I try to perform poetry to an audience that doesn't like poetry.

I want to be the poet that everyone says, "I hate poetry, but I like him."

Lemon comes from growing up in a predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhood in Brooklyn, and being the only white boy in the neighborhood.

So I got the name Lemonhead.

I'm half Norweigan, half Puerto Rican, so... Usually in my neighborhood, you don't really keep your real name.

Your name could be Juan, but they'll call you Bapu, you know?

Your name could be David, but they'll call you Good, you know?

My name was Andy, but they called me Lemon, because I stood out, I was so bright and blond.

When I was incarcerated I had gotten my heart broken.

I was in a relationship, which most guys are in a relationship when they're incarcerated.

Especially young men.

We're all cool, and, you know, we have a girl that, you know, comes to visit us.

But this one girl didn't come visit me.

And my heart was broken.

And so I picked up this anthology called "The Pen" and I read this poem about an incarcerated man and how his heart's being broken because he don't see his love.

And I related to it, and I felt like, "All right, I want to read more poems that I relate to."

And it started to take over my time that I was spending in Riker's Island.

I'm a big fan of Etheridge Knight.

I love Tennessee Williams and T.S.

Eliot.

And my favorite writer of all is William Shakespeare.

Poets are supposed to say things you don't know how to put into words.

That is the rule, the golden rule of poetry, is to be able to write it in ways so that when people read it, you spoke for them.

It was about a year, and I came off, and I was tainted with a criminal record.

So I couldn't get work like an average citizen.

And I was, you know, living on the street, and next thing you know, someone handed me a flier for a poetry reading.

I never knew poetry was read out loud.

I thought it was always written in books, because that's where I would read poetry or see poetry, was in literature, not actually onstage.

So I showed up to a poetry reading, and I joined the open mic.

And the lady had approached me after my first poem and asked me if I wanted to be in her theater troupe, and that they would pay me to be in her theater troupe.

And when I ran into the poetry community, all the poets were scarred.

Everyone was so, like, wounded, and yet loud and entertaining, and trying to find a way for the audience to listen to their yelling onstage, and on this microphone, holding a scroll in their hand and trying to define their, like... their bads, right?

And so I related to that.

I'm from the house that Step 'n Fetchit burnt down.

Lyricist lounge.

Poet laureate of the old hip hop underground.

Son of the drama, child of the bard.

An English solider at Agincourt, either die or go hard.

Kill or be martyred.

Iambic pentameter on the regular so the gift goes farther.

An Aristotle thug dealing with the real.

Plato was the enemy of the soul, like a Def Jam deal.