WEBVTT

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Well, as you may guess,
with students like Liz,

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it's a great and deep
pleasure to have the privilege

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to teach here at the
University of Arizona.

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I'm really honored to
read today with Luci,

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a dear friend and a poet, whose
work I admire tremendously,

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and thank you all for coming
out on a cold, rainy morning

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in Tucson.

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How strange to be able
to say those words.

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I'm going to read to you today
from a new collection of poems

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that will be coming
out in September.

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The collection is called "Rope."

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Yes, rope.

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R-O-P-E, and I will close with
the poem that is titled "Rope."

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There's also an
epigraph that introduces

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the book from the
poet Saint-John Perse

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from "Praises," and
it says, "One has only

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to serve like an old rope."

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I'll start with a small
poem called "The Lake."

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If some of you know the
great essay by E.B. White,

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"Once More to the Lake."

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This poem takes a little
bit of spirit out of that.

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"The Lake."

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The rowboat bobs and
bangs at the dock.

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I want to float the canoe
into the shallows, where

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yellow water lilies bloom.

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This place makes sense
to me as a child.

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I can read the
distance from the dock

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to the raft, arms pulling
to join the cousins out

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there, a mile from our
charming oblivious and happily

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drunken parents.

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Did I know anything, then,
about beauty or need to?

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Yes.

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I caught a sunfish once--

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a golden marvel,
the size of my hand.

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They're no good for
eating, someone said.

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Throw it back.

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I stared at the fine
weave of its scales,

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the pale calico
of white, yellow,

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orange, the body so thin.

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I knew the place it came from
was deeper than I could ever

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see or dive to.

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That beauty could come up
from a dark and cold place,

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and mercy was a skill my
hands would have to learn.

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