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I'm going to talk primarily
about Rusty's second book,

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although she's the author
of Weathering, her first.

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So Rusty Morrison's
second book of poems,

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The True Keeps Calm
Biding Its Story

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is in the words of
poet, Claudia Rankine,

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"A lyric refusal of the
stop that death proposes."

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This elegiac push against the
silence of the deceased evolves

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into a critique of the
limits of language.

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Each of the nine lines on
each page of Morrison's

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remarkable collection is
grouped into three tercets

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and ends with one of the
three following words--

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please, advise, stop.

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In fact, each page begins
in the top-left corner

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with a combined request
of please, advise, stop.

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This telegraphic language
asserts the urgency of

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and the need for both written
and spoken communication

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across distances, however
literal or metaphoric

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they may be.

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While the persistent "stop"
commands our attention

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and vigilance, the gentle
"please" and "please advise"

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that follow simultaneously
suggests the frailty

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and vulnerability
of both the speaker

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and of language-- just as
soon as they have asserted

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their presence and utility.

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When I taught the book to
my undergraduate class,

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one of my students
described the book

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as being marked by
a tenuous fragility.

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It took me a moment to realize
that this seemingly redundant

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assessment actually
opened up the potential

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for profound agency within
the speaker's grief.

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In this scenario, fragility--
here functioning as a noun that

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is also a synonym
of the adjective--

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could itself be tenuous.

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That is, in the
dictionary definition,

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"liable to break down
when challenged."

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Morrison's work enacts
this complex confrontation

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with the acknowledgment of
human despair and suffering.

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She writes, "A few
darknessess are

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inward, a few outward
pointing branches

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in a stand of poplar stop and
the passionate urge to defy it.

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Despite our inability
to conquer sorrow,

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the language in the true
keeps calm, biding its story,

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allows us the
courage to fracture,

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or at the very least
dislodge, our own fragilities

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during such times of
emotional duress."

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She poses the question,
"Do the reckless simply

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hear the avalanche
before the rest of us?

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Please advise."

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And while her work refuses
any kind of definitive answer,

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it is rife with a type
of call and response

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that begins an interesting
dialogue between the speaker

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and the deceased father, the
reader and language itself.

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In the eighth
section, the implied I

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in the final line of one
of the section 6 pieces

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advises us gently to
"keep imagination busy,

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testing its talismans."

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The word talisman is
ultimately derived

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from the Greek word
telein, meaning

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to initiate into the mysteries.

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And so, please help me
welcome an imagination that

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is certainly never
stagnant and always firmly,

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but gently, guiding
her readers further

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into the realm of the unknown--

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Rusty Morrison.

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[APPLAUSE]