WEBVTT

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I'd like to say that
it's really a pleasure

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to be in Tucson, Arizona.

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I'm a Westerner, and I
always feel at home when

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I come out West.

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And I can't say that I've ever
been in the last few years,

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to a town where people seem
to be so nice and so receptive

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to poetry.

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And I'd like to thank
all the people that

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have been doing nice things
like taking me birdwatching,

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and cooking food for me.

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I promised a young
man named Jan that I

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would read a poem
tonight, and I'd

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like to begin with that poem.

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It's always hard for me
to decide what to read,

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because a poetry reading
is such a personal thing.

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I guess this audience
belies that fact.

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And one wants--

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I really always want to
read things that in some way

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I feel moved to read
on the occasion,

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and it's so hard to know
who you're talking to

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and how they feel.

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At any rate, I'd like to start
with this poem for Jan, which

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is called "On Barbara's Shore."

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It's a poem that
I wrote this year,

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or last year for a woman
who's the wife of a publisher.

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And who is a very,
very beautiful woman.

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And I'd just like to say
as preface, something

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that I'm sure all of you
women in the audience know.

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And perhaps many
of you men know,

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that in the strange culture
that women grow up in,

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that one of the problems we
have is that we don't really

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learn to like
ourselves very well,

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because we see women in a very
strange and often degrading

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role.

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And the result is, if we
become somewhat healthy people

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as we forget about that
and embrace our own lives,

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but we find it very, very
hard to like other women.

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And we direct all of our
energy at the men of the world.

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And I'd say that I've been
fairly typical in doing this,

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that almost all of the poems
I write are spoken to men.

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Perhaps in an attempt to try
to get them to understand

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what being a woman is all about,
or what my feelings are about.

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And it's seldom that I really
do address myself to women.

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Although I feel that
obviously as human beings,

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we all have things
to say to each other,

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but this is one
of the first times

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that I ever felt compelled
to write almost a love

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poem for a woman.

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And it occurred because
she created a real change

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in my concept about
certain kinds of women.

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I've always been
extremely prejudiced

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against very attractive women.

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And growing up in
Southern California,

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developed an extreme
prejudice against blondes.

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Women who were models.

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Women who spent their lives
as housewives, and did not

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do other things.

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Women who were
not intellectuals.

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And when I first met Barbara
Martin, she was blonde,

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she was a model, she spent
her entire life as a housewife

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and she was not an intellectual.

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And I was prepared to be polite,
and charmingly condescending

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to her.

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And much to my
dismay, she turned out

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to be one of the
nicest human beings

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and perhaps one of the
wisest women I had ever met.

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And I suddenly realized
after about my third visit

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there, that not only
did I like this woman,

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but that she had
something to teach me

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about being a woman, that was
something I was really very

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hungry to know.

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And so I went home and wrote
her a love poem, so to speak,

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which is called "On
Barbara's Shore."

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The ocean has befriended me.

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The rough white
crests of waves walk

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as if in moccasins, trailing
a pale moist shoreline.

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Knowing I cannot swim, the
ocean has not taunted me.

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Instead, its rhythms and sounds
fall like sea roses at my feet.

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The singer walks on the beach.

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The faces who listen
are cliffs of the water.

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Tonight's concert is over,
but every day of life

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is some concert,
clear and beautiful.

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Fish like opal roses
and the singed edges

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of tea garden roses, and the
camellia faces of blind roses.

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The row of fish,
caviar and roses

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brush past me in this life.

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So confusing, but beautiful.

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When I wake up in your
house, the serene white rug

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catches my eye.

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I know it reappears from room
to room, a thread of continuity

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in all of your days and nights.

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I dream of living in such
a well-tended house myself,

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with Eastern rugs, tiles
scrubbed to Dutch freshness,

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copper, brass and porcelain
surfaces sustaining the day.

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But in such a life,
the agonies of my past

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would be unexplainable.

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And if life is to have
any ultimate agony,

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perhaps that pain would be the
loss of explanation, of reason,

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of meaning.

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The cockatoo sits
in her brass cage,

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crushing rocks against her
powerful bird's tongue.

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There is music, poetry,
dance in this house.

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It is clean, organized and
direct in its meanings.

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My life has none of
this poetry in it.

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None to frame it.

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And being in your house, eating
your generous breakfasts,

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sleeping in your beautiful
daughter's bedroom

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and talking to you, makes me
feel complete in some way.

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As if each of your
movements were teaching me

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the beauty of women.

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I know you have some wisdom,
dark as afraid ancient books

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setting off your fine face,
which I have not yet learned.

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Perhaps your greatest
beauty is a form

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of hope, imparted to
all who talk to you.

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That life will yield its
secrets to the careful searcher.

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Your movements are
slow, and teach me

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that they can be learned.

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Music of the spheres,
that means the planet's

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moving in such harmony,
that beautiful chords

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are heard in their concert.

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Surely, when you move it
sets up a similar music,

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all life is motion.

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Mine is the quick silver flash,
yours some more steady beam.

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The ocean is my background.

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Its motion designing the
sand, carving the rocks,

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offering life to simple things.

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Your house is an ocean, a
white bird curling its feathers

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like flower petals
against itself.

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A sea which has befriended
me, even though I cannot swim.

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