WEBVTT

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Is the final day to submit
poems for the spring contest.

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I have with me tonight copies
of the rules and entry blanks

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for the contest and they will
be available at the reception

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for Mr Harper which will
be in the Terrace Lounge

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in Student Union.

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This year's contest
has a $100 prize

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from the Academy
of American Poets,

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and an additional $175, gifts
of Mr. Eberhart, Student Union

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activity board, Poetry
Center, and private donor.

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One week from tonight we
will have a student reading

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in the Terrace Lounge.

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We have five
undergraduate students

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who are reading, Ed Douvis,
Tim Garrison, Margaret Hearst,

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Steve Schreiner, and Ed
Rossi, that's April the 11th.

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And the final
program for this year

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will be May 2nd, which will
be the Contest Awards Reading.

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I'm very happy to present to
you tonight Mr Michael Harper.

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Mr Harper has
published five books

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of poetry, Dear
John, Dear Coltrane,

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History Is Your Own Heartbeat,
Song, I Want a Witness,

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Photographs Negatives,
History as Apple Tree,

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and most recently, Debridement.

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I'd like to read a quote for
you, last May, the National

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Institute of Arts and Letters
presented an award to him which

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reads in part, "his
grave blunt poems

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deal with human and
Black experience

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simultaneously welcoming white
Americans into their music

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as far as our imagination
and our hearts permit,

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and our history
entitles us to go."

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I'm very happy to welcome
tonight Mr Michael Harper.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Wife isn't with me tonight.

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She was planning on coming
and when she's not around,

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I can read better.

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I tell better lies,
extend things,

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make up all kinds of connections
which if she were here,

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I'd have to defend.

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