WEBVTT

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One of the poems I read before
was a type of poem addressed

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to father, whether
it's the actual father

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just becomes a kind of
technique of address.

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The evening wouldn't
be complete,

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I suppose, without
addressing a poem to mother.

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So we'll get that
out of our systems.

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It's called,
"Thanksgiving Message".

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I kind of like the story
behind it better than the poem.

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It's called "Thanksgiving
Message" from Iowa City 1965.

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And what made me think
about doing such a poem

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was I was walking in front of
Lubin's Drugstore in Iowa City.

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And someone from the
workshop came up to me.

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It was a fellow
that I knew on site.

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But we weren't friends.

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And it's very
embarrassing you don't

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know what to talk about really.

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Sometimes it is when you
cross each other in the street

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and you know it's just
too cliche to say, hello,

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and how are you.

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Especially you're
supposed to be both poets.

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It becomes a terrible cliche
to say, hello and how are you

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and leave it.

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And it just happened
to be a couple

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of days before Thanksgiving.

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And I really was embarrassed.

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And I just kind of blurted
out, did you send your mother

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a Thanksgiving card?

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It was really a
stupid thing to say.

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But it just came out.

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And he looked awfully shocked.

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And he stopped with his
hands in his blue jeans

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and looked at me.

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He was very upset
about what I asked him.

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And he bent his beard
down and he screamed at me

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that he didn't indeed
send a Thanksgiving card.

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But he hadn't
forgotten his mother

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and he sent her a whole bunch
of swastikas in an envelope.

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And so I decided that I had
to write a poem about that,

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well not about that, but about
mothers and about her mother.

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Because I got to thinking.

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That upset me so much about the
swastikas I couldn't really--

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I suppose it was as
ridiculous as my question.

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And I went home and
started to think.

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And I started thinking about
the death of my grandmother.

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I mean these things are
important because as I

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started to think about and tried
to piece back after reading

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a history book, and find out how
stupid it is to read a history

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book, that the only people
I really know are the ones

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I have direct contact with.

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And I started remembering when I
was 14 and my grandmother died.

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I went to see her
before she died.

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She was in a ladies' home.

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She wanted to go
there instead of being

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a burden on other people.

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We would gladly take her
in and did for a while.

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But she said she wanted to
be completely independent,

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at least of her own family.

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You see?

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And when she was dying,
this is almost a cliche

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I supposed with a
lot of dying people.

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But it did happen that she
took off her Japanese slippers

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that she had and she
started banging the wall

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in the middle of the night.

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And she died of natural
causes kind of death.

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And she just kept banging
with the slipper on the wall.

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And she was protesting.

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It was kind of a nice protest.

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You will not take me.

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I shall not die.

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And she hung on for
quite a few years.

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So it kind of
traces through that

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into the final
statement of all this.

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I mean, what is
the protest about?

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Well I have my own protest.

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But I decided that
mothers somehow

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are in their own
kind of ideology

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and a kind of conformity.

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And that in itself
becomes a kind of duty

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that they feel that
they are bound to, even

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though we find that
it is oftentimes

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a terrible middle class rut.

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It is grounded I think.

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But there is a
sense of duty there,

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at least they think
from the standpoint,

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that they have a terrible
mission to accomplish,

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to raise people.

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So this got me to thinking
after the fellow mentioned

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the swastika.

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But--

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"Mother, I could have posted
from this midwest point

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a sudden flurry of swastikas or
a well thumbed flower of evil.

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I send a printed
plump turkey by $0.08

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carrier with ill-chosen penny
align sentiment enscribed.

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Scant difference in the
choosing, the choice.

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That Indian realm of festive
board is dead for the pains

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he bore history are histrionic.

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Maybe hearsay.

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Our traits bear nothing
for the chronicles.

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Oral tradition fault is
beyond your mother's memory.

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Gran's initials diamond
cut on the window

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to let in light
withstand the cold.

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Grandfather drank
himself Politico.

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They called him the
democratic whip.

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He whipped the 10
children under pretext.

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Later, he coughed himself
liquid into death.

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With secreted elderberry
wine, I toast myself

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less turbulent days.

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The nursing home
inmates complained,

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Gran banged her toes frayed
Japanese slipper on the wall

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before her body burst.

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The mind went out.

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Like an Indian giver, the infant
Jesus bestowed and claimed

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the gift away.

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The priest gave the
final touch, the word.

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She heard her own voice
echo, falter in the walls.

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And still salvation was
stored in a crucified kit bag.

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You who bore my pain must follow
as prescribed until heaven

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shatters, Christ refuses
to be conceived."