Thank you so much.
All right.
There are a couple of poems that I wrote having--
moving away from subject matter I
think is a good thing in poetry.
If someone said a little subject matter goes a long way then--
Flaubert, toward the end of his life,
said he wanted to write a book about nothing.
So I've been trying to achieve that.
And what I would do, I'd just write--
I just-- so I'd write a title on the top of a piece of paper
and then try to imagine a poem that might belong on Earth.
And the title of this one is "Hippos on Holiday."
"Hippos on holiday is really not the title of a movie,
but if it was, I would be sure to see it.
I love their short legs and their big heads,
the whole hippo look.
Hundreds of them would frolic in the mud
of a wide, slow-moving river, and I
would eat my popcorn in the dark of a neighborhood theater.
When they open their enormous mouths
lined with big stubby teeth, I would drink my enormous Coke.
I would be both in my seat and in the water playing
with the hippos, which is the way it
is with a truly great movie.
Only a mean-spirited reviewer would ask on holiday from what?
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]