WEBVTT

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I would like to welcome
to the microphone

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Colleen Burns, who will
introduce tonight's reader.

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I was looking forward to being
introduced as the introducer.

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It sounded like very
deep levels of removal.

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"Blood, what better ink to write
the language of the heart?"

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Those words were written
by tonight's guest, who

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on a path as old as Apollo's,
is professor, physician,

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and poet, Rafael Campos.

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He has an MA from Amherst, an
MFA from Boston University,

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an MD from Harvard
Medical School,

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and Dr. Campo currently teaches
and practices internal medicine

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at Harvard Medical School and
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical

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Center in Boston.

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Campo speaks of his childhood
as a Cuban-American, son

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of working class immigrants,
experiencing what he has called

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"fractures of difference".

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So it was that he
entered medical school

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believing that this
would allow him to hide

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his ethnicity and his gayness.

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In his own words,
"medicine seemed perfect.

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The white coat could
help me look whiter,

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covering up my brown skin, and
the machismo of the profession

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might straighten me out".

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I'm happy to report he
failed on both counts.

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Dr. Campo is the recipient
of many honors and awards,

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including both a Guggenheim
Fellowship, an honorary doctor

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of literature degree
from Amherst College,

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and his work has been
selected for inclusion

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in Best American poetry and
in Pushcart Prize anthologies.

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On the way out
after this, you will

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find a great selection of his
books on sale by our bookstore.

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But I'd like to go
through the titles just

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to give you a feel for the
range and diversity of his work.

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There's a doct-- another
doctor in the house.

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The first book, "The Other Man
Was Me: A Voyage to the New

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World", was winner of the
National Poetry series

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open competition.

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"The Poetry of Healing",
he received a Lambda

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literary award for that.

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"What the Body Told", another
Lambda literary award.

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"Diva" was a finalist
for the book--

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National Book
Critics Circle Award.

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"Landscape with Human
Figure" won the gold medal

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from ForeWord for the best
book of poetry published

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by an independent press.

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And finally, "The Healing Art:
A Doctor's Black Bag of Poetry",

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and indeed, it's a
beautiful bag of essays

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on poetry and on medicine.

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And it includes
poetry by other poets

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and some beautiful writings
of his own patients.

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Campo, by his own
definition, is a healer--

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a healer and a believer in the
absolute necessity of language.

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He knows how voice and
narrative convey the experience

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of human suffering.

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He knows how poetry's soothing
rhythms have their origins

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in our physical bodies.

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As he says, "in the ebb
and flow of our breathing

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and our sobbing".

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He knows how poetry can
kindle the healing process.

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He says of the
sonnet, "no other way

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of writing poetry so
completely mirrors what

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I discover in my patients.

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Occupying their physical
bodies, the undercurrent of I

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am's in the beating heart
and in the breathing lungs.

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The gorgeousness of
rhyme akin to dressing up

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the body in layers of clothes."

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About now, somebody's going
to ask if he does house calls.

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During his residency
in California,

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he was witness to whole life
histories wiped out by the AIDS

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epidemic in San Francisco--

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convincing him of the
absolute urgency of making

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poems, of telling stories.

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Knowing that how we tell the
story of who we are, especially

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of how we suffer, is critical to
our definition of being human,

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of how living as a human being.

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And it is in the sum of these
diverse stories, we find truth.

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Rafael Campo keeps
telling that truth.

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So please welcome this
doctor to our house.

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