WEBVTT

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I'm going to read mostly from
the book Desires Of Letters,

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which will be out very shortly
in the next couple of weeks.

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And it's a collection
of letters that

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is dedicated to the
poet Bernadette Mayer

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and also inspired by her
book, The Desires of Mothers

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to Please Others In Letters.

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And so it's kind of
a meditation on all

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the different possibilities
that a letter could be,

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trying to see how inclusive
that form could be,

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and it includes a
vast variety of forms.

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And just, in really
brief introduction,

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I started writing it in 2001 at
the beginning of the Iraq war

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when my kids were one
and three years old.

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And I had just moved back to the
Bay Area where I used to live.

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So there's a lot about
motherhood of young kids

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and literary scene and the
Iraq war all folded in.

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And correspondence-- just
the notion of correspondence

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with the living and the
dead and poetic community.

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"For no reason should
this chain be broken.

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This letter has been sent
to you for good luck.

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All letters are sexual,
and all desire is romantic.

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All sadness or remembrance
can be traced to New England

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or the Netherlands.

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All desire can be
desire for something,

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or all desire can be
desire not for a form.

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The formal form seeks desire as
it is desired unlike an object.

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The letter desires that
you trust in the Lord

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with all your heart.

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Kiss someone.

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Pass this letter
on within four days

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or you may lose your wife,
life, strife, or bike.

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It must leave your hands
within 96, 48, or 99 hours.

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The identity of the letter is
hidden by its root or effect.

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This is nonsense but no joke.

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You will receive the
ring dove in the mail.

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An RAF officer received $470.

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The Air Force received $4,755.

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An ARF received $0.75.

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A ram received $777 and lost
it because it broke the chain,

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as did the General George
and one department of gender

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studies.

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While in the Philippines, Welsh,
Walsh, Wales, Walsh, or Welsh

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lost his life before failing
to circulate this letter.

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Please send 20 copies and
see what happens in 20 days.

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The chain comes from Venezuela
and was written by a missionary

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from South Africa named
Babbit, Brant, Brent, Craudit

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Dabit or Davitt.

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This is true even if you
aren't superstitious.

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For no reason should
this chain be broken.

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Do not retype or alter
the letter in any manner

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in any man in any mammal
in mammalian time.

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Good luck."

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Thanks.

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