--- title: Rita Dove University of Virginia Commencement Speech description: Watch Rita Dove's University of Virginia commencement speech canonical: https://time.com/4341831/rita-dove-commencement-speech-university-of-virginia/ author: Rita Dove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-22T14:56:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-06T09:17:52.923Z og:title: Rita Dove to Grads: 'Instead of Advice, I Will Give You Wishes' og:description: Watch Rita Dove's University of Virginia commencement speech og:url: https://time.com/4341831/rita-dove-commencement-speech-university-of-virginia/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5897885ea49ffe63/6988944dab6d7761536a9c9d/rita-dove-commencement.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2551 og:image:height: 1435 og:image:alt: rita-dove-commencement og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Rita Dove to Grads: 'Instead of Advice, I Will Give You Wishes' twitter:description: Watch Rita Dove's University of Virginia commencement speech twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5897885ea49ffe63/6988944dab6d7761536a9c9d/rita-dove-commencement.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Rita Dove to Grads: 'Instead of Advice, I Will Give You Wishes' > Sponsored content. 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It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=658cb853-e58b-4952-ae1e-c7648e2be84b&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Rita Dove Addresses UVA's Class of 2016.mp4 [Watch (HLS stream): Rita Dove Addresses UVA's Class of 2016.mp4](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Y8W5LMaT.m3u8) (18:13)  _Published 2016-05-22_ by [Rita Dove](https://time.com/author/rita-dove/) ## Rita Dove May 22, 2016 2:56 PM UTC by [Rita Dove](https://time.com/author/rita-dove/) ## Rita Dove May 22, 2016 2:56 PM UTC President Sullivan, esteemed faculty and alumni, long-suffering, now relieved parents, jubilant relatives & friends . . . but foremost you, the graduating class of 2016 – despite the weather, this is a glorious morning! Congratulations! Asking a poet to speak at commencement seems both a no-brainer and a provocation. After all, poets deal with words all the time – but they also strive to distill language down to the most necessary syllables in the most haunting song. The prospect of addressing a new generation of young adults coming from wide-ranging disciplines, all gathered one last time on these Grounds before scattering in whichever directions your passions or your jobs will take you – well, I can’t help but think of what Mark Twain said about the biblical Adam: “What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.” So let me say a few good words that couldn’t be truer: I am extremely delighted to be here today, at the very institution where I have been teaching for the past twenty-seven years. Although I have given commencement speeches before, this one is different; this is personal. The job of a commencement speaker – I googled it, so it must be true! – is to dispense “life advice”. That seems the very opposite of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s definition of the poet as “a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.” So I will not give you advice. The last thing you want to hear is advice—because in order to be effective, advice must be specific – and that, obviously, is impossible in this setting. So instead of advice, I will give you wishes. Just think of me as a contrary fairy godmother or a wily genie. **I wish you Hunger.** Of course, I don’t mean physiological want, but a continued spiritual and intellectual appetite, a hunger to know more, do more, feel more. When I told my graduate poetry writing class that I was giving this speech, I asked them what they wished they had heard at their baccalaureate exercises, and one young woman responded with a list of, as she put it, “some things . . . I wish I could have heard, if I’d had sense enough to listen”. 1. Life is short. 2. Don’t put yourself in a box. 3. There’s a reason certain people, places, books, ideas, etc. make our ears stand up; always follow what attracts you.” And number 4, which to me is the kicker: 1. Passions are hard to come by. When you entered this university, you wanted to eat the world, and all everyone else wanted you to do was to get good grades. And though your dreams may have been more nebulous then than they are now, they were no less intense. So keep that hunger; nurse it. Stay curious, want it all while it lasts. **I wish you Hard Work.