WEBVTT

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Like most of the people in this
room now are younger than I am,

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so you have to sit
through somebody

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older talking about things
that you don't remember.

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Just for a minute, though,
because it's over 20 years,

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as Lois said, since
I first came here.

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And the occasions have
been very memorable to me.

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And there have been some
memorable introductions

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that I will never
forget, and audiences

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that were simply incredible,
just remarkable occasions.

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And it's always a joy
to come back to here

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and always to find such
a richness of people who

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care that much about poetry.

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This is something that's been
made by the Poetry Center

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and the people who work
there, all of them.

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And it seems--

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I don't know.

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We don't have any name in
English for two decades,

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for 20 years.

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Or, if we do, I don't know it.

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Score?

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Hmm?

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A score?

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Yes, but that's a score
of years, you see.

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Sure, but, all right,
let's say a score.

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[LAUGHTER]

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A score of years.

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It's a very remarkable
thing to feel

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that that cycle is something
now that we have to celebrate,

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that it's come to an end.

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And I want to read--

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and there's so many
friends in the audience.

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And I remember things that
they told me about things

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that I've written.

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And I want to go back and
read some poems from earlier,

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from the time when I was
reading the first time here,

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but move rather fast,
in chronological order,

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so that I can finish
with some poems that

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have not been in a book yet.

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I want to go back to a poem.

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In fact, it was written
in the late '50s,

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well before I came here.

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But it's one that,
for some reason,

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keeps coming up recently.

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And it was a poem that was
written when the first Sputnik

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went up in the space.

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It'd be what wasn't yet
called the space race.

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A.P. Herbert wrote a little
poem about this event too.

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And the odd thing
is that the feeling

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about the event in A.P.
Herbert's poem and in mine

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were not so very different.

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His went-- and I
remember the whole thing.

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He said, "I have not seen
it, and I will not try.

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I don't approve of garbage
in the sky," he said.

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[LAUGHTER]

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This one is called
"Under the Old One."

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"Helpless improver, grown
numerous and clever rather

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than wise or loving.

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Nothing is newer than
ever under the sun.

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Still specious, wanton,
venal, your noise

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is as dull and smile
self-flattering

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as was usual under any heaven.

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How often before this
you went on knees

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to moons of your own making,
abject, with no peace,

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under the old one."

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