WEBVTT

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Dick Shelton asked
me to read this.

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It's a poem called "I Dream
I'm the Death of Orpheus."

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And it's based on a
dream which came out

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of a film-- which came out
of Cocteau's Orpheus film.

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And I think those
of you who have

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seen the film will know
how it comes out of that,

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but I don't think the
poem ultimately depends

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on a knowledge of the film.

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But there is, for me, a
very strong relationship

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between poetry, dream, and film.

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And I find myself, well,
obviously very involved

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with dreams, and
very much attracted

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to film, as the other
medium besides poetry

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which I learn from.

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"I Dream I'm the
Death of Orpheus."

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"I am walking rapidly through
striations of light and dark

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thrown under an arcade.

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I am a woman in the prime of
life, with certain powers,

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and those powers severely
limited by authorities

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whose faces I rarely see.

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I am a woman in
the prime of life,

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driving her dead poet
in a black Rolls-Royce

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through a landscape of
twilight and thorns.

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A woman with a certain mission
which, if obeyed to the letter,

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will leave her intact.

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A woman with the
nerves of a panther.

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A woman with contacts
among Hell's Angels.

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A woman feeling the
fullness of her powers

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at the precise moment when
she must not use them.

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A woman sworn to lucidity,
who sees through the mayhem,

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the smoky fires of these
underground streets,

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her dead poet learning
to walk backward

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against the wind on the
wrong side of the mirror."

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