WEBVTT

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Wow.

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Wow.

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Thank you so much, Tyler.

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Thank you all for coming.

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Look at you.

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You're gorgeous.

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Thank you everyone at the
Poetry Center, and thank you,

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Tucson poetry
community at large,

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for making me feel so at home.

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Many of you know
I've only been here

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a little over a
year, and this space,

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like this physical building that
we're in, and in this space,

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this community of
writers and artists

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and students and people
interested in art

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has made this place so
much of a home for me.

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I'm really moved to be
here, so thank you so much.

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Give yourself round of applause
for what you make here.

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[APPLAUSE]

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So I'm going to
read some new work

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or work that will
be forthcoming,

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as Tyler mentioned.

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I'm going to read
a series of poems

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that take their titles
from dates and the closing

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number for the Dow
Jones Industrial Average

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for each of those dates.

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So for about two years
around the financial crisis,

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I started recording the
closing number of the Dow

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and decided I was going to let
that number be an inspiration

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for me in the poems.

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And then the other
series I'm going to read

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is from this book, Utopia Minus.

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And I was in the
middle of reading maybe

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for the 10th time
Rilke's Letters

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to a Young Poet, which
are just beautiful.

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And this was kind
of the early 2000s,

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and I think I was
sort of thinking

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about the idea of mentorship
and intimacy as well as power.

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I think it was a
time when many of us

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felt that we weren't quite
in control of the way

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our country was
going, and many of us

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may still feel like that now.

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So I started writing these
kind of epistolary letters

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that were directed towards
government officials,

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and they were kind of a cross
between mentorship and a Dear

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Abby letter.

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So I'm going to
kind of interweave

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those two series
of poems together

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over the course of the reading.

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But before I do that, I
want to start with a poem

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that maybe some of you
have heard me read before.

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It's actually the poem
that is the broadside.

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It's called "Meditation,"
and as a meditation,

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there are three mantras
that get repeated

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over the course of the poem.

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And I'm going to
ask for your help

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in repeating those
mantras with me, OK?

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This is all of our chance
to be on Voca really loud.

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So when the mantra comes,
I'll raise my hand,

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and it'll be easy.

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You'll just repeat
after me three times.

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The first thing I'm
going to have you say--

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it's a pretty common mantra--

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I am the avant garde.

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So I'll raise my hand, and
you'll say three times,

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I am the avant garde.

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I am the avant garde.

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I am the avant garde.

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And then the second mantra
is DIY, DIY, DIY, DIY.

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Come on, Tucson.

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You can do a little
better than that.

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I saw you guys performing
with canned meat

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a few weeks ago in
this very space.

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And the last mantra
is, I default.

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So I default. I default. I
default. That sounds good, OK.

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So we'll do that.

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I'll raise my hand.

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You guys are a smart audience.

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You'll know how to
follow along, and I

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appreciate your
participating in this poem.

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It's called "Meditation."

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"In the party store, Pier 1,
Target, Kohl's parking lot,

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find a desert willow
among the shopping carts.

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Walk around it
sun-wise, repeating,

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I am the avant garde.

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I am the avant garde.

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I am the avant garde,
repeating, DIY, DIY, DIY.

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Imagine a chart of
median family incomes

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as big as the parking lot.

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Use it to determine where
to abandon your car.

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I default. I default. I default.

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Your mind is a
blood blister rising

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on your thumb, a ladybug.

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Among these shopping
carts, you fortress.

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Among the plastic
bags, you affirm.

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Low, the light from
the desert trees

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does not speak in
numbers, costs us nothing.

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Here, as in a butterfly garden,
everyone crawls before flight."

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