WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.170 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.170 --> 00:00:04.350 align:middle line:84% So the characteristic that all great introductions 00:00:04.350 --> 00:00:07.530 align:middle line:84% have in common is that they are almost completely disabling. 00:00:07.530 --> 00:00:08.160 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.190 align:middle line:84% I mean, you know, somebody says about you 00:00:11.190 --> 00:00:13.530 align:middle line:84% the things that you would most love to hear, 00:00:13.530 --> 00:00:15.610 align:middle line:84% and you're actually alive to hear them. 00:00:15.610 --> 00:00:18.480 align:middle line:90% So yeah, yeah. 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:21.350 align:middle line:90% 00:00:21.350 --> 00:00:23.390 align:middle line:84% Tucson for me, every time I come to Tucson, 00:00:23.390 --> 00:00:26.510 align:middle line:84% it is a place of reconnection, of circling back, 00:00:26.510 --> 00:00:28.700 align:middle line:84% and that circle then moving on forward. 00:00:28.700 --> 00:00:32.360 align:middle line:84% Alison, as she told you, was my student in 1982. 00:00:32.360 --> 00:00:34.940 align:middle line:84% Diana was my student at Columbia University 00:00:34.940 --> 00:00:36.720 align:middle line:84% in the graduate program there in '96? 00:00:36.720 --> 00:00:37.220 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:00:37.220 --> 00:00:37.803 align:middle line:90% Is that right? 00:00:37.803 --> 00:00:39.170 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:39.170 --> 00:00:41.810 align:middle line:84% Yeah, and so many friends visit here. 00:00:41.810 --> 00:00:45.080 align:middle line:84% So many wonderful writers, wonderful readers. 00:00:45.080 --> 00:00:46.970 align:middle line:84% I want to tell you a little story because 00:00:46.970 --> 00:00:50.000 align:middle line:84% of the particular circumstances of this evening's reading. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:56.210 align:middle line:84% In-- when I was-- let's see, I was in Rincon High School 00:00:56.210 --> 00:01:01.160 align:middle line:90% in either 1968 or 1969. 00:01:01.160 --> 00:01:03.710 align:middle line:84% My drama teacher gave us an assignment 00:01:03.710 --> 00:01:05.750 align:middle line:84% to memorize something we had written 00:01:05.750 --> 00:01:07.440 align:middle line:90% and to perform it for the class. 00:01:07.440 --> 00:01:11.210 align:middle line:84% And I did memorize a couple of poems I had written. 00:01:11.210 --> 00:01:15.320 align:middle line:84% And my drama teacher, Mr. Frakes-- who I loved dearly-- 00:01:15.320 --> 00:01:17.817 align:middle line:84% said, well, it's supposed to be something you wrote. 00:01:17.817 --> 00:01:18.650 align:middle line:90% I said, well, I did. 00:01:18.650 --> 00:01:20.578 align:middle line:84% I didn't-- he didn't entirely believe me. 00:01:20.578 --> 00:01:22.370 align:middle line:84% And these weren't great poems by any means, 00:01:22.370 --> 00:01:23.750 align:middle line:84% but they were sort of precocious. 00:01:23.750 --> 00:01:26.810 align:middle line:84% And there was probably not too many young-- 00:01:26.810 --> 00:01:30.260 align:middle line:84% not too many students at Rincon were reading surrealist poetry 00:01:30.260 --> 00:01:33.830 align:middle line:84% and Pablo Neruda and Blake, but they 00:01:33.830 --> 00:01:35.330 align:middle line:90% were in there in the poems. 00:01:35.330 --> 00:01:38.270 align:middle line:84% So in order to catch me out, Jack 00:01:38.270 --> 00:01:43.220 align:middle line:84% took my poems to Richard Shelton who was his friend. 00:01:43.220 --> 00:01:45.080 align:middle line:84% So I made my-- slipped my way down 00:01:45.080 --> 00:01:47.210 align:middle line:84% to the Poetry Center, the old one on Speedway, 00:01:47.210 --> 00:01:48.230 align:middle line:90% the little adobe. 