WEBVTT

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This is, I believe, the most
whacked poem I ever wrote.

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So let me actually begin it
with an epigraph from Plato's,

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the Republic, book three,
quoting from Socrates.

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"Poets and storytellers
are wrong about men

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in the most important matters.

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They declare that many men
are happy though unjust."

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You really have to think of
the current administration.

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"They declare that
many men are happy,

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though unjust and
wretched, although just.

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That injustice is
profitable if not found out.

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And justice good for others,
but plain loss for oneself.

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Such things we will
forbid them to say."

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So very early censorship.

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As a colleague of mine
reminded me recently,

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Socrates was the first teacher
to receive the death penalty

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for poor student evaluations.

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[LAUGHTER]

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"Platonic."

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"I was writing a poem in
which the I in the poem

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was writing a poem.

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I wanted the poem
the I in the poem

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was writing to be one with
which the I in the poem

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would be happy.

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So I thought that if I put
in the poem a drug, which

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would make the I in the poem,
so long as he took the drug,

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happy, it would likewise
permit the I in the poem

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to write by writing naturally
a poem he and, by extension,

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I would be happy with.

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Naturally, I was wrong.

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Naturally the I in the poem
chose not to take the drug.

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I'll figure it out for
myself, he said to himself,

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as naturally being I, he would.

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Or else being I, he took the
drug and didn't write the poem.

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Or he took the drug
and wrote the poem

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and was happy with the
poem until the drug, which,

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although a drug in a poem was
nonetheless a drug, wore off.

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After which the
I in the poem was

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unhappy with the
poem in the poem

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because, although it
was not a bad poem

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and was written naturally
while the I in the poem

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was on the drug in the
poem, which is by extension

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this poem, the act of
writing a poem in a poem

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is well, unnatural.

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Already, starved reader
of this meager poem,

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if you've read this
far, you've probably

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guessed where the poem's headed.

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For in the poem the reader,
albeit a late arrival,

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is naturally I and
thereby, the I in the poem.

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And though you and I and the
I in the poem all want to be

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happy with the poem, we isn't.

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For we see how starved,
unnatural, and populous

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its state.

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Ergo, the poet is banned
from the Republic."

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