** By that I don’t mean back-breaking labor, not the drudgery of the treadmill, but an appreciation for the work that comes before the big show – getting ready, honing your tools. Observation, research, practice – the actress Lupita Nyong’o gives herself homework whenever she has an audition. The classical flautist James Galway says: “You can sight-read better if you know your scales and arpeggios.” When my father sat me down for the “You’re-going-out-into-the-world” talk, his message was this: Always be 150% prepared! At 150% you’ll be ready for anything – even if you’re not chosen for a job or position although you’re the better qualified candidate. As the first African-American research chemist to break the color barrier in the tire and rubber industry, my father knew how it felt to be passed over. What he was trying to tell me was: The last person to hold you accountable is you yourself. In most cases you won’t be asked for more than 75%; in fact, depending on your race and gender, you might not be expected to give more than 50% of your capacity. But only you will know if you’ve done your best, so focus on that rather than what others think your best is – because if you allow others to tell you your worth, you will have given up on yourself. For me, a shy kid who trembled giving class presentations in high school, the 150% I had not ever expected to need came in handy when I received the phone call that I had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize and would have to hold my first press conference. Six years later, when I was named Poet Laureate of the United States, that 150% emboldened me to write a letter on this University’s letterhead to then President-elect Clinton, suggesting that the White House spotlight the arts during Arts and Humanities month; and in October of that year, 1993, as my husband and I rushed to Pennsylvania Avenue right after my inaugural poetry reading at the Library of Congress to join the White House Celebration and State Dinner in honor of the Arts and Humanities, I used every bit of that 150%! **I wish you Uncertainty.** There’s only so much knowledge that can be taught; hard facts are just that – solid, dense entities, the stones in a swiftly flowing stream of possibilities. You cannot wait for revelation to come down upon you in a cloud of gossamer and angelic sighs; more often than not you have to seek it out. Sometimes you don’t know where you’re going, but the only way you’ll find out is if you get going. That doesn’t mean that you rush off willy-nilly screaming, “I’m going to conquer this world” – but you do need to be bold enough to step outside of your comfort zone, even if it’s scary Out There. One of the greatest gifts you have received at this university is an apprenticeship in the investigation of ideas – learning how to think, to follow the trajectory of a thought, when to proceed methodically or pursue a tangent – techniques for navigating the path to Discovery without getting lost. Compare yourself to an explorer whose sextant allows him to read the stars and figure out which way he is going, whose portable laboratory enables her to analyze plants and determine which ones are beneficial and which ones poisonous. Between that knowledge and the wide wide world are a host of unknowns, both pitfalls and bounty. And Terror – because let’s face it: Breaking new ground may be exhilarating, but it is also terrifying. If you’re lucky, on some level you will always be a student. If you’re lucky, you will never lose the sensation of terror that precedes discovery nor the delight that follows, and this memory will help you forge ahead into the next bit of uncharted territory. **I wish you the Future.** The secret to success? The key to happiness? We all want that One Answer. I believe success is loving what you’re doing more than who people think you are. As for happiness: Well, whenever you can forget what you’re doing while you’re doing it; when you get so involved that time, quite literally, flies – then you are doing something right. When you want to keep on even though to do so will totally mess up your schedule, then you are happy – because whatever it is, is larger than you, and you are growing to meet it. Psychologists call this being in the state of “flow”, musicians say they’re “in the pocket”, software developers talk of being “wired in”; the Greeks blamed it on their muses; and LeBron James seems to have taken up permanent residence “in the zone”. So: I will not tell you in more than this one sentence that you have your entire life before you, since that’s self-evident – be that life ninety years or a handful of decades. What I’d like to impress upon you is an awareness that this life is yours to fill. What I want you to remember is that nobody will taste it but you, so you should only be looking to fill it with those tasty bites you want to savor: and if you lose your appetite because someone else has less than you or you have hoarded the salt – well, that’s part of your menu, too. I will not tell you to look ahead, as if you could discern what’s out there waiting. I will not say it because that is a false horizon. What I will say is that if you are lucky, you cannot possibly imagine what the future has in store. When I arrived at the University of Virginia more than a quarter century ago, most of you were either not yet born, or just barely, still scrabbling on hands and knees. At that juncture in time – around 1994 for undergraduates, somewhat earlier for Advanced Degree candidates – as you grew up