WEBVTT

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The Blues Don't Change
is an assemblage

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of poems from three
previous volumes.

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And I thought perhaps I'd
read a poem from each volume.

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I'm not sure that there's such
thing as growth in the arts.

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I know that there isn't--

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there's no such thing
as progress in the arts.

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A lot of writers, and painters,
and dancers, and musicians,

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and filmmakers like to liken
themselves to scientists.

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And they feel that there's such
thing as progress in the arts.

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But because spirit is a sort
of changeless and timeless,

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and art really is
about spirit, and when

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you go to hear somebody
sing or perform music,

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you're really going to hear the
human spirit being performed.

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And the more adroit a
musician or a performer

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is at doing this, the
more you're drawn into it.

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I don't think that
art progresses.

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I think it just
sort of expresses

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what's on people's
minds at various times.

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But when you look back through
a new and selected poems

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collection, you like to think,
well, I was terrible then,

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and I'm better now,
and all of that.

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And that's all arbitrary, too.

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It just depends upon
who's doing the reading.

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And you're no longer the
person that you used to be.

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This is from the first book,
which was called Dancing.

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And Dancing was
so named because I

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thought that of
all the metaphors,

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the metaphor of
the dance typified

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what goes on in the
world, that everything is

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in a state of motion, moving.

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This podium seems
hard and solid,

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but you who study physics know
that if you put the electron

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microscope to it,
there's not much there.

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It's all full of holes, and
everything is moving around.

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And to me, that's very exciting.

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It means there's always hope.

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"Dancing in the
Laundromat" or "Dust--

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An Ordinary Song."

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I love you.

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I need you, you
in the laundromat

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among the telltale result of
the ubiquitous garment industry.

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Shirts and blouses--
we have arms.

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Bras and the tops
of bathing suits--

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you have breasts.

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Briefs and shorts, panties,
skirts, and bottoms--

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we have bottoms, centers,
middles, stomachs, bellies,

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crotches, and cores--

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on down to trousers, and slacks,
and contemporary leg gear,

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butt-lined white
lined, blue lined,

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rose lined, black lined, khaki
lined, rainbow, clothesline.

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Line up.

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I blow you clean, low kisses
from transparent lips, a vowel

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shaped word, and no word.

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The well-sudsed stocking
feet continuing, the beds

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and sheets, pillowcases,
tender, towel, and rag.

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Apparel we take
for granted delight

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of all but the nakedest eye.

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What is it we wear that
never needs washing?

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What is it we wear
that never wears?

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