WEBVTT

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I'm Charles Alexander
with POG, and we're

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the presenter of this event.

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And the Poetry
Center is the host.

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It'll get going in
just a minute here.

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I did want to say that
because of a longish dinner,

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the cash box of this place only
made it here a few minutes ago,

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and we are very much
hoping that all of you

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will give a contribution to
POG for this event of $5 or $3,

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if you're a student, over
there with that gentleman

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by the book table.

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And without further
ado, are we ready?

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Except we very-- oh, sure.

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On March 9th, which is
Wednesday of this coming week,

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from 5:00 to 6:30 PM,
there is a performance

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of a four-voice piece
of poetry by John Cage.

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That's part of
several events that

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are a celebration of the
collaborative legacy of Merce

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Cunningham.

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And that poetics
of Cage piece will

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be performed by Laynie Browne,
Renee Angle, Tenny Nathanson,

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and Charles Alexander, me.

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And even before
that, that's it--

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that's actually at 7:00 PM.

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At 5:00 PM, March
9th, there will

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be a workshop on the
poetics of John Cage, taught

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by Laynie Browne and myself.

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So anybody that likes to
come to that, please do.

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Those are in the
Sunt Gallery, 1040

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North Olive Road,
Tucson, Arizona,

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and that is the
gallery in the lobby

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of the Department
of Architecture

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here at the university.

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Thank you.

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And I would like to ask
Laynie Browne to come up.

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Thanks, everybody
for being here.

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It's such a great
pleasure and honor

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to have Rosemarie and
Keith here tonight,

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and to introduce
them, and introduce

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them each individually.

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But I just wanted to
say about both of them,

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I just wanted to
preface that really, I

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can't say enough good
about the contribution

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that they've made to
contemporary poetry.

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And if you look at
individual, the body of work

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they've created in terms of
their writing, their poetry,

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their prose, their
translation, and all the poets

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that they've influenced over so
many decades, each one of those

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would be a really
wonderful contribution.

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And if you look at
it in its entirety,

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it's really extraordinary.

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So we're so glad to
have them here tonight.

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And their press Burning Deck
is in its 50th anniversary

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year this year, and it's
really brought us consistently,

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some of the most exciting new
writing, works in English,

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works in translation as well.

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So we're really
grateful for that.

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Rosemarie Waldrop is the
author of more than 20 books

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of poetry.

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Most recently,
Driven to Abstraction

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is just out from New
Directions, and recent books

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include Curves to
the Apple, which

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collects a trilogy of works.

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It's really a masterwork
series of books.

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Blindsight, Love,
Like Pronouns, and her

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collected essays Dissonance,
if you're interested,

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was published by University
of Alabama Press.

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She's translated 14 volumes
of Edmond Jabes's work.

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And her memoir-- which I
also highly recommend--

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Lavish Absence, Recalling
and Rereading Edmond Jabes

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is out from Wesleyan University
Press, as well as volumes

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from many other writers
in French, and in German,

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including Emmanuel Hocquard,
Jacques Roubaud, Elke Erb,

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and many others.

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Rosemarie's work
continually deconstructs

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assumed binaries
in Western thought,

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such as emotion and reason
and offers us what reads

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is a combination of philosophy,
lyric, narrative, discourse,

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and sometimes, a
novelistic space.

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Through the prism of the prose
poem, as no one else can,

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her works think themselves
through an elegant series,

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re-forging the sentence
and relational syntax.

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Throughout her
work, she offers us

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insights into the relation
between thought, perception,

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language, history, and the body.

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In her new book
Driven to Abstraction,

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influences range from memory,
mathematics, the music

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of John Cage, the war in Iraq.

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She writes in the poem "By
the Waters of Babylon,"

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"we take language for granted
as we do, sitting and weeping."

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Rosemarie's work creates
an opposite effect

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whereby language becomes a kind
of consciousness and thought

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is a process which will
not be denied physicality.

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She writes, "heat passes from
a warm body to a cold body,

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and not in the
reverse direction."

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With her language, she
expertly animates form.

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Please join me in welcoming
Rosemarie Waldrop.

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[APPLAUSE]

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