WEBVTT

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Any other questions?

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We don't need to ask questions.

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If anyone has-- you do?

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Another one, OK.

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[INAUDIBLE]

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How did I-- oh, how did I--

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[INAUDIBLE]

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I became obsessed with bees.

00:00:16.830 --> 00:00:19.740 align:middle line:84%
And I ended up
keeping bees like in--

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it took me six years
to write that book.

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When I say six years,
they all overlapped.

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Some of the books overlapped.

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I was working on two
or three at a time.

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But for those six
years, I really

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became obsessed with bees.

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And I read everything about
them, and I had hives.

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And like any obsession,
it just served me not

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to think about something
else, you know.

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And so-- yeah, and I was
horrified by the whole process

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of having bees talk in a poem.

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It seemed like a
really big mistake.

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And so shame fueled a
lot of those poems--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--feeling like I was doing the
wrong thing the whole time,

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which is always--

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I recommend to any
writers, really.

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Like, if you feel like
you're doing the right thing,

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it's probably not very good.

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That's my only
advice as a writer.

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Any other questions, comments?

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When did you start writing
poetry, at what age?

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[INAUDIBLE]?

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I'll start with the
second question first.

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I can't even see who's talking.

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Who's talking?

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This one here, OK.

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Hi.

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You know, I'm from New England.

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That's why I talk like this--

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very far from here,
thousands of miles from here.

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And it's closer to
Canada than here.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But I don't sound
like I'm Canadian.

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And I've forgotten
your first question.

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When did I first
start writing poetry?

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At what age did you
start writing poetry?

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I didn't start writing poetry
until I was an undergraduate.

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I was at UMass Amherst,
and I took a poetry--

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reading class.

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We read a book a week
of contemporary poetry

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with James Tate, great poet.

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And he had great taste.

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And I think at some point, I
decided to give, might try it.

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And I wrote a terrible poem,
like really terrible poem.

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I had been listening
to a lot of music.

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And I thought everything had
a rhyme, like rhyming couplets

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and stuff.

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And so I had to go
back and work on it.

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[INAUDIBLE]

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OK

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[INAUDIBLE]?

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I was-- you know,
I started out what

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they call a counselor,
which is sort

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of like a glorified
security guard,

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and then became a caseworker,
so I had actually clients.

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It was sort of a job that was
invented as we went along.

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Because homelessness was
sort of invented when I

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started working there, really.

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Homelessness, we know, it didn't
really exist like it exists now

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until like the mid-1980s
when suddenly--

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before that period, it was like
the stereotypical homeless.

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It was the marginalized
outcasts, and then the hobo,

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whatever the archetypes are.

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And then it became much wider.

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Suddenly, every little
town in the country

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opened little folding cots
in their church basements

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for the homeless people.

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And because it was--
suddenly, the problem

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got bigger and bigger.

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So we got to invent the
job as we went along.

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So then we started calling
it caseworker, because that

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seemed more effective.

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We wanted to actually do work
with people more individually.

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Are you done?

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Was that--

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[INAUDIBLE]

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OK

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[INAUDIBLE]

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Yes, sir?

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I read that your father
has read all your books.

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And he is a writer as
well. is that right?

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He is a writer, yeah.

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What did he think
of [INAUDIBLE]??

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Yeah that might have been--

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I might have said that
he had read the book,

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but I don't know if he has.

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I think at some point I
thought he had read it.

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And then I-- I'm not sure
if he has actually read it.

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I think it's actually a
little hard for him to read.

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He's read bits of it.

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He did read a few pages of it.

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And the first page he read,
he felt compelled to point out

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that I had made some grievous
errors on that one page

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he read, that I had said that
he wasn't a very good car

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salesman.

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And he pointed out that
he was the number one car

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salesman of that year.

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And so I think it
would go like that,

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I think through the
whole book, probably.

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But since he is a
writer, I managed

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to commiserate with
him on how hard it

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is to get the facts down
right and how difficult

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on how you shape things
in writing and stuff.

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And so he understood that.

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So he understood.

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Yeah?

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My follow up question is I
read an interview that you gave

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that a lot of people ask
you why you would take him

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in when he was [INAUDIBLE].

00:05:05.320 --> 00:05:07.230 align:middle line:90%
Yeah, yeah.

00:05:07.230 --> 00:05:10.030 align:middle line:84%
So I wanted to continue
that tradition [INAUDIBLE]..

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Sure.

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You know, it's funny.