and into yourselves, as I waited for you to join me, what did the future look like? Think of the things that didn’t exist in everyday life: The World Wide Web. Global Positioning Systems and Genome sequencing. Close-up images from Mars and drones. Some items we now use as casually as reaching for the milk to pour into our Cheerios had yet to make it to the mass market level, like antilock brakes and digital cameras; others were still figments of our Star Trek imaginations: Plasma screens, WiFi, Xbox – not to mention Hulu, Netflix, Skype. What fantastical names we’ve given these contemporary household tools! Google. Facebook. Twitter. Yahoo. The Cloud. The iPad, the iPod – hell, the entire Apple universe! And let us not forget Email. The first Web browsers for people who were not versed in machine language came to fruition around the time of your birth. And as you grew up, that E- became a prefix for new digital marvels: Ebay, e-books, e-cars. Ah, all the tech abbreviations that would have sent Rip Van Winkle screaming back into his pre-Revolutionary War mountains: GPS, TiVo, HDTV, Wiki, Wii. And now, think back to when this university was founded. In 1825 there were horses racing down the Lawn and a pet bear in one of the Gardens; brawls and typhoid, flickering candlelight and smoky fireplaces. The outcome of this great academical experiment was still up for grabs. Even this nation was not yet the democratic success story but a struggling, volatile startup company with grand ideas, wobbly capital and a slave economy. The future is never a done deal, or a safe bet – I’m using these clichés deliberately, because the worst kind of future I could wish you is the one that’s already spelled out – prescribed, predetermined. When I stepped onto the lawn as the English department’s first female African-American full professor 27 years ago, I did not know that I would be speaking to you today. And yet, even at that time I had already progressed, through luck and circumstance and a bit of hard work, beyond the wildest dreams of my childhood. When I was a child, if someone would have told me that one day I would dine with U.S. Presidents and joke with Big Bird, I would have probably hidden myself in a thicket … So if you cannot imagine the future, how do you prepare for it? There are moments in life – and this might be one of those moments –that offer us a multidimensional sense of time, to see ahead as well as look behind you, assessing what has gone before, to reflect upon what has led up to this instant and what will hopefully spiral out of it. Poets call it the lyric moment. Lyric: The word comes from the ancient Greek _lurikos_, or _lyre_, the stringed musical instrument favored by poets of the day. The lyric moment, therefore, is one that sings – when emotions bubble up so thickly, they cannot be contained in a paragraph or captured with logic or framed in a snapshot. And so my final wish for you: May you have many, many more moments that sing. Since I am foremost a poet – my passion, my 150% – I would be remiss if I didn’t leave you with a poem. It is called “Testimonial”, and thanks to the Charlottesville Mural Project, it is scheduled to become part of the local urban scenery as a public work of art – so when, in years to come, you return to Grounds as alumni, you can stroll down to the Corner and find these words painted on the side of the Graduate Hotel, six stories high: **Testimonial** Back when the earth was new and heaven just a whisper, back when the names of things hadn’t had time to stick; back when the smallest breezes melted summer into autumn, when all the poplars quivered sweetly in rank and file . . . the world called, and I answered. Each glance ignited to a gaze. I caught my breath and called that life, swooned between spoonfuls of lemon sorbet. I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn’t know their names? Back when everything was still to come, luck leaked out everywhere. I gave my promise to the world, and the world followed me here. To the class of 2016 – and all those who helped get you to here – Congratulations, and Wa-Hoo-Wa! _Read more 2016 commencement speeches:_ [Anne-Marie Slaughter: ‘Care Is as Important as Career’](http://motto.time.com/4321549/anne-marie-slaughter-university-of-utah-commencement-speech/) [Arianna Huffington to Grads: ‘Your Attention Is Truly the Most Valuable Currency’](http://motto.time.com/4341944/arianna-huffington-commencement-speech-colby-college/) [Barack Obama: ‘Passion Is Vital, But You’ve Got to Have a Strategy’](http://motto.time.com/4322786/barack-obama-howard-university-commencement-speech/) [Condoleezza Rice to Grads: ‘Don’t Let Anyone Else Define Your Passion’](http://motto.time.com/4323641/condoleezza-rice-high-point-university-commencement-speech/) [Cory Booker to Grads: ‘Tell Your Truth’](http://motto.time.com/4339149/cory-booker-washington-university-commencement/) [Darren Walker to Grads: ‘Stand For Something’](http://motto.time.com/4341702/darren-walker-nyu-commencement-speech/) [Earl Lewis: ‘Never Confuse The Attainement of an Education with What It Means to Be Educated’](http://motto.time.com/4338548/earl-lewis-carnegie-mellon-commencement-speech/) [Eboo Patel to Wake Forest Grads: ‘The Only Shame Is in Stagnation’](http://motto.time.com/4340068/eboo-patel-commencement-wake-forest/) [Hank Azaria to Grads: Ignore Your Instincts ‘at Your Own Peril’](http://motto.time.com/4341886/hank-azaria-commencement-speech-tufts-university/) [Hoda Kotb: ‘You’re the Sum Total of the Five People You Spend the Most Time With’](http://motto.time.com/4338660/hoda-kotb-tulane-university-commencement-speech/) [J.K. Simmons to Grads: ‘Live in the Moment’](https://time.