WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.410 align:middle line:84% That has been my life, literature and no other life. 00:00:05.410 --> 00:00:10.910 align:middle line:84% No other interests whatever, because all interests 00:00:10.910 --> 00:00:14.000 align:middle line:90% are oriented around literature. 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:17.930 align:middle line:84% I'm deeply interested in horse racing. 00:00:17.930 --> 00:00:21.860 align:middle line:84% I'm deeply interested in the psychology of a channel 00:00:21.860 --> 00:00:23.300 align:middle line:90% swimmer. 00:00:23.300 --> 00:00:26.060 align:middle line:84% And in fact, I've even thought of writing 00:00:26.060 --> 00:00:30.200 align:middle line:84% a novel about that very complex and beautiful subject. 00:00:30.200 --> 00:00:32.100 align:middle line:90% I'm interested in politics. 00:00:32.100 --> 00:00:35.030 align:middle line:90% I'm interested in baseball. 00:00:35.030 --> 00:00:36.590 align:middle line:90% I'm a bird watcher. 00:00:36.590 --> 00:00:39.290 align:middle line:84% I'm a people watcher, but everything 00:00:39.290 --> 00:00:41.390 align:middle line:90% centers upon literature. 00:00:41.390 --> 00:00:45.590 align:middle line:84% And there is not world enough and time really, 00:00:45.590 --> 00:00:51.020 align:middle line:84% for anyone who is totally dedicated to the creative life. 00:00:51.020 --> 00:00:53.110 align:middle line:84% There is not world enough and time, 00:00:53.110 --> 00:00:57.710 align:middle line:84% so you see I have to contradict my happy face. 00:00:57.710 --> 00:00:59.660 align:middle line:90% Now I-- after-- 00:00:59.660 --> 00:01:04.640 align:middle line:84% Prismatic Ground was a very unimportant little book, 00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:11.870 align:middle line:84% teenage book, I began to enlarge my concept of poetry. 00:01:11.870 --> 00:01:15.830 align:middle line:84% I became very deeply interested in reading 00:01:15.830 --> 00:01:21.560 align:middle line:84% science of ornithology, psychology, mythology, 00:01:21.560 --> 00:01:25.070 align:middle line:90% all kinds of subsidiary fields. 00:01:25.070 --> 00:01:29.600 align:middle line:84% And out of that, grew a book which remains 00:01:29.600 --> 00:01:34.820 align:middle line:84% recognized among poets today, as the day it was published. 00:01:34.820 --> 00:01:37.580 align:middle line:84% In fact, there are many who have not forgiven me 00:01:37.580 --> 00:01:40.110 align:middle line:90% for leaving lyric poetry. 00:01:40.110 --> 00:01:43.910 align:middle line:84% I don't think I'd take a stroll along Bleecker Street, 00:01:43.910 --> 00:01:46.580 align:middle line:84% and some mad poet does not approach me 00:01:46.580 --> 00:01:50.480 align:middle line:90% and say, why did you leave us? 00:01:50.480 --> 00:01:53.750 align:middle line:84% They had not read Miss MacIntosh My Darling when they 00:01:53.750 --> 00:01:55.820 align:middle line:90% were making that statement. 00:01:55.820 --> 00:02:00.320 align:middle line:84% Now they've read it, and admit that Miss MacIntosh is also 00:02:00.320 --> 00:02:02.450 align:middle line:90% a poem. 00:02:02.450 --> 00:02:05.690 align:middle line:84% One of the-- when I write a book, 00:02:05.690 --> 00:02:07.880 align:middle line:90% I'm through with it really. 00:02:07.880 --> 00:02:11.450 align:middle line:84% I'm always astonished when I read it, 00:02:11.450 --> 00:02:15.380 align:middle line:84% and I usually, I defer that experience for two or three 00:02:15.380 --> 00:02:17.140 align:middle line:90% years. 00:02:17.140 --> 00:02:19.690 align:middle line:90% I wrote a book upon a-- 00:02:19.690 --> 00:02:22.780 align:middle line:84% which came out just at the same time, 00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:27.400 align:middle line:84% Angel in the Forest, which is a critique of all the illusions, 00:02:27.400 --> 00:02:33.220 align:middle line:84% hours of judgment, fantasies, forms of idealism 00:02:33.220 --> 00:02:36.790 align:middle line:84% and of disappointment, and of realization, which 00:02:36.790 --> 00:02:42.070 align:middle line:84% enter into too utopian communities, which did actually 00:02:42.070 --> 00:02:44.680 align:middle line:90% exist in the early Indiana life. 