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I actually-- I brought
that question up

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to the juvie hall kids.

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And the juvie hall kids
all shook their heads

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and said, why would
you bring him in?

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They were like,
bring your father in?

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No way.

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Different audience.

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So are you asking me why
I didn't bring him in?

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See, that's sort of one of the
central mysteries of the book

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actually.

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In writing the book,
that was a question

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that came up early on
in writing the book.

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I had a passage
about what I thought

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was a forthright Alaskan.

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It seemed like a trait
that an Alaskan would have,

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being very forthright.

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He was the only one who came
up to me said, why didn't you

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bring your father in?

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And I was like, well,
it was complicated.

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It was-- you know,
there was this and that.

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But it seems like the
essential question of the book.

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And I actually
have intentionally

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left it unanswered in
the book in order to--

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for one reason,
'cause I don't know.

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And for another reason
because I wanted

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it to be almost more for
the reader to experience

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it themselves more.

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So if I gave--

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if I was too
definitive about this

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is what you should do when
your father becomes homeless,

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that didn't seem
like actually it'd

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be serving literature or art
in a way, which is really

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what I was trying to do in order
to open up to a larger mystery

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and to greater
questions, and not

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to have like a handbook of
when this thing happens to you,

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this is what you should do.

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Does that make sense at all?

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Not a lot, [INAUDIBLE].

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It makes sense that
you didn't know.

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Because I didn't know, yeah.

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OK, that's OK.

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We can leave it at that.

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Yeah.

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I have one more question.

00:06:48.100 --> 00:06:49.030 align:middle line:84%
OK, let me get
this one over here.

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We got a guy here.

00:06:49.888 --> 00:06:52.180 align:middle line:84%
Let me get this-- yeah, and
then we'll get back to you.

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Is there a difference
for you when you sit down

00:06:54.438 --> 00:06:56.980 align:middle line:84%
to write a poem than when you
had set down to write a memoir?

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[INAUDIBLE]

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00:07:03.402 --> 00:07:04.610 align:middle line:90%
Yeah, they're very different.

00:07:04.610 --> 00:07:04.850 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:07:04.850 --> 00:07:06.170 align:middle line:90%
No, they're really different.

00:07:06.170 --> 00:07:07.760 align:middle line:84%
The initial process--
for a couple

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of years when I
worked on the book,

00:07:08.600 --> 00:07:10.100 align:middle line:84%
it was pretty much
the same process.

00:07:10.100 --> 00:07:11.335 align:middle line:90%
I write in notebooks.

00:07:11.335 --> 00:07:12.710 align:middle line:84%
They don't really
look like poems

00:07:12.710 --> 00:07:13.070 align:middle line:90%
when I write in notebooks.

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And then I sort of
craft them into poems.

00:07:14.900 --> 00:07:16.130 align:middle line:90%
And that was the same with--

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I didn't know what
the book would

00:07:16.970 --> 00:07:18.050 align:middle line:90%
be when I first started it.

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For the first two
years, I didn't

00:07:18.980 --> 00:07:20.063 align:middle line:90%
know it would be a memoir.

00:07:20.063 --> 00:07:22.465 align:middle line:84%
And then it just sort of
seemed to make more sense just

00:07:22.465 --> 00:07:23.840 align:middle line:84%
looking at it to
make something--

00:07:23.840 --> 00:07:28.160 align:middle line:84%
I think it's actually more of
a hybrid than prose, really.

00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:30.320 align:middle line:84%
A lot of the passages
feel very poetic to me.

00:07:30.320 --> 00:07:32.840 align:middle line:84%
I used to read them before
people knew I had a memoir out,

00:07:32.840 --> 00:07:34.490 align:middle line:90%
and before I had a memoir out.

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And they would assume
it was just poetry.

00:07:37.400 --> 00:07:39.770 align:middle line:84%
But then there had to be
at a certain point, a time

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to write more connective tissue,
narrative connective tissue.

00:07:43.460 --> 00:07:45.773 align:middle line:84%
Because you can't
just have all--

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or for this kind of book,
it didn't make sense

00:07:47.690 --> 00:07:51.020 align:middle line:84%
to have just all sort
of poetic lyric passages

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without any connective
tissue to know where we are.

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So that took a lot
of work for me,

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because I wasn't
really used to that.

00:07:56.720 --> 00:07:59.660 align:middle line:84%
Like having to-- being a
poet, I much more liked

00:07:59.660 --> 00:08:03.440 align:middle line:90%
the lyrical stuff.

