WEBVTT

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Can you hear me?

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I have one announcement
before the introduction.

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The next poetry reading,
under the auspices of the Ruth

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Stephan Poetry Center,
will be performed

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by Mr Peter Wild, December
10, 8:30, in this auditorium.

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We have among us tonight one
of our own to read to us.

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Bill Roecker has been one
of us for three years.

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I don't mean that he has
been all of our friends,

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but he's lived here, he's
grown here, he's written here.

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Some of you out there have been
his students, and some of you

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have been his friends.

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I think it's one thing
to be able to praise

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great people that have been
passed down to us through time,

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it's another thing to
recognize greatness

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when it sits among us.

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I know it's been an
exciting thing for me

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to be around Bill Roecker.

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I was able to room with him
and be an office mate with him

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for one year, and watch
him begin to write poetry.

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And it was an exciting thing
to watch other people recognize

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his creative abilities.

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Some of the people who
have recognized his ability

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are The Nation, McCall's
magazine, The Northwest Review,

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Prairie Schooner,
Trace, and many others.

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I could go on for another
two or three minutes.

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This is a particularly
noteworthy evening,

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because today his first
chatbook Willamette,

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was introduced by the
Baleen Press in Phoenix.

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And if I may put in
a commercial note,

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it's available in
the bookstores.

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His fiction has also appeared
in many literary quarterlies,

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and he has one national story
in Intro Number One, published

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by Bantam.

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He has also been the editor
of a short story anthology,

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Stories That Count.

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And if I think of
one phrase that

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represents his poetry,
if I may use the phrase,

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it's poetry that counts.

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For our pleasure and
our enlightenment,

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Mr William Roecker.

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Thank you.

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