WEBVTT

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I'll read some, sort of,
more personal poems, now.

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I wrote personal
poems, what you would

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call autobiographical narratives
of crisis and resolution--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--for quite a while.

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And then I got bored.

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The poet, William
Matthews, once said

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that it's a social error
to begin every sentence

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with the first person, I. And
so I wrote away from that, sort

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of, in the poems that
I was just reading,

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but this is, kind
of, a personal poem.

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And this is also, sort
of, set in a season.

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It's set in November, in a place
where the leaves change color.

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Not Tucson, I guess.

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And what it's about
is it's about--

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I'm one of those
people I just have a--

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I've always had a huge
chip on my shoulder.

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And I'm certainly more
willing to believe

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that people are my enemies than
my benefactors or my friends.

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And so if you're operating
out of that kind of worldview

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the best revenge you can take
on your enemies is to live well

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and to be happy.

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It's a perverse, sort of,
motive for good living but--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--that's, sort of,
the worldview that's

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being proposed in this poem.

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It's called "Reasons
to Survive November."

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Could be called "Reasons
Not to Kill Yourself,"

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just to get even with them.

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[LAUGHTER]

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"Reasons to Survive November."

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"November like a
cha -- train wreck.

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As if a locomotive made of
cold had hurtled out of Canada

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and crashed into a million
trees, flaming the leaves,

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setting the woods on fire.

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The sky is a thick,
cold gauze but there's

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a soup special at
the Waffle House

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and the Jack Parsons show is up
at the museum, full of luminous

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red barns.

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I know there are some
people out there who

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still think I am supposed to
end up in a room by myself

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with a gun and a
bottle full of hate,

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a locked door and my slack mouth
open like a disconnected phone.

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But I hate those people
back from the core

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of my donkey soul.

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And the hatred makes me strong.

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In my survival is their failure.

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And my happiness
would kill them.

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So I shove joy, like a
knife, into my own heart

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over and over.

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And I force myself
towards pleasure.

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And I love this November
life where I run like a train

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deeper and deeper into
the land of my enemies."

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Sometimes, I think,
revenge is the only thing

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I actually write poems out of.

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[LAUGHTER]

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The spirit of revenge.