WEBVTT

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It's a really great
night tonight,

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because Annie is a maker, Brian
is a maker, Drew is a maker,

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and I'm a maker.

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It's really great company.

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And I imagine a lot
of you are makers.

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We make stuff.

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I was asked earlier--

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Annie and I had the
opportunity to spend

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the day together
talking to people

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who were interested in poetry.

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And there was discussion
of what definitions there

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could be about poetry.

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And they were various.

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Well, I suggested a few that
I didn't quite believe in,

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but, you know, sounded pretty.

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I do believe that poetry
is language that does

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more than one thing at a time.

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And I do believe that
poetry is allowed to lie.

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There's a question that happens
when you are making a thing.

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And that's, what's its
purpose, what's its usefulness.

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It's easy to work in
a group home and say,

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a hamburger is
not being offered,

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and you get immediately
some resolution.

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And it's really easy
to make a gimlet.

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But it's difficult to stay
up all night alone and think

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about yourself and betray
yourself and testify

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against yourself.

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I wrote a book that I
thought was truthful.

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And it turned out to be not
as truthful as I thought.

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And so I decided I would,
upfront in this second book,

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confess that I'm a liar
and that what I make

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is a representation
and not an actuality.

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It is not biography.

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But it does track my
search and my thinking.

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And another definition
of poetry is that it's

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the residue of a life lived.

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And so here's some residue.

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