At the Terrace Lounge of Student Union
to meet Mr. Howard following tonight's
reading, with the usual brownies and punch.
Who's there the punch or the brownies.
In two weeks from tonight, October 9th,
Denise Levertov will read in the Modern Languages Auditorium.
I would advise you come early if you want a seat.
I'm sorry we had to move to this ugly auditorium tonight,
but obviously it was necessary.
We couldn't have all squeezed into the other room.
You've come to hear Richard Howard tonight as a poet,
but I would like to tell you a little bit
about his other accomplishments.
He's the poetry editor of the American Review.
He is one of the best known critics in America.
You may be familiar with his book Alone
with America, which is 41 essays on the art of poetry
in the United States.
He has translated from the French more than 100 works,
including the memoirs of General De Gaulle.
He's a teacher, critic, editor, and smashing cook.
He has published four volumes of poetry,
Findings, Quantities, The Damages,
and Untitled Subjects, which was the 1970 Pulitzer Prize winner.
It's my pleasure to introduce you, Mr. Richard Howard.
As I've said to some of you when I've been in your classes
or talking to you, in the few days that I've been here,
the poems that I write and that I wish to write
are heard by me.
They're heard as voices.
Sometimes they are overheard as voices.
And increasingly, I hear more than one voice in the poem.
Voices in conflict, voices in confrontation.
And I shall read one of the new poems particularly concerned
with this double audition.
A poem from the new series called "Two-Part Inventions."
But I'll begin with two other poems.
One indeed in an overheard voice and one in what I supposed
to be my voice, my own voice.
I hope it will be clear that the voice you hear
as someone else's is as truthful and sincere as the voice
that you hear supposedly as mine is mendacious
and possibly altogether a lie.
There is no telling, there is only telling.