WEBVTT

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It's a multimedia
experience here.

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I saw a book, I saw a
laptop, I saw a phone.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Poetry lives everywhere.

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I mean, right?

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Right, Max?

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Right, Max?

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[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

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Thank you, Max.

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Wow.

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Our next poet is Halee Kirkwood.

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And Halee, I first
met in Minneapolis,

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where they were a
regional fellow.

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And I think, Halee, you were in
the first fellows group, right?

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One of our inaugural fellows.

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And so were you, Max.

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So Halee and Max are both our
returning fellows this evening.

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But I'm so excited to
get a chance to know them

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this week because Halee--

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I've been so impressed by the
insightfulness and clarity

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of thought that they bring to
their really spectacular poetry,

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but also to the
feedback to the way

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they show up in community,
to the way, often,

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Halee will say the
very thing that I

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was thinking about
three seconds before I

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realized I was thinking it.

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That's just how in
touch and insightful

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they are, so thank you for that.

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Halee Kirkwood is a direct
descendant of the Fond Du Lac

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band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.

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Their debut poetry collection,
To Think Of A Match,

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is forthcoming from TriQuarterly
Press in March 2027.

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That is not that far away.

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So give it up for
Halee Kirkwood.

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[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

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Bonjour.

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Thank you, everyone,
for coming here today.

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I apologize.

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I'm not that shiny in real
life, but here we are.

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It's my
anti-Edward-Curtis photo.

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It is a tintype.

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So if you know who Edward Curtis
is, you know that reference.

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So the first poem I'm
going to read tonight

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is based off of a prompt
from my niiji, my close,

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close friend Anthony
Ceballos-- there you are--

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who asked the most
beautiful prompt,

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to ask us to think about
what is the sound of a poem.

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So all throughout our
retreat at Amerind,

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I was taking in the beautiful
landscape, all of the living

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beings, all the plant beings
and animals that were there,

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and trying to listen to
them in their poem sounds.

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So many of you might recognize
some of the references in this

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poem, which is titled
"The Sound of a Poem."

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Wind sweeping birdsong
down the canyon

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Soaking bobcat fur

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The sound of
stilled prickly pear

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beneath breath-tussled trees

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The water hushed,
pulled up through stone

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A crackling in
thumbprint grooves

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Laughter rising in
freshly shaped pots

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The sound of water we hope
is drank for generations

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The sound of a poem
is not bird sound

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But the size of rattlesnakes,
who they play above

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While they rest in
their ancestral shade

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Their ears pinned to earth for
sounds of far off mountains

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That is the sound of a poem

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Lands gossip

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Who has visited?

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When and why?

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Thank you.

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Thanks.

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[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

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Yeah.

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