WEBVTT

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Hello.

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I guess I wanted in some
ways echo Matthew's words

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and just give my thanks
so much to you, Matthew.

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And to Charlie, and Barb,
and Ellen, and Heidi,

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and Joshua for allowing me
to be a part of this series.

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It's been such a great gift
to see poetry in a new way

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and think about prose.

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And so, I'm very excited
to be here tonight.

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I arranged things
around a theme,

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in that I have a lecture
that's about the imagination.

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But it's really
also about ghosts.

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So I thought I would read a
few sections from that lecture,

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and then we do some ghost
poems from a new book

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that I'm not sure is here
tonight, but this one is.

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I can sell it to
you for a high price

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if it is the only one here.

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I don't know.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And so, yeah.

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So I will I'll start by
just reading the first two

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sections of this lecture.

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And it's called "A Belief in
Ghosts, Poetry, and the Shared

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Imagination".

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And it starts with a quotation
from the great band, Hall

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and Oates, from a
song I just learned.

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I mean, I knew in the past,
but it's called Sara Smile.

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Sara smile?

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Yeah.

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OK.

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OK.

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And it goes like this.

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Baby hair with a woman's eyes.

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I can feel you
watching in the night.

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All alone with me and we're
waiting for the sunlight.

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When I feel cold, you warm me.

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And when I feel I can't go
on, you come and hold me.

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It's you and me forever.

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One.

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The materiality of
the imagination.

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Let's start first
with a question.

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What do you think
about the imagination?

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Is it a place that
you go in your mind

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to create new ideas freely?

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Is it a place you fear?

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Is it both?

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People often talk
of the imagination

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as if it is one
thing for everyone,

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a place without context, a
specific singular landscape

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that we all go to on our own.

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This kind of talk
sometimes makes

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people feel that if they
don't have immediate access

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to this single place,
they can't engage

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in imaginative thinking
which disempowers

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infinite possible new
ways of seeing the world.

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Everyone has their own
imaginative landscapes

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populated with very
particular experiences.

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And when people open the door
and let us into those places

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through poetry, other forms of
art, and other new invention,

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it helps each of us connect
with our own imaginations.

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It also helps us
see the doors that

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connect all of our imaginations
together because the shared

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imagination is both specific
and universal, real and unreal,

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profane and holy, a place of
both rest and unrest that we

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can go to and share with
others when we make new things.

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The shared imagination engages
fully with the material world.

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That's the other trick to it.

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The imagination is
a physical space

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that one shares with other
people in and through poetry.

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And upon, we make a haunted
land to mimic this haunted one

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and we populate this land
with physical reality

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to connect this world to
the next and to other ones.

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When we read poems, what is
important about reading them

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is what we create within
the brains of others.

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This is what makes the
possibility of a world

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past this one possible.

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A belief in a material
shared imagination

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is important to me
as a poet because I

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want not just to recreate
this one through poetry.

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I want a never ending
generative universe

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that poetry can help create.

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One of my favorite poems by
Alice Notley goes like this.

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All my life since I was 10, I've
been waiting to be in this hell

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here with you.

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All I've ever
wanted and still do.

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When I first heard the poem,
it was because my friend Laura

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Solomon had put it on a mixed CD
she made for me from Paris when

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I was living in Boston in 2005.

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She put it right before a
song by Amadou and Mariam

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called Senegal Fast
Food so that when

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I listened to the
whole CD, the Notley

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poem was like an
introduction to the song.

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Which, not knowing
French, seemed to me

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to be about a late night
eating fast food in Senegal.

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But upon reading the translation
of the lyrics to the song,

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I later learned was
about falling in love

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and getting married in a
rush, asking the question over

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and over what time
is it in paradise.

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Rushing into the
question of timelessness.

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In my mind when I heard Notley
reading the poem in the 1987

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recording, I saw her at the
St. Mark's Poetry Project

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reading it to a
room full of people,

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telling them all I have
waited to be here with you,

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this chamber of
poets and singers.

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This hell that now I
am a part of forever.

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And by the way, it
is a hell after all.

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All this gossip and dark living.

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I think I saw her in
this place because

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in a recording of
my favorite poem

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by her late husband, Ted
Bergen, called Redshift,

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he is reading this poem
in the Poetry Project.

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In my mind, the two
conflate timelessly almost

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at the same reading.

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But later, I learned,
too, that Notley

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was reading her
poem "All My Life"

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in a real city called
Buffalo, a place very charged

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for me with emotions.

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But that is, for many
people, its own kind of hell.

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Much of my belief in a
shared material imagination

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has to do with my belief in
ghosts and a hope in horror

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that they really do exist.

