I am very happy to have known Lisa
Bowden for more than 20 years.
She is a local and a national treasure.
And thank you so much for inviting me to do this.
She told me I had to both read poems and talk about Emily
Dickinson to earn my keep--
to read my poems.
So I'm going to read a poem of mine to begin with.
And most of this is going to be about Emily Dickinson.
And then, I'll finish with a poem
both from my book, Pushing Water,
which is going to be complete--
I mean, published as a complete work in about a week.
And then I-- but most of this is going
to be talking about Emily Dickinson.
And I hope you have questions at the end.
And it's so great to see so many of you, including people
that know a lot out there.
So if I get a question, I may direct it to one of you.
[LAUGHTER]
"Pushing Water Nine."
Thank you for the book--
to write in, to lie down in, to find place in--
this place of phrases.
In the West, where Aaron Copland did not play or place
his hoedown on the radio, now I suspect with no hoes and not
far down.
40 words of one syllable-- is this the American rhythm?
Thank you for the book.
I moved to salt and pepper shakers around the table,
and moved the truck around the streets,
and moved thread in and out of holes in paper,
and moved myself in and out of rooms.
And nothing really moved except the light
a doctor just shined in my eye that
feels older than its partner--
my other eye.
Say it.
No ideas but in things.
New time.
New line.
New mind.
Time lies in the dust as mind falters.
The compass points in a line--
new line to a direction charted, even
pursued, but not finished--
never finished.
In the very lay of the syllables to discover
the poem, from mathematics to particulars,
a bud forever green.
Green is in my world like light and wind.
Surely I am not sparrow, or articulate
as in European manners.
That bowl of dust lights a different sundown.
Sun up, it says the ground has undergone
a subtle transformation.
The green bush shakes the mottled branch that sings,
a green bud fallen upon the pavement.
Life under a stone.
OK.