WEBVTT

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I'd like to read a few
poems from The Yellow Room.

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The Yellow Room
came out a year ago,

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and it's very hard to
read from because it

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is sort of one long poem.

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I didn't know it was
until it came out.

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Some of the poems have
titles, and others just

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exist as a few lines in the
middle of the page, no title.

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What it is, one man reading
it said it was like a novel

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with all the words left out.

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It's a story of a love
affair, but it's not a story.

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I mean, the events are not
here, for the most part,

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it's just the feelings.

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It's in four parts,
and the first part

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is a happy love,
where you're really

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happy because you think you're
so good because somebody loves

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you.

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And then there's a second
part, which is stretched out,

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rather secure loving.

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But in all of the parts, even
the first and the second,

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there is some anger,
some irritation,

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some fears of what may happen.

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Then the third part
is total abandonment,

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but even there, there's some
of the opposite, because,

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or course, it's a
recollection of the old days.

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And then the fourth part,
the lovers come back together

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again, and it all
happens over again.

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That's the plot, but I will just
read a few sections from it,

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some of them titles,
some of the whole poems,

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and then other things
where you'll just

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hear a lot of pause, and
it's a little fragment thing.

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I'll start with the
poem called "Gold."

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Pale gold of the walls, gold
of the centers of daisies.

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Yellow roses pressing
from a clear bowl.

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All day we lay on the bed, my
hand stroking the deep gold

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of your thighs and your back.

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We slept and woke, entering
the golden room together.

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Lay down in it, breathing
quickly, then slowly again.

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Caressing and dozing.

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Your hand sleepily
touching my hair now.

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We made, in those days,
tiny identical rooms

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inside our bodies, which the
men who uncover our graves

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will find in a thousand
years, shining and whole.

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