WEBVTT

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So it has been a great
pleasure to spend time

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with these new
and selected poems

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that Maurya Simon and Peggy
Shumaker have just published.

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Maurya Simon is a
seer in the sense

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of that word in Old English
that meant knowledge, wicca.

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Her knowledge is both deep
and wild , which is to say,

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that it ranges into what HD
referred to as the [INAUDIBLE],,

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an esoteric wisdom, that
which is beyond the visible,

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even as it is readily embodied.

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As Simon herself quotes
Wallace Stevens as epigraph

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to her exquisite serial
poem, "Origins," the poet

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is a priest of the visible.

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These poems in
Wilderness are erudite,

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ontologically exploratory,
stylistically chiseled.

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Imaginatively, they
are mythopoetic,

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Midrashic, Vedic, sweeping
us beyond the borders

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of the cultivated and into
wilderness, because nothing

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tames the fierce and
loving spirit of this poet.

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Simon has been a Fulbright
Indo-American fellow,

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twice a visiting poet, visiting
artist at the American Academy

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in Rome, and an NEA
fellow in poetry.

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She has received the Celia
B. Wagner and Lucille Medwick

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Memorial awards from the
Poetry Society of America.

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Please welcome Maurya Simon.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you.

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I have to tilt this
down a little bit.

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I'm just a little
shorter than you are.

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Thank you so much.

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That was a wonderful
introduction.

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And thank you for spending
time with my poems,

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I appreciate that very much.

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And thank everyone here
for coming tonight,

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and all the people who worked
so hard to make this reading

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come about, and to support
it, and to support poetry.

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I appreciate-- I
don't know if you all

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know how hard this
staff works, but they

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work really hard to
make all this seem

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so seamless, and easy,
and gracious, so my thanks

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to the staff, especially.

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OK, I have a question for
you people from Tucson.

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This is one of the mysteries
of the universe, or maybe

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of Arizona, for me.

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Why isn't Tucson
spelled T-U-S-C-O-N?

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Why?

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Is there an answer?

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It's easier?

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I don't know, if
you're French maybe.

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Like blue, right,
B-L-E-U, it should be.

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So what is that?

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It's a riddle.

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Cuk Son was the Tohono
O'odham word for this place.

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Thank you, thank you,
OK, I knew someone here

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would know the answer.

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Thank you so much.

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All my life I have
wondered about this.

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This is what poets wonder
about, spelling, right?

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So.