WEBVTT

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Here we go.

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Debra Gregerman will
introduce Jane Miller.

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Debra Gregerman is a
poet, painter, and teacher

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in the writing and
creative writing

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programs at the
University of Arizona

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where she received her MFA.

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Her work has long been
inspired by Jane Miller, friend

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and mentor, in the
arts and in life.

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Debra.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Hi.

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I would also like to say
that as I'm sitting here

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thinking about introducing
Jane, which I will do in just

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a minute, having listened
to Steve's beautiful poems

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that this is kind
of my poetry family.

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And having heard
Danny's introduction--

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Danny was a student of mine.

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I came here to study with Steve
and Jane and Jon Anderson,

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who I'm thinking about.

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I wrote way too much
about introducing Jane.

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It's kind of like-- it reminded
me a little bit about when

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I introduced my father at
his 75th birthday party

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to colleagues who knew him,
people who didn't know him very

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well, and to my own family.

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It became this
gargantuan task of trying

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to put into words something
that is like breathing.

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You know somebody
who's worked so well

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and somebody's person over time.

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And you can write and write and
write and somehow, all of it

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and none of it makes any sense.

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So I'm really glad and
thank Steve for his poems

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that he got over
this-- he introduced

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the idea of juvenilia and dirt,
so that if I say anything that

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crosses that territory,
which I don't

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plan to say too much that way,
that's already taken care of.

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I'll give you the objective
bit of information first

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for those of you who don't
know Jane and her work.

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She's been on the faculty
here, as Gail pointed out,

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and been a great inspiration
to a lot of people

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for a very long time here and
out in the world of poetry

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at large.

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She is the author of many, many
books of poetry, and prose,

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and genre-undefined poeticness,
the most recent of which

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I believe she will read to you
from today, although she may

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read do other things
as well, called

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Midnights, which is a beautiful
book published by Saturnalia,

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accompanied with the
drawings of the sculptor

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and painter, Beverly Pepper.

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It's a beautiful book.

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I'm not going to read to you her
poems or any of her own words

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because she will give
them to you herself.

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One of the things that I'm-- so
I'm going to tell you a couple

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of little stories and things
that matter a lot to me about

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Jane's work and her person.

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A central question,
not necessarily dirty

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at all, of desire that has been
a conversation that we have

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been involved in
personally and poetically

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for the time that we've known
each other almost 20 years now

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and what that means.

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When I was a graduate
student, it meant something

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that my friend Becky Byrkit
called the something something

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something--

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I don't know how
many somethings--

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of desire, which
meant that it was

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the word of poetic
fashion of the day, which

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we made lots of fun of as
ironic young poetry students.

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Of course, we didn't
have to really name

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what desire was because
desire for us was available

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all the time, probably
hard to turn off

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and meant getting laid, or
hanging out with somebody,

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or longing for something.

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But that's not ever
really what I thought

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it was in Jane's
work, although she

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seemed to have all the youth
to make me think that she would

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never be anything other than
what a graduate student might

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grow up to be, which maybe
looked five years older

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with big head of brown
hair and an ability

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to sing her poems with
her eyes closed to a room

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and put us all in
a desirous trance.

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But that turns out not
to be what it is at all,

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nor is the conversation with
desire ever really over, so.

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In thinking about that
question, I thought,

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is it fair to paraphrase a poet?

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Probably not.

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She might have to read you
this little tiny poem, which

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is why I was thinking
of Jon, the poet

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that Jon introduced me
to as a graduate student.

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This is not directly
about Jane, but the idea

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in this tiny little
poem, if I can find it,

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is something I want to
address very quickly.

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I know I'm going on too long.

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I wrote too much and
thought too much.

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So I'll tell you
while I'm looking

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for it, what Jane told me
to say when I introduced her

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which is, she's
Eva, my daughter's

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favorite short person, so.

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And that's true.

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Now I can't find it, so
I will paraphrase it.

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In a little tiny poem--

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no, here it is--

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by David Ignatow,
called "Like a Lie."

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"In myself, I speak
the language of love,

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and to the outside
of practical matters

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because I do not wish to make
the truth sound like a lie."

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That's something
Jane never does.

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And as for the
piece about desire,

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instead of going on and on,
I want to give you Jane.

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The conversation about
desire includes--

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and these are some of the things
that I was thinking about--

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has included, over time, way
more than what I thought it was

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as a graduate student,
disappointment, and fear,

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a gripping loneliness we cannot
sometimes soothe by anything

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other than witness
and compassion.

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How to recognize in ourselves
and forgive sometimes,

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I guess, the unimpeachable
brutality and transgressions we

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sometimes partake of, sometimes
willingly, sometimes not.

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But the reason for this is so
that desire can live again,

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to fall apart with grace to
awaken to the task of prayer

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in the form of the every day.

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To agree to be a
student of openness

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and a teacher of openness,
which Jane always is,

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to her students, especially.

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And lastly to know that the
opposite of that irony, which

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she used to warn us against as
a student as something always

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small, I didn't quite get it.

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I just thought of it
aesthetically as small,

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but I've come to
realize that what

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is meant by that is that
eventually, that irony turns

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on oneself.

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And, in it is a box.

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And desire cannot live in
that box for very long.

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So it becomes an indictment
of its own making.

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And to have beauty
of the kind you

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will experience when Jane reads
to you is a form of gratitude

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and a form of
gratitude to desire,

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not easy, not without
sacrifice, and certainly

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not what it was at 25.

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I give you Jane Miller
and her beautiful work.

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[APPLAUSE]

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