WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.740 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.740 --> 00:00:05.130 align:middle line:84% This next poem is called, "The Winning Hand." 00:00:05.130 --> 00:00:10.920 align:middle line:84% And I wrote this, I had the Richard Hugo Chair in Montana, 00:00:10.920 --> 00:00:15.020 align:middle line:90% spring of 1985. 00:00:15.020 --> 00:00:20.460 align:middle line:84% I think it was around the time of his birthday 00:00:20.460 --> 00:00:24.100 align:middle line:90% and I wrote this poem for him. 00:00:24.100 --> 00:00:26.710 align:middle line:84% One of the stories that I've always loved-- well I 00:00:26.710 --> 00:00:28.570 align:middle line:90% got to meet him. 00:00:28.570 --> 00:00:33.700 align:middle line:84% First of all, one of the stories that I loved hearing about 00:00:33.700 --> 00:00:39.080 align:middle line:84% was that at his funeral there were many, many people there. 00:00:39.080 --> 00:00:41.710 align:middle line:84% And it wasn't just poets or university people, 00:00:41.710 --> 00:00:45.550 align:middle line:84% but most of the people were made up of, 00:00:45.550 --> 00:00:48.670 align:middle line:84% I guess, people on the streets, people that he'd met in bars 00:00:48.670 --> 00:00:51.700 align:middle line:84% and had touched their lives or changed their lives-- 00:00:51.700 --> 00:00:54.250 align:middle line:90% plumbers, construction people. 00:00:54.250 --> 00:00:56.440 align:middle line:84% And they had come because he had touched them 00:00:56.440 --> 00:01:01.510 align:middle line:84% or had said something to them that 00:01:01.510 --> 00:01:05.980 align:middle line:84% had made them feel closer to themselves, 00:01:05.980 --> 00:01:08.330 align:middle line:90% to being human beings. 00:01:08.330 --> 00:01:13.030 align:middle line:84% And I suppose he was one of the greatest, I don't know-- 00:01:13.030 --> 00:01:14.590 align:middle line:84% I have always admired his poetry, 00:01:14.590 --> 00:01:16.540 align:middle line:84% but I admire his human beingness and I 00:01:16.540 --> 00:01:20.770 align:middle line:84% guess I'd rather be a great human being than a great poet, 00:01:20.770 --> 00:01:26.110 align:middle line:84% although I think sometimes they both connect. 00:01:26.110 --> 00:01:30.100 align:middle line:84% And, anyway, this poem, "A Winning Hand," 00:01:30.100 --> 00:01:35.710 align:middle line:84% in it was the time in about 1978 or '79 when I was teaching 00:01:35.710 --> 00:01:38.320 align:middle line:84% at the Institute of American Indian Arts and he 00:01:38.320 --> 00:01:40.030 align:middle line:84% was doing a workshop and a reading 00:01:40.030 --> 00:01:42.220 align:middle line:90% at University in New Mexico. 00:01:42.220 --> 00:01:45.490 align:middle line:84% So, I asked my students if they wanted 00:01:45.490 --> 00:01:49.240 align:middle line:84% to go down because this guy, they'd read some of his work, 00:01:49.240 --> 00:01:51.430 align:middle line:84% and they liked his work, and they said, sure. 00:01:51.430 --> 00:01:53.800 align:middle line:84% So I had this little red Datsun truck 00:01:53.800 --> 00:01:55.520 align:middle line:90% and it was loaded with students. 00:01:55.520 --> 00:01:57.910 align:middle line:84% We had them packed in as many as we could get in 00:01:57.910 --> 00:01:59.800 align:middle line:84% and we went down, and what was really 00:01:59.800 --> 00:02:03.010 align:middle line:84% wonderful is he took time and talked to them. 00:02:03.010 --> 00:02:06.670 align:middle line:84% He read the students' work, he encouraged some of them 00:02:06.670 --> 00:02:10.690 align:middle line:84% to apply, and it really meant a lot to them. 00:02:10.690 --> 00:02:13.180 align:middle line:84% And at the end of the reading, you know, 00:02:13.180 --> 00:02:16.090 align:middle line:84% we were looking around to get everyone together to go back 00:02:16.090 --> 00:02:18.515 align:middle line:84% and we were looking around for Nez. 00:02:18.515 --> 00:02:19.390 align:middle line:90% We couldn't find her. 00:02:19.390 --> 00:02:20.020 align:middle line:90% Where's Nez? 00:02:20.020 --> 00:02:23.140 align:middle line:84% Oh, she took off and went to Okies. 00:02:23.140 --> 00:02:25.960 align:middle line:84% Okies is a-- I guess it's a mythical place now-- 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:29.470 align:middle line:84% but it was a bar at the corner of Central and University 00:02:29.470 --> 00:02:34.210 align:middle line:84% and it was like the biker bar, the bar where you would go 00:02:34.210 --> 00:02:36.820 align:middle line:84% and people would be selling poems to buy drinks, 00:02:36.820 --> 00:02:40.930 align:middle line:84% and you'd see people in there that never left. 00:02:40.930 --> 00:02:44.210 align:middle line:84% They were always there when you went back. 00:02:44.210 --> 00:02:46.330 align:middle line:90% They're probably still there. 