00:01:48.230 --> 00:01:53.960 align:middle line:84% And there at the door was Dick in his coppery ringlets 00:01:53.960 --> 00:01:57.530 align:middle line:84% and, I think, a pair of leather trousers and magnetically 00:01:57.530 --> 00:01:58.850 align:middle line:90% welcoming. 00:01:58.850 --> 00:02:02.407 align:middle line:84% And he gave me a few suggestions about what to read 00:02:02.407 --> 00:02:03.740 align:middle line:90% and what would improve my poems. 00:02:03.740 --> 00:02:06.200 align:middle line:84% But what he did that was extraordinary 00:02:06.200 --> 00:02:08.660 align:middle line:84% was that he presented to me the figure 00:02:08.660 --> 00:02:10.400 align:middle line:84% of a poet, the first adult I'd ever 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:13.370 align:middle line:84% met who centered his life around the practice of an art. 00:02:13.370 --> 00:02:15.830 align:middle line:84% And that art for him meant everything. 00:02:15.830 --> 00:02:18.710 align:middle line:84% He talked about poets of the present and of the past, 00:02:18.710 --> 00:02:20.060 align:middle line:90% no matter how distant the past. 00:02:20.060 --> 00:02:22.130 align:middle line:84% If he knew them, he had stories about everybody. 00:02:22.130 --> 00:02:24.020 align:middle line:90% He quoted reams of poems. 00:02:24.020 --> 00:02:26.570 align:middle line:90% He seemed to breathe poetry. 00:02:26.570 --> 00:02:28.095 align:middle line:84% He said that any time I wanted to, 00:02:28.095 --> 00:02:29.720 align:middle line:84% I could come down to the Poetry Center, 00:02:29.720 --> 00:02:31.190 align:middle line:90% and I could hang out and read. 00:02:31.190 --> 00:02:32.690 align:middle line:90% I could come to readings. 00:02:32.690 --> 00:02:35.840 align:middle line:84% I could have conferences with visiting poets. 00:02:35.840 --> 00:02:39.170 align:middle line:84% Shortly thereafter, I found myself hiding behind a tree, 00:02:39.170 --> 00:02:43.713 align:middle line:84% looking at James Tate, carefully avoiding Philip Levine 00:02:43.713 --> 00:02:45.380 align:middle line:84% because I was terrified of these people. 00:02:45.380 --> 00:02:46.460 align:middle line:90% I was so shy of them. 00:02:46.460 --> 00:02:50.690 align:middle line:84% And they seemed to me to walk above the ground. 00:02:50.690 --> 00:02:54.710 align:middle line:84% I felt that Shelton held open a door for me that day. 00:02:54.710 --> 00:02:56.420 align:middle line:84% He said, here is a community that you 00:02:56.420 --> 00:02:59.300 align:middle line:84% are welcome to join if you would like to come in. 00:02:59.300 --> 00:03:04.340 align:middle line:84% And I did, and I never looked back. 00:03:04.340 --> 00:03:07.250 align:middle line:84% The point of this story is that in a way, 00:03:07.250 --> 00:03:10.670 align:middle line:84% simply that culture is not something that takes care of 00:03:10.670 --> 00:03:12.350 align:middle line:90% and perpetuates itself. 00:03:12.350 --> 00:03:15.260 align:middle line:84% If we want people to love this art, we give it to them. 00:03:15.260 --> 00:03:16.490 align:middle line:90% We invite them in. 00:03:16.490 --> 00:03:20.090 align:middle line:84% If we want people to share values that we have, 00:03:20.090 --> 00:03:22.790 align:middle line:84% we have to demonstrate the ways in which those values changed 00:03:22.790 --> 00:03:23.960 align:middle line:90% our lives and matter. 00:03:23.960 --> 00:03:26.628 align:middle line:84% Dick did that for me as probably-- well, he 00:03:26.628 --> 00:03:27.170 align:middle line:90% did it first. 00:03:27.170 --> 00:03:28.087 align:middle line:90% Let's put it that way. 00:03:28.087 --> 00:03:30.560 align:middle line:84% He was for me a shining beacon of possibility. 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:33.650 align:middle line:84% And so many people gather around this place 00:03:33.650 --> 00:03:39.290 align:middle line:84% who also served as examples of what we can do together. 00:03:39.290 --> 00:03:40.070 align:middle line:90% It's thrilling. 00:03:40.070 --> 00:03:41.920 align:middle line:90% Thank you.