WEBVTT

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OK, so I'll read a
little from Sage.

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It's my newest child.

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[LAUGHING] So we're celebrating
his birth this year.

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I'll begin with the first poem.

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It's called Looking
for the Sage,

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and it makes fun of
those Tang dynasty Sage

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poems in which the Sage
is out there in the woods

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contemplating the universe.

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And it's always this
100-year-old old dude

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with a white goatee.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Yeah.

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And it's a very simple poem.

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We talked a little bit about
going back to the basics,

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yeah, going back to anaphora.

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And clarity, and maybe
subversive clarity.

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OK.

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[LAUGHING]

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"Looking for the Sage."

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Some say she moved in with
her ex-girlfriend in Taiwan.

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Some say she went to Florida
to wrestle alligators.

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Some say she went to peach
blossom spring to drink tea

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with Tao Qian.

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Miho says she's living
in Calexico with three

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cats and a gerbil named Max.

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Some say she's just a shadow
of the great society, a parody

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of what might have been.

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Rhea saw her stark
raving mad between 23rd

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in the avenue of the
Americas wrapped in a flag.

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I swear I saw her floating
in a motel pool, topless

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on a plastic manatee, palms up.

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What in hell was she thinking?

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[LAUGHTER]

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What is poetry?

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What are stars?

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Whence comes the
end of suffering.

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[APPLAUSE]

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So yes.

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I call it radical clarity,
that's what I'm doing lately.

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[LAUGHING]

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We'll see if I stick to that.

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[LAUGHING]

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