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=4339313&action=edit) [Jane Goodall to Grads: ‘Remember to Live to Your True Human Potential’](http://motto.time.com/4307361/jane-goodall-university-of-redlands-commencement-speech/) [Jill Bolte Taylor: ‘We Have the Power to Choose Who We Want to Be’](http://motto.time.com/4323071/jill-bolte-taylor-butler-university-commencement-speech/) [Lin-Manuel Miranda to Grads: ‘Your Stories Are Essential’](http://motto.time.com/4337719/lin-manuel-miranda-grad-speech/) [Madeleine Albright: ‘Everyone Must Participate in Solving Shared Problems’](http://motto.time.com/4337554/madeleine-albright-scripps-college-commencement-speech/) [Mahershala Ali to Grads: ‘We Are All Co-Creators of Our Respective Destinies’](http://motto.time.com/4341865/mahershala-ali-commencement-speech-saint-marys-college-california/) [Michael Bloomberg: ‘An Open Mind Is the Most Valuable Asset You Can Possess’](http://motto.time.com/4315386/michael-bloomberg-university-of-michigan-commencement-speech/) [Michelle Obama to Grads: ‘Excellence Is the Most Powerful Answer You Can Give’](http://motto.time.com/4307020/michelle-obama-commencement-speech-jackson-state/) [Obama to Grads: Building Walls Is ‘A Betrayal of Who We Are’](http://motto.time.com/4337470/obama-rutgers-trump-comments/) [Russell Wilson: ‘Go Make It Happen’](http://motto.time.com/4337324/russell-wilson-university-wisconsin-commencement-speech/) [Samantha Power to Grads: ‘Invest Yourself Fully. Get Close’](http://motto.time.com/4341959/samantha-power-commencement-speech-yale-university/) [Sheryl Sandberg: ‘Finding Gratitude and Appreciation Is Key to Resilience’](http://motto.time.com/4336546/sheryl-sandberg-university-of-california-berekley-commencement-speech/) [Vivek Murthy: ‘Live a Connected Life’](http://motto.time.com/4337454/vivek-murthy-commencement-speech-arizona/) [William Foege to Grads: ‘Every Day We Edit Our Obituaries’](http://motto.time.com/4327610/william-foege-emory-university-commencement-speech/) – ## Transcript [ APPLAUSE ] Thank you [ UNKNOWN ] Goodwin, President Sullivan, esteemed faculty and alumni, long suffering and now relieved parents. [ LAUGH ] Jubilant relatives and friends, but foremost you the graduating class of 2016 Despite the weather, this is a glorious morning. Congratulations. [ APPLAUSE ] Now, asking a poet to speak at commencement seems both a no- brainer And of provocation. After all, poets deal with words all the time, but they also strive to distill language down to the most necessary syllables and the most taunting song. The prospect of addressing a new generation of Adults coming from wide ranging disciplines all gathered here one last time on these grounds before scattering in whichever directions your passions or your jobs will take you. Well, I can't help but think of what Mark Twain said about the biblical Adam. How lucky Adam was, he knew when he said a good thing nobody had said it before. So let me say a few good words that couldn't be truer, I am extremely delighted to be here today. At the very institution where I have been teaching for the past 27 years. A And although- [ APPLAUSE ] I can't believe it myself. Although I have given commencement speeches before This one is different, this one is personal. The job of a commencement speaker, I Googled it, so it must be true. [ LAUGH ] Is to quote, dispense life advice. That seems the very opposite Of Percy Bysshe Shelley's definition of the poet as a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. [ LAUGH ] So I will not give you advice. The last thing you want to hear is advice because in order to be effective, advice must be specific, and that obviously is impossible in this setting. So instead of advice, I will give you wishes. Just think of me as a Crafty, fairy godmother. [ LAUGHTER ] Or a wily genie. I wish you hunger. Of course, I don't mean physiological want but a continued spiritual and intellectual appetite A hunger to know more, do more, feel more. When you entered this university you wanted to eat the world and all everyone else wanted you to do was to get good grades. And though your dreams may have been more nebulous then than they are now They will know less in tents. As one of my graduate students reminded me recently, passions are hard to come by. So, keep that hunger. Nurse it. Stay curious. Wanted all while it last. I wish you, Hard work. By that, I dont' mean back