WEBVTT

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Thank you.

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That was a great introduction
and I'm honored to be here.

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I was thinking back to
the last time I was here.

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Was about two years
ago when my daughter

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graduated from the U of A
with her Bachelor's Degree

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in archaeology.

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So I like this place
in that sense too.

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And thanks too to Gail and the
Poetry Center for having me

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here.

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I'm going to begin with
the beginning of my work

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and read just a couple of poems
from my first book, The Ripped

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Out Seam.

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This experience,
"The Bat in the Jar"

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actually occurred when I was
working at a local motel.

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Someone caught a bat in a
jar, and as I watched the bat

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in the jar, I realized that the
bat was dying of its own sonar.

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That as it turned it was
trying to get its bearings,

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and its own sound
was coming back to it

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and making it physically
ill, to the point of dying.

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"Bat In A Jar".

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"The jar was a Mason jar, made
to preserve apricots and stone

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cherries, and to withstand
the extremes of cold air

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and hot water baths where the
steam rising lifts the canner's

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black lid, only to
drop it hissing again.

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And the bat trapped inside
knew, if it knew anything,

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it would never escape.

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Though the sky kept humming
with insects, and the orchards

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darkened as usual,
apparently the same.

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Someone had put the bat in a
jar to avoid bites and disease,

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or to protect the bat itself
from house cats and dogs.

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In any case, the bat
kept calling for rescue,

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measuring what confined it,
trying to scale the horizon,

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that sky of glass.

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But though the bats
ear shaped themselves

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to the echo, though the
echo filled the glass,

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the jar parodied
the bats longing

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and gave back nothing of itself.

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Mirrored?

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Only the bat was mirrored,
its fear inaudible

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except to itself,
confined to its own mind.

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That which enabled the
bat to select a mosquito

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or to nip a June beetle out
of the air now sickened it.

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Open mouthed, wings
beating hopefully,

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hopelessly, the
bat lifted its wing

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like one seamless membrane,
and again and again tried

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to answer."

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