WEBVTT

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Hello, everyone.

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Welcome to tonight's reading.

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We're glad you're here braving
the rains, or non rains,

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depending on where you are.

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I'm excited you're
here at-- the Poetry

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Center is a
well-designed building,

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and I'm happy to report that in
the event of massive flooding

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that we think it would
float, which is exciting.

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We think, but we're glad we
don't have to deal with that,

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and I'm thinking about all the
people farther south from us

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in Cochise County, and
over into lower New Mexico

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who are dealing
with all that water.

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So we're grateful
that Tucson is safe.

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Glad that our readers
were able to be here.

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It was a touch and
go moment, but I'm

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glad they're here and
excited that the reading

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is happening tonight.

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This reading is the second in
an annual reading series named

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for the poet Morgan
Lucas Schuldt, who

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was a friend to many people that
are here in attendance tonight,

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and who passed away in 2012.

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The series recognizes emerging
writers, innovative writers,

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writers who we think deserve
a brighter spotlight.

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Morgan was all of those
things in his work.

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He was fierce in
his love of language

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and its limits, its
possibilities and pleasures,

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the double meanings and lyrical
sensibilities that words

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can take on, the narrative
torque a poem takes down

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the page, and the enjambments
that in stacked sequences

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it uses to get there.

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In an interview with
Arizona Public Media,

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Morgan talked about his interest
in quote, "dead language,"

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or what Gertrude Stein called
late language-- words that

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were used up, used up so
hard that they have lost

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their ability to mean in ways
that they possibly could,

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ways that they used to
be able to draw attention

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to themselves.

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And he says that he was
excited to reactivate language

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in his poems, to
quote, "make them new,

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make the language new,
by breaking it apart,

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by pulverizing it, by doing
a little violence to it,

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sticking words together
with hyphenation,

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playing with punning,
et cetera, et cetera."

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That playfulness
and pleasure in how

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things work, that pleasure
in how things work, I think,

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is a core part of what
Morgan's aesthetic is,

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and they come
through his poems--

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not having a chance to know
him, but having a chance

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to know his work, and
that spirit abides,

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I think, over the series and
also over Morgan in his poems.

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We're really thrilled to
have two great readers here

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tonight in this series
that is so aptly named.

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The last thing that I get to
do is just introduce my friend

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who will introduce our readers.

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I'm very excited that Wendy
Burk who many of you know,

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and who helps make all magical
things happen in our library,

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is here to introduce the two
readers who are here tonight

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to visit with us.

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So without further
ado, Wendy Burk.

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[APPLAUSE]