WEBVTT

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I have a new book coming
out, which is called, Next.

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And there are two things
to read if I can find them

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before I start the poem.

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This book was
mainly written in--

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there are some older poems
in it, but most of the poems

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were written in '86 and '87.

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I wrote one poem
in 1984, which was

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the year that my husband
of 26 and 1/2 years died.

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And the title
comes from a play--

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a poem called December Day in
Honolulu by Galway Kinnell.

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The quote is, this one or that
one dies, but never the singer.

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One singer falls, but the next
steps into the empty place

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and sings.

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And the dedication
which I have--

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I have a friend who said that
dedication is much too flip.

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But I think he would-- it wasn't
dedicated to her, first of all.

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And the epigraph is to Fred.

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See you later, alligator.

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And one section of the book is
about people whom I have loved

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and who have died and
who have died young.

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The first person-- and all
the poems are in the voices

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of the person who has died
so that their first person--

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sometimes I can get a feel
for someone else's voice.

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The first person is Crazy
Horse, the Lakota chieftain

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who died at 35.

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Do you know who Crazy Horse was?

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I think I really
fell for Crazy Horse

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when I realized that he was a
small, quirky kind of odd man,

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and that's the kind I like.

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And the great love
of Crazy Horse's life

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was not the woman he married.

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He married a woman
called Black Shawl.

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But the great love of
his life was a woman

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called Black Buffalo Woman.

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And I'm from Buffalo, you know?

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And so it seems--

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it seemed like a
sign of some sort.

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And I believe in signs so--

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so the poems, there are a
series of poems about people.

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The first of the poems
in this group, the people

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are, first, Crazy
Horse, then my mother

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who died at 44 years old, a dear
friend of ours who died at 21,

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and my husband who died at 49.

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And the first poem is
the death of so and so,

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and it gives the dates
and gives the age.

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Now about Crazy Horse--

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let's see-- he was
a person who would

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go into the Black
Hills, which was

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called the center of the world.

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He would become entranced and
he believed himself invincible

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when he was in a trance.

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He was called Crazy Horse not
because his horse was crazy,

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but because the horse danced
et cetera in the dream.

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And the best translation
that people then could make

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was Crazy Horse.

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He was a Lakota.

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The Sioux nation-- what is
called the Sioux nation were

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divided into-- were Lakota
and Nakota and Dakota,

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three groups, language groups.

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And now they're all
called the Sioux.

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And Lakota of course,
means us, the human beings,

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which is what many Native
peoples call themselves.

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Anyway, OK.

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Wakan Tanka was a great spirit,
and this is in his voice.

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"the death of crazy
horse," 9/5/1877, aged 35.

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Oh, another thing
I should say was

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that the rumor is though
people are not sure

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where he was buried, his parents
took his heart and his bones,

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and he had asked that they
be buried at Wounded Knee.

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And this was before the
Wounded Knee battle,

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but Crazy Horse could see
things, he was a visionary.

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In the hills where
the hope of the world

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bends to the four
directions, Wakan Tanka

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has shown me the path
men walk is a shadow.

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I was a boy when I saw it that
long hairs and gray beards

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and myself must enter
the dream to be real.

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So I dreamed and I
dreamed and I endured.

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I am the final war chief,
never defeated in battle.

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Lakota, remember my name.

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Now on this walk, my
bones and my heart

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are warm in the
hands of my father,

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Wakan Tanka has
shown me the shadows

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will break near the creek
called Wounded Knee.

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Remember my name, Lakota.

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I am the final war chief.

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Father, my heart, never
defeated in battle, father,

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my bones, never
defeated in battle,

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leave them at Wounded Knee
and remember our name, Lakota.

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I am released from shadow.

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My horse dreams and dances under
me as I enter the actual world.

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