable. My heart was still so eager then, my world so green. Opened under the cherry tree, pushing a packet of marigold seeds into the earth like my mother did. Her hands so holy. At dawn, I watched her search for sea wind and salt air. The song of her gone mother coiled inside a shell she pushed so gently into another tomorrow and another. listening to the water its memory is as close as I come to prayer daughter warrior wonder now your little voice is on the waves recalling me my knees in the dirt my heart at sea the Marigolds anointing, John bellyful mangoes in bloom, their petals holy, fragrant as the day still ahead of me, still slipping away to some sweet impossible under this cherry tree where I know your face and sing your name wholly, your hand and my hand rocking you in the arms of my own mother, both of you pressed as tender as a seed into a poem where you might live like marigolds.

3:31Your hour bright, your wants bursting, a flower grown from fossil, a daughter dreamt from the dirt. Thank you.

3:49I mean that was amazing so thank you for writing that for us how unbelievably kind and gracious my pleasure it was so nice of you but here's something I want to share so you talked about your mom yes that poem and your mom is here she is here Miss Esther Norwood

4:15so we just have to say thank you mama thank you thank you thank you for the beauty of your daughter okay now I want to ask you a few questions yes so you wrote that for us which is just an extraordinary gift that you gave to us but I want to just remind you of something that you said in that process of you know talking about this event and what might happen you were just like, you know, you're going to write a poem. And then you're like, we were like, well, can we have the text? And when would you think you'll be able to give it to us? You know, we plan. And you were like, well, I don't know when you'll have the poem because I don't know when it will arrive.

4:47Tell us about that and tell us about your writing process. Yes. I mean, I had all the TED people very nervous because, you know, I think everyone had their scripts in and they were practicing and they were like, Sophia, where is the poem? I said, well, the muse has not arrived to me yet. So, you know, for me, when I think of wonder, poetry is the thing that brings me closest to wonder. I wrote my first poem when I was 10. My mother was the person who gave me my first collection of poems. And it was something that felt so transformative, so magical. It to me is this kind of spirituality. And so it doesn't always come when you want it to come.

5:29And I think a lot of when I talk about poetry, I think, oh, the muse touches my head when she wants to. And so this is kind of what happened with us. And sure enough, one day it came in a fever and the poem had arrived. So I am a very practical, literal person. So when the... So like when exactly? Yeah. Just talk about that moment. Are you just like, I got to go, like I'm in the supermarket, I gotta go, I gotta go home, I gotta write. Yeah, I mean, often it's very much like that, kind of drop everything. The images are coming, the memories are coming. And this one in particular, this poem, really revolves around my childhood and this memory of growing a garden with my mother, growing this garden of marigolds.

6:17And that too, being connected to this idea of wonder, that nature really is really the natural archway to wonder. And so it came from this memory of growing the marigolds with my mom and how that's connected to poetry, to the sea, to rhythm, to music, to meaning, to understanding myself and my place in the universe. So you wrote the most beautiful memoir, which is a totally different type of writing from poetry, obviously. How do you how do you approach that type of writing where you're you know you're writing your life story you're writing about the things that happen is that different or what's your writing for that entirely different I mean when I began to write it you know you you heard me talk about poetry and the way that I write it and it's like very mystical it's still a lot of uncertainty and doubt waiting for the muse it turns out you can't write a 350 page book that way right no I imagine like I actually have to sit down and plan out the chapters and think about characterization and narrativization and dialogue and scenes and all of this.

7:23And so I often said writing the memoir was a lesson in humility because I really had to sit and work at it every day. And also a lesson in being edited because usually I write a poem and I give the poem to my editor and they say, thank you for this poem. you know and you know when I wrote the memoir my editor said oh this is beautiful but we have some notes and I said notes what luckily for me when I wrote the poem for Ted you all were like no notes no notes which is very hard for me an editor but I had no notes it's true it's true so I highly recommend everyone get Sophia's memoir immediately if not sooner Sophia thank Thank you so very much.

8:11Thank you. Thank you all.

8:18That was Safia Sinclair at TED Next in 2024. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsika Sarmanivon. It was mixed by Christopher Faze-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.