WEBVTT

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I had an interview in Shumia
a couple of months ago.

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And one of the things I was
talking about-- after my book

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came out, I was interested in
how to start writing again.

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And what I do is
a Dada technique,

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where I take lines at
random from different books

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and then mush them
all together and then

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try to write a poem from them.

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So here are a bunch-- they
sound like me after I'm done.

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I revise them so much that
they're mine, finally.

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And the first poem I'm going
to read is called "Shuttle."

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This is a poem, again,
in a man's voice.

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"Burning in the strange,
this ill-fitting body

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of my marriage, I
settled too early

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with my wife, crazy, frightened,
two days out of college.

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For 15 years, I watched darkness
construct a kind of house

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around my life.

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When morning came,
I thought I'd never

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have the courage to shake
loose from her arms,

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the arms of my children.

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Fear protects us from
the accidents of self.

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Sadness always keeps
us thirsty because we

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imagine we can always
drink more happiness

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than our capacity allows.

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This morning on the
plane, I had this thought.

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For 15 years, marriage
was my address,

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and I was as homesick tenant.

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Now, my life is opening like
the dream with all its familiar

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furniture even a flight of
stairs dizzying and continuous.

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I begin to climb.

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I feel like the bird you
brought home rocketed

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to your apartment in a
cardboard box with symmetrical

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punched out holes to let
in a little light and air.

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I watched you quaking,
handle the quaking thing,

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clinging to the Bronze
bars of its cage.

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For hours, I've watched
it pretending to read.

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I can't keep my eyes
from the animal,

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so miserable, hunched
rigid on its perch,

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catatonic from
the absent flutter

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and touch of other wings,
refusing seed, refusing water,

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and terror of your hand.

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The bird worries me now that I'm
free, shocked by light again."

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