00:02:46.330 --> 00:02:50.230 align:middle line:84% Anyway, so I pulled up and I had a student get out 00:02:50.230 --> 00:02:54.670 align:middle line:90% and I said, go in and get Nez. 00:02:54.670 --> 00:02:55.930 align:middle line:90% So we were out there waiting. 00:02:55.930 --> 00:02:57.430 align:middle line:84% You know, well, where's so and so? 00:02:57.430 --> 00:02:59.773 align:middle line:90% Well, I'll go in and get them. 00:02:59.773 --> 00:03:00.680 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:00.680 --> 00:03:05.110 align:middle line:84% So before you knew it, we were all in there to get Nez. 00:03:05.110 --> 00:03:08.380 align:middle line:84% And we finally left and Nez never did, you know? 00:03:08.380 --> 00:03:11.410 align:middle line:84% Nez eventually came back up to school, 00:03:11.410 --> 00:03:13.450 align:middle line:90% but this is for Richard Hugo. 00:03:13.450 --> 00:03:14.425 align:middle line:90% It's "A Winning Hand." 00:03:14.425 --> 00:03:17.080 align:middle line:90% 00:03:17.080 --> 00:03:19.930 align:middle line:84% In this university town of winners, 00:03:19.930 --> 00:03:22.420 align:middle line:84% the wind is a blur through the dandelions 00:03:22.420 --> 00:03:26.260 align:middle line:84% and nurtured grass on the lawn outside my office. 00:03:26.260 --> 00:03:29.200 align:middle line:84% And you are here, but have gone on 00:03:29.200 --> 00:03:31.690 align:middle line:84% to the buffalo skin dream that has fallen 00:03:31.690 --> 00:03:34.360 align:middle line:84% in the cracks between the small towns that 00:03:34.360 --> 00:03:38.650 align:middle line:84% make a necklace from Medicine Lake to Missoula. 00:03:38.650 --> 00:03:42.460 align:middle line:84% Indians still dry jerky in the risky wind, 00:03:42.460 --> 00:03:45.190 align:middle line:84% test the water for visions of Buffalo 00:03:45.190 --> 00:03:48.310 align:middle line:84% who are more than just meat sustenance. 00:03:48.310 --> 00:03:52.000 align:middle line:84% Aren't our bodies mostly wind and are 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.650 align:middle line:84% cursed like the rest of us with being able to smell but not 00:03:56.650 --> 00:04:00.070 align:middle line:90% see the world we are crazy for. 00:04:00.070 --> 00:04:04.410 align:middle line:84% You knew that place, traveled it until it drove you crazy, too, 00:04:04.410 --> 00:04:09.040 align:middle line:84% to think like one of the beautiful native misfits. 00:04:09.040 --> 00:04:12.790 align:middle line:84% In Albuquerque, in either '78 or '79, 00:04:12.790 --> 00:04:15.490 align:middle line:84% you stunned my students from Indian School 00:04:15.490 --> 00:04:19.540 align:middle line:84% in returning to the ghost towns their memories had become 00:04:19.540 --> 00:04:22.540 align:middle line:84% in that auditorium built in a town spit 00:04:22.540 --> 00:04:27.400 align:middle line:84% into existence by dry-lipped conquistadors who wanted 00:04:27.400 --> 00:04:30.640 align:middle line:90% only gold and Indian wives. 00:04:30.640 --> 00:04:34.870 align:middle line:84% Someone must have prophesied what they feared. 00:04:34.870 --> 00:04:40.390 align:middle line:84% Nez couldn't take it, turned wads of clay into glossy bowls, 00:04:40.390 --> 00:04:43.900 align:middle line:84% but they weren't enough to hold her words. 00:04:43.900 --> 00:04:46.420 align:middle line:84% She abandoned us in that auditorium 00:04:46.420 --> 00:04:49.810 align:middle line:84% for the corner bar of the lost poets. 00:04:49.810 --> 00:04:53.680 align:middle line:84% After your last poem, your heart tearing us apart, 00:04:53.680 --> 00:04:58.150 align:middle line:84% we all left to find her and had to chase ourselves out 00:04:58.150 --> 00:04:59.920 align:middle line:90% of that place. 00:04:59.920 --> 00:05:03.880 align:middle line:84% There is only the magnetism of ghosts driving us back 00:05:03.880 --> 00:05:06.730 align:middle line:90% into the winning hand. 00:05:06.730 --> 00:05:10.540 align:middle line:84% I don't think I looked back or believed you had ever gone. 00:05:10.540 --> 00:05:13.360 align:middle line:84% When I hit the Montana border last spring 00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:18.490 align:middle line:84% during the last hard storm, the wind nearly knocked me over. 00:05:18.490 --> 00:05:21.970 align:middle line:84% And it wasn't poetry I heard, but something 00:05:21.970 --> 00:05:25.300 align:middle line:84% like the moan and laughter of a player with a best 00:05:25.300 --> 00:05:28.540 align:middle line:90% hand, a touch of luck. 00:05:28.540 --> 00:05:31.450 align:middle line:84% This time it's all or nothing and there 00:05:31.450 --> 00:05:38.830 align:middle line:84% won't be any more losers in this field of 10 and one-eyed Jacks. 00:05:38.830 --> 00:05:40.330 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:40.330 --> 00:05:41.880 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:05:41.880 --> 00:05:46.000 align:middle line:90%