WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.110 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.110 --> 00:00:02.610 align:middle line:90% Hello. 00:00:02.610 --> 00:00:05.230 align:middle line:90% 00:00:05.230 --> 00:00:08.380 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much for coming. 00:00:08.380 --> 00:00:11.310 align:middle line:84% Thank you to the Poetry Center for having me, 00:00:11.310 --> 00:00:16.050 align:middle line:84% Frances, and Gail, and Renee, and Bonnie Jean. 00:00:16.050 --> 00:00:20.100 align:middle line:84% And it's such a pleasure to share the podium 00:00:20.100 --> 00:00:30.165 align:middle line:84% with such fine lady poets, fine poets in general. 00:00:30.165 --> 00:00:33.540 align:middle line:90% 00:00:33.540 --> 00:00:35.800 align:middle line:84% A little bit before the book came out, 00:00:35.800 --> 00:00:41.640 align:middle line:84% I got an email from my marketing director. 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:46.800 align:middle line:84% It's kind of funny about poetry, marketing director, 00:00:46.800 --> 00:00:49.365 align:middle line:84% asking if I would kind of write a little profile of myself 00:00:49.365 --> 00:00:54.900 align:middle line:84% to help sell this book, like along the lines of my hair, 00:00:54.900 --> 00:00:58.830 align:middle line:84% it's curly, have green eyes, because that's really 00:00:58.830 --> 00:01:01.320 align:middle line:90% what sells books. 00:01:01.320 --> 00:01:04.335 align:middle line:84% Anyway, that was confusing to me. 00:01:04.335 --> 00:01:08.160 align:middle line:90% 00:01:08.160 --> 00:01:12.120 align:middle line:84% So what I wrote is this and it's a-- 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:13.830 align:middle line:84% call this a syntax virus, but I've 00:01:13.830 --> 00:01:17.040 align:middle line:84% had some conversations today in which other people call 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:20.550 align:middle line:90% these things different names. 00:01:20.550 --> 00:01:24.060 align:middle line:84% Negative inversions, syntax maps. 00:01:24.060 --> 00:01:27.600 align:middle line:84% I have a friend of mine calls them egg and yolk. 00:01:27.600 --> 00:01:34.680 align:middle line:84% But what it is I've stolen the exact syntax of a Sylvia Plath 00:01:34.680 --> 00:01:37.110 align:middle line:90% poem, changed all the words. 00:01:37.110 --> 00:01:42.450 align:middle line:84% So her poem is Your, and this was my attempt 00:01:42.450 --> 00:01:46.860 align:middle line:84% at my introduction for my marketing director. 00:01:46.860 --> 00:01:48.930 align:middle line:90% It's called I'm. 00:01:48.930 --> 00:01:53.070 align:middle line:84% Undertaker, melancholy of mouth, asked 00:01:53.070 --> 00:01:58.920 align:middle line:84% to the curb and some nerved, lungs like a hummingbird. 00:01:58.920 --> 00:02:03.600 align:middle line:84% A nonsense thumbs up on the don't don't ode, 00:02:03.600 --> 00:02:07.110 align:middle line:84% a thread unraveled from its bobbin. 00:02:07.110 --> 00:02:13.230 align:middle line:84% Skimming the planet as comets do, loud as a pin drop 00:02:13.230 --> 00:02:17.850 align:middle line:84% from a prison cell on no fools night. 00:02:17.850 --> 00:02:22.770 align:middle line:90% Oh, low leaner rod butter pat. 00:02:22.770 --> 00:02:27.420 align:middle line:84% Clear as day and forgotten like rent, 00:02:27.420 --> 00:02:31.710 align:middle line:84% closer than a heartbeat, upright itinerary. 00:02:31.710 --> 00:02:34.320 align:middle line:90% Our stay-at-home king. 00:02:34.320 --> 00:02:37.770 align:middle line:90% Loose as a gosling went away. 00:02:37.770 --> 00:02:43.170 align:middle line:84% Like a trap that catches a goose, a murder of crows. 00:02:43.170 --> 00:02:51.930 align:middle line:84% No wings, still as an American dream, wrong like not from not. 00:02:51.930 --> 00:02:57.400 align:middle line:84% A dirty bird with my shame face on. 00:02:57.400 --> 00:02:59.350 align:middle line:84% Needless to say, they didn't use it. 00:02:59.350 --> 00:03:04.540 align:middle line:90% 00:03:04.540 --> 00:03:09.030 align:middle line:84% And you'll be the judge of whether it sells any books.