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So then I had to spend quite a
while getting the story down,

00:08:06.650 --> 00:08:09.050 align:middle line:84%
sort of like just telling
a story in a straight way,

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and also making it
interesting for myself.

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So different in that way, yeah.

00:08:14.790 --> 00:08:15.550 align:middle line:90%
Is that good?

00:08:15.550 --> 00:08:16.050 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:08:16.050 --> 00:08:17.430 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:08:17.430 --> 00:08:19.010 align:middle line:90%
Yes, this one here.

00:08:19.010 --> 00:08:19.950 align:middle line:90%
[INAUDIBLE]?

00:08:19.950 --> 00:08:23.710 align:middle line:90%


00:08:23.710 --> 00:08:25.810 align:middle line:90%
My year in P-town?

00:08:25.810 --> 00:08:27.550 align:middle line:84%
I've spent many years
in P-town actually.

00:08:27.550 --> 00:08:28.690 align:middle line:90%
[INAUDIBLE]?

00:08:28.690 --> 00:08:29.560 align:middle line:90%
Yeah, yeah.

00:08:29.560 --> 00:08:30.610 align:middle line:90%
I've been there.

00:08:30.610 --> 00:08:31.690 align:middle line:84%
There's a place called
the Fine Arts Work

00:08:31.690 --> 00:08:32.648 align:middle line:90%
Center in Provincetown.

00:08:32.648 --> 00:08:34.870 align:middle line:84%
It's a fellowship program
for young artists.

00:08:34.870 --> 00:08:37.270 align:middle line:84%
And I was fortunate
enough to have a couple

00:08:37.270 --> 00:08:40.432 align:middle line:84%
fellowships there, once
in the early '90s and once

00:08:40.432 --> 00:08:41.140 align:middle line:90%
in the late '90s.

00:08:41.140 --> 00:08:42.473 align:middle line:90%
You can do a second year or two.

00:08:42.473 --> 00:08:45.130 align:middle line:90%


00:08:45.130 --> 00:08:48.370 align:middle line:84%
One of the great things about
it is just the first time,

00:08:48.370 --> 00:08:52.447 align:middle line:84%
it just gave me this sense of
what it meant to be a writer.

00:08:52.447 --> 00:08:55.030 align:middle line:84%
To have the entire day to write
was sort of a terrifying thing

00:08:55.030 --> 00:08:55.750 align:middle line:90%
suddenly.

00:08:55.750 --> 00:08:58.690 align:middle line:84%
You know, I'd been working,
doing different jobs

00:08:58.690 --> 00:08:59.420 align:middle line:90%
and things.

00:08:59.420 --> 00:09:02.587 align:middle line:84%
And so suddenly-- and to
be surrounded by people--

00:09:02.587 --> 00:09:04.420 align:middle line:84%
some of the people I
was with, had books out

00:09:04.420 --> 00:09:06.530 align:middle line:84%
or had already gallery
shows and things like that.

00:09:06.530 --> 00:09:08.280 align:middle line:84%
So they already had
established themselves

00:09:08.280 --> 00:09:09.428 align:middle line:90%
as artists and writers.

00:09:09.428 --> 00:09:11.470 align:middle line:84%
And so just to be around
them, and sort of-- it's

00:09:11.470 --> 00:09:13.300 align:middle line:84%
almost just to see how
one could live that life

00:09:13.300 --> 00:09:14.425 align:middle line:90%
was really important to me.

00:09:14.425 --> 00:09:17.170 align:middle line:84%
I didn't get a lot of poems
written, really, in some way.

00:09:17.170 --> 00:09:18.130 align:middle line:90%
I wrote every day.

00:09:18.130 --> 00:09:20.050 align:middle line:90%
But I didn't--

00:09:20.050 --> 00:09:21.910 align:middle line:84%
I can't really point
to very many poems

00:09:21.910 --> 00:09:24.160 align:middle line:90%
that I walked away from.

00:09:24.160 --> 00:09:28.237 align:middle line:84%
The one Rodney read, I think,
might have come from that time.

00:09:28.237 --> 00:09:29.320 align:middle line:90%
So that was the big thing.

00:09:29.320 --> 00:09:30.490 align:middle line:84%
The biggest thing was
being around other artists

00:09:30.490 --> 00:09:32.032 align:middle line:84%
and young artists
in their community,

00:09:32.032 --> 00:09:34.690 align:middle line:84%
and the idea of a
community for me.

