WEBVTT

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You, Maggie.

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And thank you for inviting me.

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I'm not going to be too long
tonight for several reasons.

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You're not waiting for me.

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You're waiting for two people.

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And the other reason is
that my daughter, Siobhan's,

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in the audience, and if I'm too
long, I'm going to get heck.

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So I will be brief.

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But I will say this--

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when I learned I would be
speaking to you this evening,

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I was in New York City
when I got the invitation.

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And perhaps that
is why I thought

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of a woman who had lived on
Park Avenue in New York City.

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And she actually died there.

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She lived in New
York for many years,

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but she drew some of her
strongest inspiration

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from this very part
of the country.

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And she was a woman who
bridged many worlds and who

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created many others.

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And she was the writer
of the words I hope

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you are looking at right now.

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They passed out a Xerox.

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It's Willa Cather.

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And I Xeroxed in
preparation for this

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a brief paragraph from
a 1955 short story

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called "A Wagner Matinee."

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OK?

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It's a very brief selection,
and I'll read it to you now.

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I hope you're looking
at the selection.

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But if you're not,
I'll read slowly.

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The story takes place
during a Wagner concert.

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"During the intermission before
the second half of the concert,

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I questioned my aunt and found
that the Prize Song was not

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new to her.

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Some years before
there had drifted

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to the farm and
Red willow County

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a young German, a
tramp cow-puncher,

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who had sung the chorus at
Baireuth, when he was a boy,

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along with the other
peasant boys and girls.

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Of a Sunday morning, he used to
sit on his gingham-sheeted bed

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in the hands' bedroom, which
opened off the kitchen,

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cleaning the leather
boots of his--

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cleaning the leather of
his boots and saddle,

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singing the Prize Song, while
my aunt went about her work

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in the kitchen.

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She had hovered about him until
she had prevailed upon him

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to join the country church,
though his sole fitness

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for the step, insofar
as I could gather,

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lay in his boyish face
and his possession

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of this divine melody."

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Of course, the divine melody
is the Prize Song from Wagner.

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Now, this little scene has
stayed with me for many years.

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I have never forgotten
the wonderful images

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Cather gives us in this
scene from her story.

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The young singer
coming to America

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in the late 19th
century, and coming

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from the cultural
center that had

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produced what was then called--

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Wagner's music was then called
the music of the future.

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It does not really matter what
you think of Wagner's music

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or what I think of his ideas.

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That's not the point.

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The point here is that this
young man was a messenger.

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This young man from
the chorus at Baireuth.

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He had come from the
old world to the new,

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bringing a new music to
people who were eagerly

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waiting for this melody.

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And I ask you now
to take a moment

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to think along with
me of the world

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that Willa Cather
presents to us.

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It was the world without--

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and you'll have to
believe me on this--

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It was a world without
radio, without TV,

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without sound
recordings, without CDs.

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And I'm really stretching
credulity here when

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I say without call waiting.

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It was a world without
any electricity.

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And in Cather's
late 19th century,

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you might hear reports about
a new art or a new music,

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but you could only
dream about them.

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You could only dream about them.

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And the people in that
America could only

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dream about the
music of the future.

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And they could only
imagine what it

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must have been like
until they actually

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heard this young singer,
this person, who had been,

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you might say, present
at the creation.

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And we can see how
much the people

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in the small American community
of Willa Cather's story

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treasured this
ambassador's song.

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For them, he was a messenger
from another world.

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Bringing a music
never heard before,

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he possessed in every
sense a divine melody.

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And just about now,
you might be wondering

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what on Earth all of this
has to do with our speakers

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tonight, the two artists, whose
presence enrich us so much

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this evening, and whose work
I treasure so much Well,

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our century--

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our own century-- has seen
many dramatic changes in art,

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and literature, and music.

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And on many levels,
we are experiencing

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much the same
feeling that people

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had in Willa Cather's
America, that same sense

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that we are in the
presence of new art forms,

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that we are engaged with, and
engaged in something quite new.

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And we feel it so
strongly when we encounter

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the work of our own two artists
tonight, Joy Harjo and Leslie

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Marmon Silko.

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Here are new productive voices.

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And even though they have both
been publishing for many years

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now, each new novel,
each new poem,

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each new collection
is always just that--

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it's new.

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It's fresh.

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It's profound.

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And it's always
giving new directions.

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And despite the fact that they
are just entering their best

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years, they have both done so
much and influenced so many.

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And I wonder, as I look
out on these faces tonight,

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how many people in this room
have been influenced by them,

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and how many people far beyond
this room will in the future

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continue to be influenced.

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I think it's quite large
and growing number.

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I, myself, I cherish
the prose and the poetry

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of both of our writers tonight.

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But I do not always
think of them

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as novelists, or poets, or
prose writers, or essayists,

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or whatever.

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Whenever I pick up their work,
I think of them in the same way

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that the people in
Willa Cather's America

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saw that young
singer from Baireuth.

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I see them as messengers.

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He was a messenger from
the old world to the new.

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He was a bringer of new music
to waiting and appreciative

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people.

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And Joy Harjo and
Leslie Marmon Silko

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are indeed the new
singers of a new music.

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The music of our present.

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And just as Willa Cather's young
singer brought Wagner's Prize

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Song from Europe to
America, our writers today,

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our writers this evening,
bring beauty and meaning to us

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from worlds we
never knew existed

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or that we have,
unfortunately, forgotten.

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And this is what we are
so fortunate to experience

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this evening.

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I do not know what they
will share with us,

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and I do not even know
who will speak first.

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But one thing I do know--

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that both are in full possession
of that divine melody.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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