WEBVTT

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It's a real pleasure to be here.

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A real pleasure at
this remarkable campus.

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I've been astonished by the
holdings in this poetry archive

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and the tradition that
has gone on here for so

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long of supporting and offering
nutrition to poets and poetry

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lovers.

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And I'm pleased to be in a
small way a part of that.

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And I'm especially
grateful to Gail, Frances,

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and most of all, Colleen.

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As there is also a
photographic holding

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of some distinction,
which I haven't yet seen,

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but [INAUDIBLE] will show me.

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I'll just read a
handful of tiny pieces

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from "Camera Obscura,"
which is a long sequence

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at the end of the first book,
which I won't detain you

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with the many themes at play.

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This is-- it's
partly to do with,

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amongst other
things, a lost woman.

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And I'll just read
those sections.

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"You are in another country.

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I know, but I did just
see you on that corner

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clearly, then passing
in that cab head down,

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dashing me a note, perhaps.

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The sap of you
still on my hands.

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A trace.

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Wait.

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Wait for me here.

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Both hands to her hair,
to the back of her head,

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and the nape of the neck,
adjusting or unloosening

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the warm braid, and
it's simple knot.

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The hair, damp and
heavy in her hands.

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The roots of each arm
laid open and bare.

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In the grass market, a
girl in the red dress

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steps between parked cars
into the forensic flash,

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flash of cameras.

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Around her, the Pre-Raphaelite
beauties of Julia Margaret

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Cameron, the Mongols of Arbus.

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What I thought was a figure
standing in a doorway

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was just a doorway.

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The movement in the window,
just a loss of light.

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Look, my eyes are not my own.

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Night breathes on me,
and the world mists.

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I make a window in the mirror
for the face of my father.

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Tired of this."

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