Oh, I feel like I should have worn my high heels and bustier
or something after the Beyonce reference.
Whoa, thank you for that.
No, that would not have been a good idea.
[LAUGHTER]
But it's fun thinking about it.
Oh, thank you for that really generous introduction.
And I want to thank everybody that Hannah thanked,
as well as Hannah.
And I'm hoping I remember everybody's names--
Julie, and Katie, and of course, Tyler.
Thank you so much for bringing me here.
I just discovered my stopwatch on my phone,
so I don't have to remember when I started.
OK.
Tucson is so gorgeous.
Thank you.
It's just-- and I'm here until Monday,
so my trip has just begun.
I'm very excited to be here.
Thank you, especially, out of that nasty New York winter
weather, which we finally got.
Here's my little lineup.
My husband, Harold, says I should stick to my top hits,
so I'm going to try and do that.
[LAUGHTER]
So a number of years ago, I found myself
writing poems that were triggered by the science
section of The New York Times.
And they were particularly difficult
poems to revise because there was so much interesting stuff
in the poems that I didn't want to let go of it,
but after getting kind of shoved around by poetry friends
and shaken up a little bit saying,
"this poem doesn't need that," I relented.
But it took me a long time to give
up some of the really cool facts and so forth.
So the poems are not really about science
as they are triggered by the language and stories
and little narratives in science.
Of course, it also meant that every Tuesday, I had--
have more material to write about,
and I'm a little bit of a magpie in that regard.
Whatever I see, I want to pick up and see how shiny it is.