00:09:34.690 --> 00:09:35.950 align:middle line:90%
Was that good?

00:09:35.950 --> 00:09:37.690 align:middle line:84%
Can I ask about
the place itself.

00:09:37.690 --> 00:09:40.000 align:middle line:90%
Oh, the place itself.

00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:41.213 align:middle line:90%
Have you been there?

00:09:41.213 --> 00:09:42.630 align:middle line:84%
What do you think
about the place?

00:09:42.630 --> 00:09:45.900 align:middle line:90%


00:09:45.900 --> 00:09:47.535 align:middle line:90%
You like it?

00:09:47.535 --> 00:09:48.660 align:middle line:90%
Yeah, it's a special place.

00:09:48.660 --> 00:09:51.310 align:middle line:84%
This is a pretty special
place, though, too here.

00:09:51.310 --> 00:09:51.810 align:middle line:90%
[INAUDIBLE]

00:09:51.810 --> 00:09:55.080 align:middle line:84%
Yeah, there's
another good place.

00:09:55.080 --> 00:09:56.600 align:middle line:90%
No, you know, Provincetown--

00:09:56.600 --> 00:09:58.350 align:middle line:84%
I grew up in a town
much like it actually.

00:09:58.350 --> 00:10:00.308 align:middle line:84%
I mean, not that there's
any place really quite

00:10:00.308 --> 00:10:02.580 align:middle line:84%
like Provincetown--
but physically like it.

00:10:02.580 --> 00:10:04.663 align:middle line:84%
I grew up just south
of Boston on the coast.

00:10:04.663 --> 00:10:07.080 align:middle line:84%
And so it was familiar to me,
the Atlantic Ocean, the salt

00:10:07.080 --> 00:10:08.070 align:middle line:90%
marshes, and things.

00:10:08.070 --> 00:10:09.591 align:middle line:90%
I like that.

00:10:09.591 --> 00:10:10.533 align:middle line:90%
[INAUDIBLE]

00:10:10.533 --> 00:10:13.725 align:middle line:90%


00:10:13.725 --> 00:10:16.350 align:middle line:84%
You know, I think New York City
is more isolating in the winter

00:10:16.350 --> 00:10:16.850 align:middle line:90%
myself.

00:10:16.850 --> 00:10:17.610 align:middle line:90%
[INAUDIBLE]

00:10:17.610 --> 00:10:19.890 align:middle line:90%
Yeah, I think so.

00:10:19.890 --> 00:10:22.262 align:middle line:90%
But that's me.

00:10:22.262 --> 00:10:23.970 align:middle line:84%
I think it's easier
to have dinner with--

00:10:23.970 --> 00:10:25.020 align:middle line:90%
I like a place--

00:10:25.020 --> 00:10:26.250 align:middle line:84%
Provincetown is a
place where you could--

00:10:26.250 --> 00:10:26.970 align:middle line:90%
I don't know about now.

00:10:26.970 --> 00:10:28.260 align:middle line:84%
But you could just
go to someone's house

00:10:28.260 --> 00:10:30.802 align:middle line:84%
at like 8:00 o'clock and say,
what are you having for dinner?

00:10:30.802 --> 00:10:32.880 align:middle line:84%
And if you did that in
New York, people just like

00:10:32.880 --> 00:10:33.960 align:middle line:90%
are so offended.

00:10:33.960 --> 00:10:37.470 align:middle line:84%
They're like, do you
think I don't have a life?

00:10:37.470 --> 00:10:39.750 align:middle line:84%
And I work much better
with a place like that,

00:10:39.750 --> 00:10:40.770 align:middle line:84%
where you can just
show up at like-- you

00:10:40.770 --> 00:10:41.760 align:middle line:84%
can call someone
at 8:00 at night

00:10:41.760 --> 00:10:42.927 align:middle line:90%
and say, what are you doing?

00:10:42.927 --> 00:10:44.520 align:middle line:90%
So to me that works better.

00:10:44.520 --> 00:10:47.238 align:middle line:90%
Yes, Penelope?

00:10:47.238 --> 00:10:50.700 align:middle line:84%
You seem very successful
with taking the poetry to

00:10:50.700 --> 00:10:53.460 align:middle line:90%
[INAUDIBLE].

00:10:53.460 --> 00:10:55.620 align:middle line:90%
I was very successful with it?

