Airea D. Matthews
@aireadee
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Bread and Circus • 2024 Guggenheim • LA Times Book Prize in Poetry • Booking @blueflowerarts • Repped by @mmqlit • IG: @aireadeefam
Philly🌎Troina🌎Elsewhere
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Introducing Virtue and Labor, the name above the terrace of my new home in Troina, Sicily. It will be one part family respite & one part refuge for persecuted global writers. I am giving wing to this majestic bird & hoping to welcome writers in 2025.
To the work!
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This week my son graduated the University of Penn as a Dean's Scholar, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and was honored for his writing and research on black male nihilism in hip hop. I tire of seeing black men demonized in the media. Have always struggled with that. I want to
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Me: “If you could enter a time machine would you go to the future or the past?”
My 7-year-old Daughter: “The past. Our bodies are already time machines taking us to the future.”
#HadtoSitDown
due to
#facts
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Today I found out that RBG credited her Cornell University lit prof with influencing her style of judicial opinion. You know who that prof was?
Vladimir Nabakov.
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Last night in Chicago, I had a former student show up from 9 years ago—back in the day when I was lecturing at University of Michigan. He’s now a fancy Chicago lawyer. He said he wanted to tell me in person how much my teaching changed his life and why.
Friends, teaching is a
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Imagine this: You can think yourself progressive and still be racist. Racism colonizes the imagination. The only way to not be racist is to work at being anti racist and to rewire the imagination.
Anti racist is not a static or default position; it’s work.
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@El_King888
Or—get this—YOU could choose to focus on the accomplishment instead of seeing through a lens of politics and, in the fashion befitting privilege, choosing to leave a negative comment instead of being quiet. But do you. We alright over here.
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Ageism is also a thing in poetry. I’ve felt it. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. Just know, emerging and youth are not synonymous. You don’t turn 40 and stop innovating. You don’t turn 20 and start.
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Best part of teaching at a womens’ college? Women don’t feel the need to preface their statements with “I don’t know if this is right” in anticipation of inevitable mansplaining.
Also, no mansplainers.
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Don't let America replace your full spectrum of human emotion with only anger or only sadness or only despair.
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Please know I noticed that all the brown and black soldiers died first (Dothraki and Unsullied). Lesson? Don't march North to fight in wight wars under any circumstance.
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How To Be Your Own Goddamn Hero:
-Believe no man or system will break what you’ve made.
-Quit toxic friendships & relationships.
-Squash envy & fear
-Speak out for truth even if it jeopardizes you in some way.
-Be your own advocate.
-Kill the impulse for niceness.
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Know how some of you are livid b/c a privileged liar, who doesn't deserve any job, is going to win a job that impacts your life & body?
Welcome to the 300-Year-Old Black American Reality. There's much to see...grab an audio kit & let's begin your immersive experience.
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If you’re having a bad day, just remember time isn’t linear. Another you is totally killing it in the multiverse.
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My 8-year-old: Poetry is hard because the themes are all over the place. I mean, did everybody's father die from cigarettes or drowning and why is everybody's mother a faraway planet and why are poets sad for a whole chapter?
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I love commas because I love breathing. Use commas. Breathe. Lower your blood pressure.
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It’s possible to edit the soul out of a poem. Try not to.
Leave a little something that makes it imperfect and in need of a God.
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If you don’t like poetry but you know all the lyrics to “Purple Rain,” you like poetry.
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Me: What was your favorite thought today?
My 9-year-old: Hmmm...did you ever think about how much the tongue trusts the teeth? How the tongue sits near something that could destroy it, but doesn’t?
#restraint
#collaboration
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The hardest poem to write is one of joy. I don’t know why. Maybe because we sense it in our bodies as loss? Maybe because as soon as joy comes something has to replace it? Maybe because we privilege the thieves of joy above joy itself?
Maybe stop doing that.
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Today I replied to exactly one email, two months late, and now I’m walking around acting like I wrote the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
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When I stopped hanging with people who only cared to complain about other people’s bad ideas and started hanging with people who were excited by their own excellent ass ideas, I shaved off 2 hours of daily stress.
Passing the savings on to you.
