WEBVTT

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[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

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Well, thanks, Ander.

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That was perfect.

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I wouldn't want my
intro any other way.

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Thank you.

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Thank you all for being here.

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This means a lot to me.

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I've thought too
much about the poems

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I'm going to be reading tonight,
ever since I got the email.

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So thank you to Kate
Bernheimer and Bojan Louis

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for organizing this.

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Thank you, of course, to Tyler,
Sarah, Paola, Julie, everyone

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who works at the Poetry
Center, for just being amazing,

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amazing people.

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So, yeah, awesome, cool.

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So the poems are
behind me as well,

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so you get a visual element.

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This poem is dedicated to
the creative writing class

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at York University
in York, Nebraska.

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And there's actually
four authors.

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It's myself, James
Butler-Gruett,

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who is also a graduate of the
MFA program in fiction here,

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and then his two creative
writing students.

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There's only two people in
this creative writing class,

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Eliza Rodha and Jenna Smith.

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But we all collaborated and
wrote this poem together.

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And the title is "What's
Happening in the Arby's Managers

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Group Chat in York, Nebraska?"

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The Cheese Machine is broken.

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Lisa keeps texting
cowboy emojis.

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Our location is
wrapped from 9-3.

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My backline can be
finished by close

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with just the slicer left
and if you wanted food

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you could get food,
sometimes food was food

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you waited a long
time and got mad

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but the sauce of
Arby's is decent food.

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Jeremy hasn't learned how
to work the register yet

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but he loves mopping!

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My Arby's smells like a
kitchen full of waffles.

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I start off by
checking time punches.

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Then start on
turnovers and bacon.

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Arby's is like one of those
nieces that gives you a shy fist

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bump.

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This Arby's is trying
to reuse coupons

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that expired 40 years ago.

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The morning shift at Arby's is
like two mirrors spinning down

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a drain.

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Stay in the top 3 out
of all of our stores

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through peck times,
oh sorry peak!

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and in between peak

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times, enter invoices, look
at pictures of my niece

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from her Peppa Pig birthday
party last weekend,

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check emails from corporate and
get my store ready for success.

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Arby's is only here for
the scholarship money.

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Arby's gives my ex
back his hoodie.

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Is this the Mexican market with
the good, spicy mango candy?

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No, Sir, this is an Arby's.

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And later, at the good Mexican
market with the spicy mango,

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This Arby's wants to
practice her Spanish,

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This Arby's took two semesters
of non-native Spanish,

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but she's afraid of coming
off as a try-hard Arby's.

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[LAUGHTER]

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[APPLAUSE]

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Well, thanks.

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Thanks you.

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Thanks.

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[CHUCKLES]