WEBVTT

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Let's see, I wanted to read
a couple of short poems

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from the new manuscript
and then a longer piece.

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My new manuscript I just
finished the summer--

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after spending the summer,
I'm doing research.

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A lot of my writing
involves historical research

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and I had to buy a French
copy of the Jesuit letters

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from China as well as the Jesuit
relations from North America.

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So it's an odd
text, it's basically

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Jesuit poetry tying together
North America and China.

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I was in China last
summer and was kind of

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amazed to see the residue
that the Jesuits left

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in Shanghai and in Suzhou.

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And to see how
clearly it connected

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with what I remembered back
home in the Mohawk mission

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church, paintings of Jesuits
who were shaking hands

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with Kateri Tekakwitha
or as people out here

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often known as Kateri.

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St. Kateri, the only
Native American Saint.

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So I tried to tie this
together and that's

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the focus of the longer piece.

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But the two short
pieces before it.

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One is set on the Cattaraugus
Seneca reservation

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where I often teach.

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And then the other one
moves me over to China.

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"Lacrosse Night-Iroquoia."

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"Because the boys are brown
or the very least golden,

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I come to watch this turn of
wrist red and smooth twist

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within the webbing
a hard truth that

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could smash two dark lips red
or leave a cold ear stinging.

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Passing shirtless but
for shoulder pads,

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he shakes the sharp black points
of his hair spray of sweat

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on the back of my hand.

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My brother 10 years younger
and infinitely kinder

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touches my arm with four
words that players mean.

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He's playing the game.

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I don't look at
my brother when I

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answer because tonight I've
seen an angry muscle, a familiar

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tremor.

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And when we leave the arena
crossing Cattaraugus Creek

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there are fires beneath the
bridge, jack lights attracting

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mean designs to hang
themselves neatly

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on a row of shining hooks."

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