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Hey Writers with Kids-I'm rooting for you. We need your voice. Don't get discouraged. You got this.
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Line breaks matter. Please, please, please care about them. Function words don’t usually hold stress, carry enough weight or create enough momentum to enjamb the line around them. You’re looking for double meaning. You’re looking for energy in the line.
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#ShareYourRejections
listen, my book was rejected, like, 28 times until it won the Yale. The poems were constantly rejected. Name a journal; they rejected them. Anyway, this is Gertrude Stein’s epic rejection in 1912. We’re in good company. Long game.
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I was once on a panel with Louise Glück and when asked what her form of activism was, she replied, “I teach.”
For some, activism might be showing compassion. For others, providing shelter or food. For yet others it might be a heartfelt hug of succor. Activism takes many forms.
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Today is my birthday. I feel unashamedly 50, which is to say, feral and wise, and not trying to be 25, 35, or 45. I’m me and I know me and I love myself so fully where I am that I can truly love others where they are. That’s enough. Damn, that’s everything.
Happy Equinox!
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I love poems. I read poems. I write poems. I teach poems. Poems, however, will not make the world a better place.
What makes the world better is individual & collective action. That’s work requiring a giant step outside the circle jerk radius.
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I’m unashamedly joyful. Why? My family is healthy. My home is a safe haven. My life is evolving. My mind is calm and open. My ego is tame. The path is well lit. And my first work won’t be my best work.
Onward, Loves, onward.
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Poets are people who constantly ask, “but, what does that mean...” about, literally, everything until someone distracts them with the offer of drinks, snacks, and/or affection.
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TFW you realize you’ve lost more poems than you’ve written because bits of a poem come in traffic, while you’re walking in the woods, when you’re angry, when you’re happy, in pain, when you’re light years from paper or a pen, when you couldn’t be bothered with writing a poem.
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Almost every book of poems is asking one or more of these questions:
-Who am I?
-What’s that?
-What the fuck?
-Is fire hot?
-Where they do that at?
-Who’s mans is this?
-How, tho?
-Why are you an asshole? (Which is also “who’s mans is this?”)
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White woman, a perfect stranger, on plane sitting next to me: “Oh Girl, let me tell you about my morning.”
Me: “No.” (continues minding my own grown woman business, unbothered)
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Please don’t use astrology as an excuse for poor behavior. You are an ass because you tried on a donkey costume and liked the fit. You weren’t born an ass by star assignment.
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I am on sabbatical for a full year. 3 of my 4 kids are in college or grad school. My youngest is a teenager and only emerges from her room for food and to, occasionally, lick a beam of sunlight. All of this means I can spend my daylight hours in a world I created out of my
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Really considering starting a podcast titled “The Other Read” where I close read a canonical poem each week to expose its bias.
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1990:
I got dumped by my date a week before prom. I was devastated. When my mom came home from work at 10pm, I fell into her arms crying. She hugged me for 30 seconds. Handed me the keys to her car, told me to drive to that dude’s house and get her money back for his half of the
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I’m a late bloomer career-wise. I have been different people from corporate to stay-at-home mom to grad student to struggling poet.
But this week my oldest son graduated college, and I was proud of him. And this week I was promoted with tenure, and I was proud of myself.
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Racism is also a pandemic, is viral, is contagious, has killed millions, requires a mask or armor, and has no known cure.
Please know there are people who are simultaneously dealing with dual pandemics.
Be easy. Show care.
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Somebody commented that I use "the work" when referring to writing. I do that to remind that art is not frivolous. And for those of us from underrepresented backgrounds, where production measured your worth, it's vital to believe creation holds value. Art is labor. Labor matters.
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It’s a kindness to tell people you love when their poems aren’t ready or need to be indefinitely put away. A true grace.
Side note: every poet needs to have at least one person who loves them that much.
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Diversify the editorial board, establish a fund to help financially-distressed poets privileging marginalized communities, step outside of the king making machine, distribute power without nepotism, and, by all means, stop practicing cultural essentialism.
The Poetry Foundation and POETRY magazine stand in solidarity with the Black community, and denounce injustice and systemic racism.
