WEBVTT

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Why did I bring you?

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I'm very happy to be here.

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And Frances and Gail,
thank you for inviting me.

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And it's always
amazing and thrilling

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to be back at the University
of Arizona, my alma mater,

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and still, I think, my home.

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I'm going to read a few poems
from this new manuscript.

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That poem was from my new
manuscript, The Real Enough

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World.

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And I'm going to read
a few poems from that.

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And then I'm going to
wind up with the title

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story of the new fiction book,
The Garden In Which I Walk.

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I'm going to first
have a little water.

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"Ear Surgeon."

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I have to say, I started writing
sequence poems a few years ago.

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It just sort of struck
me as a thrilling thing

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to do, just have a theme
and kind of go with it.

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The way this started is,
I wrote a bunch of poems

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on the professions, which sounds
odd, even to me, to say, oh,

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I wrote poems on
the professions.

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But anyway, I did.

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And I'm going to only
read one of these

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and then I'm going to
read a couple of series

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and then I'm going to wind
up with the other thing.

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I'll read you one
of the professions,

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and you'll see how
quirky they are.

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This is called "Ear Surgeon."

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"The ear surgeon needs an ear
if he is to ply his trade.

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He needs the hammer,
anvil, stirrup.

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He needs the drum and
possibly drumsticks

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for snacks, but very little,
minuscule, and a tiny scalpel

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and an infection.

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If he is beautiful, he must
empty himself of beauty,

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whoosh.

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And whoosh for all
heartache, and likewise

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for philosophical thinking,
which he is prone to,

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being an ear surgeon.

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And he must be able in a blink
to shrink himself to squeeze

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through caverns plugged
with boredom and heartache

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for which he also needs a
pick and goggles and a tape

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recorder.

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He will be in there for
a long, long, long time.

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He will record moans
so sweet to his own ear

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he will have erections,
and a deafening thrum

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thrumming, and another noise
like a creak gurgling up,

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and another like an egg
frying, and a few more

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that are only lost metaphors,
half of what he heard.

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He is the ear surgeon
of the 21st century.

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He will untune himself
and whisper deep

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into his own waxes.

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The ear surgeon, my only hope."

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I feel that way sometimes.