WEBVTT

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Hi, everybody.

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I can't tell if the thing that
I like most about Francine's

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poetry is how she gets right
into the quick of things

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with zero hesitation, right
into the quick of life,

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or if it's that
she takes her time;

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if I like better
how taut, precise,

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and dense these poems are
or how conversational,

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broad, meandering this
written voice can be.

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Gregory Pardlo said
it better than me

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that Francine's
poems are, quote,

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"somehow both surgical and
blunt, that the poems sing.

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That is, they will
wake your neighbors."

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To quote Randall Horton writing
about Francine J Harris's

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stunning first book,
Allegiance, "Francine

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has the maturity to veer
well past the ordinary,

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to defy convention, and
to keep poetry alive."

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Major Jackson said "one
can hear heaven murmuring

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in between the lines of
Francine J Harris's poems."

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For what it's worth,
Francine herself says

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"the thing I like about
poetry is that it stares."

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Francine J Harris has been
a Cave Canem and a Callaloo

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Fellow, Pushcart Prize nominee,
a recipient of a 2015 NEA

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fellowship, a winner of the
2014 Boston Review Annual Poetry

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Contest, and Allegiance
was a finalist

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for the 2013 Kate Tufts
Discovery and PEN Open Book

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Award.

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She received her MFA in
poetry from the University

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of Michigan, where she
received a Zell Fellowship.

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Her second book, Play Dead,
is forthcoming in April 2016

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from Alice James Books.

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It's not soon
enough, but I expect

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we'll get a brief
preview here tonight.

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So please welcome
Francine J. Harris.