[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
Well, thank you so much.
Thank you, Tyler.
Thank you, Mary.
And it's wonderful to be back in Tucson.
This is, I think, the fifth time--
is that better?
Fifth time I've been here, but the last time was something
like 14 years ago.
And it's just so-- it's wonderful to be back.
Well, I'm going to actually--
I will read book poems and a few translations.
And this-- no, no, no, I'll--
this way?
OK.
Yeah, just-- you can use it this far from it.
All right.
Well, I'll start with this poem, in part--
it's quite recent and because it in fact,
it starts-- it starts with a question of translation.
And it was written a little over a year ago when I was walking
on one of the bridges across the Seine with a Syrian friend,
a woman named, Fadwa Souleimane, who, in Syria,
was a well-known actor and who engaged herself
in the revolution and spoke for a new--
in the hope of a new government that
would be for all the people and hearing all their voices.
And a result of which she's now a political refugee.
And we saw-- we were talking and I said something
to her in bad Arabic, or at least, badly pronounced
Arabic, which is where the poem starts.
And just then, we saw a man walking along
the street whom we both recognized who is also
a Syrian political refugee, whom I had last
seen also in Paris at a meeting in support
of political refugees.
And she-- the last time in the city
of Homs in Syria, making a speech
to the insurgents in front of the very famous clock
tower of Homs.
So I think that's all I have to say.
Said the old woman who barely spoke the language,
freedom is a dream and we don't know whose.
Said the insurgent who was now in exile, when I began to write
the story, I started bleeding.
Freedom is a dream and we don't know whose.
That man I last saw speaking in front of the clock tower
when I began to write the story, I
started bleeding five years after I
knew I'd have no more children.
That man I last saw speaking in front of the clock tower
turned an anonymous corner and disappeared.
Five years after I knew I'd have no more children,
my oldest son was called up for the army,
turned an anonymous corner and disappeared.
My nephew, my best friend, my second sister,
whose oldest son was called up for the army
are looking for work now in other countries.
Her nephew, his best friend, his younger sister, a doctor,
an actress, an engineer, are looking for work now
in other countries, stumbling, disillusioned
in a new language.
A doctor, an actress, an engineer,
wrestle with the rudiments of grammar,
disillusioned, stumbling in a new language, hating their luck
and knowing they are lucky.
Wrestling with the rudiments of grammar,
the old woman who barely speaks the language, hated her luck.
I know that I am lucky, said the insurgent who is now in exile.