I have a new book coming out in November, a new book of poems.
And so I'd like to end by reading a few poems
from that collection.
It's quite different from my first book.
My first book is, as you may have gathered,
is a book of personal poems.
They're love poems, or divorce poems,
or poems that have, in some way, something
to do with relationships and Eros.
The new book is a series--
I think of it as a series of experiments in what's sometimes
called public poetry--
poetry about public subjects, or themes,
particularly American history.
And there are a number of poems that
are overtly about historical events, like the Civil War.
They have a sequence about the Civil War.
And so there's some of the poems that are research-based.
And they're in persona poems in the voices
of people who are not me.
And there are also some family history poems that were--
in cases where my family history touches in some way on larger
national history matters.
And personal poems that have something
to do with my relationship to our country.
I mean, it's hard to explain.
It's hard to describe, but hopefully, the poems
will do a better job of it than I just did.
The first poem is called "Bryant Park at Dusk."
And this was written during a year when
I had a fellowship in New York, and was spending a lot of time
away from my family in New York, and finding
that difficult in certain ways-- in very privileged ways,
I guess.
And it's Bryant Park, for those of you who don't know,
it's a wonderful little park that's
right behind the New York Public Library
where I was spending my days.
And so I spent a lot of time in this park behind the library.
So it's partly about the library.
And that's all.
"Bryant Park at Dusk."
Oh, and the other thing is, it's a park that's very used even
in the evenings at night.
And they have these enormous spotlights
that are on top of these tall buildings that
are adjacent to the park.
And when it gets dark the spotlights on top
of these buildings come on and illuminate
the park very brightly.
So that figures in here, as well.
"Bryant Park at Dusk."
Floodlights have come on behind and above
where I sit in my public chair.
The lawn that had gradually darkened has brightened.
The library windows stare.
I'm alone in a crowd--
e pluribus plures.
I'm far from a family I miss.
I'd almost say I'm lonely, but lonely is worse, I know,
than this.
Loneliness is a genuine poverty.
I'm like a man who is flush, but forgot his wallet
on the nightstand when he left for work in a rush,
And now must go without food and coffee for a few hours more
than he'd wish.
That's all.
He still has a wallet.
It's bulging.
It floats through his brain like a fish...
Money for love: a terrible simile, but maybe
it's fitting here, a couple of blocks from Madison Avenue
where commodities are dear,
Where all around me, rich skyscrapers
woo the impoverished sky, having sent
on their way to spent commuters who stream, uncertain, by--
And as for this whole splurge of a city,
isn't money at its heart?
But I'm blathering now.
Forgetting my subject.
What I meant to say at the start
Is that I noticed a woman reading in a chair
not far from mine.
Silver-haired, calm, she stirred a hunger hard for me to define,
Perhaps because she doesn't seem lonely.
And what I loved was this: the way, when
dusk had darkened her pages, as if expecting a kiss,
She closed her eyes and threw her head back,
book open on her lap.
I guess she was thinking about her story, or the fall
air, or a nap.
And I thought she'd leave me then for pastimes more suited
to the dark.
But she is on intimate terms, it seems, with the rhythms
of Bryant Park,
For that's when the floodlights came on, slowly, somewhere far
above my need, and the grass grew green again,
and the woman reopened her eyes to read.