Hard to follow up such a gorgeous introduction.
Thank you so much though, that was lovely.
And thank you to the Poetry Center
for hosting this alumni series, and congratulations especially
Gail Browne on 50 years, hard to believe.
When I was here in the early 90s,
I attended classes of Jane Miller and the old--
I guess, iteration of the Poetry Center
which was maybe its second iteration.
And, I remember we used to check our books out of that library
by signing our names on the little spiral notebook,
and then maybe, made their way back or they didn't.
But I have such fond memories of sitting on this couches
and talking about writing and art
with so many incredible people.
When I got here in the 90s, I had no idea what I was doing.
And, I'd never taken a writing workshop in my life,
I just knew that I had a love of reading, and a fairy tales.
It was sort of astonishing and somewhat shocking to show up
in a writing workshop for the first time
and, discover that there actually
readers in the world who might say to somebody,
"You can't do that in a story."
But thankfully, there weren't that many people
who did that, I was so lucky to be surrounded by supportive
faculty and peers.
Probably, I shouldn't have been doing what I was doing.
I was writing stories where a white horse would
show up at the end and take the main character up into the sky.
Like, it wouldn't be a unicorn, that wouldn't have wings.
It probably wasn't the greatest idea but, for that reason
alone, I was just so lucky to be surrounded
by so many incredible people, many of them here tonight.
And one of them who's so supported me especially
in my folkloric tendencies, so recently gone, Steve Orlen.
He was so supportive and magical in his own humble and non-needy
way, and he even let me in a poetry workshop
do a final project, where I poorly illustrated
my own children's book about a very old man sitting on a park
bench, who slowly became an old man version of himself
as a baby, and sang himself nursery rhymes,
it was terrible.
But he let me do it, and he just said you know-- he just said,
can't you do it?
You have to do.
You're not normal.
And he just added, I'm not normal either but you know,
so what?
I think that he's mainly known in the poetry world
although, I haven't read that much about his work, I mean,
I just read his work as a realist,
but I think he's a great fabulist, teller of myths,
and I wanted to just read a little homage to him,
one of his poems, because he's so
influenced me and allowed me to do this folkloric thing before.
Its time I think.
And this is a poem called "Lewis Carroll Thinks About
Time" by Steve, and it's in his great book
The Elephant's Child.
After a while, the days have a way
of looking after themselves.
Things are ugly turning under the left hand,
while the right has been tooled into efficient turning
toward goals.
Time drifts.
Today is Monday, and tomorrow will be Monday too.
Alice turns 11.
Yesterday she was seven, though what I remember of 7
is a flock of photos which have waited for years to fly out
of their box.
I can't sleep and I can't stay awake, and the sun's coming up.
So I lift the lid of the box and watch the two worlds
collide, softly as dust particles
in the first shaft of light.
I took those photographs, one river is forever running down,
and the other upstream, and the children in one boat
are always waving hello, and in the other,
no one waves goodbye, no one.
Their faces are stilled as photographs can make them,
the leisurely oars of the boatmen
are taking them toward and away from that zone.
Alice tumbled down, startled and bemused,
and I'm the Reverend Dodgson on the shores of Eden.
My hair is brown and curly, my eyes are blue.
So I am dedicating this evening to Steve.