WEBVTT

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So one of my--

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this is a strange experience
to be reading to your own face,

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to your own face in the
Overlook Hotel bar room.

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There's got to be a poem in
there somewhere, someday.

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Listen, I'm so-- someday,
I'll get to Tucson.

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Do you know there's
a poem I have

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to say I started thinking
about ways to console myself

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about not being in
Tucson right now,

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not hiking up the
Sabino Canyon tomorrow,

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not going to the museum, not
spending hours poring over

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the amazing archives
of the Poetry Center

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that I've been hearing about
for years from Simmons Buntin

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and Alison Hawthorne
Deming and others.

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And it put me in mind
of speaking of poetry.

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There's a great poem by Billy
Collins, called "Consolation,"

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that you may be aware of,
where he's not going anywhere

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for the summer.

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So he has this-- he
writes this poem that

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begins, "How agreeable it
is to not be touring Italy

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this summer,
wandering her cities

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and ascending her
torrid hill towns.

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So yeah, that came to mind."

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But speaking of
Alison, listen, she

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is a special, special
person, a special friend.

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And I want to dedicate
the reading of this poem

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to her tonight.

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And it's called
"Contextual Education."

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He wouldn't make us
look like monkeys,

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says a student in the front row.

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Because he made us in his image.

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She laughs and turns to
check for smiles and nods.

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The professor stands by
the whiteboard where he has

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written the word adaptation.

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He's thinking of
all the lessons,

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like similes, that have appeared
in black ink across this space

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and that have,
like species, gone.

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He cannot help but see her in
the church band on the field

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trip, pretending she doesn't
know she's the pretty one who

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doesn't know exactly what's
happening inside the boy beside

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her when she tosses her pink
streaked hair and blows a word

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across his ear.

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In the room's
silence, he shows them

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what she means by turning
her hands into big ears

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and wagging her head.

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They wonder what sort
of experiment they are,

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as their professor
turns off the lights

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and clicks a chimp's
face onto the screen.

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No one says a thing at
the God looking back

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from those brown, sad eyes.

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