Well, I have a few thank yous to do.
To Jane, spirituality.
[WHISTLES]
And to my wonderful co-readers, Brian and Stephen,
very inspiring, you're going to be very
hard acts to follow for me.
And to Tyler and Cybele, for arranging all this;
I don't know where you are in the sea of people.
And to all of, to the sea of people,
for heaven's sake for being here.
So I was going to say maybe I'll be the comic relief,
because this afternoon I went through my book
and I made all these marks and then I thought
what are all these marks?
I didn't number them, I didn't.
So here they are, these random marks in my text
which is completely illogical.
Anyway, for some reason I've been traveling,
I'm a bit addled.
And as further proof of my addlement,
I'm going to begin with a poem that is not in the book,
but that I meant to put in the book and forgot.
[LAUGHTER]
I mean this is true, this is really true.
So I'm going to start with this poem that should be in the book
but I forgot to put it in the book.
OK, Almost Human.
I was a kid like any other.
Felt myself strange, wrong eyed, felt doors and windows
to be illogical.
Picnics abounded, little straw mats,
a round ball with stripes, a bucket taught me futility.
The wind was in my palm, breathed easier
when the train came.
The train was in my poem.
Its noises rocked my sleep, the neighbor's daughter
or Cocker Spaniel, the Buick Electra, the mown lawn,
in my brain things separated and congealed.
The train came with a fulfilling sound, my heart in sync
with it.
I taught myself algebra, I taught myself lying.
My heart unraveling, long division organdy curtain,
things accumulated, segmented by the fans blades.
The trees were enigmas, what was I doing precisely?
Enigmas fed me, I wanted to eat them, then vomit them.
I slept like a princess, slatted, blue and gold.
Laundry blown into wedges, each vestment precisely shuttered.
Maples were serious and tall, drenched were the tulip heads.
Regarding the arm attached to the hand,
I felt a certain fulfillment.
Now the reason that poem I think should have been in this book,
is that it echoes a lot of things that
come up in the book for me.
This book is, unlike other books of poems
that I've written, very autobiographical
and as Jane says sort of minimalist
in some of the poems.
And it covers a territory in my life from early childhood
to young motherhood which was all very long ago.
So it's not particularly contemporary.
But I guess I've arrived at the age when we remember
things, when we recall.
[LAUGHTER]
So sad as that may be, thank you for not laughing.
[LAUGHTER]