WEBVTT

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Thank you.

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This was billed as
a poetry reading.

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So I'm going to read one
poem just to make it legal.

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This is a poem that I
almost left out of the book.

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This is the last book, The
Last Person to Hear Your

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Voice, because I thought
it was too light somehow,

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didn't have enough weight.

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And there's some
pretty heavy poems

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in this book, political
poems especially.

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And so then at
the last moment, I

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put it in just sort of
give it a little balance.

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And Ken and I toured
all over the country

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and then I toured with
the One Book Arizona.

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And this is the poem that
was always requested.

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I'm having a very serious
problem with allergies,

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hay fever, so excuse me if I
have to keep wiping my nose.

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The poem is if "I Were a Dog."

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"I would trot down this road
sniffing on one side and then

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the other peeing a little
here and there wherever

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I felt the urge having a good
time what the hell saving some

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because it's a long road.

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But since I'm not a dog, I
walk straight down the road

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trying to get home before dark.

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If I were a dog and I
had a master who beat me,

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I would run away and go
hungry and sniff around

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until I found a master who loved
me I could tell by his smell

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and I would lick
his face so he knew.

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Or maybe it would be a woman.

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I would protect her we could
go everywhere together even

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down this dark road and
I wouldn't run from side

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to side sniffing I would
always be protecting her

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and I would stop to pee
only once in a while.

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Sometimes in the afternoon
we could go to the park

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and she could throw a stick and
I could bring it back to her

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each time I put the
stick at her feet

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I would say this is my heart
and she would say I will make it

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fly but you must
bring it back to me

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I would always bring it
back to her and to no other

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if I were a dog."

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[APPLAUSE]

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There are several
dog anthologies,

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dog poem anthologies.

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And I know of a couple of them.

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One of them is in the voice
of the dog, the poet's dog,

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and one of them is
about the poet's dog.

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I don't know if Nancy
Wall's here or not

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but she has one in the
book about the dog.

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My favorite, I think, is
one in the voice of the dog.

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And I liked it so
much, I memorized it.

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It says, you gonna eat that?

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You gonna eat that?

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You gonna eat that?

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You're gonna eat that?

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I'll eat that.

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[LAUGHTER]

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