Warning-- this is the work of the imagination.
Not a fiction, per se, but a written, social gathering
of seemingly juxtaposed, distant realities.
The ideas expressed in this talk are mostly my own.
That is, I have come to them and they
to me as a result of years of looking and listening
to all the categories of poetic evidence available to me
on the subject.
In other words, this is a real talk, not a found one.
And that it would not for one second or six seconds or even
26 seconds be a real talk without the imagination.
This talk owes to its central energy--
this talk owes its central energy
to imaginative truth, not history.
But it is also important to cite that this poet believes
that much of what we think of as history
has been, in fact, the work of imagination,
or the imagination of many, possibly even
a total erasure of truth before it
was allowed to continue or shape itself into fact,
or rather, non-imagination.
Again, meaning that we really do live
in a very sinister, full of sense and changing truth
poetic realm known as reality.
A draft, we live in a draft, if you will,
of an unfinished poem full of official, unofficial,
and fabricated material and documents.
Thus, there are few things that I
would like to state up front, personal things.
I turned 50 years old in 2013, as did
the work of historical imagination
that I'm about to discuss.
No, not discuss but worry.
Langston Hughes had a term.
He would say, the poet shouldn't be about the poem.
The poet should worry the material.
Not approach it dead on, to work around it.
Not discuss, but worry.
And hopefully, I will worry it as much as it has worried me.
The question at the center of this open wound,
or wounds, if you will, is if the truth is not
destroyed but never established, as if never existed,
is it still possible to create a purely useful documentary
poetics memory or responsible aesthetic practice?
Or does the very and mostly conflicting material
immediately enlist the artist in a form of extended
and creative cover story?
Now, when you hear a term cover story,
you have a sense of a definition for yourself,
people, what a cover story is.
We know cover, right?
I need you now.
I need you.
Trust me, I'm doing the hard part.
Cover story, right?
OK, good.
Because we could try that together.
Extended and create a cover story.
A dangerous-- that's a funny thing about handwriting
when you scribble.
Anyway, I was 45 days old when the event occurred.
And my mother said that upon hearing the news on the radio,
I cried all day.
That's what mother said.
I didn't believe her.
But that's what she said.
I've been crying since '63.
And a good essay should cry.
She didn't say that part.
My aim is not to point fingers or to prove or convince
you of anything.
I won't even mention aliens in such poetic collections
as "Leaving Saturn" by Major Jackson or "Life
on Mars" by Tracy K Smith.
That's kind of funny.
I have friends who've been writing about sort of aliens.
You can't study JFK and not have the aliens come in.
You can't even go to Arizona and not
have the aliens come in since I've been here.
It's kind of funny when you think about it.
It's a weird-- weird bedmates.
But they actually belong together.
I simply want to share with you very briefly how
I discovered that I was writing very bad, cover story,
government approved poetry and how I taught myself to-- yeah,
there's such a thing as government approved poetry.
And how I taught myself to be on guard.
You know, poets think they're radical, you know?
No, not my work.
Guard against the many types of fabricated films, i.e.
Imagery that occur in all types of poetry.
Especially, so-called poetry of witness, also
known as the poetry of altered and tampered
with witness testimony.
There's not a poet who hasn't been tampered with.
Reading is actually a source of being tampered with.
Which is fine with me.
Depends on what you read, right?
Can't read it all.
So first, I would like to share three things with you.
The first is an example--
Oh I do need image.
Did you know that?
No.
Damn.
This happens every time, I know.
It's good.
Keep going.
He helps me when I stop.
Because if I go forward, then I'll be ahead of you.
I never remember what I'm going to do till I get up here,
so this is fine.
Also, the first is an example from YouTube
of what I consider to be, for the purpose of this talk,
an example of pure, visual, documentary poetics.
And it just means--
what was that?
[INAUDIBLE]
Exactly.
See?
It's coming back.
I know.
I like a lot of volume.
Look at these people.
Nobody's moving.
They're not even waving.
They're not talking to each other, not coughing.
