WEBVTT

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Now I want to read you
a poem that I wrote

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called "The Cancer Cells".

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And I want you to listen to it.

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This is an exercise follows up
on the four [? alam ? ] bit.

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"Today I saw a picture of the
cancer cells, sinister shapes

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with menacing attitudes.

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They had outgrown
their test tube

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and advanced sinister shapes
with menacing attitudes

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into a world beyond, a
virulent laughing gang.

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They looked like art itself,
like the artist's mind,

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powerful shaker and
the taker of new forms.

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Some are revolts to
see the spiky shapes.

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It is the world of
the future to come to.

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Nothing could be more
vivid than their language,

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lethal sparkling
and irregular stars.

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The murderer's design
of the universe,

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the hectic dance of
the passionate cancer

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cells all just phenomena
to the calculating eye,

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originals of imagination.

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I flew with them in a
piled exuberance of time.

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My own malignancy in their
racy beautiful gestures

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quick and lean.

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And in their riot too, I saw
the stance of the artists

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make, the fixed form
in the massive faction.

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I think Leonardo would have in
his disinterest enjoyed them

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precisely with a sharp pencil."

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Well that poem says that
a genius like Leonardo

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would have tried to make
something beautiful in art

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even out of death.

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And these spiky
shapes were beautiful,

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but they represented death.

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And you perceive these two
things, life and death,

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inextricably joined
instantaneously.

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You perceived it
instantaneously.

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Now here is an analysis
of "Cancer Cells."

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"The poem 'The Cancer Cells'
by Richard Eberhart is written

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mainly to express his view on
something and to warn people

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of its danger.

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Although it is well constructed
and contains many good words

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and metaphors, its main purpose
is not beauty for beauty's sake

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as many poems are.

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Eberhart has seen a danger
that threatens humanity and is

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trying to warn everyone
before it is too late.

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The danger which
Eberhardt points out

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is the spread of communism.

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[LAUGHTER]

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He compares communism to cancer
as it spreads and infects

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everything as it goes along.

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Just by observing the cancer
cells say under a microscope,

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they seem to be quite harmless
and might even be fascinating.

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But they begin to eat
away slowly spreading

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to infest and kill new ideas.

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His poem is aimed at people
who might be thinking

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of joining the communist cause.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And to those who are
not aware of the danger

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that is threatening.

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Eberhadt's poem
begins by revealing

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that he has finally seen
the picture about communism.

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It seems from this that
he once had himself

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been captured by
the communist cause

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but has turned it
down and now wants

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to warn others of its dangers.

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Communism started out in
Russia as an experiment

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but now has gotten out of
the test tube of Russia

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and is advancing to other
countries of the world."

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Well, you wouldn't
believe it but this theme

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goes on for nine pages.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And then it says at the
end although the poem

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is written in blank
verse, when it

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is read it sounds like a poem.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So well, I shouldn't
say a thing but I

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can't help moralizing a little.

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I just think it's amazing that
any student in our country

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could misread a poem 100%.

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The campus take exactly wrong.

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And I think the reason why he
did it was because of the title

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you see.

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Just as in that little
poem for a lamb,

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I think the fact that
the word lamb was

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in there made all the Christians
think it was technically

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a Christian poem they
got the idea of the lamb.

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This thing is called
"The Cancer Cells."

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And so this reader had a fix,
an a priori fixation on it

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and he never read
the poem at all.

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Let that be a lesson to you.

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Well, I could go
on for a long time.

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I feel like it but I feel we
should stop because let's see.

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We started about 20
to 9 and now it's

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an hour and a few minutes
later and we had half an hour

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of movies.

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I think I better bring this
to a close a little bit now.

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And so could I read
you a couple more?

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