[APPLAUSE]
Well, I'm very honored to be here, very honored
to be presenting to you.
I'm going to read a few poems in a minute,
and I'll probably say at the end what
I'll say at the beginning, which is I hope what you've
got from your experience so far today is
the importance of language, the importance of being
thoughtful with your language, and the importance of how
language can open up worlds to you.
And that's a lot of what poetry can do
is open up worlds to you.
So I'm going to read a few poems out of my book,
and you may have--
most of them hopefully you've seen and maybe one I'll
give you new to see how that experience goes.
And I'll tell you a little bit about the poems
before I read them, so to give you some context because I
think that might help a little
So the first one is called, "Colors."
And we've all played board games,
and we've all played games.
And this poem is about playing a game.
And from my perspective because usually
the poet is writing from their individual, very individual
perspective not necessarily right or wrong,
asking myself why are we playing this game.
So it's called, "Colors."
How is the wine and book and women stock club
transformed tonight?
What possesses you to disguise your desires to collapse
our natural divisions?
Is it too much for me to hide in the study watching television,
watching the eternal season of sport?
With pretzels and beer, I am whole.
Do I need to understand the matrix
of my neighbors' personality?
Isn't it enough if I think he is a nice guy?
She, a tempestuous ditzy-eyed siren.
Their needs and struggles, values
and stresses are enough for them.
As you mouth secrets under compelled oath,
do not take my tight silence as arrogance or fear.
What I know is that your soft, orange heart cannot bear
the gold truth made blue by the fact of our long,
green experience.
I'll talk about that one in a little while.