[APPLAUSE]
Wow.
I felt a lot already, and I'm just getting to the mic.
Holy shit.
It's such a privilege to be here with all of you, so many of whom
are friends, and students, and colleagues, and teachers,
and combinations of all those things, which
is what many of you are.
I'm verklempt.
I didn't know I was going to get verklempt.
But thank you, Tyler, for the incredible work that you do.
Thank you, Paola and the entire staff of the Poetry Center,
for the amazing work that you do.
Thank you, Sarah Gzemski, who, in addition
to being the business manager, who makes sure all of this
gets to happen, is my publisher, the executive editor
of Noemi Press.
[APPLAUSE]
And that is no small feat.
It is the press that put out the book Defacing
the Monument, to which Raquel referred
and has put out this book.
And we'll put out Raquel's forthcoming collection of poems.
All right.
I'm going to start by reading a poem by Farid Matuk.
How lucky am that I get to share this book with you all and then
with this guy, who I've been poeting next to
for quite a few years?
Just a few.