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Even though I know what Notley
speaks her poem whenever

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she does to a room full
of poets telling them

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that she has waited
to be with them

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and now she is reading her
poem at a real poetry reading,

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I think she is also
telling them here

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I am in the space of the
imagination where you are too.

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Poems are special because they
make a space, a real space,

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where we all can go.

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This place is a city
called the imagination.

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It is whatever
you want it to be.

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Half hell, half dream world,
half paradise, half light

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and ashes.

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But poems are the special things
that make it real forever.

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Let me ask you another question.

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Have you ever been there?

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Two.

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A belief in ghosts.

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My whole life, I
have had an inkling

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that there were
things like ghosts

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and that maybe some people
were able to actually see them.

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But up until a
few summers ago, I

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had never actually seen a ghost.

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For two summers, I
slept in a haunted house

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while teaching poetry
through a writing program.

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The teachers and I had
all sorts of encounters

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with the spirits in the house.

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But for me, seeing the
ghost during my first summer

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there was the most
important event.

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Nothing other than
seeing a ghost

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has been as instrumental
in my thinking

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about the materiality of
the shared imagination

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and its importance in poetry.

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The house had a long
history of ghosts.

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Legend has it that a girl's
shoe was found in the wall.

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A guard had quit years ago
after so many sightings

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of a tiny girl screaming
for help that he

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could no longer bear it.

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Well, I stayed in the house
with other teachers and friends.

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We all heard children
running through the ceiling

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of the abandoned rooms upstairs.

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Screams and voices.

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Computers charged for no reason.

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Locked windows that blew open.

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Hidden pills, broken cabinets,
and misplaced necklaces.

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One teacher channeled an
angry spirit in her writing

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who simply stated,
I am stuck here.

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All of these
experiences are things

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that could be explained away.

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But with several people
experiencing them,

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we started to talk
about them freely.

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While some visiting
artists came to stay

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at the house for a
few days when summer,

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we shared the
stories with them to.

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Most people I choose to tell
about my belief in ghosts

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are believers, or at the very
least susceptible to the idea.

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I am careful not
to tell people who

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are going to laugh it
off or call me crazy.

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As a poet, I have learned to
be OK with what my imagination

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might bring to me.

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When people call other people
crazy, I don't get mad.

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I get bored.

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When people tell me ghosts
don't exist, I just get bored.

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Laura Kelly Leuter,
a famed devil hunter

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who has devoted
her life to looking

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for the physical evidence
of a being lovingly

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called the Jersey Devil has
written of non-believers

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and her plight.

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Until someone proves that there
isn't something out there,

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I will continue to
believe that there is.

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And I will also
continue my efforts

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to find proof that the Jersey
Devil does in fact exist.

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So there.

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When these visitors were
at the house, a few of us

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told them about the ghost.

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It felt natural enough.

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I didn't think so much to censor
myself because the ghosts just

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seemed real.

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I have long believed
and longed to believe

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what Pablo Picasso told me.

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Everything you can
imagine is real.

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One night, a teacher and I
arrived home late from dinner.

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We heard someone or
something calling to us

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from the fruit garden
right outside the house.

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I thought I had heard,
"Dottie, come here."

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We got very scared
and ran in the house,

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clutching our
fashion-forward neon leather

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purses to our chests.

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We talked each other into going
back and seeing who was there.

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"Who is there?

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Who is there?"

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My friend shrieked.

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We heard, "It is Adeline."

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Adeline was an old
owner of the house.

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We walked into the
garden with shaky knees,

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only to find not the apparition
of Adeline, but the visiting

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artists, laughing at us.

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I didn't find it funny.

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One of the visitors, let's
call him demon from now on,

00:10:42.670 --> 00:10:46.660 align:middle line:84%
proceeded to tell me I
needed to see a psychiatrist.

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After about two
minutes, I realized

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I wasn't going to
be able to control

00:10:50.980 --> 00:10:53.300 align:middle line:90%
my anger in any good way.

00:10:53.300 --> 00:10:57.040 align:middle line:84%
So I went inside, happy to be
in the arms of the real ghosts

00:10:57.040 --> 00:11:02.140 align:middle line:84%
in my room, not among the placid
thoughts of living demons.

00:11:02.140 --> 00:11:06.100 align:middle line:84%
Samuel Johnson has said of
ghosts, "It is wonderful

00:11:06.100 --> 00:11:08.470 align:middle line:84%
that 5,000 years
have now elapsed

00:11:08.470 --> 00:11:10.240 align:middle line:90%
since the creation of the world.

