[APPLAUSE]
So before I start my intro, my friend and fellow poet Claire
Hong, who introduced Anselm yesterday at his lecture,
is having her first child.
And my wife and I are also having
our first child due in March.
So the poets are having babies there.
But how many poets can you name that have appeared in a Rolling
Stones music video?
I only know of one poet who can claim this.
And it's Anselm Berrigan.
Anselm is cool as all hell, and so is his poetry.
And allow me to tell you why.
I've known Anselm since 2017, when I interviewed him
for Sonora Review.
In that interview, knowing that he's a basketball fan,
I sneakily asked him if he'd be willing to join a fantasy
basketball league that I had started.
If you're unfamiliar, fantasy basketball
is like Dungeons and Dragons, but with real NBA players.
And their stats tell the story.
To my surprise, Anselm joined my fantasy basketball league,
and we've been drafting teams, and competing
against each other, and having a blast for the past eight years.
I look up to Anselm.
I look up to him as an artist, but also
as a fellow son of an artist, where it wasn't just something
that our parents did in their spare time,
or in their retirement, or a serious hobby.
It was their living.
My father was a Southwest landscape artist and portrait
painter, and he was a middle school art teacher for 30 years.
So it's fascinating for me to hear
how Anselm wrestles with and writes about his poet parents.
In Anselm's talk yesterday, he said
that when he started writing, he wasn't interested in characters
or narrative.
And I generally agree, but I think
it's because, for me, the poems can't escape these things.
I find narratives and characters and stories
all the time in Anselm's poetry.
But I'm making those connections in my own imagination,
and that's even more exciting when
I catch a reference to Wade Boggs, Marshawn Lynch or Rajon
Rondo.
Oh yeah, it's double-sided.
There we go-- skipped over there.
So my favorite Rolling Stones song is "Waiting on a Friend."
It's a sweet, slow burner of a '70s Stones song.
And in the tradition of some of Bob Dylan's anti-love songs
or songs that are about chasing away or ignoring romantic love,
"Waiting on a Friend" has a cool, laid back,
playful acceptance to it.
I loved that song.
And I think the video is really cool, too.
And I used to watch it all the time.
I used to play it on repeat in the early days of YouTube
in 2008/2009.
But it wasn't until a few years ago
that I found out that Anselm comes out
in the video for five seconds, and pretty prominently featured
in those five seconds, with Anselm
in the foreground of a scene with Keith Richards strutting
down a New York Street in the background.
Teenage Anselm is there, just hanging out,
a kid playing on the street or something, I'm not sure.
But he's very much there.
So this is from the Wikipedia entry for the video of "Waiting
on a Friend," which doesn't mention Anselm is in the video.
So you're getting something that Wikipedia won't give you here.
But this is straight from Wikipedia.
The video for the Rolling Stones song "Waiting on a Friend,"
shot on July 2, 1981, was directed by Michael
Lindsay-Hogg, who also directed their 1968 special The Rolling
Stones Rock and Roll Circus.
It became very popular on MTV.
Matching the song's lyrics, Jagger
is seen waiting for Keith Richards in the doorway
of an apartment block.
The building, at 9698 St. Mark's Place in Manhattan,
is notable for having also appeared
on the cover of Led Zeppelin's 1975 album Physical Graffiti.
The two then walked down the street
and enter the St. Mark's Bar and Grill,
where the other three band members are already drinking.
Ronnie Wood appears in the video,
although he was not a musician on the original recording.
Jagger sings the song to Richards.
And the video concludes with the band setting up for a gig
at the back of the bar, largely ignored by the other patrons.
In Anselm's lecture talk yesterday, he
shared all these cool stories about poets who I admire.
And now poets like Claire Hong and I
get to share stories about Anselm, a poet we look up to
and admire for his infectious energy and playfulness
in his work.
Anselm's poetry collects things.
Anselm's poetry is a hoarder.
And this inspired a lot of my book--
The Border Simulator, where I'm trying
to capture all the Spanglish and Spanish and English sayings,
overheard stuff you can only hear at the border.
Sometimes reading Anselm's poetry
feels like I'm overhearing a conversation from people
who I want to hang out with.
So it's pretty cool we get to hang out with Anselm for 45
minutes here and hear his work.
When I read Anselm's poetry, I'm cracking up.
I'm laughing.
I'm recognizing references to baseball and basketball moments,
garage rock bands from the '90s, remixed aphorisms and sayings.
I'm having a blast.
The first line in Anselm Berrigan's book,
Primitive State, goes against the rules of art museums
and states, "touch the art."
For me, Anselm's poetry loudly hums.
Think of the crash test dummies song.
[HUMMING] That's actually the name of the song.
So Anselm's poetry loudly hums.
And hums are saying, we want to have fun.
We want to rock and roll.
We want to swing for the fences.
We want to wait on a friend.
And right now, I'm just waiting on a friend.
And I'm so chuffed, so happy to call you, Anselm, a friend.
Please help me welcome Anselm Berrigan.
[APPLAUSE]