breaking labor. Or the drudgery of a treadmill. But an appreciation of the work that comes before the big show. Getting ready, honing your tools. Observation research practice, You know the actress Lupita Nyong'o gives herself homework whenever she has an audition. And the classical flautist James Galway once said, you can sight read better if you know your scales and arpeggios. Now when my father sat me down for the, you're going out into the world speech, His message was very short. Always be 150 % prepared, he said. At 150 % you'll be ready for anything, even if you're not chosen for the job or the position, although you're the better qualified candidate. As the first African American research chemist to break the color barrier in the tire and rubber industry, my father knew how it felt to be passed over. [ APPLAUSE ] And I think what he was trying to tell me was The last person to hold you accountable is you, yourself. In most cases, in the world, you won't be asked for more than 75 %. In fact, depending on your race or gender, or other conditions, sometimes you'll be underestimated even more and won't be expected To give more than 50 % of your capacity. But only you will know if you've done your best. So focus on that rather than on what others think your best is. Because if you allow others to tell you your worth, you will have given up on yourself. For me A shy kid who trembled before giving class presentations in high school. The 150 % I had not ever expected to need came in handy when I received the phone call that I had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize and would have to hold my first press conference. [ APPLAUSE ] It was a stiff, a very steep learning curve let me say. And six years later when I was named poet laureate of the United States, that 150 % emboldened me to write a letter on this university's letterhead To the then President Elect Clinton, suggesting that the White House spotlight the arts during Arts and Humanities Month. And then in October of that year, 1993, as my husband and I rushed to Pennsylvania Ave right after my inaugural poetry Reading at the Library of Congress to join the White House celebration and state dinner in honor of the arts and humanities, I used every bit of that 150 %, I can tell you. [ LAUGH ] So, deferred wish. I wish you uncertainty. There's only so much knowledge that can be taught. Hard facts such as that solid dense entities, you could call them the stones and the swiftly flowing stream of possibilities. You cannot wait for revelation to come down upon you in a cloud of gasoline in angelic size More often than not you will have to think it out. And sometimes you don't know where you're going. But the only way you'll find out, is if you go. That doesn't mean that you rush off willingly, nearly screaming, I'm gonna conquer this world. But you do need to be bold enough to step outside of your comfort zone. Even if it's scary out there. Now one of the greatest gifts you've received at this university is an apprenticeship in the investigation of ideas. Leaning how to think, how to follow the trajectory of a thought, when to proceed methodically, or to pursue a tangent. All of these techniques for navigating the path to discovery without getting lost. Compare yourself to an explorer whose sextant allows him to read the stars and figure out which way he is going. Whose portable laboratory enables her to analyze plants and determine which ones are beneficial and which are poisonous. Between that kind of knowledge, and the wide wide world, are a host of unknowns, both pitfalls and bounty. And let's not forget terror. Because let's face it, breaking new ground may be exhilarating, but it is also terrifying. If you are lucky on some level you will always be a student. If you're lucky you will never lose the sensation of terror that precedes discovery nor the delight that follows. And this memory will help you forge ahead into the next bit of uncharted territory. I wish you the future. We all want that one answer, the secret to success, the key to happiness. I believe success is loving what you're doing more than who people think you are, and that's for happiness. Well whenever you can forget what you're doing while you're doing it. When you get so involved that time quite literally flies then you are doing something right. And when you keep on, even though to do so will totally mess up your schedule, then I can say you're happy. " because whatever it is, it is larger than you, and you are going to meet it. Psychologists call this being in the state of flow. Musicians say they're in the pocket. Software developers talk of being wired in, and the Greeks blame it on their muses" While LeBron James seems to have taken up permanence residence in the zone, so I will not tell you in more than this one sentence, that you have your entire life before you, since that's self evident, be that life ninety years or a handful of decades. What I'd like to impress upon you is an awareness that this life is yours to fill. What I want you to remember