“I would like to stay in one place with you for a very long time.” – Hanif Abdurraqib at The Prior

Before attending his lecture at The Prior, College of the Holy Cross’ arts center, I hadn’t heard of Hanif Abdurraqib. Despite my deep pleasure in reading and writing poetry, I still believe I am behind on all the best contemporary poets of our time. Going into this lecture blind, I learned, was also an opportunity to be open to surprise. And surprised I was in this new space, with this writer who was new to me, inviting me into the home of his archival memory practice. 

“To watch their memory begin to fail them in a manner where they are looking in bewilderment to the world is heartbreaking … but it reminds me that memory is a privilege … that memory offers us a responsibility.”

After Abdurraqib opened the lecture with a poem, we very quickly got accustomed to who he is and where his practice lies. He emphasizes the archive of memory he created within himself and the deep responsibility he felt toward memory and place. He is fast, funny, quick on his feet, both conversational and deeply rooted in his practice. He even pauses to tell us about the intense carbonation of Polar seltzer, something he hasn’t had in ages. His surprise causes laughter for himself and the audience, yet another feeling to notice and appreciate. It is easy to follow his train of thought despite his speed; I did not feel lost in the description of his practice because of how well he saddled it between our tangible shared experience, like the Polar water, and what his archive strived for him to do: constantly notice, appreciate, and document. His excitement regarding memory and place makes me want to listen to him talk about it more, for the whole 45 minutes, despite his assertion that no one would want to hear him speak at them for the whole 45 minutes. With memory and place, he also wants to talk to us about poetry. He explains to the crowd that he spends a considerable amount of time around Black elders in nursing homes, delightfully listening to their gossip. It is in this anecdote that he tells us their memories are beginning to get lost, and that there is a considerable amount of heartbreak in knowing that the expanse of your life has led to here, to the years, months, or days these elders have left. It is from these experiences, this deep community he seeks to build, that he tells us that memory offers us a responsibility as writers. We must create what he calls “the archive,” a repeated, long list of experiences, feelings, places, that create our deep human understanding. It is a calling to both slow down and take notice, as well as one to long for what is in front of us already. 

“Building an archive of memory is, I think, is to take what I’m looking at, look closely at it, and stay close to it for a long time.”

Abdurraqib shows us a Nike commercial from a few years ago, sometime after the Cleveland Cavaliers won an important game. In the commercial, it begins with Lebron giving a motivational speech to his team on top of a melodic droning, accompanied by shots of residents throughout Cleveland, engaging in the same huddle up speech, all strangers, working together. It ends with everyone’s fists in the air, shouting, “together!” As Abdurraqib reads his poem about watching the commercial for the first time, he does so quickly, like he is showing us pictures of his memories. He frequently repeats “I remember,” always desiring to go back to a place, each one as if it is a proper noun instead of an ambiguous setting. He interrupts his own reading to give us a funny and grounding aside. Seemingly, he wants us to live in his memory, live in the Cleveland that he is not in, live in the huddle with Lebron James, all together. Soon, we are Lebron, we’re Abdurraqib again, the people, the commercial, Cleveland, a flock of birds, Nike shoes, commercial, Abdurraqib on the floor, leaning against his couch, crying. The back and forth creates a strong intensity I couldn’t help but immerse myself in. 

“I’m gonna learn you.”

The next two videos Abdurraqib shows us are of Soul Train, a 1970s musical variety show that began airing locally in Chicago on a channel Abdurraqib had access to. The video is a compilation of dancers, all young Black people, showing off their moves to a crowd on both sides. The crowd creates a runway for the dancers to strut on, all to the song “Let It Whip” by Dazz Band. Abdurraqib tells us vulnerably that, because he was the youngest in a small family, he would pretend the dancers were his long lost cousins in an attempt to create connections and community with cool Black folks. In the second video, we watch two dancers at a time instead of one make their way down the catwalk. Abdurraqib explains that the dancers in the video didn’t know each other before their turns and had to quickly figure out what both of them were capable of to create a cohesive dance. Abdurraqib describes this act as the most true form of love: the choice to learn another person and to give that learning a chance to come alive together. 

“I have claimed the fantasy of kinship with you.”

Abdurraqib reads us a poem in conversation with the Soul Train clips shown. This time, we are in the construction of a memory – more of an imagination. Abdurraqib imagines his small family in the wide cast of Soul Train. In describing the cast, he emphasizes their clothes, their movements, how beautiful they were. He creates stories for the cast, all imaginary. In this imagination, he constructs the cast as fully human, beyond the screen, how they live day to day. In this beyond he also sees himself, and hopes that one day, when he joins the dancing catwalk, they’ll cheer for him too. It is earnestly sweet and has a deep characteristic of longing, especially now that we are situated in the beauty-filled holes of his desires and memory. Abdurraqib has a way of making his audience believe as deeply in him as he does in himself, in the moves and love as learning in Soul Train. I found myself in the shoes as that kid sitting in front of the TV, eyes wide and full of hope, saying, “I can be that!” and really believing it. 

“I’mma just jump and see what happens when I’m up there.”

In the Q&A section, Abdurraqib is asked how description and feeling differs in the types of writing he engages in. He asserts that they are not all that different at all, and instead, everything he writes and notices is rooted in feeling. He ends the answer to this question by rhetorically asking, “what can you extract, make a feeling, and ask an audience, ‘can you feel it too?’” I think this quote is the best example of how it feels to experience Abdurraqib’s work. As much as he is sharing his archive, his thread in collective memory with us, he is also asking us a very exposed question, himself defenseless. In the question, “can you feel it too?” we are asked to be truthful in our own emotional response. We are asked to share his experience, to admire Soul Train, to be on his couch watching the Nike commercial, to listen to his mother sing “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” to watch his brother clean his Jordans with a toothbrush. We are, in many ways, asked, “isn’t this special?” In Abdurraqib’s work, which I am excited to explore on my own, I am eager to respond, “yes, I feel it too.”