WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.760 align:middle line:84% Well, it's been six years since I read in this room. 00:00:02.760 --> 00:00:04.740 align:middle line:90% I had just moved to Tucson. 00:00:04.740 --> 00:00:07.470 align:middle line:84% I'd been here about six or seven days, 00:00:07.470 --> 00:00:09.690 align:middle line:84% and I had no one to greet and no one to thank. 00:00:09.690 --> 00:00:12.160 align:middle line:84% And now I do, so let me just take a moment. 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:14.850 align:middle line:84% First of all, thank you, Alison, wherever you went. 00:00:14.850 --> 00:00:19.050 align:middle line:84% Thank you for inviting me here and running the Poetry 00:00:19.050 --> 00:00:21.450 align:middle line:84% Center in a great way, making it an open place, 00:00:21.450 --> 00:00:23.250 align:middle line:84% a wonderful place to be and work. 00:00:23.250 --> 00:00:26.770 align:middle line:84% If you haven't visited it yet, get down there. 00:00:26.770 --> 00:00:28.710 align:middle line:84% I also want to thank my colleagues 00:00:28.710 --> 00:00:31.440 align:middle line:84% for making my work here pleasant, pleasurable, 00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:34.260 align:middle line:90% and sometimes even profound. 00:00:34.260 --> 00:00:36.820 align:middle line:84% And most of all, I'd like to thank my students, past 00:00:36.820 --> 00:00:37.320 align:middle line:90% and present. 00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:40.740 align:middle line:84% Some of whom are in the room tonight, both undergraduate 00:00:40.740 --> 00:00:44.850 align:middle line:84% and graduate students who have reminded me that we're all 00:00:44.850 --> 00:00:46.920 align:middle line:90% always students of poetry. 00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:49.320 align:middle line:84% Thanks for your patience, and your warmth, 00:00:49.320 --> 00:00:50.400 align:middle line:90% and your attention. 00:00:50.400 --> 00:00:51.270 align:middle line:90% A great compliment. 00:00:51.270 --> 00:00:52.863 align:middle line:90% So thank you. 00:00:52.863 --> 00:00:55.030 align:middle line:84% I want to take that opportunity to do that publicly. 00:00:55.030 --> 00:00:58.470 align:middle line:84% So the first poem is called "Miami Heart." 00:00:58.470 --> 00:01:01.910 align:middle line:90% 00:01:01.910 --> 00:01:11.300 align:middle line:84% "In a long text, on live TV, in an amphitheater, in the soil, 00:01:11.300 --> 00:01:15.590 align:middle line:84% after the postmoderns, after it's still proven 00:01:15.590 --> 00:01:18.860 align:middle line:84% you can get a kiss out of a pretty girl, 00:01:18.860 --> 00:01:22.430 align:middle line:84% after the meta-ritual lectures, and Heinz switches 00:01:22.430 --> 00:01:25.400 align:middle line:90% to plastic squeeze bottles. 00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:28.040 align:middle line:84% As one flies into St. Louis listening 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:34.010 align:middle line:84% to Lorca's Luna, luna, luna, beyond Anacin time, 00:01:34.010 --> 00:01:38.570 align:middle line:84% after, God help us, the dishwasher is emptied again, 00:01:38.570 --> 00:01:41.240 align:middle line:84% and Miss America, Miss Mississippi, 00:01:41.240 --> 00:01:47.600 align:middle line:84% reveals she has entered 100 pageants since age six. 00:01:47.600 --> 00:01:51.230 align:middle line:84% Packers' ball, first down after a fumble, 00:01:51.230 --> 00:01:55.280 align:middle line:84% the corn detassled, the assembly of enthusiasms 00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:59.720 align:middle line:84% awakened, and we meet in a car by the river, 00:01:59.720 --> 00:02:03.980 align:middle line:84% not not kissing, considering making love, 00:02:03.980 --> 00:02:08.240 align:middle line:84% visiting Jerusalem, the awful daily knowledge that we will 00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:11.480 align:middle line:84% have to die in the hospital on the sixth floor, 00:02:11.480 --> 00:02:14.030 align:middle line:84% or in an amphitheater at half time, 00:02:14.030 --> 00:02:17.660 align:middle line:84% or at one's parents' condo, over pasta, 00:02:17.660 --> 00:02:21.110 align:middle line:84% or in a strange relative's arms, along the coast. 00:02:21.110 --> 00:02:25.490 align:middle line:84% The heart bumping, bumping the old pebble up the old spine. 00:02:25.490 --> 00:02:29.600 align:middle line:84% A squirrel scared up a sycamore by an infant. 00:02:29.600 --> 00:02:33.380 align:middle line:84% Along that stench of humility, along this highway 00:02:33.380 --> 00:02:38.780 align:middle line:84% of come, charge card in hand, I will give my time freely. 00:02:38.780 --> 00:02:41.960 align:middle line:84% And the more I dissemble, the more I resemble. 00:02:41.960 --> 00:02:44.780 align:middle line:84% The better, the faster I sleep, the more I 00:02:44.780 --> 00:02:46.400 align:middle line:90% remember to go elsewhere. 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:47.210 align:middle line:90% A movie. 00:02:47.210 --> 00:02:51.410 align:middle line:84% Excuse me, now I must whisper not to disturb the patrons. 00:02:51.410 --> 00:02:54.770 align:middle line:84% Now I must drive, park, tramp to the edge of the world. 00:02:54.770 --> 00:02:57.380 align:middle line:84% Roughness, ferocity, cannibalism, 00:02:57.380 --> 00:02:59.870 align:middle line:90% bite, chew, transmogrify. 00:02:59.870 --> 00:03:03.170 align:middle line:84% Inside the lungs, the little revolutionaries. 00:03:03.170 --> 00:03:05.300 align:middle line:90% Between the thighs, the reflex. 00:03:05.300 --> 00:03:08.670 align:middle line:84% It's too this, it's too that, it's not enough. 00:03:08.670 --> 00:03:11.360 align:middle line:84% Similarly, and more particularly, 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:13.370 align:middle line:90% it's raw twice over. 00:03:13.370 --> 00:03:17.780 align:middle line:84% It's the imagination draining its husks, left-handed 00:03:17.780 --> 00:03:21.470 align:middle line:84% because comparison is motive, which is why 00:03:21.470 --> 00:03:26.138 align:middle line:90% one writes with one's desire." 00:03:26.138 --> 00:03:30.920 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:30.920 --> 00:03:33.690 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:03:33.690 --> 00:03:35.790 align:middle line:90% That was set in Miami. 00:03:35.790 --> 00:03:37.990 align:middle line:84% You may not recognize Miami in there. 00:03:37.990 --> 00:03:39.750 align:middle line:84% Hope as we go along, you will recognize 00:03:39.750 --> 00:03:40.667 align:middle line:90% some of my landscapes. 00:03:40.667 --> 00:03:43.070 align:middle line:90% My poems travel a lot.