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:50.890 align:middle line:84% This is to be republished by Scribner's in April 00:02:50.890 --> 00:02:53.070 align:middle line:90% of this year. 00:02:53.070 --> 00:02:57.330 align:middle line:84% I was astounded then, it was a great critic success 00:02:57.330 --> 00:02:58.890 align:middle line:90% and I was astounded to read it. 00:02:58.890 --> 00:03:02.610 align:middle line:84% I had written a book which was a critique of communism, 00:03:02.610 --> 00:03:04.800 align:middle line:84% because I never once thought of communism, 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:08.190 align:middle line:84% except that the barber in the book says, 00:03:08.190 --> 00:03:11.250 align:middle line:84% he doesn't like Stalin who wears a pink shirt. 00:03:11.250 --> 00:03:13.440 align:middle line:84% He thinks that the pinks where the people who wore 00:03:13.440 --> 00:03:15.420 align:middle line:90% pink shirts. 00:03:15.420 --> 00:03:19.530 align:middle line:84% I will tell you a little anecdote in relation to that. 00:03:19.530 --> 00:03:25.530 align:middle line:84% I was astonished to read a great fabulous review, 00:03:25.530 --> 00:03:28.710 align:middle line:84% praising the book in the Daily Worker. 00:03:28.710 --> 00:03:34.510 align:middle line:84% And [INAUDIBLE] I must say that I also 00:03:34.510 --> 00:03:38.520 align:middle line:84% received a fabulous [INAUDIBLE] of Miss MacIntosh 00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:44.790 align:middle line:84% from the Daily Worker and other communist magazines. 00:03:44.790 --> 00:03:47.470 align:middle line:90% And this startled me very much. 00:03:47.470 --> 00:03:51.480 align:middle line:84% There's no political-- direct political content in this. 00:03:51.480 --> 00:03:55.510 align:middle line:84% A very delightful critic came to interview [INAUDIBLE].. 00:03:55.510 --> 00:04:00.760 align:middle line:84% And I said, please don't say that I'm a communist, 00:04:00.760 --> 00:04:02.860 align:middle line:90% you love this book so much. 00:04:02.860 --> 00:04:06.640 align:middle line:84% And then I finally said, why do you love it so much? 00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:09.940 align:middle line:84% He said, because when I was a young man, I was madly in love 00:04:09.940 --> 00:04:12.970 align:middle line:84% with Rose O'Neill, who did the kewpie dolls. 00:04:12.970 --> 00:04:15.370 align:middle line:84% And this book brings it all back to me, 00:04:15.370 --> 00:04:19.930 align:middle line:84% but I'm trying to put a little communism into my review, 00:04:19.930 --> 00:04:23.920 align:middle line:84% in order to justify it for the Daily Worker. 00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:26.710 align:middle line:84% And now I understand he's in Moscow talking it up, 00:04:26.710 --> 00:04:30.280 align:middle line:84% so maybe we'll have a Russian publication. 00:04:30.280 --> 00:04:34.660 align:middle line:84% Well, to get back to Moderate Fable, when I read this book, 00:04:34.660 --> 00:04:37.930 align:middle line:84% I'm always astonished that I was literally 00:04:37.930 --> 00:04:42.880 align:middle line:84% proposing certain attitudes and themes, which 00:04:42.880 --> 00:04:47.120 align:middle line:84% you will find developed not only in Angel in the Forest, 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:49.930 align:middle line:84% but in Miss MacIntosh, My Darling. 00:04:49.930 --> 00:04:51.700 align:middle line:90% One of them is a lament. 