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I go on to talk a little bit
about the process of writing

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a poem called
Declaration, which is

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an erasure of the
Declaration of Independence.

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I had been struggling with a
poem about Thomas Jefferson,

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and I thought maybe
if I just visited

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that text, that
familiar text again, I

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could glean something
in his voice

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among the other
authors of the document

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and figure out what
was hamstringing me

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in this sonnet I had published
but knew wasn't really right.

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And so I sat down with the
Declaration of Independence,

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and I listened to it in the
way I would listen to a poem.

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So I was leaning into the
voice or voices on the page.

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I was trusting that I
was welcome to do so even

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though what I know
about history tells me

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that that's probably not what
the founding fathers would have

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thought.

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And things began
to leap out at me

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that I had never
noticed before when

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I read it in school or
memorized parts of it in school.

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And that was the uncanny
and undeniable parallels

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between the founding fathers'
grievance against England

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as a colonial presence
and the grievances

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that African-Americans
have raised

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in this country for
centuries in a plea

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for a full portion
of citizenship

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and the promise of democracy.

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And it felt like Jefferson
was willing, finally,

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in whatever form he now is, out
of the density of that one life

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and its one set of goals to say,
this is what you're looking for.

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It's here.

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Go ahead, use it.

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And I love that idea
because what it means

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is there's a collaboration
that's happening.

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There's an ideal exchange that's
possible in language outside

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of personality, outside of
the pressure of whatever

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the argument or the
scheme is that sets

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so many texts in motion.

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And maybe these living documents
actually still have life force

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and agency to be heard
differently and as

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is necessary for many of us.

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So this is the poem, the
erasure that came out of it.

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Declaration.

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He has sent hither swarms of
officers to harass our people.

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He has plundered
our, ravaged our--

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destroyed the lives of our--

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taking away our-- abolishing
our most valuable--

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and altering fundamentally
the forms of our--

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In every stage of
these oppressions,

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we have petitioned for redress
in the most humble terms.

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Our repeated petitions
have been answered only

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by repeated injury.

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We have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration

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and settlement here--

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taken captive on the high seas--

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to bear--

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