WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:03.270 align:middle line:84% The following poem for William Carlos Williams 00:00:03.270 --> 00:00:07.230 align:middle line:84% was written in response to the news 00:00:07.230 --> 00:00:11.100 align:middle line:90% that he had died last spring. 00:00:11.100 --> 00:00:14.670 align:middle line:84% And written just before he was given 00:00:14.670 --> 00:00:17.730 align:middle line:90% the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. 00:00:17.730 --> 00:00:23.480 align:middle line:90% 00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:25.970 align:middle line:84% And for some people who read Williams, 00:00:25.970 --> 00:00:28.370 align:middle line:84% they'll see various things that I'm 00:00:28.370 --> 00:00:33.050 align:middle line:84% doing here in response to certain things 00:00:33.050 --> 00:00:35.150 align:middle line:84% that Williams has taught about poetry. 00:00:35.150 --> 00:00:39.370 align:middle line:90% 00:00:39.370 --> 00:00:41.980 align:middle line:84% "Language lifted out of the ordinary 00:00:41.980 --> 00:00:45.460 align:middle line:90% into the illumination of poetry. 00:00:45.460 --> 00:00:49.570 align:middle line:84% Objects, sticks and stones coming together you 00:00:49.570 --> 00:00:51.670 align:middle line:90% place before our eyes. 00:00:51.670 --> 00:00:54.670 align:middle line:84% Expose bare to the weather, rained on, 00:00:54.670 --> 00:00:57.190 align:middle line:90% and cracked dry in the sun. 00:00:57.190 --> 00:01:01.180 align:middle line:84% A stick, a stone, a river cutting through clay, 00:01:01.180 --> 00:01:06.070 align:middle line:84% a white barn in a field, a cat coiled on a box. 00:01:06.070 --> 00:01:09.760 align:middle line:84% Words coming together, moving at one another, 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:11.350 align:middle line:90% traction for the tongue. 00:01:11.350 --> 00:01:16.750 align:middle line:84% Look at that, American language shouting across the Potomac. 00:01:16.750 --> 00:01:21.130 align:middle line:84% Ring coins over the river, open out Western states, 00:01:21.130 --> 00:01:25.540 align:middle line:84% anywhere a man can hear his voice. 00:01:25.540 --> 00:01:29.410 align:middle line:84% In the machines of Patterson, rattling 10 million words 00:01:29.410 --> 00:01:35.200 align:middle line:84% a day, a voice moves physical not understood as literary. 00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:38.020 align:middle line:84% But moving as a machine with traction, 00:01:38.020 --> 00:01:40.390 align:middle line:84% fitting itself against resistance. 00:01:40.390 --> 00:01:43.585 align:middle line:84% Song understood by the banging ear. 00:01:43.585 --> 00:01:46.110 align:middle line:90% 00:01:46.110 --> 00:01:50.590 align:middle line:84% A sparrow balances in the wind, voicing song 00:01:50.590 --> 00:01:52.510 align:middle line:90% into the shifting air. 00:01:52.510 --> 00:01:55.945 align:middle line:84% It is a small thing, but big as all creation. 00:01:55.945 --> 00:02:00.940 align:middle line:84% To its mate decided on the wire balancing. 00:02:00.940 --> 00:02:04.240 align:middle line:84% The wind blows, the wire snaps underfoot, 00:02:04.240 --> 00:02:08.860 align:middle line:84% the feet hold, the feathers have no time to compose themselves. 00:02:08.860 --> 00:02:12.370 align:middle line:84% It is as it should be or as it is. 00:02:12.370 --> 00:02:15.970 align:middle line:90% 00:02:15.970 --> 00:02:18.510 align:middle line:84% I heard he asked the excavators for a boulder dumped 00:02:18.510 --> 00:02:20.940 align:middle line:90% in his front yard. 00:02:20.940 --> 00:02:23.670 align:middle line:84% They must have thought he was some old nut. 00:02:23.670 --> 00:02:25.650 align:middle line:84% I mean, you dig a boulder out of the ground, 00:02:25.650 --> 00:02:28.090 align:middle line:84% you don't leave it in your front yard. 00:02:28.090 --> 00:02:29.790 align:middle line:90% I mean, what good is a big rock? 00:02:29.790 --> 00:02:34.020 align:middle line:84% All you can do is look at it or lean on it. 00:02:34.020 --> 00:02:35.670 align:middle line:84% I mean if you've got a lawn, you've 00:02:35.670 --> 00:02:37.770 align:middle line:84% got to mow around the damn thing, 00:02:37.770 --> 00:02:39.900 align:middle line:90% and clip the bloody grass. 00:02:39.900 --> 00:02:41.820 align:middle line:84% I mean, I hear he used to be a doctor. 00:02:41.820 --> 00:02:43.885 align:middle line:84% What did he do with the gall stones he cut out? 00:02:43.885 --> 00:02:45.135 align:middle line:90% Put them on the bloody mantel? 00:02:45.135 --> 00:02:48.680 align:middle line:90% 00:02:48.680 --> 00:02:51.920 align:middle line:84% The descent beckons as the ascent beckoned, 00:02:51.920 --> 00:02:53.930 align:middle line:90% I understand that. 00:02:53.930 --> 00:02:56.090 align:middle line:90% Until the point of what now? 00:02:56.090 --> 00:02:57.800 align:middle line:90% He is dead, gone forever. 00:02:57.800 --> 00:02:58.700 align:middle line:90% And to where? 00:02:58.700 --> 00:03:01.580 align:middle line:84% Into that black, which is blacker than the memory 00:03:01.580 --> 00:03:02.780 align:middle line:90% of black. 00:03:02.780 --> 00:03:06.860 align:middle line:84% It is as it should be or as it is. 00:03:06.860 --> 00:03:08.510 align:middle line:90% He is a part of the history. 00:03:08.510 --> 00:03:12.350 align:middle line:84% He brought poems together, clutched out of chaos. 00:03:12.350 --> 00:03:15.200 align:middle line:84% He will be the reason behind a language, where 00:03:15.200 --> 00:03:17.060 align:middle line:90% ethics can be clutched. 00:03:17.060 --> 00:03:19.790 align:middle line:84% He will be sticks and stones fewer 00:03:19.790 --> 00:03:22.205 align:middle line:90% of wood, drawer of wattle." 00:03:22.205 --> 00:03:24.710 align:middle line:90% 00:03:24.710 --> 00:03:26.480 align:middle line:84% I revised this poem since I wrote it. 00:03:26.480 --> 00:03:31.270 align:middle line:84% And I don't read the last three lines. 00:03:31.270 --> 00:03:32.000 align:middle line:90%