WEBVTT

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I want to thank the interpreters
very much, because it's not

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easy to do poems.

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It's particularly tricky,
so thank you very much.

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Please thank the
other interpreter.

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[APPLAUSE]

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God knows what I would do if
I were the one interpreting.

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It would just be a real mess.

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I'll tell you.

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I'm going to read these poems
largely in chronological order,

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starting with my first book,
and just go through and see.

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Maybe you can see what
you think is the same,

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and what you think changes.

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Dark.

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I'll tell you why I'm
afraid of the dark.

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It has its own idea.

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It's like a bullet.

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It doesn't want to
know what you know.

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The dark is under.

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It fits a place to put
a hand, but I can't see.

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It's like a voice behind a door.

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It can be just about
anything I want to hear.

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Darkness comes in
every size of threat.

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The dark cocoon at
the end of my life.

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Storms that turn the sky into an
empty can of dark, fitting snug

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onto the horizon.

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The dark, and putting
my head in my hands.

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My head, into the cave of a
person I don't love anymore.

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I'll tell you again why
I'm afraid of the dark.

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I can see it coming,
and can't ever

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tell just when it has arrived.

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I sense it, thin and waiting,
between the pages of books,

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but it's too fast,
even for a good reader.

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From that place, darkness,
comes a phone call,

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erratic with grief.

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It fills the story called
dying in your sleep,

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and was the only time
left for voodoo to take,

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for rapists to dress in.

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I can't get a grip on darkness,
though it wears my imagination,

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like a shroud.

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I've started hearing
sunsets as cracking twigs.

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I've taken to hiding a
piece of flint in my shoe.

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