WEBVTT

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I want to thank everyone
involved in having me here,

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and it's just I've heard
so much over the years

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about the University of Arizona
Poetry Center and it seems--

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I mean if you had a
ultraviolet or whatever

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it is, heat-sensitive
photograph of the country,

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Tucson would be a big red spot
in terms of poetry activity.

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And it really is great to be
at a mecca for this activity.

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And so the final poem I'll
read is called "Nightclub."

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I mentioned in the poem a
singer named Johnny Hartman.

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I don't know if you know him.

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He died some 10 or 15 years ago
maybe, but he is a jazz singer

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and he recorded a famous
album with John Coltrane.

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He had just a perfectly
if you haven't

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heard of a perfectly mellow
dark voice just seemingly

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divinely crafted to sing
a soulful ballads, Johnny

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Hartman.

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And the poem's
called "Nightclub."

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"You are so beautiful and I am
a fool to be in love with you.

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Is a theme that keeps coming
up in songs and poems.

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There seems to be no
room for variation.

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I have never heard anyone
sing I am so beautiful

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and you are a fool
to be in love with me

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even though this
notion has surely

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crossed the minds of
women and men alike.

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You are so beautiful
too bad you're

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a fool is another
one you don't hear,

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or you are a fool to
consider me beautiful.

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That one you will
never hear guaranteed.

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For no particular
reason this afternoon,

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I am listening to Johnny
Hartman whose dark

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voice can curl around the
concepts of love, beauty,

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and foolishness like
no one else can.

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It feels like smoke curling
up from a cigarette someone

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left burning on a baby
grand piano around 3 o'clock

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in the morning.

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Smoke that billows up
into the bright lights.

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While out there in the darkness,
some of the beautiful fools

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have gathered around
little tables to listen.

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Some with their eyes closed, 
others leaning forward

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into the music as if it
were holding them up or just

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twirling the loose ice in
a glass slipping by degrees

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into a rhythmic dream.

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Yes, there is all
this foolish beauty

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born beyond midnight
that has no desire

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to go home, especially now
when everyone in the room

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is watching the large man
with the tenor sax that

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hangs from his neck
like a golden fish.

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He moves forward to the
edge of the stage and hands

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the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.

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So I put the mouthpiece
to my lips and blow

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into it with all
my living breath.

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We are all so foolish, my long
bebop solo begins by saying.

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So damn foolish, we have
become beautiful without even

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knowing it."

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Thank you.

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