WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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One of the things I love
about the Poetry Center,

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what warm welcome for even
the introducers in this space.

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Thank you, Tyler.

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It is quite an honor to be
introducing our poet tonight.

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You told me not to
eat the microphone.

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[LAUGHTER]

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When Hannah Ensor pushed Camille
Rankine's book, Incorrect

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Merciful Impulses, Copper
Canyon Press, into my hands

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she said, "You'll love it.

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Trust me."

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With no other context.

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This is not something
Hannah has done before

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in our many years of
friendship, and I'm

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so grateful that she did.

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Thank you.

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My only regret is that
this beautiful book,

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in this new to me voice took
a year to be in my hands

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and in my heart.

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Rankine's work is stunning
and brave, at times

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sweet, and sometimes stark.

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Her poems are quietly pushing
us to pay attention to the world

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as she pays attention
to the world.

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Impulses is thick with
explorations of the "other."

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Its poems are clear
sighted and precise.

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This poet has her eyes wide
open while exploring the world.

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In a recent interview--

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[CLEARS THROAT] me,
Tucson allergy season.

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In a recent interview, Rankine
described her writing process

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in this way--

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"I don't write every day."

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Thank you for admitting that.

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[LAUGHTER]

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"I'm a very slow writer.

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I try to be a writer
every day though.

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And that happens
in a lot of ways.

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It's about how I move
through the world, how

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I observe and listen."

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On that level of writerly
observation and listening,

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she is the only one that
could have written lines

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like these, from her poem,
"Symptoms of Doctrine"

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which is in the first person,
but speaking from all of us.

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I quote, "We are the work of
a woman and a man, an effort

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in breath, an indecent thing.

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These wars blessed
to our bodies."

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I wept the first time
I read those lines.

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So I'm trying not to
weep again tonight.

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Cornelius Eady who chose her
chapbook, Slow Dance with Trip

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Wire, as the winner of the
Poetry Society of America's

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2010 New York
Chapbook Fellowship

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describes Rankine's
poetry as quote,

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"fierce, beautiful, urgent,
necessary, dangerous stuff."

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[CLEARS THROAT]

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At least it was
appropriate gravel

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for saying dangerous stuff.

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Out of all the
commentary I've read

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preparing to offer
this introduction,

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this list of words
stayed with me--

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fierce, beautiful, urgent,
necessary, dangerous.

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Rankine is the daughter
of Jamaican immigrants

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and this is influential
in her work.

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Themes such as race, migration,
loss, gains, shorelines,

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and the ocean show
up often in her work.

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Rankine said of
the ocean, quote,

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"it's beautiful in a sort
of terrifying way, which

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is perhaps my favorite
way to encounter beauty."

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Rankine's work is of the ocean.

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Deep, a little terrifying
in it's truth-telling.

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Sometimes blue, and
sometimes crystal clear.

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It is cold, it is warm,
and there are teeth.

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Rankine is the recipient of a
2010 Discovery Boston Review

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Poetry Prize, and a finalist
for the Poetry Foundation's 2014

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Ruth Lilly and Dorothy
Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship.

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She was featured as an
emerging poet in the fall 2010

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issue of American Poetry
and the April 2011

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issue of O, the Oprah magazine.

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Her poetry has appeared
in numerous journals,

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including American Poet,
The Baffler, Boston Review,

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Denver Quarterly, and more.

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She earned her BA from
Harvard University and her MFA

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in creative writing from
Columbia University.

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She is a recipient of
fellowships from the National

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Endowment from the Arts
and the MacDowell Colony,

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and was named an honorary
Cave Canem fellow in 2012.

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She serves on the executive
committee of VIDA, Women

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in the Literary Arts--

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thank you-- chairs the board of
trustees of the Poetry Project

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and co-chairs the Brooklyn
Book Festival Poetry Committee.

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She teaches at Brown
and Columbia University

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and lives in New York City.

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I'll leave you with this
last little quote of Rankine

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from an interview in
the Indiana Review.

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Quote, "Poetry can say
all the hard things,

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all the things that
you aren't supposed

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to say in polite conversation."

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We are all in for quite a treat.

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Please help me to
welcome Camille Rankine.

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[APPLAUSE]