2022 Aimee Nezhukumatathil - A Reading To Remember

Aimee Nezhukumatathil served as Poet-at-Large at the 18th Annual Virtual Palm Beach Poetry Festival held January 10-15, 2022, on Zoom. In 2022, the festival featured workshops, readings, craft talks, manuscript consultations, panel discussions, and social events for poets and the public. Workshop faculty included Kim Addonizio, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Chard deNiord, Mark Doty, Yona Harvey, John Murillo, Matthew Olzmann, and Diane Seuss. Special Guest Poet was Yusef Komunyakaa. Kwame Dawes presented a special Craft Talk. Individual conference faculty poets were Lorna Knowles Blake, Sally Bliumis-Dunn, Nickole Brown, Jessica Jacobs, and Angela Narciso Torres.

This reading included selections that were flagged by YouTube as copyrighted materials we cannot include. These are: From the unedited recording of Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s A Reading to Remember Event, 18th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Saturday, January 15, 2022, 8:00 pm

Video Clip I (14:01-15:06) Prince on Sesame Street
Lyrics to Starfish and Coffee by Prince

It was seven forty-five we were all in line
To greet the teacher Miss Cathleen
First was Kevin, then came Lucy, third in line was me
All of us where ordinary compared to Cynthia Rose
She always stood at the back of the line
A smile beneath her nose
Her favorite number was twenty and every single day
If you asked her what she had for breakfast
This is what she'd say
Starfish and coffee
Maple syrup and jam
Butterscotch clouds, a tangerine
And a side order of ham
If you set your mind free, baby
Maybe you'd understand
Starfish and coffee
Maple syrup and jam
Cynthia wore the prettiest dress
With different color socks
Sometimes I wondered if the mates where in her lunchbox
Me and Lucy opened it when Cynthia wasn't around
Lucy cried, I almost died, you know what we found?
Starfish and coffee
Maple syrup and jam
Butterscotch clouds, a tangerine
And a side order of ham
If you set your mind free, honey
Maybe you'd understand
Starfish and coffee
Maple syrup and jam, oh oh
Ooh, hoo
Starfish and coffee
Cynthia had a happy face, just like the one she'd draw
On every wall in every school
But it's all right, it's for a worthy cause
Go on, Cynthia, keep singin'
Starfish and coffee
Maple syrup and jam
Butterscotch clouds, a tangerine
And a side order of ham
If you set your mind free, baby
Maybe you'd understand
Starfish and coffee
Maple syrup and jam, oh ho, oh (la-la-la-la-la-la-la)
Oh hoo (la-la-la-la-la-la-la), oh
Oh hoo (la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la)
Oh hoo (la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la)
(La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la)

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Prince Rogers Nelson / Susannah K. Melvoin
Starfish and Coffee lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Video Clip II (31:48 – 32:56) March of the Penguins is a 2005 French feature-length nature documentary directed and co-written by Luc Jacquet, and co-produced by Bonne Pioche and the National Geographic Society. The documentary depicts the yearly journey of the emperor penguins of Antarctica. The English version in narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Excerpt of Script: All converge on the same central point until a huddle begins to form. Each penguin must find a place to tuck in. But by speeding up the action, it becomes clear that something more organized is going on. Soon, the huddle numbers in the thousands, and still more keep coming. While those on the outside take the brunt of the storm, those on the inside take tiny steps that move the huddle in waves.