WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.620 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.620 --> 00:00:02.970 align:middle line:90% Thank you both so much. 00:00:02.970 --> 00:00:06.753 align:middle line:84% You both read really beautiful, long poems, and Tiana, you 00:00:06.753 --> 00:00:09.045 align:middle line:84% talked a little bit about why you wanted to write that. 00:00:09.045 --> 00:00:12.330 align:middle line:84% But how, for each of you, did you keep your attention 00:00:12.330 --> 00:00:14.610 align:middle line:84% going through the writing and successfully get 00:00:14.610 --> 00:00:18.206 align:middle line:84% all the way through to the end of a long poem? 00:00:18.206 --> 00:00:19.830 align:middle line:90% Do you want to answer? 00:00:19.830 --> 00:00:21.288 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:00:21.288 --> 00:00:22.750 align:middle line:90% You go first. 00:00:22.750 --> 00:00:25.140 align:middle line:90% [CHUCKLES] 00:00:25.140 --> 00:00:26.490 align:middle line:90% It's hard. 00:00:26.490 --> 00:00:29.400 align:middle line:84% One of my friends told me that poetry 00:00:29.400 --> 00:00:31.043 align:middle line:90% is the organization of breath. 00:00:31.043 --> 00:00:32.460 align:middle line:84% And so, in a long poem, it's like, 00:00:32.460 --> 00:00:34.960 align:middle line:84% how do you sustain that breath for a long length of time? 00:00:34.960 --> 00:00:36.000 align:middle line:84% How do you keep that momentum going? 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:37.678 align:middle line:84% How do you keep that engine going? 00:00:37.678 --> 00:00:39.720 align:middle line:84% We're so used to the economy of words or thinking 00:00:39.720 --> 00:00:42.690 align:middle line:84% that a poem needs to be on one page. 00:00:42.690 --> 00:00:45.420 align:middle line:84% And I guess, for me, especially after my first book came out, 00:00:45.420 --> 00:00:48.720 align:middle line:84% these long poems just kept barreling out of me. 00:00:48.720 --> 00:00:51.040 align:middle line:84% And like I talked about in my workshop the other night, 00:00:51.040 --> 00:00:53.010 align:middle line:84% there's so many poetry rules that we feel like we have, 00:00:53.010 --> 00:00:54.600 align:middle line:84% and we don't even know why we have them. 00:00:54.600 --> 00:00:56.370 align:middle line:84% And I was really interested in breaking those rules 00:00:56.370 --> 00:00:57.328 align:middle line:90% and pushing for length. 00:00:57.328 --> 00:01:01.260 align:middle line:84% And so for me, I kind of had this obsessive quality 00:01:01.260 --> 00:01:04.598 align:middle line:84% to chase that breathlessness, to chase this borderlessness. 00:01:04.598 --> 00:01:09.300 align:middle line:84% It just felt like an intuition that I couldn't quite escape. 00:01:09.300 --> 00:01:11.610 align:middle line:90% And it felt for me-- 00:01:11.610 --> 00:01:13.860 align:middle line:84% I mean, poetry is a really somatic experience for me-- 00:01:13.860 --> 00:01:15.300 align:middle line:84% I just literally felt like something 00:01:15.300 --> 00:01:16.140 align:middle line:90% was tumbling out of me. 00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:18.180 align:middle line:84% I think Ruth Stone said when she felt a poem coming, 00:01:18.180 --> 00:01:19.410 align:middle line:84% she heard rumbling down the hill, 00:01:19.410 --> 00:01:20.556 align:middle line:84% and she tried to catch the hem of it. 00:01:20.556 --> 00:01:23.100 align:middle line:84% And so with a long poem, you're just chasing that hem. 00:01:23.100 --> 00:01:25.320 align:middle line:90% And the thread never stopped. 00:01:25.320 --> 00:01:27.950 align:middle line:90% And so very much-- 00:01:27.950 --> 00:01:30.480 align:middle line:84% if you can tell, I talk very fast, I write very fast. 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:31.780 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:31.780 --> 00:01:33.683 align:middle line:90% And this is just how I work. 00:01:33.683 --> 00:01:35.100 align:middle line:84% And so really, more than anything, 00:01:35.100 --> 00:01:36.600 align:middle line:84% I'm trying to give myself permission 00:01:36.600 --> 00:01:37.710 align:middle line:90% to be myself on the page. 00:01:37.710 --> 00:01:39.782 align:middle line:84% And instead of pushing myself back, 00:01:39.782 --> 00:01:41.490 align:middle line:84% I was actually giving my permission like, 00:01:41.490 --> 00:01:42.400 align:middle line:90% no, keep going. 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:43.450 align:middle line:90% Don't stop. 00:01:43.450 --> 00:01:43.950 align:middle line:90% Get it. 00:01:43.950 --> 00:01:44.490 align:middle line:90% Chase it. 00:01:44.490 --> 00:01:46.753 align:middle line:84% And it's really until I fully exhausted myself, 00:01:46.753 --> 00:01:48.420 align:middle line:84% where I was like, I think I've exhausted 00:01:48.420 --> 00:01:49.912 align:middle line:90% every single arena here. 00:01:49.912 --> 00:01:51.120 align:middle line:90% And you hear it in that poem. 00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:52.860 align:middle line:84% And they're actually separated by dinkuses-- 00:01:52.860 --> 00:01:54.360 align:middle line:84% I know it's a fun word-- but those three asterisks 00:01:54.360 --> 00:01:56.160 align:middle line:84% where it was like turning a diamond on its facet. 