WEBVTT

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This next one is also a kind
of autobiographical poem.

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It's later on, written later on.

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But actually, the
events described are--

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I think there's even
a date in the poem,

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so I don't have to tell you.

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And in the poem I talk
about a Roman graveyard,

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a Roman graveyard, and
it later on struck me

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that this sounds like, I
mean, Italy or something.

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But Balkans are just full
of old Roman graveyards.

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I mean, Romans were there.

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There was this sort of an
old classic Roman graveyard

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nearby where I lived.

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The poem is called Prodigy.

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I grew up bent
over a chessboard.

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I love the word endgame.

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All my cousins looked worried.

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It was a small house
near a Roman graveyard.

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Planes and tanks shook
its window panes.

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A retired professor of
astronomy taught me how to play.

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That must have been in 1944.

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In the set we were
using, the paint

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had almost chipped
off the black pieces.

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The white king was missing
and had to be substituted for.

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I'm told but do not believe
that that summer I witnessed

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men hung from telephone poles.

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I remember my mother
blindfolded me a lot.

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She had a way of tucking my head
suddenly under her overcoat.

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In chess too, the
professor told me,

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the masters played
blindfolded, the great ones

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on several boards
at the same time.

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