WEBVTT

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I want to thank you for
coming and especially

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thank Alison Deming
and the Poetry Center

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for getting me out here.

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If I lived here, I would be a
fixture in the house of poetry.

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It's just my idea
of a dream house.

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This is quite large.

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Let's see if we can do this.

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I thought since--

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I've been spending all this time
in the Poetry Center and all,

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I would open with a poem.

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I don't write poetry, so
it won't be one of mine.

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But it's the poem that-- you
know how most writers have

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something, a saying
or quote, something

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taped above their, in my
case, typewriter still

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or word processor.

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This is the poem that I've
had taped above my typewriter

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for years and years.

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It's a poem by Jack
Gilbert called "Hunger."

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But the very first
time I read it,

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I thought, oh, well,
he's talking about what

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the job of writing fiction is.

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"Digging into the
apple with my thumbs.

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Scraping out the clogged
nails and digging deeper.

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Refusing the moon color.

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Refusing the smell and memories.

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Digging in with the sweet
juice running along my hands

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unpleasantly.

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Refusing the sweetness.

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Turning my hands to
gouge out chunks.

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Feeling the juice
sticky on my wrists.

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The skin itching.

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Getting to the wooden part.

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Getting to the seeds.

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Going on.

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Not taking anyone's word for it.

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Getting beyond the seeds."

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