WEBVTT

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Hello.

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[LAUGHING]

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This winter, 55 inches of
snow have fallen so far

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in Central Park and the average
snowfall for the whole year

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is 25 inches.

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So I love being here.

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[LAUGHING]

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And when I was invited to
read by Cybele probably a year

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and a half ago, she says,
when do you want to come?

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I said, February.

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[LAUGHING]

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Thank you Cybele and Tyler.

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And I'll say just a few people.

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Richard Siken, Boyer Rickel,
and my former student

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from Bennington, Jia,
who drove from Phoenix

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to be here tonight.

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It's a real privilege to
be able to write poems

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and to read them to people.

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And there are not very
many organizations

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like this Poetry Center.

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I can only think about maybe
I've been to the Poetry

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Foundation building in Chicago.

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There's Poets House
in New York City.

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That's about it.

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And so you guys know you have
this amazing poetic treasure

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here in the desert.

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And so thank you.

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I'm going to read
a couple of things.

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First from a book that's
coming out this fall called

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Don't Go Back to Sleep.

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In 2007 I had a cat
of 14 years who died.

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And after she died, I didn't
read and write for five months.

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And I also didn't
listen to any music

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because those activities
just felt too intense.

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And we all mourn in our
own weird particular ways.

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But when I started to write
again, I didn't write poetry.

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In fact, I wrote a novel.

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And during that time, I
only worked on one poem

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for two years.

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And I'm going to start
tonight with that poem.

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My mother, she died in
1998 of pancreatic cancer.

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She was also paranoid
schizophrenic.

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And even though it
was a really sad time,

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I was really relieved
that she died

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because her life was such a
torture, to me, especially,

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and to many people.

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So it's a very mixed thing.

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But it was the only
time in my life

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where I didn't listen
to music for six months.

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And that was the one thing that
we shared, was classical music.

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And so when my cat
died, I was surprised

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that I had a similar reaction.

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So that's a very
weird thing to realize

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that the person who brought me
into this world and this cat

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had a kind of similar value.

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And I didn't know
what that made of me.

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And so I did start
becoming curious

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about who this woman was
separate from her role

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as a mother.

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And so this is a long poem.

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So it's called "A Requiem
for the Homeless Spirits."

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"There is no language
to adequately describe

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the Japanese crimes.

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Ma Xiuyi, survivor.

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[BELL RINGING]

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Head of a Chinese soldier with
a cigarette butt in its mouth.

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Taken by whom, given by whom?

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Who never got to
see the image he'd

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become in the papers,
in textbooks, online.

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An image that has
outlasted whatever

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grave he did or did not
get to have in this life.

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This is not how anyone
would want to be remembered.

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Future generations
thumbing through the pages,

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the files, printing them
out on desktop printers,

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printing off the
same screens they

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use to check email, surf porn.

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The winner of this
contest will get his photo

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on the front page of the paper.

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The heads of Chinese
men taken off

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with one stroke of a
broadsword left nameless

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as a pile of rocks.

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Nameless as a headless
corpse with hands

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bound behind its back.

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Only the names of the winners
on the front page of the Nichi

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Nichi Shimbun on December 13,
1937 in a language I cannot

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read garlanded the photo of
the smiling winners in uniform,

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each propped up
on his own sword,

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an image someone else who
knows the language will have

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to explain to me.

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And my hairstylist
Akiro reads to me,

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"Contest to kill first
100 Chinese with sword

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extended when both
fighters exceed mark.

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Mukai scores 106, and Noda 105."

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[BELL RINGING]

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Soon sleep will be taken
away, appetite taken away,

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as that which clutches Akiro's
throat starts to spread.

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A cloud that began from
just two cigarettes a day,

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no insurance for
the $800 price tag

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attached to each procedure,
which may or may not

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save his life.

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He who has already lost half
of his voice refusing radiation

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for fear of losing what remains.

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Still recognizable as he takes
an electric razor to my scalp,

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sculpting something that
will last for weeks at best.

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He who's been doing this for
more than half his life, who

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tells me he can still eat,
still sleep eight hours a night,

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while handing me a card
for the next visit,

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a date that suddenly seems
further away than ever.

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[BELL RINGING]

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In a speech made in
Nanjing seven years

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after the rape of Nanjing,
Emperor Hirohito's youngest

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brother Prince Mikasa
detailed the extent

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of the military atrocities
against the Chinese.

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Copies of his statement
suppressed, buried

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by the military authorities.

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A single copy exhumed
five decades later

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in the parliamentary library
by a Kobe University professor.

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Order Number 119, Western
Front battle operations,

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16th division.

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20th regiment, 1st
Battalion, November 16, 1937.

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All provisions to be levied
locally in Nanjing, i.e.

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rape, loot, pillage, destroy.

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And what do American textbooks
say about first nation genocide

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beyond all those blankets
laced with smallpox?

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And what will
American textbooks say

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about Abu Ghraib,
Guantanamo, waterboarding,

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and extraordinary rendition
50 years from now,

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when history as we all know,
is written by the winners?

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[BELL RINGING]

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This is not how anyone
would want to be remembered.

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Reverend John G. Magee, chairman
of the International Red Cross

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Council, racing through
gunfire to rescue

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disarmed Chinese soldiers
being led off to the slaughter.

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Reverend John G. Magee,
an amateur photographer,

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who obtained a permit from
the Japanese authorities,

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the stills from his 16
millimeter movie camera

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largely responsible for
what we're able now to see.

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His camera and film
deposited at Yale,

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where he became a
chaplain after the war.

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Photos exist.

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Some were rounded up with
barbed wire in groups of 10

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and herded down
by the river where

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the machine guns were waiting.

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And some were forced to
dig ditches, forced again

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to lie down in them while the
next group shoveled dirt on top

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of them, muffling their sounds.

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Others buried up
to their necks only

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to be beheaded,
bayoneted, flattened,

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by the treads of a tank.

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Some were burned alive,
gasoline igniting communal pits.

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Photos exist.

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Bayonet wounds on the
back of a woman's neck,

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severing muscles down
to the vertebra column.

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Some 80,000 women raped,
ages 8 through 80.

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Some of them stripped
with their legs tied

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to a chair, some passing out.

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Others bleeding to
death, still others gang

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raped week after
week, until they

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contracted venereal diseases
and were taken out to be shot.

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Objects inserted into
the vaginas of corpses

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before they were
posed for photographs,

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the souvenir film sent
by Japanese soldiers

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to be developed in
Shanghai, where extra prints

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were sometimes smuggled out to
news agencies across the ocean.

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[BELL RINGING]

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Memo to the 66th regiment 1st
Battalion December 13, 1937:

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kill all captives.

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Few of the survivors
in 2014 remain alive.

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Few of the perpetrators
in 2014 remain alive.

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Some of their stories have been
recorded; many of their stories

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will never get told.

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What should any of us do,
while they are still alive?

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[BELL RINGING]

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