WEBVTT

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This next poem is a poem that
had two methods of inspiration.

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The one was acrostic
and the other

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was this process based
composition of erasure.

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And I often give people
advice probably more often

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than they want.

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But often it's the students and
one hopes that they want it.

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So a student of
mine who is an MFA--

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in an MFA program now.

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She was an undergraduate
student of mine called me

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and she was in a panic because
she said I can't write a poem

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and it's due for the workshop
what am I going to do?

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And I said, well you
write an ekphrastic poem

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you know it's so easy.

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You just go and you
look at a painting

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and then kind of pretend
that you're in that scene.

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And surrealist paintings are
particularly good for that.

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So just go online and
Google surrealist painting

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and go to images and find
something and call me later.

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So then whenever I give that
kind of advice I think really

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is that all it takes?

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Could I do that?

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Then I have to test myself.

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So I Google surrealist
painting image

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and of course you get
many options there.

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And there was one
that I'd never seen

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and I was clear that it
was not by a famous person.

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But it was charming
on its own terms.

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And so I decided that
actually would be a better

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test because if I'm going
to take Salvador Dali sure

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that's easy.

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So I took this
painting and I began

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to write as a result of
what I was looking at.

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And then I got so far
and it was like OK.

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Yeah, well it's not
quite a poem yet, is it?

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But it is a way to begin.

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So I felt like I hadn't
given bad advice.

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But I realized that it's hard.

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So I set it aside and then
sometime after that I was--

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someone mentioned a
piece of music text

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by John Cage, the experimental
avant-garde composer

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that is called "Roaratorio".

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And it's a project that he did
of writing over James Joyce's

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Finnegan's Wake.

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And he did it once
and then he did it

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again all different ways.

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And you can go online and
there are free mp3 downloads

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if you want to hear some of it.

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And as I was listening to
them and searching around

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on the internet, I found a an
acceptance speech for an award

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that he received for Roaratorio.

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And I was reading it
and I would see words

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and I think oh that would be
a good word to put in a poem.

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And so I decided I would
use that erasure technique.

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So I copied it put
it in a document

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and began to take the
words with the idea

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that maybe this would be an
extension of my acrostic advice

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attempt.

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And indeed it did satisfy
me as the whole poem.

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So it's called "The
Circus Watcher."

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Sorry.

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I wear red to match the air
that comes over the fence

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and fills the jar in
which I keep the day.

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I say every dog
looks like no other

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but that isn't
true, not entirely.

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Difference is slippery I say.

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Just look at my head
how it tilts to look up

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at these over large leaves.

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They're large and
blue the better

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to be seen by my pincushion
eye so bright in the light.

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I am sad.

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I am happy.

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I keep busy.

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I count the eight legs
of the tick on the table,

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arachnid and such.

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The book I leave open
the wind blows it shut.

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In late April I make a schedule
June to July, July to August.

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I begin to realize the circus
will be places, mines, people,

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pleasure.

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The drumming, all of these.

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I practice when I'm not sure
of myself this repetition.

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No, no, no, new.

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I think that chaos
fascinates me.

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I say I am part of that, one
of the characters in a cage.

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