WEBVTT

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Thank you.

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There was such a
nice introduction,

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I probably should just leave
and you'll think well of me.

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What's nice about reading,
not in your own city--

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my own city of Chicago--

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is that, since none
of you have heard

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me read, I can do a very kind
of self-indulgent reading,

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where I go back and read things
I haven't read for a long time.

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So I'm going to start.

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Kind of, I'll divide
the reading in half.

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I'll read half poetry and
then I'll move into prose.

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But I'll start with some
pretty early prose poems.

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And I think, in fact,
that the earliest prose

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problem I'm going to read,
which is called "Toothache,"

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I probably wrote
about 18 years ago.

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So it's getting old.

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And it seems that
whenever I write

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a poem about missing something,
it always then happens to me.

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After I wrote my poem
"Toothache," I had a baby

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and ended up having, like,
29 cavities or something.

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But this is a poem about
wanting to have a toothache.

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"Toothache."

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I never had a toothache,
but the desire to have one

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crossed my mind constantly.

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Thinking a toothache
was starting,

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I consulted a doctor
who attributed

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the pain to a small insect
bite on the left tonsil.

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From that day, I
resolved to abandon

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the hope of ever feeling
a quick stab of pain

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or a steady musical throbbing.

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My teeth were a fortress
against invaders, the health spa

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of an otherwise decrepit body.

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Sometimes I'd see people
rubbing their fingers

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over a spot on their cheeks,
hot as a sidewalk in summer.

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Envious, I'd fall off
chairs, steps, and bicycles,

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trying to land on my mouth.

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I took up meditation
and biofeedback

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to focus some pain in my teeth.

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Like children bored with the
gifts of a visiting aunt,

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they remained uninvolved.

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Finally, quite by
chance, I found a way

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to bring myself relief.

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Through a new medical
procedure, the dentist

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removed one healthy tooth and
implanted a large decaying

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molar in its place.

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It was worth the trouble.

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Now when I pass a candy store,
I buy the chewiest caramels.

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And when I crunch
on an ice cube,

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the pain is long and complex
as a medieval tapestry."

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So, I wrote that when I was
about 23 or something, 24.

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