Craig candidly shares his experience composing for Fresh Off the Page on October 3—the varied emotions he feels, the shift from improviser to composer, his effort to be his most alive self, and closes by asking what each of us can do in these times.
He then bring focus to one of the workshop piece, This One Body, referencing these texts:
Undocumented (excerpt):
A man was driving home in the evening —
an ordinary man
(could be any man) —
in a pickup truck
he has kept alive
longer than his children have been alive,
groceries riding beside him on the seat.
A man whose face was wrapped
stopped him on the road
and asked to see his papers.
He carried no papers.
He carried groceries.
He said:
This is what I have to show you.
I show you the table,
I show you the bread,
the beans and the rice in the bowl,
the lunches I pack
in the dark before day,
the door I close soft as I go.
I show you the fence
that I mended by hand,
the roof that keeps out the rain,
the truck I’ve kept running
for thirty long years —
listen:
it runs.
It runs.
I show you two children
asleep in their beds
and the one who waits at the door,
who knows by the sound
of this truck in the drive
that everyone’s home once more.
This is all that I have to show you:
I show you my hands.
I show you my hands —
the story the work wrote there.
These are my papers.
These are my documents.
Renounce the Silence
Renounce the silence.
Break the day open.
Sound the body awake.
Call us awake.
Let the record show:
no one arrived to save us,
so we began to sing.
Sound the body.
Body, call us.
Sound the body.
Body, call us.
Body, call us awake.
Body awake.
Sound the body open.
Sound the body open.
Open, open, open.
All that has life and breath,
all that has life and breath
longs to be known,
and all that is made
is still making, creating.
We are still here.
We are still here to be sung,
here to be sung.
Renounce the silence.
Break the day open.
Sound the body awake.
Call us to shine.
Call us to shine again.
Call us to our shining.
Shine.
Shine.
Shine.
Texts © Craig Hella Johnson
https://my.thelongcenter.org/overview/4414