00:10:55.620 --> 00:10:57.263 align:middle line:84%
The way you
explained [INAUDIBLE]

00:10:57.263 --> 00:10:59.190 align:middle line:90%
the young man [INAUDIBLE].

00:10:59.190 --> 00:11:00.516 align:middle line:90%
And woman, yeah.

00:11:00.516 --> 00:11:05.280 align:middle line:84%
Did you ever thank of doing
the poem on alcoholism

00:11:05.280 --> 00:11:06.720 align:middle line:90%
with Alcoholics Anonymous?

00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:11.560 align:middle line:84%
Because I think it
would work very well.

00:11:11.560 --> 00:11:15.410 align:middle line:84%
What do you mean do it
with Alcoholics Anonymous?

00:11:15.410 --> 00:11:16.640 align:middle line:90%
Reading that [INAUDIBLE].

00:11:16.640 --> 00:11:19.859 align:middle line:84%
To go to a meeting
and read that poem?

00:11:19.859 --> 00:11:22.324 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:11:22.324 --> 00:11:25.145 align:middle line:90%
I think that it'd work.

00:11:25.145 --> 00:11:26.270 align:middle line:90%
We can talk later about it.

00:11:26.270 --> 00:11:30.450 align:middle line:84%
But I've been to a few
meetings in my life,

00:11:30.450 --> 00:11:33.517 align:middle line:84%
and I've never seen
anyone read a poem at it.

00:11:33.517 --> 00:11:34.100 align:middle line:90%
I just never--

00:11:34.100 --> 00:11:37.460 align:middle line:84%
If you saw yourself as
going, understanding it

00:11:37.460 --> 00:11:41.588 align:middle line:84%
from your poet's
viewpoint, speaker--

00:11:41.588 --> 00:11:44.520 align:middle line:90%
very touching [INAUDIBLE].

00:11:44.520 --> 00:11:45.510 align:middle line:90%
To read that piece?

00:11:45.510 --> 00:11:46.530 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:11:46.530 --> 00:11:49.770 align:middle line:84%
Yeah, no, I'm flattered that
you think it might work.

00:11:49.770 --> 00:11:53.730 align:middle line:84%
But I've just never
seen anything like that.

00:11:53.730 --> 00:11:54.540 align:middle line:90%
So--

00:11:54.540 --> 00:11:56.650 align:middle line:90%
[INAUDIBLE]

00:11:56.650 --> 00:11:58.960 align:middle line:90%
Yeah, yeah.

00:11:58.960 --> 00:12:00.958 align:middle line:84%
I thought I worked really
well with the kids,

00:12:00.958 --> 00:12:02.250 align:middle line:90%
talking to these kids about it.

00:12:02.250 --> 00:12:06.430 align:middle line:84%
It was sort of a good
captive audience.

00:12:06.430 --> 00:12:08.825 align:middle line:90%
Sorry, sorry.

00:12:08.825 --> 00:12:09.700 align:middle line:90%
That's probably good.

00:12:09.700 --> 00:12:11.787 align:middle line:90%
One more question.

00:12:11.787 --> 00:12:13.870 align:middle line:84%
Do you want to ask your
question, and then we'll--

00:12:13.870 --> 00:12:17.323 align:middle line:84%
Let's see if I can
remember it now.

00:12:17.323 --> 00:12:18.240 align:middle line:90%
It's going on forever.

00:12:18.240 --> 00:12:19.001 align:middle line:90%
I remember it.

00:12:19.001 --> 00:12:22.929 align:middle line:84%
Are you teaching or doing
any workshops outside

00:12:22.929 --> 00:12:24.410 align:middle line:90%
of the [INAUDIBLE]?

00:12:24.410 --> 00:12:26.790 align:middle line:84%
Yeah, I-- I teach at the
University of Houston

00:12:26.790 --> 00:12:28.710 align:middle line:84%
in the spring
semesters, some there.

00:12:28.710 --> 00:12:32.010 align:middle line:84%
And I also do certain
little workshops.

00:12:32.010 --> 00:12:34.260 align:middle line:84%
I have a website,
nickflynn.org, and it

00:12:34.260 --> 00:12:38.280 align:middle line:84%
lists some of the things
I do on that, so yeah.

00:12:38.280 --> 00:12:40.740 align:middle line:84%
OK, that sounds--
good place to stop.

00:12:40.740 --> 00:12:43.790 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:12:43.790 --> 00:12:45.000 align:middle line:90%