And this poem is a poem written long before cancer, and kidneys,
and all of that.
It was written, one day, I'm distinguished professor
of humanities at St Mary's College of Maryland.
And right now, I'm Blackburn professor of creative writing
at Duke University.
And everybody in the world, I think,
knows that I did not graduate from college.
I have-- it wasn't funny at the time
but it later became amusing.
It's fun because I teach grad students, I think that's fun.
But anyway, at St Mary's College of Maryland,
I have a colleague who thinks of herself as really smart,
and she is.
She's pretty smart.
She's not that nice, but she's doggone smart.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHING]
And I was--
I keep my door open, my office door open because I wish--
I am there for students.
I wish to be friendly for students.
I should add that I'm a distinguished
professor of humanities, but we have no humanities
in the department.
So I'm the department.
And I can overhear, I hear pretty well.
I don't see that well but I hear.
And one day, she was saying, I don't understand
why she's here anyway.
And it hurt my feelings.
I was being vulnerable on that day.
And I thought she should be happy for me.
Why isn't she happy for me?
But then later, I found this poem applies to so many people,
so many things, in a way, to the Poetry Center even,
to all of us in our lives when we have struggled.
And some of us even struggle every day
to try to be better than we are.
Anyway, this is my other anthem of a poem.
Won't you celebrate with me what I have
shaped into a kind of life?
I had no model.
Born in Babylon, both non-white and woman,
what did I see to be except myself?
I made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay.
My one hand holding tight my other hand.
Come celebrate with me that every day something has tried
to kill me and has failed.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]