WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.200 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.200 --> 00:00:02.550 align:middle line:90% We're almost out of time here. 00:00:02.550 --> 00:00:05.310 align:middle line:84% Maybe you could take us out by reading us a little bit more. 00:00:05.310 --> 00:00:07.910 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] to read from Deepstep perhaps? 00:00:07.910 --> 00:00:12.910 align:middle line:90% 00:00:12.910 --> 00:00:15.460 align:middle line:90% "Our Dust." 00:00:15.460 --> 00:00:17.620 align:middle line:90% "I am your ancestor. 00:00:17.620 --> 00:00:20.680 align:middle line:84% You know next-to-nothing about me. 00:00:20.680 --> 00:00:22.660 align:middle line:84% There's no reason for you to imagine 00:00:22.660 --> 00:00:26.320 align:middle line:84% the rooms I occupied or my heavy hair. 00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:28.310 align:middle line:84% Not the faint vinegar smell of me. 00:00:28.310 --> 00:00:28.810 align:middle line:90% Or 00:00:28.810 --> 00:00:29.740 align:middle line:90% the rubbered damp 00:00:29.740 --> 00:00:32.310 align:middle line:84% of Forrest and I coupling on the landing 00:00:32.310 --> 00:00:35.160 align:middle line:90% en route to our detached day. 00:00:35.160 --> 00:00:39.120 align:middle line:84% You didn't know my weariness, error, incapacity. 00:00:39.120 --> 00:00:39.840 align:middle line:90% I was the poet 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:42.060 align:middle line:84% of shadow work and towns with quarter-inch 00:00:42.060 --> 00:00:43.470 align:middle line:90% phone books, of failed 00:00:43.470 --> 00:00:45.300 align:middle line:90% roadside zoos. 00:00:45.300 --> 00:00:46.740 align:middle line:90% The poet of yard eggs and 00:00:46.740 --> 00:00:47.850 align:middle line:90% sharpening shops, 00:00:47.850 --> 00:00:50.220 align:middle line:84% jobs at the weapons plant, and the Maybelline 00:00:50.220 --> 00:00:53.340 align:middle line:84% factory on the penitentiary road. 00:00:53.340 --> 00:00:55.830 align:middle line:84% A poet of spiderwort and jacks-in-the-pulpit, 00:00:55.830 --> 00:00:57.780 align:middle line:84% hollyhocks against the tool shed. 00:00:57.780 --> 00:01:00.150 align:middle line:90% An unsmiling dark blond. 00:01:00.150 --> 00:01:02.820 align:middle line:84% The one with a trowel in her handbag. 00:01:02.820 --> 00:01:05.550 align:middle line:84% I dug up protected and private things. 00:01:05.550 --> 00:01:08.190 align:middle line:90% That sort, I was. 00:01:08.190 --> 00:01:10.920 align:middle line:84% My graves went undecorated and my churches 00:01:10.920 --> 00:01:12.120 align:middle line:90% abandoned. 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:14.730 align:middle line:84% This wasn't planned, but practice. 00:01:14.730 --> 00:01:18.600 align:middle line:84% I was the poet of short-tailed cats and yellow line paint. 00:01:18.600 --> 00:01:21.660 align:middle line:84% Of satellite dishes and Peterbilt trucks, Red Man 00:01:21.660 --> 00:01:23.730 align:middle line:90% Chewing Tobacco, Triple Hit 00:01:23.730 --> 00:01:24.540 align:middle line:90% Creme Soda. 00:01:24.540 --> 00:01:27.750 align:middle line:84% Also of dirt dobbers, nightcrawlers, 00:01:27.750 --> 00:01:30.540 align:middle line:84% martin houses, honey, and whetstones 00:01:30.540 --> 00:01:32.460 align:middle line:90% from the Novaculite Uplift. 