Read our full statement here:
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Black teen misses bus, gets shot at after asking for directions in Rochester Hills
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Social distancing is not about cutting oneself off from humanity. Quite the opposite. It’s a great kindness. It’s an act of utter love which says, “hey I don’t want to harm you; I want us both healthy.” It’s an act of solidarity & largely selfless.
#raincheckAffection
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My daughter told me "I never say I like or dislike people. I just say if they are allowed in my space."
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Went to bed. Woke up. Went to my prom a week later and had a fucking ball. All that to say, the sun rose when it wanted to and that dude had the black audacity to dm recently. I wrote back “Thanks for the slurpee. Enjoy your life.”
Gratitude is where it’s at.
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Reading a lot of scholarly work as of late. Can I just say that jargon and intelligence signaling are death to accessibility and sustainable comprehension?
It's okay for your thoughts to be understood. You're still smart.
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New therapist: So, what seems to be bothering you?
Me: America.
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Listen, Melania is as destructive as her husband. She’s not trapped. She re-ups that contract he has her sign with regularity. She likes her grave plot, the view, the worms and the smell of old dirt. Save your sympathy for people who don’t like Hell.
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Instead of asking poets:
“What do you write about?”(which is literally everything and nothing)
Try this:
“What are you thinking through at the moment?”
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8-year-old shows me Pokémon cards.
Me: Oh, she’s a cute character.
Daughter: Don’t assume gender. Pokémon world doesn’t care about that gender life.
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The most honest artistic statement would read “I make stuff and figure it out later.”
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10 years ago, in a crisis of artistic identity, I burned all copies of my very first manuscript. I scrubbed my hard drive. I forgot the poems existed. Today, I found the last remains of that book. With maturity and time away, I say with my whole heart...THIS BOOK A BANGER.
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Hate to break the truth but tenure doesn't exist to freely stare down blouses or bulges, whip out penises to grad students, flaunt titles or be safe. Tenure exists so that thinkers can share controversial ideas in the name of scholarship. Tenure exists to be ANTI-establishment.
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Decolonizing curriculums is activism. Dispersing accurate, buried information is activism. Forwarding a broad aesthetic is activism. Conscious teaching is activism.
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You know what I did instead of running around this morning, doing everything for everybody while building tiny resentments? I sat at my desk. I sat at my desk in my house. I sat at my desk in my house and wrote. I wrote.
Do something for yourself today. Seriously.
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When my daughter was younger I took her rock climbing. She climbed 7 inches off the ground, looked up, saw the height, jumped down and said, “I’ll do this when I get older if I feel like it.”
That’s gold star advice. No charge.
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In my writing workshops, I disallow “value” words to describe the poem. In other words, students don’t say “I like/I love/I hate...” What emerges in its place is a thoughtful and critical engagement with what the poem is DOING rather than how the poem makes the reader feel.
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Daughter: "Why does the body work so hard for us when it knows it has to die one day?"
Me: "Why do you think it does?"
Daughter: "Love."
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Color me common sense, but pretty much the entire purpose of having resources is to share them. The reason to build a network is to thread people together.
If I got it, you got it. And don’t pay me back pay it future. That’s where I live.
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Happy New Year from Philadelphia's Latest Poet Laureate.
Blog: Philly, Meet Your New Poet Laureate
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Whenever I say something slightly controversial, white men feel the need to tell me who I should be reading. That assumption is false & is also a lazy form of white supremacy.
I’ve read many white scholars; they’re who schools teach. Your turn to read some of mine.
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If the election is too much, why not do something less stressful? Like, maybe, take the evening to work on your dysfunctional attachment issues based on the generational trauma inherited from your family of origin?
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Being a poet sucks when:
You’re in a heated argument and the person you’re arguing with delivers a stunning line. So, then, you gotta give them mid-argument dap for being a real one and coming with that lyrical fire.
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The poetic turn is the space in the poem in which you are forcefully spun around 180 degrees in order to see what’s behind you. And what’s behind becomes what’s ahead because the map you were reading was always upside down.
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Dear Students—
Please go easy on your professors. We might be home with vulnerable parents, kids, deadlines, and an increased workload due to online classes.
Forget the grading scale on the syllabus. Humanity is now 50% of your grade.
