WEBVTT

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Thanks, Zach good ending.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Poetry grants
access, but to whom?

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Jesus saves, but does
he earn interest?

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As poets, we
confront our readers

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with our borrowed languages
and beckon, oh, dear reader,

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walk across this bridge
between your mind and mine.

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As a debutante in
the society of poets,

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I will work to please, to span
the space between my tongue

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and one you understand.

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Please, I want you to love my
bridge, love my words, love me.

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Joyelle McSweeney's work
does not ask me this,

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nor will it ask you this.

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Hers is a poetry interested
in torquing the nuts and bolts

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of a language of the
author's coinage, one

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where the edges of diction
pools blur into fertile estuary.

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Hers is a poetry which
revels in the gearbox grind,

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the slippages between the
cogs of multiple systems,

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video gaming, biology,
acronyms, between genre, poetry

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and fiction, the written
word and the printed page,

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between absurdity and
drama, between comprehension

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and bafflement.

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Dear audience, I am baffled.

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Dear audience, I am unsure.

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Dear audience, I am uncertain.

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And this is where I begin to
feel like I'm doing it right.

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Joyelle McSweeney, author
of six books, most recently,

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Percussion Grenade.

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In addition to other
volumes of poetry,

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she has published a sci-fi
novel, and a baroque noir,

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Nylund, the
Sarcographer, as well as

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a collection of essays,
poems, and collages,

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The Necropastoral.

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Her work does not transcend
boundaries between genres.

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It gerrymanders them
into tiny fiefdoms.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Her redistricting makes
incumbency impossible,

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forces her reader
not to cast a ballot,

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but to clear the floor for
Hannie Oakley, for the Devil,

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King Prion, Louis Braille,
Narcissus, et al., et al.

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And these are only the
persona of this book.

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These characters she has created
do not breathe but shimmer.

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They are chicken wire
for papier-mache,

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these grids created to support
the foil of the vernacular,

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shipping containers
filled with servers.

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Can I take it back
to the bridge?

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[LAUGHTER]

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The bridge is half built,
though not for lack of work.

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It is a half-built bridge
that this poet asks

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us to row out to, to peer inside
of, and to marvel at thinking,

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it's a wonder anything
gets said at all.

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Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome Joyelle McSweeney.

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Oh, man, all right.

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[APPLAUSE]