By Button Poetry
.
.
Jared Singer, performing at Honey in Minneapolis, MN.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:02
– “April 16th, 2007.
00:07
“When I visit the Wikipedia page about your murder,
00:12
“it takes me almost five minutes to find your name.
00:15
“It is tucked deep among the list
00:17
“of the 31 other victims.
00:21
“I hate that word, victim.
00:26
“It’s so small.
00:29
“Words should have to be
00:30
“as big as the thing they describe.
00:33
“Whatever word we replace victim with
00:36
“should take as long to say
00:38
“as it took me to find your name.
00:41
“But there you are, Henry Lee, number 16.
00:48
“It took me so long to find you
00:50
“because they used your government name,
00:53
“your American name,
00:56
“the one your parents thought would keep you safe,
00:59
“even though I never heard anyone call you
01:02
“anything other than Henh.
01:04
“Henh Lee, Henh.
01:08
“Henh, when I type your name,
01:12
“Henh Lee, into Google,
01:16
“I find a thousand living people with your name
01:19
“and no mention of you.
01:22
“I spend hours looking at their photographs
01:24
“to see if any of them have your smile,
01:27
“so that I can hate them,
01:29
“call them thief.
01:32
“When I type Henry Lee into Google,
01:36
“the first entry is the Wikipedia page
01:38
“about your murderer.
01:41
“The thing I hate most about being human
01:43
“isn’t our penchant for violence,
01:47
“although that’s a close second.
01:50
“It’s the fact that we won’t be remembered
01:52
“for the lives we lead,
01:54
“only for the people who made us this way.
01:58
“Despite all of the death I have seen,
02:00
“how often I have wanted to bring someone back,
02:03
“I have always hated all the Frankenstein stories.
02:08
“No one seems to care or even remember,
02:11
“Frankenstein was the scientist.
02:14
“The creation was nameless,
02:17
“nameless like you feel now, Henh.
02:21
“The Wikipedia page about the Virginia Tech massacre
02:24
“is 12,000 words long.
02:27
“Less than 500 are dedicated
02:29
“to the 32 who were murdered.
02:32
“The rest are about him,
02:35
“are about the man who took your name away.”
02:39
(audience applauds)
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want a deeper connection with our community, please join us as a Premium Member today.
Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: Screenshot from video