WEBVTT

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OK, so Mr. Collins will be
my target one last time.

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Now, this is actually a
parody of a parody because--

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so Billy Collins wrote a poem
called "The Day Lassie Died".

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Now, if you're familiar with
the work of Frank O'Hara,

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you'll know that this is a
parody of O'Hara's famous poem,

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"The Day Lady Died",
about Billie Holiday.

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So Collins wrote a poem
that was about Lassie.

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So I've rewritten Collins's
rewriting of O'Hara.

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This is "Chinese
Silence Number 23".

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"It is 12:20 AM in
Beijing, a Thursday,

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two months after the
bicentennial of our nation.

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Yes, it is 1976,
and I write some

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poems that sound like
what a third-rate Wallace

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Stevens would think
up after getting off

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the 7:15 in Hartford and then
not even bother writing down

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before going into dinner.

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I step into Yu Hu's New York
Chinese cafe and have egg foo

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young and moo shu pork and
open my ugly fortune cookie

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to see what the poets in
China are saying these days.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I go on to the laundry, and Mr.
Lee-- first name or last name?

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Who knows-- hands over my
shirts with a side of silence.

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And in the Chinatown
oriental bookstore,

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I get a little Li Po with
erotic drawings for myself

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along with Zen and the Art
of Motorcycle Maintenance.

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And I don't see On Contradiction
or Serve the People.

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I keep my eyes on Li Po and
fall into an exotic silence.

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And to assure my future
as poet laureate,

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I stroll into a Buddhist
temple and ask them

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if they will help
me shovel snow.

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And they tell me to go
back where I came from.

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So I walk out with
a carton of incense,

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and some lady slaps me with a
little red book with his name

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on it.

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And I am crying a
lot now and thinking

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of urinating in the alley
behind the Four Spot

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while he rose from
his bed to shake

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the hand of Dick Nixon and
everyone and I fell silent."

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