WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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History falls through us
or we fall through history.

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Wow.

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Wow.

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Thank you so much, Halee.

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So I first met Halee in
the context of In-Na-Po

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in Minneapolis.

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But I first met--

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I first, first met
Halee in Seattle

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when Halee won the James Welch
Prize and gave a reading there.

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And so can you see why Halee
won the James Welch Prize?

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So thank you so much, Halee.

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[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

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Give it up for all
of the fellows.

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Those readings were spectacular.

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[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

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Last night I met somebody who
was torn about whether she could

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come tonight because
there was a competing

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meeting of the astronomy
club, and she is here tonight.

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And did I not promise you stars?

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Did I not promise you stars?

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Thank you for being here.

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Thank you so much.

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And thank you for all the
celestial poetry we've gotten.

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Wow, our next reader.

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I had the great fortune, as did
many of us today at In-Na-Po,

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of being in the presence
of our next reader

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this afternoon at a
workshop where he then

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proceeded to force us to write
two full pages, nonstop, in 15

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minutes.

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And it was incredible.

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It was an incredible experience.

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I'll give you just a moment
of my experience of it.

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I started writing about
my childhood home,

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about a creek bed I
used to run around in,

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about the crawdads I used
to pick up and run around

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with and chase my
younger siblings with.

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And then because
we were at the base

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of a mountain full of
saguaros, full of ancestors,

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I started thinking
about ancestors,

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and I started thinking
about lost ones

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in my life and my family.

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And it was a
beautiful experience.

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So that's what this
next reader can do.

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That's what Bojan can do.

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So I can't wait to
hear his reading.

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Bojan Louis is Diné of
the Naakai dine'é, born

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for the Áshííhí.

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He is the author
of Sinking Bell:

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Stories and a book of poetry,
Currents, both of which

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received an American
Book Award, am I right?

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Both?

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Yes.

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Amazing.

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He's been a resident
at MacDowell

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and teaches creative writing
at the University of Arizona.

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Bojan.

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[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

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Good evening.

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Thanks for having me.

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Thank you, Kim, Elise, Ofelia,
Tyler, all the fellows.

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You all are just dope as hell.

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The future looks good.

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I can grow old in peace now.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Speaking of old, Max, yeah,
shit, I can't see anything.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I'm going to read an
old poem from Currents,

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and then some new poems.

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This has been sitting in a box
for, like, eight months, so.

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Poetry is slow and
painful, I don't

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know if anyone told you that.

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It's called "Arc Flash."

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The stars went off
and on, as if wired

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by to-hell-with-it electricians

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tired of lighting
scrap-patched houses

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connected by threads
of predawn smoke

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to invisible
weavings in the sky.

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Dim questions and
silent answers,

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cattle gaunt and wanting, grazed
between weeds across the valley,

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interrogated the dirt
of wash and creek.

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How long since you've
been clay after rain?

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Started awake at midnight,
and under influence,

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I sought my car to kill
the soft snores beside me.

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Hauled ass out of
urban desert decay

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to sandstone cliffs
five hours away,

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where centuries of wind and
more recent roadway gusts

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have made a half
pipe of its base,

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though not enough to topple
the edge of the mesas level.

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Hours from Phoenix, oasis
greedy and artificial,

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I needed crystal, my
dad's home and ceremony,

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less familiar mountain tobacco,

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not to guide my spirit,
used to mornings being lit,

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but to remind my
tongue of blood,

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cold coffee made by
other men's women

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who dispel me with smokes
from cheap packs set

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within reach on their knees.

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Maybe they wish, aside
from my soon departure,

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that I shared their danger,

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bastards who make home
confinement and needs hush.

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I left and arrived months
before the rainy season,

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though cuts along the cliff face
over crystal shimmered with mica

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like stars burnt
out, taking eons

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to reveal their absence in
myth-heavy constellations.

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The sun risen isn't for me,

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cattle being herded, or
darkness in the room.

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I left to wake alone.

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Here, a few cars
idle without drivers

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warm up before the workday,
while smoke from houses

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vanishes and releases
the night sky.

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[APPLAUSE]

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That was a sestina I
couldn't quite get,

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and I think I became that--