00:11:10.240 --> 00:11:12.550 align:middle line:84%
And still it is
undecided whether or not

00:11:12.550 --> 00:11:15.880 align:middle line:84%
there has ever been an instance
of the spirit of any person

00:11:15.880 --> 00:11:17.500 align:middle line:90%
appearing after death.

00:11:17.500 --> 00:11:22.090 align:middle line:84%
All argument is against it,
but all belief is for it.

00:11:22.090 --> 00:11:24.460 align:middle line:84%
All arguments,
logical and steeped

00:11:24.460 --> 00:11:26.740 align:middle line:84%
in what we know of
science can easily

00:11:26.740 --> 00:11:29.050 align:middle line:90%
refute any belief in ghosts.

00:11:29.050 --> 00:11:32.020 align:middle line:84%
The most salient argument
that ghosts believers

00:11:32.020 --> 00:11:35.710 align:middle line:84%
have is that they have,
quote unquote, "Seen one."

00:11:35.710 --> 00:11:39.850 align:middle line:84%
And the imaginative space of
a being having seen something,

00:11:39.850 --> 00:11:42.760 align:middle line:84%
let alone a dead
spirit is not something

00:11:42.760 --> 00:11:45.130 align:middle line:90%
that we ever fully believe in.

00:11:45.130 --> 00:11:47.310 align:middle line:90%
But why not?

00:11:47.310 --> 00:11:49.620 align:middle line:84%
As a poet, I think
a lot about belief,

00:11:49.620 --> 00:11:52.710 align:middle line:84%
and in the belief of what
my mind might bring to me.

00:11:52.710 --> 00:11:55.500 align:middle line:84%
There are a lot of things that
enter my mind that I choose

00:11:55.500 --> 00:11:57.570 align:middle line:90%
to translate into language.

00:11:57.570 --> 00:12:00.540 align:middle line:84%
All poems contain
images, and these images

00:12:00.540 --> 00:12:02.340 align:middle line:90%
have been in the poet's brain.

00:12:02.340 --> 00:12:05.940 align:middle line:84%
And hang in the balance, always
to be given to the reader

00:12:05.940 --> 00:12:07.110 align:middle line:90%
upon reading.

00:12:07.110 --> 00:12:09.300 align:middle line:84%
And in a poem,
images have weight,

00:12:09.300 --> 00:12:12.510 align:middle line:84%
so that you cannot help
but believe in them.

00:12:12.510 --> 00:12:15.330 align:middle line:84%
Emily Dickinson
has set of beliefs.

00:12:15.330 --> 00:12:18.570 align:middle line:84%
On the subjects of
which we know nothing,

00:12:18.570 --> 00:12:23.650 align:middle line:84%
we both believe and
disbelieve 100 times an hour,

00:12:23.650 --> 00:12:26.430 align:middle line:90%
which keeps believing nimble.

00:12:26.430 --> 00:12:28.800 align:middle line:84%
The thing about ghosts
is that once they

00:12:28.800 --> 00:12:31.320 align:middle line:84%
have entered your
imaginative space,

00:12:31.320 --> 00:12:34.410 align:middle line:84%
there is no way not
to believe in them.

00:12:34.410 --> 00:12:39.720 align:middle line:84%
As I mentioned, I once
actually saw a ghost.

00:12:39.720 --> 00:12:45.060 align:middle line:84%
And I'll let you read the
rest when the book is ready.

00:12:45.060 --> 00:12:51.120 align:middle line:84%
And I thought I would just
share a few poems about ghosts,

00:12:51.120 --> 00:12:52.680 align:middle line:90%
very creatively titled.

00:12:52.680 --> 00:12:56.670 align:middle line:84%
The First one is
called The Ghost.

00:12:56.670 --> 00:12:58.110 align:middle line:90%
It's not the same ghost.

00:12:58.110 --> 00:12:59.070 align:middle line:90%
That away?

00:12:59.070 --> 00:12:59.940 align:middle line:90%
The Ghost.

00:12:59.940 --> 00:13:05.370 align:middle line:84%
I saw him, his body, a very
pale sea, almost green,

00:13:05.370 --> 00:13:10.480 align:middle line:84%
soaring above me in a different
sphere with gold wings.

00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:15.400 align:middle line:84%
He had a blissful expression,
one maybe he never had.

00:13:15.400 --> 00:13:19.670 align:middle line:84%
Certainly, he was always
smiling somewhere.

00:13:19.670 --> 00:13:22.670 align:middle line:84%
When he died, I had
just gotten betrayed

00:13:22.670 --> 00:13:25.790 align:middle line:90%
by a friend I thought was mine.

