WEBVTT

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So I can't tell you
how crazy excited

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I am to introduce Laura Mullen.

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I've actually been having
these strange fantasies all day

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that I'm going to
be, like, overcome

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by the Holy Spirit or something.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I was raised
Pentecostal, and I can

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say that, and stand up during
her reading and throw my bra.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So if I do that, I
actually want you

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to keep your focus on Laura.

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But I really might do that,
because her work actually

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just makes me want
to give her things.

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I feel like she's
giving so much,

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from her poems to her
hybrid forms, to her videos.

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And if you haven't
seen her videos,

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you need to get
online right now.

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All of you who have
phones, go ahead.

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Just last night, a
friend said to me,

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I love it when a person
says the word absolutely,

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and so I've been
trying to use it more.

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She said she loves the word
absolutely because it actually

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means 100 times yes.

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I want to point that
out for all of you who

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use the word absolutely when you
mean sometimes or maybe or OK.

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And I also think we can
learn from Laura's work

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in this, because every
poem is an absolutely.

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She has six books, and
in her most recent book,

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Dark Archive, she says, "As
arias, the areas of air we are,

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arise.

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And like no part
of the body they

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belong to, belonging to a
body to itself unrecognizable,

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open the doors."

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What I'm saying is, this
work is 1,000 times yes.

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Her work has me thinking a
lot about generosity lately,

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and how important that
is in the wake of loss.

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We spoke earlier, some
folks, about Stacy Doris,

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and I'm also thinking about
Tucson poet Morgan Schulte,

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and how access to their work,
to the part of them that we

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can continue to breathe
into, takes on this pressing

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significance.

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In studying Laura's
work, I keep thinking,

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we're so lucky to have
this time with her brain

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and with her hilarious
and devastating videos,

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where she's in a wedding gown in
the bathtub on a Friday night,

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to have her look into
the camera and say to us,

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I'm just going to
film up close what

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my face looks like after I've
spent some time with my mom.

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Wow.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And that we get to stare into a
face that smiles when it talks.

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To me, this is the
magic of being alive.

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Another friend of mine
recently said to me

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about an article he was
sort of subtly apologizing

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for for being too
academic, he said,

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I was afraid you would
find it indulgent.

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And I said, I do.

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I love it.

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I do.

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And what I mean by that
is that I love language

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that requires my attention.

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While I'm reading Laura's poems,
the things on my to do list

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seem to check
themselves off, not

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because anyone's
actually doing them,

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but because they
matter so much less.

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Because the only way I
know how to experience love

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is through language that
somehow multiplies time,

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and that's what her work
does, and I'm so honored

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to be here to witness that.

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Please welcome Laura Mullen.

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[APPLAUSE]

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