WEBVTT

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Thank you.

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It's warmer here
than Washington.

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It's the state of
Washington where it's cold.

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What I plan to do tonight
is to read some new poems

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and some old poems.

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To me, old poems or poems
that are in the book.

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I'm telling you that because
otherwise, you wouldn't know.

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So I'm going to start off
with one that's an older poem.

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And probably, I'll
be alternating them

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through the reading.

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The poem that I want to
start with is "John Clare".

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That's its title.

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And you should know a little
bit about who its subject is.

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Probably to be able
to get into it.

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John Claire was a
19th Century British

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poet, roughly a
contemporary of Keats.

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And among other
things, he went crazy.

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And the thing that
interested me or that

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moved me was that in his
craziness and his insanity,

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he was granted moments
of lucidity in which he

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knew where he was, he knew
what his condition was.

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And I always thought was
he probably also knew

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that he was going to be
returned to the state

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that he had been in,
and there was nothing

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that he could do about it.

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It seemed to me
that that must have

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been perhaps the most awful
part of the experience--

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to anticipate the return over
which you had no control.

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"John Clare" "Sometimes
there is a man.

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I never feel him come.

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But he is who I am,
and I am someone.

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He does not care to stay.

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If we are both John Clare,
why does he go away?

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And where?

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And where?

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