00:13:25.790 --> 00:13:29.210 align:middle line:84%
I forgave him, was
more just said,

00:13:29.210 --> 00:13:31.340 align:middle line:90%
you live through any of it.

00:13:31.340 --> 00:13:35.570 align:middle line:84%
But what is the red
shoulder we long to see?

00:13:35.570 --> 00:13:38.930 align:middle line:84%
I thought that I too would
reach a great canyon,

00:13:38.930 --> 00:13:42.000 align:middle line:90%
my arms and legs blissed out.

00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:45.680 align:middle line:90%
Instead, I blossomed inside.

00:13:45.680 --> 00:13:48.320 align:middle line:84%
Oh, I loved his
wife and children,

00:13:48.320 --> 00:13:51.680 align:middle line:84%
but they were
still here with me.

00:13:51.680 --> 00:13:55.790 align:middle line:84%
When my father died, he
went straight up to heaven.

00:13:55.790 --> 00:13:59.990 align:middle line:84%
When the ghost died, he
stayed with us for a while.

00:13:59.990 --> 00:14:03.680 align:middle line:84%
I forgot to mention that the
wings were gold and green

00:14:03.680 --> 00:14:05.600 align:middle line:90%
and the winds were heavy.

00:14:05.600 --> 00:14:10.340 align:middle line:84%
They held his body afloat
in air as if in the ocean.

00:14:10.340 --> 00:14:12.740 align:middle line:84%
I forgot to say that
when it was summer,

00:14:12.740 --> 00:14:15.440 align:middle line:84%
I too measured the
red bell heads.

00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:18.920 align:middle line:84%
I said, the hell with
it, all of it heavy.

00:14:18.920 --> 00:14:22.970 align:middle line:84%
Heavy air, will you hold me,
suspended in the ocean of time,

00:14:22.970 --> 00:14:25.700 align:middle line:84%
where I will never
see you again?

00:14:25.700 --> 00:14:28.730 align:middle line:90%
My skin, gold and green.

00:14:28.730 --> 00:14:32.570 align:middle line:84%
Sweet King, You
left us, I know it.

00:14:32.570 --> 00:14:35.510 align:middle line:84%
Dark is dark, The
darkness, darnit.

00:14:35.510 --> 00:14:41.270 align:middle line:84%
It surrounds with heavy air,
arms and legs suspended,

00:14:41.270 --> 00:14:44.070 align:middle line:90%
the head.

00:14:44.070 --> 00:14:47.370 align:middle line:84%
And this next poem is
called, "The Ghost."

00:14:47.370 --> 00:14:49.620 align:middle line:84%
Again, I don't know where I
come up with these titles.

00:14:49.620 --> 00:14:53.580 align:middle line:84%
It just, it's a
very hard process.

00:14:53.580 --> 00:14:57.270 align:middle line:84%
And Sexton's ghost just
said, "I'm watching you,"

00:14:57.270 --> 00:15:00.630 align:middle line:84%
then sent me to
her book of beasts.

00:15:00.630 --> 00:15:02.040 align:middle line:90%
What is a ghost?

00:15:02.040 --> 00:15:06.960 align:middle line:84%
A light peppery air being
or a solid jelly thing?

00:15:06.960 --> 00:15:08.070 align:middle line:90%
The book.

00:15:08.070 --> 00:15:11.550 align:middle line:84%
I've died before but
no one believed me.

00:15:11.550 --> 00:15:16.710 align:middle line:84%
And I came back here to haunt
my beloved, then breathing.

00:15:16.710 --> 00:15:20.130 align:middle line:84%
And we washed in
words, now dead again.

00:15:20.130 --> 00:15:23.100 align:middle line:84%
Now, back again, I
am no longer jelly.

00:15:23.100 --> 00:15:27.720 align:middle line:84%
I'm water, a peachy lilac
color, both born into blue.

00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:30.630 align:middle line:84%
For someone or something
could be watching.

00:15:30.630 --> 00:15:33.330 align:middle line:84%
Some are watching
as I write this.

00:15:33.330 --> 00:15:37.470 align:middle line:84%
The ghostly comediennes
I share this speech.

00:15:37.470 --> 00:15:40.560 align:middle line:84%
Or you know that hum
that goes and flows,

00:15:40.560 --> 00:15:44.730 align:middle line:84%
that's ghosts, who will
be reborn eventually.

00:15:44.730 --> 00:15:47.430 align:middle line:84%
The trick is to make
friends with all of them.

00:15:47.430 --> 00:15:50.790 align:middle line:84%
The trick is to let the
darkness out into the moonscape,

00:15:50.790 --> 00:15:54.120 align:middle line:84%
and funnel the light
into one strong song.

