WEBVTT

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Can everyone hear me?

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Mm-hmm.

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Excellent.

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I want to start by thanking
U of A and the Poetry Center

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for inviting me,
especially since I

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have no book, which means none
of you know anything about me.

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But hopefully I'll make
it worth your time.

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I want to thank Allie,
particularly, for inviting me.

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Tyler, thank you.

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You are a great host tonight.

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And I also want to
thank Polly and Sam

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for sharing this reading
with me and also for reading.

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It's been a pleasure
hearing you guys read.

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You guys sure that's good?

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I'm going to read I think four
poems tonight, two of which

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are from the upcoming book, and
then two sort of newer poems.

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So I'm just going to
jump right into them.

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The first poem is called
"Under the Weather."

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One.

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A child once told me the sun is
the deadliest animal, violent,

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never blinking.

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On Sundays, I sit on this
mountain with a bottle of water

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and a book, any book,
not reading, jotting

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balloons in the margins.

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I don't go outside
enough and I know it.

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Imagine the landscape circling
my window at night, mountains

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angry and foaming with weather.

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There are reasons I sleep until
noon, ignore the hours patchy

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and corn yellow on my eyelids.

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Up North, they say the hills
move slowly, like tongues.

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I saw a video once of people
gathering to burn letters

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to loved ones who had passed.

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They were sick with grief,
but shuffled around the fire,

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waiting for someone to speak.

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I once heard you
whisper, the decision

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to give words to suffering
is still a decision.

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Two.

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A man robbed a Walmart in Ohio.

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When the cops were called,
he ran and hid in a dumpster.

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The not so funny part is that
he is picked up by a truck

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and compacted for an hour.

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He called 911 from
the truck, screaming

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that he was being crushed,
that he couldn't feel his legs.

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It took the cops another
hour to pinpoint the truck,

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and they tried but
couldn't pull him out.

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They dumped him on the street
and said all they could see

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was an arm dangling from a
mound of flattened boxes.

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I only laughed because of how
easily it could have been me.

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Three.

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Dear pomegranate, dear
wild iris and seed,

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I will do things differently.

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The first time, again.

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Before I peel the curtains
back like flaps of skin,

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what I am rolls over in the
body, restless, the windows

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chattering, the voice of a
truck moving through everything

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like a ghost.

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I fear the news the
way I fear the truth.

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On the mountain, the sweat
coats my face like pollen.

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The higher I go, the
more anxious I become.

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My heart is swollen
as a calf, bitten

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by a spider, the body
dragging itself in delirium,

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going everywhere but home.

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