WEBVTT

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Hello.

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Is that-- yeah, that
sounds pretty good.

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I will apologize in advance
for harrumphing because,

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and it has nothing to
do with Brian's work.

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It's a delight and a
pleasure to read with Brian,

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another son of the South.

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But I've had the flu
about a month ago

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and I still have a lot
of stuff in my throat.

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So, I beg your forgiveness.

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I want to start by thanking
the Poetry Center and the staff

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of the Poetry Center,
Tyler, Hannah,

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who gets everything so
wonderfully together.

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Alison, for running the program,
the Prose Program this year.

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And Ander who produces
astonishing broadsides

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with such beautiful pants.

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The broadsides have pants,
he doesn't tell you that.

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But they do.

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It's really, I told him I
couldn't take myself seriously

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as a writer but all of
a sudden now I have to

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because that broadside is
so beautiful that I don't

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have any choice the matter.

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I'd like to-- maybe it is
because I'm getting old

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but it also has to
do with my history,

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I like to remember people
who are gone before us

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as a beginning to reading.

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Frank O'Hara died, would
have been 90 this year.

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He died at 40 years old.

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So, I invite you to close
your eyes for a second

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and bring somebody into the
room who was important to you.

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Just for a second.

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And we'll double our numbers.

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Autobiography of
Literary by Frank O'Hara.

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This is for all of us here.

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"When I was a child,
I played by myself

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in a corner of the
schoolyard all alone.

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I hated dolls and I hated games.

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Animals were not friendly
and birds flew away.

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If anyone was looking for
me, I hid behind a tree

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and cried out.

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I am an orphan.

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And here I am, the center of
all beauty, writing these poems.

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Imagine."

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