WEBVTT

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Thank you, Elise.

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Thank you.

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Rob, are you ready?

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Are you ready?

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Are you sure?

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[LAUGHTER]

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We can rejigger it around.

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You want to go tomorrow?

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No?

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OK.

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[LAUGHTER]

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OK.

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Rob Arnold is a CHamoru
poet, essayist, arts leader,

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and author of To the Unnamed,
forthcoming from Graywolf Press.

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[APPLAUSE]

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His work has appeared
in Ploughshares, Hyphen,

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Gettysburg Review, Poetry
Northwest, RED INK, Yes Poetry,

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The Ocean State Review,
Peripheries, The Volta,

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and Solstice, among others, and
has been anthologized in New

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CHamoru Literature and
Na'huyong: An Anthology

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of CHamoru Literature.

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His poems have been nominated
for a Pushcart Prize

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and have received support
from the Somerville Arts

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Council, the Jack Straw Cultural
Center, and Artist Trust.

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He currently lives in
Brooklyn, New York,

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where he is Executive
Director of Poets House.

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Please welcome Rob Arnold.

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[APPLAUSE]

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I'm tall.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Håfa Adai, håfa tatamanu hao?

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Nå'ån-hu si Rob Arnold.

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Hi, Chris.

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Hi, Christopher.

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So nice to see both of you.

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Yeah, I'm Rob Arnold.

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I'm really pleased to be here.

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Si Yu'os Ma'åse' for being
here and saina ma'åse' to all

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the Fellows for
your wonderful work.

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I've learned so much this
week with all of you,

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and I'm looking forward to
continue learning with you.

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Kind of inspired
by Chris, I have

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picked three poems
that are water

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haunted from my manuscript,
which should be coming out

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next summer.

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They also deal with family.

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And also I just want to
recognize the tenderness

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and vulnerability that
we've seen tonight

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and want to offer
some back as well.

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So this first poem
is called Psalm.

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Praise be sun.

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Praise be moon shivered
saw grass channeled

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surf pattern cut glass.

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Praise your feet at the
seething shore, siphoned sand.

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Praise delta churn.

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Praise bracken strand.

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Praise your stolen name.

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The state's mistake.

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Praise thunder
cloud and sun break.

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Praise the Earth.

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Praise the sea.

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Praise this sharpened
edge gutted night.

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Your arm plunged elbow deep
in the scripted water, all

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that it keeps.

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Bless the unforeseen.

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Bless this eroded life.

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How water flowing past a rock
slowly excavates the rock.

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Slowly eviscerates
the shoreline.

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Makes, then unmakes
these tidal tributaries.

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This insecticide laced channel.

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Your dogs splashed
along six months

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before he died of lymphoma.

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Drainage ditch number one.

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The map will tell you later.

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Bless all hindsight.

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Bless regrets.

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Bless those meaningless
paths you walked.

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Thirsting towards home.

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Beauty and nightfall,
beauty and striated dawn,

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and the detached wing of a
crane left by the roadside.

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Otherworldly storm of
feathers orbiting like a halo.

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The Holy Spirit, you were told.

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Ablutions of light and gold leaf
laid by Renaissance artisans.

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Sacred light, divine wisdom.

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The spirit colors that
flashed as your brother's arm

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crushed your carotid as he
squeezed until you convulsed

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and passed out, speaking
in tongues while blood

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flowered in your brain.

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Was that a kind of death or a
kind of living at the periphery?

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Was it a kind of love,
the tightening headlock?

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A stain on the soul.

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Beauty in, beauty out.

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What you consume becomes you.

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Bless this beautiful bruise.

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Spreading just under the skin.

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