WEBVTT

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Thank you, that was a
beautiful introduction.

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And I will never explain
the mystery of the swim cap.

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Thank you, Poetry Center.

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I'm really honored to be here.

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It's really exciting, I've
never been to Tucson before,

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so it's quite a
treat to be here.

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Especially since, in New
York, where I'm coming from,

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it's 0 degrees, and
there is supposed

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to be a wintry mess tomorrow.

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So even though it's
a little rainy,

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I'm really excited to be here.

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So I guess I'll--

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I'm going to
actually time myself,

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I never do this, but let's see.

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So I'm going to--

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I'm going to start reading
from Engine Empire.

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And I'm going to
start reading from--

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I'm going to read
from Engine Empire,

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and I think it's an
appropriate book for Arizona,

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because it's a book that's
obsessed with the West,

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both geographically and
metaphorically and politically,

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geopolitically.

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So hopefully it'll resonate
with you people from Arizona,

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or even more recent transplants.

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And you know, and there's a
lot of interbreeding, lawless

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interbreeding in my poetry.

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And I think it would also be
interesting to read it here,

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where we're sort of in the
trenches of immigrant rights.

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There's a lot of miscegenation
happening in my poetry.

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So this book is divided
up into three sections,

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and each section
is its own world,

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with its own sort of
fabricated boomtown,

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and its own sort of invented--

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you know, I mean with its
own sort of diction and form,

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and so forth.

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And I'm going to start
with the Old West,

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and it's called "The
Ballad of Our Jim."

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We'll start with sound
poems, because they're always

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easier to start off with.

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These are called
lipograms-- the form--

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and it's a form that
uses only one vowel.

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And I'll read a few of those.

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"Ballad in O."

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O Boomtown's got
lots of sordor--

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odd horrors of throw downs,
bold cowboys lock horns,

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forlorn hobos plot
to rob pots of gold,

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loco mobs drool for blood, howl
or hoot for cottonwood blooms,

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throng to hood crooks
to strong wood posts.

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So don't confront
hotbloods, don't show off,

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go to blows or rows, don't
sob for gold lost to trollops,

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don't drown sorrows
on shots of grog.

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Work morn to moon.

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Know how to comb bottom
pools, spot dots of gold

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to spoon pots of gold.

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Vow to do good.

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