Thank you, Farid.
Thank you.
And thank you the University of Arizona Poetry Center
for this generous invitation.
I was telling Becka that I don't really do many residencies
partly because I--
I don't get a chance to, I'm always traveling,
I want to be out of the country and so on.
And then I'm afraid to get bored.
And I also will miss my wife and daughter.
We're like a threesome.
And we just don't like being apart.
But I'm having an affair with this book.
[LAUGHTER]
And I will cheat them of my presence
to get more of it done.
So thank you for this.
It's always amazing-- it amazes me
when people tell you to come and do your work.
And it's poetry, and so--
so-- and thank you, Farid, for the kind introduction.
I want to read from this new manuscript.
And I guess I'll--
we were talking about Chomsky being here
and how people talked about pesoptimism.
And it's pessimistic, but it's exhilarating and ecstatic.
It's pessimism that makes you ecstatic at the end, which
is a good way to think about the next few years.
It's just like, keep being pessimistic
until you hit ecstasy.
[LAUGHTER]
So I'll-- and mentioning the--
I'll begin with-- I'll read something that's not really
light, but it maybe just touches on something that Farid had
mentioned, which is the--
which is the Muslim population.
I am a Muslim by identity.
I've had no reason to not be one or to be one.
I just stuck in.
[? For ?] maybe to spite other people or to spite myself,
I've remained a Muslim.
But also there are many, many good things about that.
But being a part of the post-Arab Spring world,
I've written this poem, if I can only find it.
So this is called the "Moderate Muslim Blues."
It has disappeared.
The moderate Muslims, where are they?
They keep trying to find them, right?
Where are the moderate Muslims?
They have a villanelle to present to the civilized world,
and they can't find it.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah.
OK, we'll come to it if I find it.
OK.
I can't find it.
So let's read something else.