I felt that since Arizona is a hotbed of writers.
It is.
That didn't sound right.
[LAUGHTER]
Jesus.
I meant that as a big compliment.
It didn't come out that way.
Since there's so many writers here,
and I have been spending the last couple of months going
over student theses at Irvine, and people ask me,
am I going to write like this all the time, forever?
And I said, of course you won't.
You will change.
And we all change.
And I was asked that question a couple of times,
in a couple of classes today.
And so I thought I would show how
I think my writing has changed.
I've never really done this.
But I think I would like to read very early poems
all the way through what I've just finished to show that--
not necessarily changed for the better, but certainly,
a change.
And I thought I would start with four or five poems
from a book called The Grave Of The Right Hand, the title
of which is the best part of the book, I think, really.
It's strange.
You look back on your--
Thom Gunn once told me years ago,
when I was trying to put a first book together,
he said you're going to love your first book someday.
I'm still waiting, Thom.
[LAUGHTER]
But maybe it will happen.
Anyone could have written this book.
As it turned out, I wrote it.
Then I started writing poems that only I could write.
And those are the ones that we're all interested in,
of course.
But as I said, let me start with some earlier poems,
and then move on up, of course, up to the present day.
The first thing I'd like to read is
called The Daughters Of Blum.
As I was looking over these this evening,
I realized that each one of these poems--
and of course, this is very natural--
is trying to work on a technical situation,
learning how to do something, rather than learning
how to say something.
There's some difference there, which I'm
sure you all are aware of, too.
This one was trying to write a five syllable line--
it's in syllabic.
It's called The Daughters of Blum.
Blum-- only because it's a one syllable word.
It could have been any--
The Daughters of Woods, The Daughters of Smith.
But I was thinking of Blum's candies in San Francisco.
The Daughters Of Blum are growing older.
These children today, each locking their rooms.
They seem to pause, checking, perhaps,
for the lights, the window curtain, or something
they want to remember that keeps slipping their minds.
You have seen them, how they stand there perplexed
and a little shocked, as though they had spied unexpectedly
from one corner of one eye the lies
they must have left somewhere, once on a dresser, gloves
waiting for hands.