WEBVTT

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I'd like to read two or
three poems from a brand

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new manuscript called--

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the manuscript called "Not
Such a Bad Place to Be."

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The first poem called "Corn."

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It's a drought poem.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I've been writing drought
poems by the scores lately.

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What I had in mind here
was a small farm, not

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your large spread
that's irrigated and run

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by a rather well-to-do farmer,
but the small farm, "Corn."

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The corn cannot be
patient forever.

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If the clouds do not
gather, if the rain

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does not reach down to
the raw and tender root,

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the corn will die.

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The stand that it
takes in early summer

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is mostly bluff, a good,
green show for the customer.

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But later if the clouds
do not send moisture deep

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into the raw and tender
whiskers of the roots,

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the corn will die.

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The corn will die.

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We repeat ourselves,
remembering all the time

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that those we most admire
repeated themselves.

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Under work shirts, our
bellies heave inevitably

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with precedent.

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Yes, surely, the corn will die.

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Unless the clouds gather
and the rain reaches down

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to the raw and tender
root, the corn will die.

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The corn will die,
saying it, we say,

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might help to blunt that final
barb should the corn, in fact,

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die.

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Because we are those who
cannot live by guile or rich

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improvisation.

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We must have our
water straight down

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from whatever it is that dumb
dependent call the heavens

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or the corn will die.

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And so it is that
our necks stiffen,

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our mouths suck at
seaweed with the carp.

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Beyond the window encircled by
wire, the corn, as if draining,

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changes its color.

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There are too many
hours in the day.

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And unless the clouds gather
and the rain reaches down

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to the raw and tender root,
too many dog days in the year.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Sounds like we might
have a country boy there,

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or at least somebody who's spent
some time in the cornfield.

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