WEBVTT

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Well, I don't usually get
nervous before I read.

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But I was telling people, I
was a little nervous tonight.

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In part, in coming here,
for several reasons.

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I'm a great admirer
of Jane Miller.

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And we had a chance
to meet this evening.

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And then, I heard that actually
one of my other favorite poets

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in the world, Adelia Prado, was
supposed to be here last week.

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But her translator was here.

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She's a wonderful--
I know you know--

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Brazilian poet.

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And then, I visited the
Poetry Center, which

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I had heard about for years.

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And that put me in a fairly
high state of anxiety.

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And then, we decided
to up the ante,

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so that Pete and I would not
give each other brain death

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or other damages, and change
our readings every night.

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So I've just thrown
something together

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in the last couple of hours.

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So I will be perhaps hopefully
not tripping over this.

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But I've kind of assembled
a daybook of 12 poems.

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Four of them from A
Fish to Feed All Hunger,

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which is coming out at
the end of this month.

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And it is a, compared to
the broadsides which are,

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as she noted, very expensive.

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The new edition
that's coming out,

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when it comes out
from Ahsahta is

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about the price of a
greeting card is $5 [LAUGHS]

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or something, which I'm
very happy about, actually.

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And I'll be reading eight poems
from the new manuscript, which

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I hope to finish this summer.

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So I open with a poem, an
invitation to all of you,

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to part of the heart of Montana
from the new manuscript, "What

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Makes the Grizzlies Dance."

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"June, and finally snow peas
sweeten in the Mission Valley.

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High behind the numinous
meadows, ladybugs

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swarm like huge lacquered
fans from Hong Kong.

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Like the serrated
skirts of blown poppies,

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whole mountains turn red.

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And in the blue penstemon,
grizzly bears swirl.

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As they bat snags of color
against their ragged mouths.

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Have you never wanted
to spin like that?

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On hairy, leathered feet,
amid the swelling berries,

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as you tasted a language
of early summer?

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Shaping the lazy
operatic vowels,

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cracking the
hard-shelled consonants,

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like speckled insects
between your teeth?

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Have you never wanted to
waltz the hills like a beast?"