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Here, briefly, to say this:
Joy and laughter are a powerful form of resistance.
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From a poetry professor’s point of view, Kendrick wins with every drop. His lyrical, syntactical, and rhetorical complexity are a master class in variation. As a means of comparison, consider Drake and Dot’s rhyme variance in the last two, early morning (est) tracks. (1/?)🧵
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I asked someone how they were doing and they said “I’m just a spirit in this body and trying to understand.”
Let’s normalize this level of truthfulness.
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Getting along with everyone is not a mark of human excellence. Healthy boundaries are far superior to being well liked.
Show self-compassion, throw deuces, and stay in your energetic lane.
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I got the refund and told him to run me gas money for my inconvenience.
Went to 7-11, got a cherry slurpee, drove home.
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Also don’t forget that a little less than 50% of voting Americans gave fascism, racism, and xenophobia a 10 out of 10 “Would do again” yelp rating.
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Read more global voices. Demand more translations by reading more translations.
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I highly suggest talking to yourself the way you would a lover. Wake up and ask, “Hey, Love, what do you need from me to make your day better?”
Then work your own needs like it’s a double-paid overtime shift at the plant.
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Please ask elders their stories. Flowers are nice. Being remembered by your own words is better.
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Radical love means radical honesty and holding people radically responsible because you both deserve better.
To be firm, to have boundaries, and to make demands is not betrayal; it is, at once, self love and universal.
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I’ve been 50 for 7 months and it’s splendid. It’s the decade where you realize you don’t give a damn about a lot of things you previously gave energy to, you establish boundaries that make sense for your life, and you find ways to rest instead of grind.
Age is a gift when
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Me: How would you address the criticism that bipoc are taking over and there’s no room for non-identity poetics?
My Son: I wouldn’t address it; it’s a trash argument. I would just say write harder and maybe stop writing poems about tree bark when we in a state of emergency.
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Aye, if you are a poet desirous of serious engagement with craft & don't have an MFA or can't invest in an MFA &/or don't know where to start reading, DM me and I'll send you some readings.
One time offer only.
XoA
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So last year I was telling my students to put some “Zaza” on their work—you know heighten diction, find a form that speaks. Now, I’d heard my older kids say the word and I thought it was short for “pizzazz.” Come to find out, gentle reader, “zaza” means exotic weed.
And that’s
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I don’t know who needs to hear this but people suffer from invisible disabilities everyday.
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Just won a grant in which I rambled about the need to go to Germany to study Dadaism. So, I’m going to Berlin this summer.
Let’s go, Life.
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Poets, we are all doing exactly too much and too little.
Form is not plagiarism. In all, we write about 4 topics, maybe--love, death, life, birth. A collective consciousness exists. We process and internalize the words we've read & heard; that's why cliches exist.
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2019 Summer Plans:
-Travel
-Write
-Mind My Business
-Stay Thicc
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Our bodies are temporary vessels. Be kind to yourself. Forgive the past. Let the present open up to you. Let the future worry about itself.
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Feel no compulsion to write into race or ethnicity in prescribed ways in order to be published. Just be you, in your body with your voice.
Your culture is not a dot on a line; it’s a full spectrum.
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So many artists, myself included, are better at a distance. You don’t have to pull people close, pull the work close. All your late great faves were probably drunks, misogynists, racists and/or irredeemably flawed assholes. Read them still. You not perfect either.
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51 today.
Does as she pleases ✅
Sees through to the truth ✅
Embraces her shadow and light ✅
Realizes where others end and she begins ✅
Measures “fineness” by spirit and still fine by all metrics ✅
Fully aware of her power ✅
Ancestral beloved ✅
Her words are her wand ✅
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I tell my students that honest curiosity means asking questions you genuinely don’t have answers to.
That other game, where someone knows the answer and asks in order to appear knowledgeable or test someone else’s knowledge, is what I call “ego rhetorical.”
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Take ALL the selfies. Time & history have never been kind to the feminine body, a vessel long cast in specific & impossible forms, & often grossly misrepresented.
Don’t allow your body to solely be the subject of some other artist’s casual gaze. Medusa, too, was beautiful.
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Friend, please see your own brilliance. The rest of us see it from miles away.
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