 Hello, I'm Mary Lou Aliotta. I'm very happy that my archives have been embraced here and come home to the hills. We were talking earlier and you expressed something that, and I won't quote you because I'll get you wrong, but you were saying that the heart of your work, the heart of who you are, is in the great, smoky mountain. That is true. The mountains are inside my, me and inside my bloodstream. That's where my family lives, seven generations. And so we're all mountain folks. You say it is central. How is it central to your writing? Well, because I'm going to use an old mountain term. I soaked them up when I was little. I just soaked up creeks and wind and trees and bears and things. It just became part of me so that when I came to talk about the atom or came to talk about anything, the mountains were naturally part of me because I grew up there. You know, it was a natural thing. Like you say, you're a natural born mountain person. I like one of the lines. One of something that you wrote was, my mountains are very old. Yes. Yes, my mountains are very old, older than the Andes, and mellowed down, wrapped in mist like agents deep in thought. They always look like agents deep in thought, and they are in fact the oldest mountains in North America. Very ancient and mysterious. Do you recall your first poem? And if you would, can you recite it? Yes, I can recite it. My mother recalled it. We were so... Folks who grow up in the old tradition are so fortunate because it never dies. It even comes from beyond the grave. And my mother memorized my first poem and told me about it every year in my life. I was three and a half. She said, you were three and a half, Mary Lou. We were walking along the sidewalk past some neighborhood stores and a monarch butterfly died in the air and grazed your shoulder. Picking up, let us see it. As it fell to the sidewalk, you leaned over, carefully picked it up and said, old little butterfly, how I wish you weren't dead so you could fly with other butterflies instead. And then said, mother, you picked it up and put it on the ledge of the storefront window. Turned me and said, so nobody will step on it. And you were how old? Three and a half. And so looking back over the 85 years of my life, I think that was the keynote of all my work. Under all my work is that thought, old little butterfly, pain and injustice upsets me and then I want to move people, the earth out of harm's way. So that's just the way I am. I guess that's the way I was. Talk to me for a second about DNA and about this notion that you've talked to us about, which is diversity in me. Diversity within yourself. Yes, right now diversity is the big word. Everyone's talking about it, but mostly diversity outward diversity, that is different race, different region, different points of view. But one of my focuses is the inner diversity because every individual is looking for the voice inside. What the different elements of your family, your father, your mother, where you grew up, what influence it had and how to balance it and speak from that balance center in whatever your profession is or your dream is to do. A decade from now or a century from now, some graduate student or some college freshman is going to stumble across this and find it and look at it and listen to you and hear what you've said. What message do you want to send across time to people who might be exposed to your work and listen to your work? Well, I want to send the message of hope and I want to send the message of you are a worthy person. Look at your roots, your courage is your memory. Gather up your roots in your culture and be proud and don't let anybody cut you in little pieces. Trust your own thinking, trust where you're going and get the job done that you want to get done.