00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:59.370 align:middle line:84%
Only I can hear the sounds of
my ancestors, but you can too.

00:15:59.370 --> 00:16:00.600 align:middle line:90%
What is a ghost?

00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:02.010 align:middle line:90%
A ghost is a mountain.

00:16:02.010 --> 00:16:04.950 align:middle line:84%
It's green, it's frightful,
it's written in Latin.

00:16:04.950 --> 00:16:07.500 align:middle line:84%
But not the kind
we read anymore.

00:16:07.500 --> 00:16:08.760 align:middle line:90%
What is a ghost?

00:16:08.760 --> 00:16:12.510 align:middle line:84%
It's a flower, big and
weeping with purple colors.

00:16:12.510 --> 00:16:15.040 align:middle line:90%
A weeping world not empty.

00:16:15.040 --> 00:16:16.140 align:middle line:90%
What is a ghost?

00:16:16.140 --> 00:16:17.410 align:middle line:90%
It is my father.

00:16:17.410 --> 00:16:19.440 align:middle line:90%
It is my dog, it is a dream.

00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:21.000 align:middle line:90%
I dream of people.

00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:23.560 align:middle line:90%
Do they or do they not exist?

00:16:23.560 --> 00:16:27.090 align:middle line:84%
If you think this world exists,
then I think you do too.

00:16:27.090 --> 00:16:28.920 align:middle line:84%
If I think you
are breathing now,

00:16:28.920 --> 00:16:32.640 align:middle line:84%
then I promise the ghost
breathe down upon your neck.

00:16:32.640 --> 00:16:36.000 align:middle line:84%
What is a life if it's
longing then fuck it.

00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:38.370 align:middle line:84%
Sister, take me
back to the beach.

00:16:38.370 --> 00:16:41.340 align:middle line:84%
Let's watch the sunset
and then the moon.

00:16:41.340 --> 00:16:43.740 align:middle line:84%
If it's only this,
then put on my mask

00:16:43.740 --> 00:16:45.960 align:middle line:84%
and send me wheeling
down the halls.

00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:49.860 align:middle line:84%
I'll spend the rest of the days
talking only to the children.

00:16:49.860 --> 00:16:52.920 align:middle line:84%
If children are ghosts,
then put the capes upon them

00:16:52.920 --> 00:16:55.350 align:middle line:84%
and paint their eyes
with terracotta.

00:16:55.350 --> 00:16:57.780 align:middle line:84%
Then make them
cakes all day long.

00:16:57.780 --> 00:17:00.660 align:middle line:84%
Then tie the brightly
colored streamers.

00:17:00.660 --> 00:17:03.210 align:middle line:84%
If babies are ghosts,
then have many of them,

00:17:03.210 --> 00:17:06.510 align:middle line:84%
then make the new again,
if you were a ghost,

00:17:06.510 --> 00:17:10.500 align:middle line:84%
then let me kiss you and
feel your faintest undertone.

00:17:10.500 --> 00:17:13.319 align:middle line:84%
If spring is ghostly,
then take me in it.

00:17:13.319 --> 00:17:15.480 align:middle line:84%
Then leave me in
the fields until I'm

00:17:15.480 --> 00:17:19.680 align:middle line:84%
eaten by bees and breads
until I can come here again,

00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:23.730 align:middle line:84%
come here clean, again
we all me down the halls.

00:17:23.730 --> 00:17:26.040 align:middle line:90%
I'm old, I'm old.

00:17:26.040 --> 00:17:29.160 align:middle line:84%
Give mercy to my
sisters the bees.

00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:31.290 align:middle line:90%
But not to me.

00:17:31.290 --> 00:17:33.160 align:middle line:90%
I'm not old.

00:17:33.160 --> 00:17:35.760 align:middle line:90%
I'm young, always young.

00:17:35.760 --> 00:17:38.850 align:middle line:90%
Oh, youth, won't you go already?

00:17:38.850 --> 00:17:44.760 align:middle line:84%
Same drone from here to
never ending, bathing spirits

00:17:44.760 --> 00:17:47.280 align:middle line:90%
submerged in blue light.

00:17:47.280 --> 00:17:51.270 align:middle line:84%
Acid lake, all
sinking and hot pink

00:17:51.270 --> 00:17:55.770 align:middle line:84%
outlines, no, behold
the wooden lake.

00:17:55.770 --> 00:17:59.570 align:middle line:90%
I'll sink in again.

00:17:59.570 --> 00:18:01.500 align:middle line:90%
Thank you very much.

00:18:01.500 --> 00:18:02.000 align:middle line:90%