WEBVTT

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Thank you very much.

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I'm very happy to be here
for the first time, Tucson.

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I have a best friend
who's from here.

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So I feel like I know all the
main sights certainly Speedway.

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And he assured me anywhere
you go, you can't miss it.

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You can't be in Tucson
without being on Speedway.

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I'd like to thank the
people that helped make

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this possible besides you all.

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Alison Deming, of
course, and Sherry

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who's helping to
make things possible

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and gives us our
elements and everything.

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And the other students
I've met here,

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and past students Joel
and Ila from the Center.

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I'd like to thank them and
all the other unnamed people

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who helped make these
events possible.

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I'd like to begin by
goosing the gooseneck.

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I'd like to begin by reading
this poem, which you mentioned.

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The poem that I started
when I was 17 years old

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and finished when I was
20, it's one of the earlier

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poems from this first book.

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I'd like to read it by
way of introduction.

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I grew up in San
Jose, California

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in Avario, a neighborhood
that is now the freeway 280.

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The Vario has now been
renamed the Vario Horseshoe

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because the way
the freeway goes,

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you have to go all the way
around in this big horseshoe

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in order to cross the freeway.

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So it's called Vario Horseshoe,
you'll be hearing about that.

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But that's where I grew up, in
downtown San Jose, California.

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Urban renewal, I'm sure
it happens here in Tucson.

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But they started building
this freeway when

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I was five years
old, and I knew then

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that they would finish
it when I was 19.

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So the whole time
I was growing up,

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in my own metaphorical mind, I
associated my own development,

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my own growing with the
building of this freeway.

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And this is a poem that's
divided up into six sections.

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And I'm just going to pause
in between the sections

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rather than read
the section numbers.

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There's a little bit
of Spanish, Los Altos.

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Los altos is the
heights, it's a community

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by Palo Alto in Stanford,
upper class neighborhood.

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Sal Si Puedes is in
East side San Jose.

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It's a place where
Cesar Chavez the farm

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worker of the farmworkers
movement was born.

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And Sal Si Puedes translates
roughly get out if you can.

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And borrachando
comes from borracho.

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And borracho is a
drunk, an alcoholic,

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and borrachando is
sort of the process

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of drinking like a drunk.

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Anyway, this is the
poem, Beneath the Shadow

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of the Freeway.

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Across the street the
freeway, blind worm,

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rapping the Valley up from
Los Altos to Sal Si Puedes.

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I watched it from my porch
unwinding, everyday at dusk

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as grandma water
geraniums, the shadow

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of the freeway lengthened.

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We were a woman family, grandma,
our innocent queen, Mama,

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the Swift Knight,
Fearless Warrior.

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Mama wanted to be Princess
instead, I know that.

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Even now she dreams of
taffeta and foot-high tiaras.

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And myself, I could never
decide so I turn to books,

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those staunch, upright men.

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I became scribe,
translator of foreign male,

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interpreting letters from
the government, notices

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of dissolved marriages
and welfare stipulations.

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I paid the bills,
did light man work,

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fixed faucets, ensured
everything against all leaks.

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Before rain I noticed seagulls.

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They walk in flocks, cautious
across lawns with splayed toes,

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indecisive beaks.

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Grandma says
seagulls mean storm.

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In California in the summer,
mockingbirds sing all night.

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Grandma says they're singing
for their nesting wives,

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they don't leave their
families borrachando.

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She likes the ways
of birds, respects

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how they show themselves
for toast or whistle.

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She believes in myths and
birds, and she trusts only what

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she builds with her own hands.

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She built her own house,
cocky, disheveled carpentry,

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after living for 25 years with
a man who tried to kill her.

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Grandma, from the
hills of Santa Barbara.

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I would open my eyes
to see her stir mush

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in the morning, her
hair in loose braids,

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tucked close around her
head with a yellow scarf.

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And Mama said, "It's
her own fault getting

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screwed by a man for that long.

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Sure as shit wasn't hard."

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Soft, she was soft.

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In the night I would
hear it, glass bottle

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shattering the streets,
words cracking into shrill

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screams, inside my
throat a cold fear

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as it entered the house in
hard unsteady steps stopping

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at my door, my name,
bathrobe, slippers.

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Outside, a 3:00 AM mist heavy
as a breath full of whiskey.

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Stop it, go home,
come inside, Mama.

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If he comes here again,
I'll call the police.

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Inside, a gray
kitten, a touchstone

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purring beneath
the quilts grandma

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stitched from his suits,
the patchwork singing

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of mocking birds.

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"You're too soft, always were.

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You get nothing but shit.

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Baby, don't count on nobody."

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A mother's wisdom, soft.

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I haven't changed,
maybe grown more silent,

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cynical on the outside.

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"Oh, Mama, with what's inside of
me, I could wash that all away,

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I could."

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"But Mama, if you're good to
them, they'll be good to you

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back."

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Back.

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The freeway is
across the street.

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It's summer now, and every
night I sleep with a gentle man

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to the hymn of mockingbirds.

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And in time, I plant
geraniums, I tie up my hair

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into loose braids,
and I trust only what

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I have built with my own hands.

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