WEBVTT

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[CLAPPING]

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If like in Japan we
had national treasures,

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Alison would be a
national treasure for us.

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[CLAPPING]

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Thank you, Alison.

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So tonight I'm going
to read my own poetry,

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but I'm going to read some
poetry by other people too,

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and because I feel like
that constitutes me--

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the people that I've read, and
people that I've translated

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have become very
much a part of me,

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so I feel like it's
an honest thing to do.

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Oh, I'm really glad
to take this off.

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Also, tonight January
6th is my wife

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of 35 years'
birthday, C.D. Wright.

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She died in 2016 suddenly.

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And so I would really like to
start with some poems of hers,

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and I've asked two people
to help me read them

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because I have a
hard time reading

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her work in public anymore.

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So if you don't
know C.D. Wright,

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she was, I think in
a lot of other people

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think one of the most major
poets of her generation.

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In her obituary in
the New York Times,

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it said that she was of--

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that she constituted a school
of precisely one person.

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And she was just one
of the most original

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and ethical and
passionate people and poet

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that I've ever met.

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So to begin I've asked Diana
Delgado if she would read

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a poem of C.D.'s
and I should say,

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also I brought one book of
C.D.'s, one of her last books,

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Casting Deep Shade, a really
beautiful book with images

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that I'll have over by
the bookstall over there.

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And I also brought some
of my translations.

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If you buy this book or
any of my translations,

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that money will go directly to
Tyler Meier's secret account

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in Switzerland.

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No, that money will go--
where are you, Tyler?

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Yeah, that money I'm
donating to the Poetry Center

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here, which is a spectacular
and legendary place.

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And Tyler, thank you for helping
make what it is, what it is,

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and Diana you too, thank you.

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OK, so would you come
up and read C.D.'s poem?

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C.D. Wright, from One Big
Self: Prisoners of Louisiana.

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Dear virtual lifer, this is a
strictly what if proposition.

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What if I were to
trade my manumission

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for your incarceration.

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If only for a day, at the
end of which the shoes must

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be left at the main
gate to be filled

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by their original occupants.

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There is no point, and we
will not shrink from it.

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There is only this day to
reinvent everything and lose it

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all over again.

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Nothing will be
settled or made easy.

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If you were me, if you
wanted blueberries,

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you could have a big bowl.

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Two dozen bushes
right on your hill,

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and thornless raspberries
at the bottom.

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Walk barefooted,
there's no glass.

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If you want to kiss
your kid, you can.

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If you want a porch, put
it on the installment plan.

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You have so many good books,
you can't begin to count them.

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Walk the dog to the
Bay every living day.

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The air is salted.

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Septembers you
can hear the blues

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jumping before seeing
water through the vault

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in the leaves.

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Watch the wren nesting in
the sculpture by the shed.

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Smoke if you feel like it,
or swim, call a friend,

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or keep it perfectly still.

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The morning's free.

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If I were you, fuck up today
and its solitary, sister woman,

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the padded dress with a
food log to gnaw upon.

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This is where you enter
the eye of the fart.

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The air is foul.

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The dirt is gumbo.

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Avoid all physical contact.

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Come nightfall, the
bugs will carry you off.

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You don't have a clue, do you?

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Thank you.

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The eye of the fart.

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Only she would
come up with that.

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Another poem will be read
by the poet Jami McCarty.

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