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The next poem I'm going to
read-- the last from the book--

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I wrote for a printer friend
who did the hand-setting of all

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of my chapbooks And
poets don't get much

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in the way of fame and fortune.

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But what we get is the object--

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the book to hold in our hands.

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And it really is important to
many of us what it looks like.

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And so, I've always
been very grateful

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to this particular printer and
learned a lot about printing

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when I was writing it.

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The Printer, for Roland Hoover.

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Baskerville,
Perpetua, Garamond--

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I thought you were
naming a dance.

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But the only minuet is typeface
moving across the page.

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And you and your apron bowing.

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Journeyman to the letter,
apprentice to the word.

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The smell of ink like the smell
of bread signifies morning--

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a bleeding of color
at the horizon.

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The horizon itself a line of
bold face too distant to read.

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In this world, there
are as many letters

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as leaves, as birds, as
flecks of ash, whole armies

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of alphabet march across margins
of pavement, margins of snow.

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Now, there's a smudge
on your forehead

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where your hand strayed making
those architectural gestures.

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The pleasure of our
company is requested.

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The ceremonial announcement
of birth or death.

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Your press is as
fruitful as a wine press.

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The sound of its
motion like surf--

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hour after hour, reams of
paper spreading their decal

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edged foam.

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At night, you distribute
the type as carefully as

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if you were placing your
daughters in their beds.

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Dark enters-- a time
before language.

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But the sky is printed
in white indelible stars

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with God's own signature--

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that thumbprint of moon,
like the printer's colophon

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on heaviest Mohawk superfine.

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[APPLAUSE]

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