WEBVTT

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It's an honor to
introduce you, Anthony.

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Even though we just met
a couple of hours ago,

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I know from reading your
work that our work is

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in conversation.

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So I look forward to future
conversations with you,

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and hearing about your new
projects are really awesome.

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In the opening section
of Anthony Cody's book,

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Borderland Apocrypha,
what we think

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are the boundaries
and markings of a poem

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are opened and seemingly freed,
only to enter into new borders

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through novel ways of
organization and restraint.

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And it looks like we're going to
get the visual element as well,

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which is really, really key.

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But the length of the book--
it's in this landscape mode,

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you can see on the table,
it's this long, long book--

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is a vital part also of
experiencing the poems,

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for among other reasons.

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The long titles are
able to remain unbroken,

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while Cody is able to map
a past, present, and future

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for our bordered lives.

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These are poems
that are organized

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in a way that attempt to
escape the usual boundaries,

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and where language repeats
in copy, pasta, glory,

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meme glory, the original
definition of meme.

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These poems look like
a lost desert language,

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where some language
is able to cross

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while other words stay behind.

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And yet, some words
do get to cross.

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Borderland Apocrypha uses
the language of the border

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and uses the historical users
of the language of the border

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to smuggle stories of this
savage, captured property,

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the primitive, jailed
property and the property

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of the crossers.

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Blink, and you'll miss the
Pedialyte, the cans of tuna

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that are carried
through the borderlands.

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A violent language intersects
with violent historical acts

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that intersect then with art.

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A three-pronged read
that makes the mind long.

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A Tripadvisor review
of border violence.

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Verb the noun, and
monument me, my site.

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Cody's book is an edited version
of those who dare to cross.

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Cody's book is a document
and works within docupoetics.

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It's an intersection
of how we exist

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in data, how data represents
us, but can never capture us,

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except when it does capture
and keep us tight in its snare.

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The poems remind me that what
we study when we study history,

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and then we become it in the
unavoidable fits and starts

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of one culture assimilating
into the other,

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creating new cultures
with an eye to the past.

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Borderland Apocrypha
is a language

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ripping through a border.

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As scythes gallop
across the border,

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this book gallops
in my imagination.

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Enter the portal of border
history at your own risk.

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Borderland Apocrypha by Anthony
Cody creates its own border,

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and then attempts to cross it.

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Its own checkpoint and the price
of admission is your attention.

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There is a nimble beauty in
the repetition and starkness

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of language in Anthony Cody's
poetry that reflects a reality,

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but might actually show
us a mirror into our ultra

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real, too real
current lives, too

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real and ultra real meaning,
our avatars, our loved ones'

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avatars, our imagined frenemies'
avatars that we navigate

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through screens.

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And then, we have to
navigate the real ones.

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Borderland Apocrypha
is a real one.

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Anthony Cody is from
Fresno, California

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with lineage in both the Bracero
Program and the Dust Bowl.

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His debut collection,
Borderland Apocrypha,

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won the 2018 Omnidawn Open Book
Prize, a 2021 American Book

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Award, and a 2020
Southwest Book Award,

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as well as recognized as a
finalist for the National Book

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Award, PEN America Jean Stein
Award, the LA Times Book

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Award, among others.

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He serves as an editor for
Omnidawn and Noemi Press.

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Please help me
welcome Anthony Cody.

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[APPLAUSE]

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