WEBVTT

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I just don't want
the poems to be taken

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in a purely negative sense.

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So we'll start out with what's
probably the starkest poem

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in the book, I think.

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It's a poem called
"Creative Writing."

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I was--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--which is a stark
situation, right?

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I was teaching a
creative writing

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class at a small university
up in Portland and--

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it's a Catholic
University and it's

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a small university and a
relatively conservative

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university and the
students tend to be

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fairly-- not conservative, just
simply naive in certain ways.

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And in teaching
creative writing,

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which involves so much--

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some kind of a self-realization
or exploring oneself,

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honestly, it's terribly
difficult to do with students

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who not only have
never done this,

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but don't particularly want to
or don't have the groundwork

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to.

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So I decided that I would assign
my class a death poem to write,

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a poem involving
their own deaths.

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And I did the assignment
at the same time.

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Talks about the relationship
with the class too.

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"Creative Writing."

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The heart is a violent muscle.

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It opens & shuts.

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The subject is death.

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The subject is also
laughter, the bravery

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of girls, nine in a row.

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In each face a hole opens.

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Nine tiny stars of nervousness
spin languidly out.

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Sweethearts, death
is blind, he'll

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run up & down your bodies.

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Death, with a dog's
face, goes running

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through the Women's Dorm.

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He has neither
breasts nor jewelry.

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The counselors run in his
shadow, shouting Here,

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we're all Christians here!

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In the old country,
everybody was Jewish.

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Everybody had the smell of
clothes soaked in a hot tub

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and they learn to lament the
fallen, the falling, the about

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to be born.

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Birth was painful,
a long vibration

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like the intake of
breath after laughter.

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I don't want to trouble you.

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You're entering history.

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Your flesh is the
moon's, gradual & broken.

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Those boys are no consolation.

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They'll circle you,
inscrutable calligraphy,

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with no place to land.

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I'm going to think about
death until my mouth runs.

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I'm going to look at death with
a face terrible as his own.

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I don't want to scare you.

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After death there are two
alternatives, both heartless,

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memory and forgetfulness.