WEBVTT

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I want to make a turn
from it, putting aside

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another one like that,
come to think of it.

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And I want to read--

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well, one thing that happened
last night in the class--

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one of the good things
I thought was happening

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is whatever position
we were taking,

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we were willing to
exaggerate it in order

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to find out really where we
were, what the issues were.

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I remember making one
remark about someone

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said, don't you feel, something
about how is it to be a poet

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or are you inhibited
by society and so on.

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I told about teaching at a
very conservative college

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and someone saying
to me, how can

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you do that, don't you
feel a lot of pressure.

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And I said, I don't
feel any pressure

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because I'm already square.

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This kind of feeling.

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So I was purposefully
exaggerating that a bit.

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But I want to read a really,
well, an extreme poem that went

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over very well in that town.

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And then, after I wrote it, I
wanted to send it to a place--

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I like to try to
challenge editors

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by sending something that
may seem sort of strange

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for their periodical.

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And this was published in a kind
of an unusual place for such

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a conservative poem.

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It's called "From
the Gradual Grass".

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"Imagine a voice calling.

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There is a voice now calling.

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Or maybe a blasting cry.

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Walls are falling as it
makes walls be falling.

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Then, from the
gradual grass, too

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serious to be only noise,
whatever it is grass

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makes, making words, a voice.

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Destruction is ending.

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This voice is promising quiet.

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Silence by lasting forever
grows to sound endlessly

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from the world's end,
promising calling.

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Imagine.

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That voice is calling."

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