WEBVTT

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I've been asked to remind
you that smoking is not

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allowed in this auditorium.

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The next visiting
poet be Stephen Dunn

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who will read in this
auditorium Wednesday,

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November 5th at 8:30.

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We want to invite
you to a reception

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for Lucille Clifton
immediately following

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the reading tonight in the
Terrace Lounge of the Student

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Union building.

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It's customary I
realize and it's

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become I guess a tradition
for the director of the Poetry

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Center to introduce
the visiting writers.

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I've asked that an exception
be made to that tonight

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because I wanted to introduce
Lucille Clifton for very

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selfish reasons.

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Lucille Clifton comes
to us from Baltimore

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where she lives with her
husband and six children.

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One of her main
concerns this evening

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is that when she gets
home tomorrow mid-morning,

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there won't be too much
ironing piled up for her to do.

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She is the author of three books
of poetry, Good Times, Good

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News About The Earth, and her
most recent book published

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last year An Ordinary Woman.

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She's also winner of
the YWYMHA's discovery

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series in New York.

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She won that with
the manuscript which

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was submitted without her
knowledge by somebody else.

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She is currently
poet in residence

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at Coppin State College.

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Lucille Clifton's work is
always positive, always strong,

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and always very much her own.

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Other than her
dazzling talent, I

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think I admire her
most for the fact

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that she has great
integrity as an artist.

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She in spite of the
pressures of which I am sure

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have been put upon
her, she has never

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allowed her voice
to be used in ways

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she didn't want it to be used.

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She's always been her own woman.

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She has refused to be a
mouthpiece for any group

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because she understands
that by writing

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about the specifics of her
life, she can be universal,

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and she has been that.

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She's been compared
to Whitman in this,

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and I think very aptly.

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It's a privilege
for me to present

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a great poet and the most
extraordinary woman in spite

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of the title of her
last book, and also

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one of the most
beautiful women I've ever

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had the pleasure to know.

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Lucille Clifton.

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Thank you.

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Thank you very much.