Here's a tiny poem.
I'll show you the size of that one.
Philip Larkin said he disliked going to poetry readings
because he could never tell when the poem was going to end.
And when you have a poem on the page, you know you can see it,
the ending coming up, and you can prepare for it.
But Larkin, I think felt that every poem was
kind of, potentially, like, an hour or two long.
[LAUGHTER]
And he could not bear down for the long haul.
And I've always had this fantasy about a poetry reading being
held in the Italian Middle Ages.
And there's an open microphone afterward,
and this guy comes up he says, "My name is Dante."
And he says, "I'm just going to read three poems."
[LAUGHTER]
But you see, this is quite--
and the little poem is called, "No Time."
"No Time."
"In a rush this weekday morning, I
tap the horn as I speed past the cemetery
where my parents are buried, side by side,
under a smooth slab of granite.
Then, all day long, I think of him rising up
to give me that look of knowing disapproval,
while my mother calmly tells him to lie back down."
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]