So what I said was the first is an example from YouTube of what
I consider to be, for the purpose of this talk,
an example of pure visual documentary poetics--
the Zapruder film.
And the second is example of pure, fake, visual documentary
poetics.
They're still not moving.
Could you do that?
OK, thank you.
Most of America didn't see that till 1972-ish or four-ish,
I forget which one.
So it was '63, and the world didn't see it,
that, until then.
It was locked away and some other things.
The third thing-- the third and final thing I'd like to do,
keep this in mind, we'll be back.
The final thing I'd like to do is
read you a really bad poem written by the poet Thomas
Sayers Ellis.
This poem appeared in 1992 or 1993,
I forget which one, issue of Ploughshares,
guest edited by the poet Marie Howe.
The poet was paid for this poem.
The publication of this poem was cited on the poet's CV.
The poem helped the poet get a job.
The poem accepts openly not that Lee Harvey Oswald was
the lone shooter, but that Abraham Zapruder
is the lone shooter/author of the events of November 22,
1963, and an innocent, passive one.
To the clean side of the page, if you have it.
Remember, I wrote this in 1992 or three now.
So I don't know.
It's a different year, now.
"Zapruder."
Let's do it.
"Day off in dark suit and hat, looking
through the viewfinder of a new 8 millimeter Bell and Howell
camera.
Paying no mind the open windows, the seizure."
Think of the things you saw and you
didn't saw while you could see from that
and you didn't see, right?
What I'm reading.
"Just how more than half the targets on the grassy knoll--"
Did you see the grassy knoll?
"Are our potential customers, models, women.
How accident and aim could fit them all, including the car,
into the frame.
It was the '60s.
So before the volume of the motorcade
turned north up Houston then down on Elm,
they passed the camera between them, like a joint--"
You can do anything at the podium.
"Like a joint, a silent investment.
His secretary stood next to him."
Maybe you knew that, maybe you didn't.
Depends.
"Confident that their film would change lives.
That what the women wore to greet the president
would influence their sewing machines and needles.
Clicking the power on, and it's something above and below,
human to autumn.
Now comes history--"
This is where I was going to get really poetic right here, see?
Coming in-- coming into the stretch of the poem.
They teach you that in grad school, right?
About the end, you know?
"Now comes history--" that's why the big word, history.
"That moment when everything begins to wave, arms--"
you didn't see any waving arms, did you?
What happened to the waving arms?
Where they go?
It's like somebody-- They're in the way of the camera.
They can't wave their arms.
They're like, we're making a movie.
Keep your arms down.
Now, I know that if Jack and Jackie were passing me,
I'd be, Oh, what's up, babe?
[INAUDIBLE]
Mr. President. [? Hyannis. ?] I'd be into it.
They just stood there.
Do they know?
Are they real?
Anyway--
"arms, flags, lens, minutes, second, silence, dress maker,
souvenir, evidence."
Thank you.
Now we're going to flip it over.
This is why I don't go back in time.
That's why I would never read a poem that I've written.
I mean, not sitting around in my room.
This is what happens when you read your old work, sort of.
Or when you grow a little and you're looking,
you're seeing changes.
You're not just trapped in musing or poeticizing.
Much of what we're taught is the poeticize, right.
"Day off."
Maybe it was his day off.
Where did I get that from, right?
Maybe he was working.
Maybe he was hired by someone.
Maybe someone gave him the camera.
Supposedly, he forgot the camera and went back home.
Secretary told him, get the camera.
Went back home and got the camera.
Where did he live?
Who was he?
Right?
We know he lived in a White Russian community.
We know he even knew Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald.
Don't you think that's a little strange?
The man who knew Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey--
This is a work of fiction, remember that.
But I wouldn't lie to you.
I've done my-- how many people have been in Dealey Plaza?
In my list, what did I call Dealey Plaza?
Do you remember?
That long, last list I read?
Page.
That's important, OK?
Hey, someone's writing.
Is it you?
Is it me?
What is writing?
Think about that.
So maybe it wasn't his day off.
Maybe he was working.