00:01:32.460 --> 00:01:33.240 align:middle line:90% What remained 00:01:33.240 --> 00:01:35.010 align:middle line:90% of The Uplift. 00:01:35.010 --> 00:01:37.770 align:middle line:84% I had registered dogs 4 sale; rocks, dung, 00:01:37.770 --> 00:01:38.880 align:middle line:90% and straw. 00:01:38.880 --> 00:01:41.340 align:middle line:84% I was a poet of hummingbird hives along with 00:01:41.340 --> 00:01:43.320 align:middle line:90% redheaded stepbrothers. 00:01:43.320 --> 00:01:45.870 align:middle line:84% The poet of good walking shoes-- a necessity 00:01:45.870 --> 00:01:48.990 align:middle line:84% in vernacular parts-- and push mowers. 00:01:48.990 --> 00:01:51.120 align:middle line:84% The rumor that I was once seen sleeping 00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:54.750 align:middle line:84% in a refrigerator box is false (he was a brother 00:01:54.750 --> 00:01:55.860 align:middle line:90% who hated me). 00:01:55.860 --> 00:01:57.870 align:middle line:84% Nor was I the one lunching at the Governor's 00:01:57.870 --> 00:01:59.230 align:middle line:90% mansion. 00:01:59.230 --> 00:02:00.510 align:middle line:90% I didn't work off a grid. 00:02:00.510 --> 00:02:01.680 align:middle line:90% Or prime the surface 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:02.950 align:middle line:90% if I could get off without it. 00:02:02.950 --> 00:02:03.450 align:middle line:90% I made 00:02:03.450 --> 00:02:06.000 align:middle line:84% simple music out of sticks and string. 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:07.020 align:middle line:90% On side B of me, 00:02:07.020 --> 00:02:09.870 align:middle line:84% experimental guitar, night repairs, and suppers 00:02:09.870 --> 00:02:11.640 align:middle line:90% such as this. 00:02:11.640 --> 00:02:14.040 align:middle line:84% You could count on me to make a bad situation 00:02:14.040 --> 00:02:16.140 align:middle line:84% worse like putting liquid makeup over 00:02:16.140 --> 00:02:17.820 align:middle line:90% a passion mark. 00:02:17.820 --> 00:02:19.110 align:middle line:90% I never raised your rent. 00:02:19.110 --> 00:02:20.650 align:middle line:90% Or anyone else's by God. 00:02:20.650 --> 00:02:21.840 align:middle line:90% Never said I loved you. 00:02:21.840 --> 00:02:23.670 align:middle line:90% The future gave me chills. 00:02:23.670 --> 00:02:26.550 align:middle line:84% I used the medium to say: Arise arise and 00:02:26.550 --> 00:02:27.660 align:middle line:90% come together. 00:02:27.660 --> 00:02:28.890 align:middle line:90% Free your children. 00:02:28.890 --> 00:02:30.190 align:middle line:90% Come on everybody. 00:02:30.190 --> 00:02:30.720 align:middle line:90% Let's start 00:02:30.720 --> 00:02:32.730 align:middle line:90% with Baltimore. 00:02:32.730 --> 00:02:34.740 align:middle line:84% Believe me I am not being modest when I 00:02:34.740 --> 00:02:37.150 align:middle line:84% admit my life doesn't bear repeating. 00:02:37.150 --> 00:02:37.650 align:middle line:90% I 00:02:37.650 --> 00:02:39.450 align:middle line:84% agreed to be the poet of one life, 00:02:39.450 --> 00:02:40.890 align:middle line:90% one death alone. 00:02:40.890 --> 00:02:42.030 align:middle line:90% I have seen myself 00:02:42.030 --> 00:02:43.260 align:middle line:90% in the black car. 00:02:43.260 --> 00:02:44.610 align:middle line:90% I have seen the retreat 00:02:44.610 --> 00:02:47.820 align:middle line:90% of the black car." 00:02:47.820 --> 00:02:51.170 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:51.170 --> 00:02:52.000 align:middle line:90%