WEBVTT

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As I was telling you
before, I grew up

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in an old, depressed,
post-industrial city

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in upstate New York.

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And when I just came from Salt
Lake City before I came here

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and I had never seen
anything like those mountains

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before in my life.

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I'd seen mountains
in New Hampshire

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but they're not as visible
because of the pine trees

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somehow.

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And I realized that if I
lived in that landscape

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I would have a different
problem entirely

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as a writer and a
different subject matter

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because mountains like that,
and I think your mountains here

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too what I've seen of
them, seem to give so much.

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They're intrinsically
majestic, and grand,

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and every time you
look at them, you

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have intimations of immortality
or at least a notion

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of grandeur.

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Well, the place I grew up
in was bleak, and flat,

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and I felt as if it took me
years to begin to love it,

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and to begin to let it be
mine, and to admit that this

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was what I had to work with.

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And even now I live in the
Midwest, it's really flat.

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And there isn't much to talk
about in terms of scenery,

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it's just kind of flat.

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This is what I was given.

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And I think what this did to
me I look upon imagination

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as a place to live.

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And this is something
I keep coming back

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to in my work:
imagination, this refuge,

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and how one can take through
imagination, take a world

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and transform it, and make
it anything so that I didn't

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have to be in Troy, New York.

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If I didn't want to be,
I could be anywhere.

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This poem is about that,
the quality of imagination,

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imagination as place.

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It's called The New
Affluence, and the affluence

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and the richness is the
richness of imagination.

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Let me say "we," for I am
not alone in this desire

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to live where the land
is neither dramatically

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flat nor high, where it snows
enough to keep the world

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the bitter white of aspirin.

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People with such needs
grew up snow belted,

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rust belted in towns like mine
where muscle cars dragged down

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main streets and the fountain's
aigrettes outside the Miss Troy

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Diner offered welcome hits of
pink and blue in a landscape

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largely the non-color of lard.

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Our choice was to love or
hate the slight reprieves

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from plainness.

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The fractious birds,
the scrappy trees,

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and most of all the things
that didn't live or breathe,

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factories tearing up
the sky with smoke,

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tugboats sweet as toys along
the poisoned river, a budget,

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if not famine, our lives,
or perhaps a sweepstakes

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with prizes so slight
no one cared to enter.

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We wouldn't have become
susceptible to the tag

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ends, seconds, as
is of experience,

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given better scenery.

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And we wouldn't have
gotten this notion

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that happiness is mined like
ore from rock through efforts

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of imagination.

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We the poor, but not in spirit.

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We the not especially blessed,
who work in cold hours

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at dull jobs, drank,
gambled, went mad,

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or grew anomalous as
water, a compound that

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expands while freezing.

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Disciples of steam
and dust, we take

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pleasure in considering
the glaciers beginning

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in the clouds, the
picnic springing up

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around the subatomic particles
others call the vacuum.

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And our sensory thresholds,
the nerve centers

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that decide what
to let us know, let

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us know too much, which
makes us terrible at parties.

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We seize upon the
slight conflicting riffs

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and idle chit chat the way
we tick behind a smile.

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It's exhausting and
a social hindrance.

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Twitchers, fainters,
cringelings,

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I'm here to say you'd
like it where I live.

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In this converted
bakery, everything's

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left to the imagination.

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The golden smell
of molten sugar,

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the customers gazing at
pastries baked from scratch

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into planes and turrets,
fanciful as women's hats.

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A tub of lard sealed
and dated 1900

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was the one remaining
trace of baking

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and we left it sealed imagining
a cache of rancid snow within.

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The local paper gives
advice to liven up our days:

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quote, colored
towels add eye-spice.

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Look for cotton run-on sales.

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A blub blub of vinegar adds
zip to many dishes, try it,

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it's terrif.

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It was the absence
of spectacular views

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that made us see the
sparrow hopping warily

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as if the ground were
strewn with acid.

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Medieval legend says
it hissed "he lives!"

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to Roman soldiers at
Calvary, for which

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God bound its feet forever
with supernatural string.

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Lacking diversions, we've turned
furtive in order to observe it.

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We toss crumbs while light
pours crisp as seltzer,

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as peppermint oil through air.

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The hyacinths need
these cold weeks

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to grow into fragrant vases
full only of themselves,

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their particular being
like everything else.

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So summer comes to meet us.

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Soon, children will sell
chances on rocks and leaves

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from sidewalk stands.

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Children!

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They think these things are
valuable, and we always buy.

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