WEBVTT

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My next poem was the title
poem of my collection,

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New Faces of 1952, which
is on sale tonight.

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It was the year of my
birth, and it was also

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the year of a Broadway musical
revue called New Faces of 1952.

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So it's me trying to
reconstruct my past.

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It's called
"Biographia Literaria."

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"You remember new faces of 1952,
entertainers blurred and green,

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as bad counterfeit.

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From her lap you watched
your mother watch TV.

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Sometimes she'd accompany
the aquamarine vocalist

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in "Sentimental Journey."

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But always during commercials
she looked confused.

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Was she trying to separate your
squalling from your future,

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as critics detach art from art?

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The dominant hue was infant red.

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Face it, your childhood
was shaped by daily viewing

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of "Divorce Court."

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To enhance your witness
box approach to life,

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you began each sentence
with "your honor"

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and practiced crying in
a full-length mirror.

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As credits cascaded
down the screen,

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you admired the boomers and
gaffers, unheralded as bacteria.

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By now your tears had a charisma
so strong they performed

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without you at Edsel sales.

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With the crisp, high
step of majorettes,

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they preceded you
down Main Street.

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When your mother questioned,
you pleaded the Fifth,

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or practiced evasion.

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Inventing the enemy,
you said in the mirror.

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An optimist, she
labeled you artistic.

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The other choice was worse."

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And someone at dinner
tonight asked me

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if people ever think I'm
crazy because of my writing.

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And I said, only my mother.

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So that's in the poem, I guess.