WEBVTT

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OK so I want to say a little
bit about the genesis of "100

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Chinese Silences."

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And I apologize to some
of you, who've probably

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heard this story
several times already

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over the course of the day.

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But Billy Collins has
already been mentioned,

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I understand that
he will actually

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be here to read at some
point in the future.

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[COUGHING]

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Excuse me.

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So this book actually began
at a Billy Collins reading.

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So Billy Collins came to read
in Madison, Wisconsin, where

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I live, a few years ago.

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And he read a poem
called "Grave".

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Now, if you're familiar
with this poem, in this poem

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the speaker is talking
to his parents.

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And standing at their
graves, talking to them.

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And they're not responding, of
course, because they're dead.

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And he says that,
my father's silence

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was like the 100 different
kinds of silence,

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according to the Chinese belief.

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I was sitting there
at the reading,

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when he said this I
thought, OK now I'm

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not an expert on
everything Chinese,

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but this doesn't sound
really familiar to me.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And so then at the
end of the poem

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Collins says, "Oh and that thing
about the 100 Chinese silences,

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I just made that up."

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I was like, Oh my goodness.

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OK.

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So I vowed on the spot,
that I would write these 100

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Chinese silences.

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[LAUGHTER]

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[CLAPPING]

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And so what I
decided to do was, I

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did this by rewriting
poems by other poets

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that engaged ideas of
China or Asia in some way,

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starting with those
of Collins himself.

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So I'll read you a few of those.

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The very first one is
actually a rewriting

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of that very first Billy
Collins poem, "Grave".

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So this is "Chinese
silence number one"

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after Billy Collins' "Grave".

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"What do you think
of this poem?"

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I asked the tomb of
my unknown grandfather

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with its livid quiet marble.

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A Chinese silence fell.

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It dropped from a glowering
tree to perch on my shoulder.

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We looked at each other.

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It would have been hard for
a stranger to tell one of us

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from the other.

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We both looked like
monks, or scholars,

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or like piles of drowned bones
laid softly on the loamy earth.

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My grandfather said nothing.

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His Chinese silence
coiled its tail

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into the shape of
a long lobed ear.

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One of the 100 American
signs for anxious virility.

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Then the silence fell
into a cardboard box

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full of other silences.

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Like blind puppies, they
squirmed and sniffled

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for their mother.

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OK, I made that last part up.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But you must admit it was
a fabulous metaphor, no?

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Oh, now I see you are
just as Chinese as all

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the other silences.

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[LAUGHTER]

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The silence of the heavily
armed gunboat, or the silence

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of the drunken mariner, or
my grandfather's silence

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like the liberty bell,
only cracked right through.

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