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I was part of a
workshop one time.

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And one of the poet leaders
of the workshop was tough.

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He was really berating
people because they

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didn't study the masters.

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And I believe in
studying the masters too,

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but my definition of the masters
is a bit different from his.

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And he was telling people that
you got to study the masters,

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and it's very important.

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And he named, he
said he had 20 poets

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that he had people study so that
they would know the masters.

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He named 10 of them, all
white males, mostly dead.

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Which is fine, you know.

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But when I spoke after he
did, and he is a friend.

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We're friends.

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We agree on nothing,
but we're friends.

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And I said that I
was sure that had he

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been allowed to name
the entire list of 20,

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he would surely have
included Joy Harjo.

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He would surely have
included Li-Young Lee.

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There were many people he would
surely have included had he

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been allowed to name them all.

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And I thought about that
and I thought about mastery.

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This is called
"study the masters."

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Like my aunt Timmie.

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It was her iron or
one like hers that

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smoothed the sheets the
master poet slept on.

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Home or hotel,
what matters is he

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lay himself down on her
handiwork and dreamed.

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She dreamed too: words,
some Cherokee, some Maasai,

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and some huge and
particular as hope.

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If you had heard her
chanting as she ironed

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you would understand form, and
line, and discipline, and order,

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and America.

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