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[APPLAUSE]

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Fenton warned me to wear heels,
but it's not quite enough.

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Thank you, Fenton.

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I came to the
non-fiction program

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unsure about the complications
of navigating fact and truth,

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how to reconcile a journalistic
impulse to observe and document

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with a greater literary
impulse to tell a good story,

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to create art.

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Fortunately for me, and
with gratitude to Fenton,

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I was introduced to Erik
Reece's work my first semester.

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And it has since
served as a beacon.

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In his book length works, as
well as many of his essays,

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Reece outlines a
non-fiction gospel,

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setting a standard of
observation, research,

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and storytelling that comes
from a man who considers himself

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a Jamesian pragmatist, a man who
believes that a thought isn't

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really worth having
unless it can be converted

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into an act of conscience.

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Fittingly, Reece's work
is a series of thoughts,

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of questions, and
curiosities rendered

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into compassionate
acts of conscience

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through astute
perceptions of irony

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and tense observation of
detail and thorough, patient

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investigation.

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Also fittingly, it
is poetry, which

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Reece speaks of as a prayer
in some sense that calls back

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to the world, that
originally drew Reece

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to Robinson Forest, a protected
oasis in the midst of decimated

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Kentucky state lands.

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He went to write about the
beauty of a place he knew

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as home, but the violence
inflicted by the coal mines

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on the 300-million-year-old
Appalachian Mountains

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surrounding the forest
called for something else.

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So Reece spent the next
10 months trespassing

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on state land permitted
to the coal company,

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dodging debris hurled
from the mine sites,

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and documenting the destruction
both to lives and landscapes,

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the changing contours caused
by mountaintop removal mining.

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In Lost Mountain: A Year in
the Vanishing Wilderness,

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Reece tells the story of that
mountain, so ironically named,

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revealing in the process a
greater regional, national,

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and global battle we face
when it comes to coal energy.

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In Lost Mountain, as
in much of his writing,

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Reece wrestles the origins
of our hostile relationship

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with the natural world,
a question that leads him

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to his own upbringing as the
son and grandson of Baptist

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ministers, both of
whom preached what

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Reece calls a particularly
heavy and dogmatic reading

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of the Bible.

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In his most recent book,
An American Gospel:

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On Family, History,
and the Kingdom of God,

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Reece proposes an alternative, a
gospel that celebrates the here

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and now, this Earth
as the kingdom of God

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and us very much a part of it.

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It is a gospel that
brings together

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voices of the likes of William
Byrd, Leo Tolstoy, Thomas

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Jefferson, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Walt Whitman, William

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James, and Wendell Berry.

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Through gorgeously
efficient sentences,

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Reece's work reminds
us to be patient,

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reminds us that a story
often needs time to unfold,

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and that our job is
often to act merely

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as a conduit for that story.

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His writing bears
witness and then demands

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that the act of reading
bear witness in return.

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He says, "I don't have to
get angry or at least convey

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my anger about a little
girl killed by an illegally

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overloaded coal truck.

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I just tell her mother's
story the best I can."

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His work belongs alongside
Emerson, Leopold, Berry,

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and his mentor, Guy Davenport,
as essential, extraordinary,

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relevant, and timeless.

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Erik Reece is the author of five
books of nonfiction and poetry,

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including An American
Gospel and Lost Mountain,

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for which he won Columbia
University's John B. Oakes

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award for distinguished
environmental journalism

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and the Sierra Club's
David Brower award.

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His work appears regularly in
Harper's, The Nation, and Orion

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Magazine, among others.

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He currently teaches
environmental journalism,

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writing, and literature
at the University

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of Kentucky in Lexington.

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And forthcoming in August is
his latest book, Utopia Drive:

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A Road Trip Through
America's Most Radical Ideas.

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Let's give our
attention and gratitude

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to someone who reminds
us that Sundays

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are for spending
time in the woods

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and that when we go to
those woods to write poetry,

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our poetry should become
a call for action.

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It is my pleasure to
introduce to you Erik Reece.