WEBVTT

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I don't have any stories about
most of my poems, by the way.

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[LAUGHS] I could lie.

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That can be entertaining.

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This poem happened to me--

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no.

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[LAUGHTER]

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This poem is called
"River's Story."

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"There was a boy named
River who got up one

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day on the right side of bed.

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So he ran up to the
lake and said, excuse,

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have I lost my way?

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Lake did not speak English.

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River stood there
with his pants down,

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pissing right into the lake.

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Lake didn't even care.

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Lake is still Lake,
River's still River.

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The next day, River got up
on the wrong side of bed.

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River leapt up, reaching
around to snap his spine.

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That felt good.

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Now, watch this.

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Through the forest and
a wild chase for life,

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stops at an unlikely
cabin, gets his hide tanned

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for waking the lazy minister.

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And also, the visiting coal man
delivered several exasperating

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punches beneath the
child's proud ear ring.

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The world can be a
crooked and crazy place

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for a boy named River.

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A girl named Veronica Lake had
it really good for a while.

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Then it got progressively
worse, until they

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had to dredge her main.

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They were attempting to
actually measure her depth

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with hooks the size of a
giant, an aberrant of, say, 12

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stories.

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But River's story was just
a teardrop, a dewdrop,

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the size of Chicago and all
its vast prairie of concrete."

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That's why I get
very nervous when

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people say all your work is
very autobiographical, you know?

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[LAUGHTER]

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