Maybe he agreed to do that.
Maybe it wasn't even him.
Maybe he was standing on the pedestal with that camera.
It's the perfect position.
Why is that the only film that really
survives from that position?
"In a dark suit and hat," comma, line
break, "looking through the viewfinder."
I skip, right?
A lot is left out between these two lines, right?
A lot of stuff, that's what we call a leap, right?
And leap is important.
Even in the film you just saw, we
don't have time to go through it and count the frames
or do what ever.
But there are a lot of frames rearranged in the Zapruder
film, and a few frames taken out.
And poets are able to do that between lines.
Actually, you're taught to do that.
We don't call it that.
We call it leaping poetry and other things.
But we are taught to re-time, well
that's borrowed from poetry, and to take lines out.
So there's a big leap there.
That big leap's important between the day
off and the dark suit and looking through the viewfinder.
That's meant to create nuance.
But there is a gap in the lyric narrative, right?
"Of a new eight millimeter Bell and Howell camera.
Paying no mind the open windows or the seizure."
It's a very selective, right?
That's really framing, right?
You can name-- name one thing I could
have used other than a seizure that's in that film
that you saw.
Things that probably happen on that-- he
wasn't looking at that.
You may have noticed.
Can you think of something?
I don't mean to turn into a poetry workshop.
But this is-- anybody?
Which, had you seen this film before?
[INAUDIBLE]
No one's-- OK.
It's kind of popular now.
OK, well something like those, I pointed out
the people not waving, right?
Something like-- there was a seizure that day on the street.
The seizure maybe was meant as a diversion.
It worked as a diversion.
It may not have been.
There's no way to know that.
But that took the police who were not in the know
and a lot of the crowd in the other direction, right?
The open windows, right?
The windows were open, and the seizure.
And there's a gap here.
So many things we could name.
But there's an umbrella on the side.
You can't really see it there.
There's a man with an umbrella opening right
as the president comes by.
It's a beautiful day.
Lady Bird Johnson, as you hear later--
I know I ran out.
I took a lot of time.
It all began so beautiful-- in her autobiography,
that the first part of that chapter goes,
it all began so beautiful.
I'm going to go through this because this--
I'll be on this forever.
I want to do that.
"How accident and aim could fit them all, including the car,
into the frame.
It was the '60s."
I wrote-- I circled '60s and wrote, was it?
Well certainly, it was, as we know it.
But what is it about the way we group and categorize epochs
and what that means?
What does the poet mean there, it was the '60s?
Because it's a setup line, right?
It's a setup line for the passing
of the camera like a joint and/or a post
passing the camera like a joint, or we could go on the volume.
"So before the volume of the motorcade
turned north up Houston then down on Elm--"
again, selective.
This film doesn't show it, because you might not even
notice.
The beginning of the motorcade turning is cut off.
It's been taken out.
So what happens there?
What didn't the poet know?
So it does, the car does turn.
This is all witness testimony.
The car does turn north on Houston, or right on Houston,
then a left on Elm.
But when it made the turn on Elm, for some reason,
the Secret Service driver, William Greer,
made a wide turn by mistake.
He took the car right under the window
and almost hit the pedestrians, the onlookers, on the sidewalk.
He went up on the curve.
And people had to back off.
The President's car almost ran over people that day.
You don't know.
That it's not in my poem.
And it's not in the Zapruder film.
It was in that film.
I'm going to call it the Zapruder film.
And then it recovers and gets back on the street, slowly.
So it had to slow down.
"They passed a camera between them like a joint."
Just being clever, made up.
All the photography from that day,
or some of the photography that survived,
a few of the images from that day,
don't show them standing next to each other.
Shows her standing in front of him.
And a couple of other films that were taken that day
shows them playing, as if they're
dancing on the pedestal, having a good time,
changing positions.
So it's really interesting.
The cover-- the official story is that he didn't like heights,
she held him up, helped him stay there,
because he was getting dizzy.
Did that look like it was taken by a man who was getting dizzy?
No.
The poet didn't know that, either.
