WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.458 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:03.458 --> 00:00:04.940 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:09.480 align:middle line:84% My favorite scriptwriter-- screenwriter, David Milch, 00:00:09.480 --> 00:00:11.640 align:middle line:84% once said in an interview something 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:17.100 align:middle line:84% like, great characters and great scripts, like a great poem, 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:21.362 align:middle line:84% swerve against the way they drive. 00:00:21.362 --> 00:00:22.820 align:middle line:84% That's what I thought of when I got 00:00:22.820 --> 00:00:25.520 align:middle line:84% to the end of Stephen Willey's long poem "Slogans." 00:00:25.520 --> 00:00:29.300 align:middle line:84% I found it, among more than 100 anonymous submissions 00:00:29.300 --> 00:00:31.370 align:middle line:84% to the Poetry Center summer residency program, 00:00:31.370 --> 00:00:35.360 align:middle line:84% and knew right away it would be among my finalists. 00:00:35.360 --> 00:00:38.037 align:middle line:84% What I didn't know is that the top five or so submissions 00:00:38.037 --> 00:00:40.370 align:middle line:84% would be as strong as they were-- all different from one 00:00:40.370 --> 00:00:42.560 align:middle line:84% another, and more importantly all 00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:47.540 align:middle line:84% different from the careful and timid verse in the pile. 00:00:47.540 --> 00:00:50.000 align:middle line:84% Ultimately, I kept returning to Stephen's submission 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:52.100 align:middle line:84% because he let his poems swerve so much 00:00:52.100 --> 00:00:54.410 align:middle line:84% so that its final section shifted, 00:00:54.410 --> 00:00:58.280 align:middle line:84% not only its speaker stance, but my own as well. 00:00:58.280 --> 00:01:01.160 align:middle line:84% It turned the poems worrying about the fraught 00:01:01.160 --> 00:01:03.980 align:middle line:84% act of witnessing Israeli state violence and oppression, 00:01:03.980 --> 00:01:09.540 align:middle line:84% like a mirror into which suddenly I had to stare. 00:01:09.540 --> 00:01:11.480 align:middle line:84% Stephen Willey, young as he is, has already 00:01:11.480 --> 00:01:14.120 align:middle line:84% developed a rich poetic practice, in which he extends 00:01:14.120 --> 00:01:17.810 align:middle line:84% the formal and typographic experiments of his poems, 00:01:17.810 --> 00:01:21.320 align:middle line:84% by collaborating with composers from various genres, 00:01:21.320 --> 00:01:23.960 align:middle line:90% to make wholly new sound works. 00:01:23.960 --> 00:01:28.220 align:middle line:84% Similarly, he extends the social justice concerns of his poems 00:01:28.220 --> 00:01:29.750 align:middle line:90% by partnering with NGOs-- 00:01:29.750 --> 00:01:32.390 align:middle line:84% notably in Palestinian territories-- 00:01:32.390 --> 00:01:37.700 align:middle line:84% to place his work and expertise in the service of communities. 00:01:37.700 --> 00:01:40.100 align:middle line:84% Helping them to pick up the hammer 00:01:40.100 --> 00:01:46.820 align:middle line:84% of poetry, that is somehow also a camera, a mirror, 00:01:46.820 --> 00:01:48.860 align:middle line:90% and a library-- 00:01:48.860 --> 00:01:53.720 align:middle line:84% in Alexandria, in Tucson, and in Gaza-- 00:01:53.720 --> 00:01:55.980 align:middle line:90% that will not burn. 00:01:55.980 --> 00:01:57.230 align:middle line:90% Please welcome Stephen Willey. 00:01:57.230 --> 00:01:59.080 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]