is that nobody will taste it but you, so you should be looking to fill it with those tasty bites that you want to savor. And if you lose your appetite because someone else has less than you, or you have hoarded the salt. Well, that's part of your menu too. I will not tell you to look ahead, since none of us can know what's out there waiting. What I will say, is that if you are lucky, You cannot possibly imagine what the future has in store. When I arrived at the University of Virginia more than a quarter of a century ago most of you were either not yet born or just barely still scrabbling on hands and knees. At that juncture In time around 1994 for the undergraduates and somewhat earlier for advance degree candidates. As you grew up and into yourselves, as I waited for you to join me today on the lawn, what did this future look like then? Think of the things that didn't exist in everyday life. The World Wide Web, global positioning systems, genome sequencing, close- up images from Mars, drones. Some Items we now use as casually as reaching for the milk to pour into our Cheerios have yet to make it into the mass market level. Like anti lock brakes and digital cameras. Others were still figments of our Star Trek imaginations. Plasma screens WiFi, XBox, not to mention Hulu, Netflix, Skype. What fantastical names we've given these contemporary household tools. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, the Cloud, iPad, iPod Held the entire Apple universe, and let us not forget e- mail. The first web browser for people who are not versed in machine language came to fruition around the time of your birth. And as you grew up, that e hyphen became a prefix for new digital marvels. eBay, eBook, eCars. All the tech abbreviations that would have sent Rip Van Winkle screaming back into his pre- revolutionary war mountains. GPS, TiVo, HDTV, Wiki. We. And now, think back to when this university was founded. In 1825, there were horses racing down the lawn. And a pet bear in one of the gardens. [ LAUGH ] There were brawls, and typhoid, flickering candlelight, and smoky fireplaces. I guess there's still smoky fireplaces. The outcome of this great academical experiment was still up for grabs. Even this nation was not yet the democratic success story of today, but a struggling, volatile, startup company with grand ideas. Wobbly capital and a slave economy. The future is never a done deal or a safe bet. And I'm using these cliches deliberately because the worst kind of future I could wish for you is one that's already spelled out. That is prescribed Or predetermined. When I stepped onto the lawn as the English Department's first female African American full professor 27 years ago- [ APPLAUSE ] I did not know that I would be speaking to you today. And yet, even at that time, I had already progressed through luck and circumstance and a bit of hard work beyond the wildest dreams of my childhood. When I was a child, if someone would have told me that one day I would dine with US presidents and joke with Big Bird, I probably would have hidden myself in the thicket. So, if you cannot imagine the future. How do you prepare for it? There are moments in life and this might be one of those moments. They're offer us multi dimensional sense of time the ability to see ahead as well as look behind you assessing what has gone before, and reflecting upon, what has led up to this instant, and what will hopefully, spiral out of it. Poets call it, the Lyric Moment; Lyric, the word comes from the ancient Greek, UUU or Liar The stringed musical instrument favored by poets of the day. The lyric moment therefore is one that sings. When emotions bubble up so thickly they cannot be contained in a paragraph or captured with logic or framed in a snapshot And so this, my final wish for you, may you have many, many more moments that sing. And since I am for most, a poet, my passion by 150 %, I would be remiss, if i didn't leave you with a poem. It is called Testimonial. And thanks to the Charlottesville Mural Project, it is schedule to become part of the local urban scenery as a public work of art. So when, in years to come, you return to grounds as alumni, you can stroll down to the corner and find these words painted on the side of the Graduate Hotel. Six storeys high. Back when the earth was new and heaven just a whisper. Back when the names of things hadn't had time to stink. Back when the smallest breezes melted summer into autumn When all the poplars quivered sweetly in rank and file the world called and I answered. Each glance ignited to a glaze, I caught my breath and called that life swooned between spoonfuls of lemon sorbet. I was pure wet, and flourish. I was feel agree and flame. How could I count my blessings, when I didn't know their names? Back when everything was still to come, luck leaked out everywhere. I gave my promise to the world, and the world followed me here. To the class of 2016, and all those who helped you get to here, congratulations and wahoowah! 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