The poets acting like that popular--
in a popular, contemporary mode of reportage, you know?
He's reporting, mostly in prose, too, right?
"That what the women wore to greet the president
would influence their sewing machines and needles."
The first shot sounds like a backfire, doesn't hit anything.
It misses the car.
This is supposedly witness--
from a witness.
The second shot hits the president in the back.
President can't bend over.
Why?
He's wearing a back brace.
Right?
JFK always wore back brace?
So he kind of has to either fall to the side or--
he can't-- he can't duck.
And we think, somebody had to know that, right?
Whether they did or not, it worked against him.
And on my list, back brace was what?
Back issues, right?
Because he had Addison's.
Famous pictures of JFK in a rocking chair,
the rocking chair was therapy for the back.
He sat in a rocking chair a lot in the Oval Office.
Photos of him playing with the kids,
he was-- that was his therapy, right?
After the second shot, he stood up in the car.
Did you see that?
This is witness-- you didn't see that.
This is witness testimony.
JFK stood up in the car and said, Oh my God, I've
been shot.
He stood up.
Then the car goes behind the freeway sign,
blocks out what happens.
Then he's shot in the throat.
They debate for years whether the throat shot
comes from the first--
front or the back.
It doesn't matter what I think.
So when he comes from behind the sign, he's shot in the throat.
Car moves forward.
There's another shot.
We think it missed, ricocheted off of something.
There's another shot.
You saw a shot to the side of the front side, or wherever.
I don't know.
I won't say what side of the head.
Witness testimony says the back of the head blew out.
Did you see that?
[INAUDIBLE]
No, you didn't.
[INAUDIBLE]
What'd you see?
You saw the side of the head open up, right?
That's what he said.
Witness testimony says the back of the head blew out.
Splatted the cop behind it, splattered the people.
Bone went back that way.
Bone went to the back of the car.
Jackie climbs on to the back of the car
to retrieve bone, supposedly.
Or to either get out of the car.
"Clicking the power on at or something above below him
in autumn, now comes history."
Big work, prepackaged, lazy acceptance.
The poet is taught to tear things apart,
to pull things apart, to climb inside them,
to explore what's inside them.
"Now comes history."
To say-- for the poet to say "now comes history"
automatically means an acceptance.
Not even, not at all a critical frisking--
frisking are what history is.
That moment when everything begins to wave.
Very few people are waving.
They were waving before the car turned in the film,
but not once it came into the beginning of the kill zone.
Because a lot of things happened in that zone.
You don't just stand and watch that way.
You hug or grab or shriek.
You don't see any of that.
Was brutal, what you saw.
But let me tell you, what it was before that, by the testimony
of people who saw the original film, was 30 times more brutal.
"Arms fla--" I'm talking about the page,
though I'm talking about the Kennedy assassination.
"Arms, flag, lens, minute, second silence, dressmaker,
souvenir, evidence."
The poem is bad.
And I should know.
It does not contain an ounce of re-creative search.
It tells what we already know or think we know,
and adds moments of fictive opinion
to the already blurred poetics of the day.
The gaze of the poem is singular.
The event made of many disturban-- disturbing lines,
was not.
It was in fact, the most amazing display of pre-social network
social networking to date as you simply cannot kill a president
without a social network.
And all social networks depend upon conspiracy to thrive.
The poem is simply an exercise in musing.
The end of the poem, for poetic effect,
treats what we think seems to be like a catalog of lyric knowns.
If there is an eye in the poem, it's
been placed in a place of agreement, agreement.
Our engagement with Zapruder, the possibility
and impossibility of him as accident and aim,
uncovers nothing.
In fact, it continues to cover up
and does not approach the possibility
of the imaginative unthinkable, that perhaps he or someone else
was hired to film or create and docupoetics.
That would defy the very practice of docupoetics.
This makes the poem flat, fixed, and sadly, finished.
As things stands, no poem about November 22, 1963
can be finished.
Many of us, in our work, in reference,
and at the locked out edges of history,
are recreating and documenting lies.