WEBVTT

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Thank you.

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It's so nice to be
here again tonight

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in the second of our four
awesome hybrid readings.

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So I'm here to introduce
Maggie Nelson to you.

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And as before, I'm pitching
these introductions

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as a short lesson in hybridity.

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So this is number
two, Maggie Nelson.

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So in the genre of
the introduction,

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the convention is to list
awards, which I refuse to do.

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That's what genre is,
often, to the hybrid heart.

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A guide of what not
to feel obliged to do.

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In fact, the hybrid
may crave constraint

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knowing that in being bound,
we free another part of self.

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So in this series, we will
see that sometimes the writing

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is the hybrid.

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I'm thinking strongly here of
Jenny Boully, our visitor two

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weeks from now.

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Pitched between the
seams of the genre.

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Perplexing those of us who
try to describe or contain

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the thing we're
seeing with a label,

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but then sometimes,
like tonight,

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the writer is
herself the hybrid.

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For instance, Maggie Nelson
is obviously a hydra.

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Multiple draconian heads
snaking up from the one body.

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Extremely fearsome, entirely
smart, and very rare.

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Still the best source
for hybrid consultation,

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my second edition, Advanced
Dungeons and Dragons,

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Monster Manual,
says that she may

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be found in marshes,
swamps, and similar places,

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as well as in
subterranean lairs.

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I imagine her like this--

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astride her cache of
gold and art and gems.

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One head giving voice to
lineated poems, doing so well

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and often including
several books.

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Another munching on memoir,
most recently The Red Parts,

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about media spectacle, murder
mind, sexual violence,

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and her murdered Aunt Jane.

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And another odder head,
approaches Jane again

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as a subject.

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This time fusing verse and
prose and found text in Jane:

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A Murder.

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It often happens with
hydras that two heads

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fasten on the same subject and
open it up in surprising ways,

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and it is so tonight.

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So just when you think
you've counted them all,

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another Maggie Nelson head
rises wielding criticism.

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Most recently, The Art Of
Cruelty, which we have up here

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and which is a great book.

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It is certainly most fierce; I
wouldn't want to mess with it.

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So I wisely sheathe
my vorpal blade.

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Then there's whatever
head made Bluets,

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her book that's most
itself a hybrid occupying

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the space between essay and
poem, documentary, philosophy,

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autobiography.

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Highly-researched, deeply,
unreservedly passionate.

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So if you venture deep
enough inside the Poetry

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Center's subterranean lair,
which I would encourage you

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to do-- not tonight
because they're closed--

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but during their open hours.

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You may discover a hoard of
rare Maggie Nelson treasure,

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which she has been
known to guard.

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Including her first
book, Pacific,

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which is published and in fact
self-published 18 years ago.

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I don't know if it's OK
that I talk about Pacific,

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but I'm letting you--

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I'm not going to quote it.

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I'm not going to quote it.

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People should have
to go and fight

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the monster to read the book.

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But you can't find this
book anywhere else.

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You can't find it on Alibris,
you can't find it on Abe Books.

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I googled it.

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The only reference as far as
I can tell on the internet

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is from the Portland
State's MFA program.

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They did a class
devoted to Maggie Nelson

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and they contacted
the Poetry Center

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to get a copy of one of
the poems from this book.

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So it's the only place.

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I mean, this is a
rare treasure indeed.

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And Maggie Nelson will
guard it, or maybe Tyler

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will, or one of the other
Poetry Center staff.

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So the spine of
the book is broken,

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which is how I found it.

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I found it in the shelves
before it became cool.

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The pages fall from the
binding when you raise it

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up to the rising sun in the
map room like the staff of Ra.

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To read is to remix it
like a beloved record.

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To read it is to damage
it like a sacred text.

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Well, to read a book
at all is to grace it

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with your human trace.

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That's why we love books.

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They're yours and even
when they are no longer,

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the pages still hold
a little bit of you.

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So follow the
gleaming, swaying hydra

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heads down to the
body underneath,

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the thing all the
mouths finally feed.

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It's just a body.

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Turns out it's just a writer,
it's just a human there.

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Maggie Nelson, I hereby free
thee from this wack simile,

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so too to you
students of hybridity.

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Be like Maggie Nelson.

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Be the hydra.

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Allow your heads to
flex and multiply

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to go where they are drawn.

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The key is being fierce enough,
and she is fierce enough

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for all, and we
will fear you too.

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Please welcome Maggie Nelson.

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