WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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Born in Croatia, Ana Bozicevic
emigrated to New York in 1997.

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She works at the Center
for the Humanities

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of the Graduate Center CUNY.

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With Amy King, Ana curates The
Stain of Poetry reading series

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in Brooklyn and is co-editing
an anthology, The Urban Poetic,

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forthcoming from Factory School.

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Ana's full full-length book,
Stars of the Night Commute,

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was published by
Tarpaulin Sky in 2009.

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Emoticons and screen
names, curse words,

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yawn, blah, blah, shmah, vague
holy man speech, this book

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includes it all.

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Bozicevic's is not a poetry
enamored of the archaic.

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Following in O'Hara's
footsteps, it

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challenges us to place
the stuff of daily life

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under the adjective poetic.

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But daily life for Bozicevic
includes many things,

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painful and beautiful, that
the rest of us might miss.

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We have the rare opportunity
to be guided tonight

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by this sharp poetic
mind on a journey that

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will woo and surprise us.

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Here's an excerpt from the
section The Long Commute.

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"Oh the question.

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You travel?

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We could say, swallows have
found their throats again.

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You sleep in an open window.

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At the Earth's center,
a certain someone

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discovers then forgets the
function of arms on a clock.

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You?"

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But the way this poem
is laid out on the page

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allows the eyes to
pull from fragments.

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The flitting eye
might read this.

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Oh the question.

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You travel?

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On a clock.

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You?

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Allow me this reading.

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You travel on a clock.

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In the following
seconds and minutes,

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let's forget what is
supposed to happen

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and how we're supposed
to feel about it.

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Let's travel through space
and time by on a clock.

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Please help me in
welcoming Ana Bozicevic.