WEBVTT

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I'm sure I read this poem five
years ago when I was here,

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but I'll read it again.

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I was a graduate student bum
around the writers workshop

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at the University of Iowa
for about three years

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sometime back.

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And after a while, I
thought after I'd been there

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three years, I thought
I was receiving clear

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if subtle signals that I should
seek what was euphemistically

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called gainful
employment elsewhere.

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And I wrote a poem which
I thought articulated then

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my own position in
this regard, and also

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the positions of graduate
students and seniors

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in any year.

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And it's called
"THe Delicate Bird

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Who Was Flying Up Our Asses."

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The delicate bird of
flies off your asses

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was flying up mine also
with no express invitation.

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The bird who likes the lean
and hungry is making me sweat.

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I have delusions
that I need a job

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and I will waste away
unless I eat the bird

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and that my family will remember
me only as a poor provider.

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That bird means to
straighten me out.

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The bird in favor
of fathers and sons

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is cropping up insidiously.

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Once I could be lazy, now he
turns up everywhere I sit.

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Each day I have a feeling of
the bird higher within me.

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Once I declined
burdens now I jumped

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to be responsible for
ones I haven't yet.

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I can tell that bird means
to stay with me forever.

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Hire me, I have
another mouth to feed.

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[LAUGHTER]

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