It's a real pleasure to be here.
A real pleasure at this remarkable campus.
I've been astonished by the holdings in this poetry archive
and the tradition that has gone on here for so
long of supporting and offering nutrition to poets and poetry
lovers.
And I'm pleased to be in a small way a part of that.
And I'm especially grateful to Gail, Frances,
and most of all, Colleen.
As there is also a photographic holding
of some distinction, which I haven't yet seen,
but [INAUDIBLE] will show me.
I'll just read a handful of tiny pieces
from "Camera Obscura," which is a long sequence
at the end of the first book, which I won't detain you
with the many themes at play.
This is-- it's partly to do with,
amongst other things, a lost woman.
And I'll just read those sections.
"You are in another country.
I know, but I did just see you on that corner
clearly, then passing in that cab head down,
dashing me a note, perhaps.
The sap of you still on my hands.
A trace.
Wait.
Wait for me here.
Both hands to her hair, to the back of her head,
and the nape of the neck, adjusting or unloosening
the warm braid, and it's simple knot.
The hair, damp and heavy in her hands.
The roots of each arm laid open and bare.
In the grass market, a girl in the red dress
steps between parked cars into the forensic flash,
flash of cameras.
Around her, the Pre-Raphaelite beauties of Julia Margaret
Cameron, the Mongols of Arbus.
What I thought was a figure standing in a doorway
was just a doorway.
The movement in the window, just a loss of light.
Look, my eyes are not my own.
Night breathes on me, and the world mists.
I make a window in the mirror for the face of my father.
Tired of this."