WEBVTT

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This poem is called
"Giving Myself Up."

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Now I think before
I read that, I'll

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read another poem, which has
a little story behind it,

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a poem called "Letter."

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I have a friend in New York,
where I live most of the time,

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and we're in the habit of having
lunch at the Eighth Street Deli

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maybe once, sometimes
twice a week.

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Once, when I was about
to have lunch with him,

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he saw a pen in my pocket and he
said, where'd you get that pen?

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And I answered in a
rather fanciful way,

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as I'm apt to do sometimes.

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I said, well, I was
walking over here,

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and I saw a bunch of men
running across a field,

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and all of a sudden,
the pens started

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flying from their pockets.

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And I stooped down
and picked one up,

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and that's how I got this.

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And he said--
well, he really was

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going to accuse me
of stealing his pen,

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but he said, gee, you ought
to write a poem about that.

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So I said that I would,
and if I really did,

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I'd dedicate it to him.

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If you buy my book,
you can find out

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who I dedicated the poem to.

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[LAUGHTER]

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It's banned in Arizona.

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"Letter."

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Men are running across a field.

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Pens fall from their pockets.

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People out walking
will pick them up.

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It is one of the ways
letters are written.

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How things fall to others, the
self no longer belonging to me,

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but asleep in a
stranger's shadow,

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now clothing the stranger,
now leading him off.

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It is noon as I write to you.

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Someone's life has
come into my hands.

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The sun whitens the buildings.

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It is all I have.

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I give it all to you, yours.

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The real reason I wrote
that poem, I think, is I

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wanted to write a sentence
that wasn't a sentence.

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And there's a glaring
example of that right

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in the middle of this poem.

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