Hello.
Is that-- yeah, that sounds pretty good.
I will apologize in advance for harrumphing because,
and it has nothing to do with Brian's work.
It's a delight and a pleasure to read with Brian,
another son of the South.
But I've had the flu about a month ago
and I still have a lot of stuff in my throat.
So, I beg your forgiveness.
I want to start by thanking the Poetry Center and the staff
of the Poetry Center, Tyler, Hannah,
who gets everything so wonderfully together.
Alison, for running the program, the Prose Program this year.
And Ander who produces astonishing broadsides
with such beautiful pants.
The broadsides have pants, he doesn't tell you that.
But they do.
It's really, I told him I couldn't take myself seriously
as a writer but all of a sudden now I have to
because that broadside is so beautiful that I don't
have any choice the matter.
I'd like to-- maybe it is because I'm getting old
but it also has to do with my history,
I like to remember people who are gone before us
as a beginning to reading.
Frank O'Hara died, would have been 90 this year.
He died at 40 years old.
So, I invite you to close your eyes for a second
and bring somebody into the room who was important to you.
Just for a second.
And we'll double our numbers.
Autobiography of Literary by Frank O'Hara.
This is for all of us here.
"When I was a child, I played by myself
in a corner of the schoolyard all alone.
I hated dolls and I hated games.
Animals were not friendly and birds flew away.
If anyone was looking for me, I hid behind a tree
and cried out.
I am an orphan.
And here I am, the center of all beauty, writing these poems.
Imagine."