Wow.
That is pretty amazing.
Thank you so much.
I'm still back there with it.
I think I will be there for a while.
Is this sound OK?
Am I close enough?
It's great to be back.
And I just want to say, first of all, thank you to Alison.
And thank you to Cybele and Gail for inviting me to come back.
And I want to thank Josh Wilkinson and Janice Dewey
for allowing me into their classes.
There was a moment in Janice's class
today where one of the students asked me
what I thought the effect of Tucson, when I lived here,
had been on my poetry.
And I was kind of stunned for a moment.
And I didn't have an answer.
I hadn't really thought about it much over the years.
I had a wonderful time when I lived here.
I had great teachers.
I had great company.
I had a great community, which is
all of those things are the essential elements
of a good MFA program.
But I hadn't really thought about the place so much.
And as Alison was speaking, was introducing me,
I thought that one of the things that I learned here--
and I think it's in the spirit of the place--
is just a kind of generosity toward experience
and a kind of openness to what happens in moments.
That is not a New England trait, I'm here to tell you.
It is certainly not a trait of my family and/or
the place in which I grew up.
So for me, when I came here as a 24-year-old,
I think, and when I left as a 29-year-old,
I felt like I had grown up in a certain way
and that one of the amazing pieces
of that growing up-- but really unexpected part of it--
was a kind of learning of generosity and empathy.
And I think that has a lot to do with the place.
It had much to do with the people
here, but with the place too, and the light--
maybe the light most of all.
So I'm so happy to be here.