00:04:51.700 --> 00:04:54.670 align:middle line:84% One theme which runs through all my work, 00:04:54.670 --> 00:04:58.360 align:middle line:84% is a lament for the farms of creation, 00:04:58.360 --> 00:05:03.010 align:middle line:84% which are disappearing from this planet due to man's 00:05:03.010 --> 00:05:07.840 align:middle line:84% carelessness or to his aggression. 00:05:07.840 --> 00:05:11.770 align:middle line:84% For instance, I'm a great lover of Rachel Carson's Silent 00:05:11.770 --> 00:05:15.700 align:middle line:84% Spring, even though I met a Bengala just 00:05:15.700 --> 00:05:18.700 align:middle line:84% on the train, who was laughing that she was dead. 00:05:18.700 --> 00:05:24.640 align:middle line:84% And he of course, didn't realize that I too share her concerns. 00:05:24.640 --> 00:05:29.050 align:middle line:84% Not only in the Angel in the Forest, 00:05:29.050 --> 00:05:31.900 align:middle line:84% but particularly in Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, 00:05:31.900 --> 00:05:38.260 align:middle line:84% you will find that I seem to say that man proposes those values 00:05:38.260 --> 00:05:40.840 align:middle line:90% by which he lives and dies. 00:05:40.840 --> 00:05:45.880 align:middle line:84% And that many of the farms of creation are in our hands, 00:05:45.880 --> 00:05:50.920 align:middle line:84% and that we make reality by the way we live and think. 00:05:50.920 --> 00:05:57.400 align:middle line:84% And so here I have a poem, which is later pursued in-- 00:05:57.400 --> 00:05:58.820 align:middle line:90% through all my work. 00:05:58.820 --> 00:06:02.590 align:middle line:84% For instance, in Miss MacIntosh, there 00:06:02.590 --> 00:06:05.650 align:middle line:84% is a chapter about the passenger pigeons. 00:06:05.650 --> 00:06:08.080 align:middle line:84% The death of the last passenger pigeon 00:06:08.080 --> 00:06:13.270 align:middle line:84% Martha, who died in a Cincinnati Zoo in 1917. 00:06:13.270 --> 00:06:16.570 align:middle line:84% I understand-- and I was very delighted to see 00:06:16.570 --> 00:06:18.190 align:middle line:84% just after that, that someone has 00:06:18.190 --> 00:06:20.200 align:middle line:84% written an entire book about Martha, 00:06:20.200 --> 00:06:22.120 align:middle line:90% called the Passenger Pigeon. 00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:25.660 align:middle line:84% So I have my chapter on Martha, she-- this is her year, 00:06:25.660 --> 00:06:27.550 align:middle line:90% shall we say. 00:06:27.550 --> 00:06:29.225 align:middle line:90% This is death by rarity. 00:06:29.225 --> 00:06:32.270 align:middle line:90% 00:06:32.270 --> 00:06:35.640 align:middle line:84% Came from reading many, many bird books, 00:06:35.640 --> 00:06:41.990 align:middle line:84% and knowing a great deal about birds. 00:06:41.990 --> 00:06:51.260 align:middle line:84% I fear, I fear the rarity of nighthawk, swift ruby-throat. 00:06:51.260 --> 00:06:55.760 align:middle line:84% I fear extinct of the roseate spoonbill, 00:06:55.760 --> 00:07:02.750 align:middle line:84% and snowy egret slain by no known enemy. 00:07:02.750 --> 00:07:09.530 align:middle line:84% Slain by no known war of devastation to all and one, 00:07:09.530 --> 00:07:16.730 align:middle line:84% the Flamingo the heath hand and wild trumpeter swan. 00:07:16.730 --> 00:07:23.600 align:middle line:84% However covert they are, slain wherever they are. 00:07:23.600 --> 00:07:30.920 align:middle line:84% For rarity precedes extinction, as sickness comes before death. 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:36.200 align:middle line:84% There is weariness within the perfection of the shell, 00:07:36.200 --> 00:07:41.690 align:middle line:84% and the perfect bird never will be born. 00:07:41.690 --> 00:07:47.810 align:middle line:84% I fear that rarity, overwhelming all marvelous names 00:07:47.810 --> 00:07:52.070 align:middle line:90% of birds whose names are poems. 00:07:52.070 --> 00:07:57.080 align:middle line:84% As the rarity of this so personal blood, 00:07:57.080 --> 00:08:00.760 align:middle line:90% sleeps in the golden vein.