WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.840 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.840 --> 00:00:03.480 align:middle line:84%
Nanao and I have just got
back from the Pinacates

00:00:03.480 --> 00:00:06.150 align:middle line:84%
and so it's a
little hard to come

00:00:06.150 --> 00:00:09.690 align:middle line:84%
from where you could
hear absolutely no

00:00:09.690 --> 00:00:13.740 align:middle line:84%
sounds the last day of
any piece of civilization

00:00:13.740 --> 00:00:16.400 align:middle line:84%
and then suddenly land and have
all these little things going

00:00:16.400 --> 00:00:16.900 align:middle line:90%
on.

00:00:16.900 --> 00:00:24.420 align:middle line:84%
And so what I'd like
to simply say is,

00:00:24.420 --> 00:00:27.090 align:middle line:84%
rather than give you
a biography of Nanao,

00:00:27.090 --> 00:00:32.549 align:middle line:84%
say that he has become a
languages poet rather than

00:00:32.549 --> 00:00:35.760 align:middle line:84%
a language poet
and believes very

00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:38.670 align:middle line:84%
much that you speak in the
language of the culture you're

00:00:38.670 --> 00:00:39.360 align:middle line:90%
in.

00:00:39.360 --> 00:00:41.950 align:middle line:84%
So everything will
be in English today.

00:00:41.950 --> 00:00:45.000 align:middle line:84%
And when the Nanao
was in front of 40,000

00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.640 align:middle line:84%
people in Czechoslovakia,
he read his poems

00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:50.760 align:middle line:90%
in Czechoslovakian.

00:00:50.760 --> 00:00:56.550 align:middle line:84%
He knows classic Chinese as
well as Japanese as well as

00:00:56.550 --> 00:00:57.840 align:middle line:90%
a few other languages.

00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:01.470 align:middle line:84%
And, so, that really
to me tells you

00:01:01.470 --> 00:01:04.890 align:middle line:84%
a little bit that while
certain poets keep

00:01:04.890 --> 00:01:07.590 align:middle line:84%
on going deeper and deeper
into the finer and finer

00:01:07.590 --> 00:01:10.650 align:middle line:84%
points of some kind
of pure English,

00:01:10.650 --> 00:01:12.430 align:middle line:84%
there's a whole other
way of doing it,

00:01:12.430 --> 00:01:16.020 align:middle line:84%
which is to diversify
yourself and to go completely

00:01:16.020 --> 00:01:19.710 align:middle line:84%
out into the planet as it
exists with all of its cultures

00:01:19.710 --> 00:01:21.030 align:middle line:90%
and languages.

00:01:21.030 --> 00:01:26.100 align:middle line:84%
And that's really what, in
part, what you should really

00:01:26.100 --> 00:01:27.090 align:middle line:90%
know about Nanao.

00:01:27.090 --> 00:01:30.390 align:middle line:84%
He's been very active
in saving diversity

00:01:30.390 --> 00:01:31.680 align:middle line:90%
if you want to call it that.

00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:36.990 align:middle line:84%
Either the Ainu in Hokkaido,
Okinawan folk songs--

00:01:36.990 --> 00:01:39.210 align:middle line:90%
folk songs from all over Japan--

00:01:39.210 --> 00:01:42.900 align:middle line:84%
as well as the land that
produced those things,

00:01:42.900 --> 00:01:48.300 align:middle line:84%
which is the Suwanose Island--
the small island in Southern

00:01:48.300 --> 00:01:50.550 align:middle line:90%
Japan--

00:01:50.550 --> 00:01:54.480 align:middle line:84%
a coral reef-- one of the last
large remaining coral reefs

00:01:54.480 --> 00:01:59.520 align:middle line:84%
that America was going
to put a airstrip on--

00:01:59.520 --> 00:02:01.410 align:middle line:90%
old forests in Hokkaido.

00:02:01.410 --> 00:02:08.090 align:middle line:84%
So it's really a
pleasure, since I

00:02:08.090 --> 00:02:12.440 align:middle line:84%
work all my life to maintain
certain kinds of diversity

00:02:12.440 --> 00:02:15.410 align:middle line:84%
on the planet and
stop homogenization

00:02:15.410 --> 00:02:19.130 align:middle line:84%
of language, culture,
themes, and all that,

00:02:19.130 --> 00:02:21.440 align:middle line:90%
to be a friend of Nanao.

00:02:21.440 --> 00:02:24.800 align:middle line:84%
And I think you'll
find, as opposed to some

00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:29.180 align:middle line:84%
of the other poets I even
saw listed on the University

00:02:29.180 --> 00:02:34.700 align:middle line:84%
readings, that this will
not be an internalized,

00:02:34.700 --> 00:02:37.940 align:middle line:84%
how deep can we
get into the mind,

00:02:37.940 --> 00:02:40.880 align:middle line:84%
let's work out all of our
problems through love and sex

00:02:40.880 --> 00:02:46.340 align:middle line:84%
and in the urban
bedroom, but try

00:02:46.340 --> 00:02:50.600 align:middle line:84%
to move kind of
out into the wilds

00:02:50.600 --> 00:02:56.510 align:middle line:84%
where those kinds of species,
anxieties, and concerns

00:02:56.510 --> 00:03:00.230 align:middle line:84%
kind of disappear a
little bit and one

00:03:00.230 --> 00:03:02.090 align:middle line:84%
can look for a little
bit more purity

00:03:02.090 --> 00:03:09.600 align:middle line:84%
in a verbal landscape as well
as a Earth planet landscape.

00:03:09.600 --> 00:03:13.070 align:middle line:84%
And, so, that's
really the biography

00:03:13.070 --> 00:03:15.470 align:middle line:84%
that I'd like to
give, and here's

00:03:15.470 --> 00:03:17.830 align:middle line:90%
my good friend, Nanao Sakaki.

00:03:17.830 --> 00:03:23.000 align:middle line:90%