WEBVTT

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Since I found out that
my book Who's Who Vivid

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is going to come out,
I've been giving--

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I had the opportunity
to give more readings.

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And I've been reading this
poem, which sort of mentions

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the last election.

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I live in Ohio and
teach at art college.

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And I always feel like I have
to apologize for living there.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So, I'm sorry.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I did the best I could.

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This poem is called
"Letter to a Friend

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Who I'll Never See Again."

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"I keep scanning the sky for
a glimpse of you spinning.

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But after a few minutes
when you don't appear,

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I go back to what Breton
said about the magnificence

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of waiting, and about the
love of the irrational,

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and the irrational of love.

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From there, Wittgenstein's
preface to the Philosophical

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Investigations is a cakewalk,
especially the part about

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going, 'criss-cross in every
direction over a wide field

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of thought.'

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With that in mind, I do hope
you'll forgive me for ripping

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off your Paris poem.

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Though this isn't a poem,
it's a letter, I'm insisting,

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no copies will be made.

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I will not send it out.

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But if I do, I will
send it to you,

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where it can be appreciated
or ridiculed the most.

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How strange it is trying
on someone else's voice,

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and yet stranger that it's
easier than wearing one's own.

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I have only three pairs of
shoes, which is laughable,

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I know, and one of those
is missing its laces.

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I bet you have lots of shoes
and all manner of dresses, ones

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that anyone would
be lucky to see.

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In New York City,
where you live,

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there many sites worth noting.

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Your dresses, I'm sure,
being only one of them.

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There's also the Statue of
Liberty, the Met, and KGB,

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if you're into
that sort of thing.

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I haven't been to
New York in years.

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Though the last
time I was there,

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my friend Flaviano punched
a hole in the wall.

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But the story of how
that came to happen

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isn't nearly as
interesting as the fact

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that he punched a hole in the
wall in a hole in the wall.

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It was in the East
Village at a club called

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Tony's or Strawberry
Pie Filling or something

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equally obvious and obnoxious.

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Our band had just played, and
the owner wouldn't pay us.

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A month later, the
place was closed.

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I like to think it leaked to
death, which probably isn't

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far from the truth, as the owner
was an intravenous drug user.

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Those guys never
win, but often they

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don't pay the bands that
play in their clubs either.

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It seems that hard drug use
doesn't preclude liking music,

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but it does dictate what
one does with one's money.

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I don't have any money.

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But if I did, I would
send you something other

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than bootlegs and manuscripts.

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I'm not sure what, maybe
flowers, but in a week,

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they'd be dead.

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And what kind of a gift is that?

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I can't think of anything
worse than getting flowers.

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As always, they point to garbage
in the end, which are things

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I try hard not to think about.

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Patti Smith called Gregory
Corso a flower when he died,

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which sounds lovely at first
and then descends quickly

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into nonsense and loss.

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Corso, whose poetry nobody
cares about but me, said that,

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'spontaneity in poetry is
the notes, not the poems.'

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And I'm sure he'd say the
same about gift giving, letter

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writing, et cetera.

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Like everything else, this
started out with fire,

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but now I'm losing steam.

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I'm tired of making the
world up out of nothing.

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You said, 'tell me what you
believe in,' in response to one

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of my poems.

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I believe in nothing.

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And at the same time,
I believe that it's

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crucial to believe in something
in the face of nothing,

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and to live with the
consequences of that belief.

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Still, it's hard.

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Even understanding
that sentence is hard.

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I believe in making
indefensible statements,

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and defending them any way.

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I believe in walking
the blood red carpet.

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I believe that art
is about continuity,

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and rupture, and joy.

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And that as James
Longenbach says,

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'poetry's greatest power is
to instill in us a craving

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for something
other than poetry.'

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'I am the maker and
destroyer of worlds.'

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That's Shiva, via J.
Robert Oppenheimer.

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I have a million
quotations in my head.

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Ruinous, formal, the
slightest loss of attention

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leads to death.

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Oh, bomb, I love you.

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There's no such
thing as a breakdown.

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Everything turns into writing.

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And I am lost without you.

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I believe in every one
of them, though they

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don't amount to much.

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I apologize for all of this.

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The letter, this poem itself,
but also for the apology

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itself because no one
likes when writers either

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apologize for that which they're
about to write, or apologize

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for that which they've
already written,

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or apologize for
that which they're

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in the process of writing.

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Also, nobody likes
quatrains, and I would never

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use them in person.

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But in this letter, I have
found them to be a necessity.

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I believe in the Almighty Zero.

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I believe in inclusion
rather than exclusion.

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I voted for the Democrats
in the most recent election,

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even though my own politics
are much more left wing.

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As you know, the trick
to a letter like this

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is figuring a way to end it
that pushes the content forward

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while simultaneously
acting as a summary of it.

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I cannot do this.

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I wouldn't know where to
start, and I'm far too

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impatient to think about it.

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I'm not being clever, but
rather just the opposite.

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I'm telling you, I love you.

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But it sounds like a rant.

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It sounds like somebody
plastered in Ohio.

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This is how I burned
all my bridges."

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