[APPLAUSE]
Thank you so much, Renee.
That was the most wonderful introduction.
And I really--
Renee and I talked earlier about how much
I do not like having to introduce people.
I find it very difficult. That was beautiful, thank you.
I'm just going to keep track of my time.
It's wonderful to be here and a little bit terrifying,
not right now.
But as Tyler said, I really have to write
this next lecture between now and when I see some of you
next.
And prose is hard.
So either I'm going to give lecture number two, that's
my fallback plan, which is about the ethics of writing
about real people in poetry and representing
real people in art.
Or I will give lecture number 3, which doesn't exist yet,
but hopefully, will be either about the connection
between photography and poetry or about confessional poetry.
So in-- no matter which of those three comes to pass,
I decided I would read new work tonight.
Most of these poems were written while I was procrastinating
from writing lectures one and two, because it
was so hard to write them.
I know, I'm sounding a little whiny right now.
I'm sorry about that.
[LAUGHTER]
But the poems started to become more and more lecture-like
and, maybe, the lectures became more poetry-like.
I don't know, but in all the lectures,
I was really grappling with this issue of ethics, and honesty,
and autobiography, and real people.
And so, these poems I was--
oh, I didn't start my time--
I was at the same time moving maybe away
from the confessional in my lectures
or questioning what it meant to be a confessional poet.
I was writing the most confessional poems
that I've ever written.
Which, if you read some of my other poems,
it's a little bit frightening.
So this-- I really was procrastinating
so much that I basically have almost a new manuscript
of poems which is maybe good, or I don't know what.
It's tentatively titled "Sound Machine."
And the first poem is probably going
to be the first poem in the book.
"Insurgent."
I did not see the sky today.
It does or does not matter why.
I sat inside and looked away through my portal of regret
into the north-facing light of what I can't, won't, shouldn't
say.
Look away, look away, look away.
A girl I know of wants to die.
I called the school, I called her home.
Her father thanked me and hung up.
The school man said the world is hard.
I called out once.
I called out twice.
A friend called back, she was so nice.
She said, "Get up, look out, stand up, go out, sit here, sit
down, stay, and drink water."
"What a beautiful day," Dan texts.
"I know nothing about that," I respond.
Coming up next, the world.
But first, the takeaway.
The radio in my kitchen keeps itself company.
Muted drilling outside the window, a girl
jumped from her grandmother's roof one block from here.
But I did not see her.
Her parents papered the building with letters
asking no one to speak of it.
And still, I speak of it.
"Yes, the United States cares about mankind,"
says the retired Brigadier General in my kitchen.
The voice in my kitchen says, "It
would have to include hostage negotiation."
Says, "Those taking part in the rebellion, our belligerence."
Says, "God instructed the man to sell the girls,
but I think they are all raped."
Says, "There is a man here named Goodluck Jonathan."
Says, "This is, by God, what an army is for.
Just get the girls back.
Get them back.
Get them back."
I sit very still, do nothing, say nothing, am nothing,
and it is still too late.