WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.980 align:middle line:84% And I'm just going to finish with one poem from A Toast 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:06.720 align:middle line:90% In The house of Friends. 00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:08.400 align:middle line:84% And I'm not an alcoholic, by the way. 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:12.840 align:middle line:84% I know there were several references to alcoholism there. 00:00:12.840 --> 00:00:16.920 align:middle line:84% And I didn't invent Kentucky Bluegrass or alcoholism. 00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:18.818 align:middle line:84% But what a bestseller that would have been. 00:00:18.818 --> 00:00:20.610 align:middle line:84% I could have had stocks in either of those. 00:00:20.610 --> 00:00:23.955 align:middle line:90% 00:00:23.955 --> 00:00:26.080 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read the very first poem in this book. 00:00:26.080 --> 00:00:27.660 align:middle line:90% It's called In Aporia. 00:00:27.660 --> 00:00:30.750 align:middle line:84% And this book is dedicated to my son, Oluchi; 00:00:30.750 --> 00:00:35.220 align:middle line:84% my mom, Mrs. Melvaline Oliver; and my brother, Mark. 00:00:35.220 --> 00:00:39.210 align:middle line:84% There's a quote here from Andy Warhol. 00:00:39.210 --> 00:00:40.200 align:middle line:90% It's about death. 00:00:40.200 --> 00:00:42.800 align:middle line:84% But don't-- you know, it's happy death. 00:00:42.800 --> 00:00:45.920 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:45.920 --> 00:00:49.130 align:middle line:84% I realized everything I was doing must have been death. 00:00:49.130 --> 00:00:52.070 align:middle line:84% It was Christmas, or Labor Day, a holiday. 00:00:52.070 --> 00:00:54.140 align:middle line:84% And every time you turned on the radio, 00:00:54.140 --> 00:00:58.730 align:middle line:84% they said something like, four million are going to die. 00:00:58.730 --> 00:00:59.375 align:middle line:90% Andy Warhol. 00:00:59.375 --> 00:01:03.310 align:middle line:90% 00:01:03.310 --> 00:01:07.570 align:middle line:84% I'm trying on egos, a justification for the planet's 00:01:07.570 --> 00:01:09.010 align:middle line:90% continuance. 00:01:09.010 --> 00:01:11.020 align:middle line:84% Oh, hello transgressor, you've come 00:01:11.020 --> 00:01:15.710 align:middle line:84% to collect utilitarian debts, humbling narrative space. 00:01:15.710 --> 00:01:18.910 align:middle line:84% Give me a condition and wheatgrass. 00:01:18.910 --> 00:01:22.150 align:middle line:90% I, his body, is disintegrating. 00:01:22.150 --> 00:01:27.580 align:middle line:84% I, his body, is ossification, death my habit radius. 00:01:27.580 --> 00:01:28.420 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah. 00:01:28.420 --> 00:01:31.450 align:middle line:84% I, his, body can't refuse this summons. 00:01:31.450 --> 00:01:33.760 align:middle line:90% I can't get out of this room. 00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:37.900 align:middle line:84% Tell me something different about torture, dear trickster. 00:01:37.900 --> 00:01:39.880 align:middle line:90% Tell me about the lightness. 00:01:39.880 --> 00:01:41.770 align:middle line:84% My mother told me to pick the one 00:01:41.770 --> 00:01:44.710 align:middle line:84% I love the best, how it signals everything 00:01:44.710 --> 00:01:48.970 align:middle line:84% I ever wish to believe true, just wholly on my ship. 00:01:48.970 --> 00:01:50.740 align:middle line:90% I jump all over this house. 00:01:50.740 --> 00:01:54.670 align:middle line:84% This is it, what I thought is, thought only, nothing 00:01:54.670 --> 00:01:56.620 align:middle line:90% more deceptive than-- 00:01:56.620 --> 00:01:59.410 align:middle line:84% I, his body, keeps thinking someone 00:01:59.410 --> 00:02:05.050 align:middle line:84% will come along, touch me, as like human or Lima beans. 00:02:05.050 --> 00:02:06.940 align:middle line:90% I'm cradling you to my breast. 00:02:06.940 --> 00:02:08.530 align:middle line:90% You are looking out. 00:02:08.530 --> 00:02:13.000 align:middle line:84% A little wooden lion you and Peter carved on Bluff Street 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:15.850 align:middle line:84% is quieting across your cheekbone. 00:02:15.850 --> 00:02:18.910 align:middle line:84% Not at all like the kind of terror found in sleep 00:02:18.910 --> 00:02:20.980 align:middle line:90% on trembling grounds. 00:02:20.980 --> 00:02:22.570 align:middle line:90% It is yesterday, now. 00:02:22.570 --> 00:02:26.660 align:middle line:84% I have not had a chance to dance in this century. 00:02:26.660 --> 00:02:27.500 align:middle line:90% Tonight. 00:02:27.500 --> 00:02:29.450 align:middle line:90% Tonight, I shall kill someone. 00:02:29.450 --> 00:02:32.960 align:middle line:84% A condition to remember Sunday mornings. 00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:37.640 align:middle line:84% And this too is fiction, the book I would want to write, 00:02:37.640 --> 00:02:40.370 align:middle line:90% the restored fallen heroic. 00:02:40.370 --> 00:02:43.610 align:middle line:84% Did you expect a different grace from the world? 00:02:43.610 --> 00:02:45.290 align:middle line:90% I'm working on tough. 00:02:45.290 --> 00:02:47.180 align:middle line:90% They think I am already. 00:02:47.180 --> 00:02:48.860 align:middle line:90% All ready. 00:02:48.860 --> 00:02:50.930 align:middle line:90% Who is the dead person? 00:02:50.930 --> 00:02:54.530 align:middle line:84% Is I'm sorry real to a dead person? 00:02:54.530 --> 00:02:57.470 align:middle line:84% Browning grass, my hands on this table, 00:02:57.470 --> 00:03:02.210 align:middle line:84% a contentious sentry, a place to pay rent, redemptive moments. 00:03:02.210 --> 00:03:04.430 align:middle line:90% Am I now the dead person? 00:03:04.430 --> 00:03:05.960 align:middle line:90% Dead person. 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:07.280 align:middle line:90% Dead person. 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:10.520 align:middle line:84% Will you partake in my persimmon feast? 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:13.400 align:middle line:84% The body inside the body astounds, 00:03:13.400 --> 00:03:16.400 align:middle line:90% confesses sins of the funhouse. 00:03:16.400 --> 00:03:19.490 align:middle line:84% I, too, have admired the people of this planet, 00:03:19.490 --> 00:03:22.220 align:middle line:90% their frilly ordered intellects. 00:03:22.220 --> 00:03:24.260 align:middle line:84% The youth they've made of cardamom. 00:03:24.260 --> 00:03:25.760 align:middle line:90% Radiation as well. 00:03:25.760 --> 00:03:30.170 align:middle line:84% How they've pasteurized milk, loaned surnames to stars, 00:03:30.170 --> 00:03:35.240 align:middle line:84% captured tribes, diseases, streets, and ideals, too. 00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:36.170 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:03:36.170 --> 00:03:39.520 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:45.000 align:middle line:90%