00:01:56.160 --> 00:01:58.785 align:middle line:84% And it's just like I had turned the diamond 360 until I felt 00:01:58.785 --> 00:01:59.910 align:middle line:90% like I'd got to this place. 00:01:59.910 --> 00:02:02.888 align:middle line:84% And when you end with Lorca the duende there's 00:02:02.888 --> 00:02:03.930 align:middle line:90% nowhere to go after that. 00:02:03.930 --> 00:02:05.010 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:05.010 --> 00:02:07.610 align:middle line:84% And so it just kind of felt like this gymnastics type landing 00:02:07.610 --> 00:02:09.360 align:middle line:84% where I was just like, yes, OK, it's done. 00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:12.390 align:middle line:84% And then, the hard work is revision, of course. 00:02:12.390 --> 00:02:15.180 align:middle line:84% But for me, sometimes it's really great 00:02:15.180 --> 00:02:17.845 align:middle line:84% when you can have those arrival points when the poem tells you 00:02:17.845 --> 00:02:18.720 align:middle line:90% when it needs to end. 00:02:18.720 --> 00:02:20.720 align:middle line:84% But for the long poem, I think it's very obvious 00:02:20.720 --> 00:02:22.230 align:middle line:90% when it needs to end. 00:02:22.230 --> 00:02:24.870 align:middle line:90% You're out of breath. 00:02:24.870 --> 00:02:27.120 align:middle line:84% I love what you say about breathlessness. 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:29.880 align:middle line:90% That is incredible. 00:02:29.880 --> 00:02:35.310 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I think because I write out of silence, 00:02:35.310 --> 00:02:38.340 align:middle line:84% I'm staying with the poem for a very long time. 00:02:38.340 --> 00:02:41.880 align:middle line:84% "Tuol Sleng" was originally published 00:02:41.880 --> 00:02:44.100 align:middle line:90% in my chapbook, Year Zero. 00:02:44.100 --> 00:02:46.560 align:middle line:90% And it was just two sections. 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:51.180 align:middle line:84% And then I kept on thinking about what I really 00:02:51.180 --> 00:02:52.980 align:middle line:90% wanted to say about that place. 00:02:52.980 --> 00:02:55.470 align:middle line:84% If I'm calling a poem "Tuol Sleng," 00:02:55.470 --> 00:03:00.930 align:middle line:84% then I really need to talk about every single aspect of how 00:03:00.930 --> 00:03:04.080 align:middle line:84% it haunts me, my experiences there, 00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:08.460 align:middle line:84% when I'm thinking about that space as a museum, thinking 00:03:08.460 --> 00:03:13.290 align:middle line:84% about the tourist experience and as my own experience 00:03:13.290 --> 00:03:15.750 align:middle line:84% being a daughter of genocide survivors, 00:03:15.750 --> 00:03:18.628 align:middle line:90% being a person of diaspora. 00:03:18.628 --> 00:03:20.670 align:middle line:84% I had to think a lot about these different moving 00:03:20.670 --> 00:03:22.080 align:middle line:90% parts in the poem. 00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:29.700 align:middle line:84% And I just spent a very long time thinking, just thinking. 00:03:29.700 --> 00:03:32.940 align:middle line:84% And it's funny because all my teachers say, don't think, 00:03:32.940 --> 00:03:36.720 align:middle line:84% [LAUGHS] which brings me now to where I'm 00:03:36.720 --> 00:03:38.130 align:middle line:90% at in my writing process today. 00:03:38.130 --> 00:03:41.364 align:middle line:90% 00:03:41.364 --> 00:03:47.430 align:middle line:84% I had been given this prompt by Louise Gluck to write a journal 00:03:47.430 --> 00:03:48.900 align:middle line:90% simulation. 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:53.460 align:middle line:84% So she said, follow a thought over seven days, 00:03:53.460 --> 00:03:59.220 align:middle line:84% and just write little sections, short things. 00:03:59.220 --> 00:04:00.944 align:middle line:90% And I did that. 00:04:00.944 --> 00:04:05.550 align:middle line:84% And now I'm starting to see how I 00:04:05.550 --> 00:04:08.490 align:middle line:84% don't need to think when I put down words on the page, 00:04:08.490 --> 00:04:12.143 align:middle line:84% how liberating that feels to just let yourself go. 00:04:12.143 --> 00:04:13.560 align:middle line:84% And I think that kind of ties back 00:04:13.560 --> 00:04:18.029 align:middle line:84% into the sort of breathlessness that Tiana was talking about. 00:04:18.029 --> 00:04:22.830 align:middle line:84% For me, it's just let me follow a thought 00:04:22.830 --> 00:04:26.160 align:middle line:84% and just keep on following that image and circle back to it 00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:27.060 align:middle line:90% sometimes. 00:04:27.060 --> 00:04:30.870 align:middle line:84% See where repetition is working to sustain the poem 00:04:30.870 --> 00:04:33.540 align:middle line:90% and how imagery changes. 00:04:33.540 --> 00:04:35.190 align:middle line:90% I think that's really valuable. 00:04:35.190 --> 00:04:36.870 align:middle line:90% How does a narrative change? 00:04:36.870 --> 00:04:39.640 align:middle line:84% Because if you have a long poem, you have to sustain it. 00:04:39.640 --> 00:04:42.480 align:middle line:84% And then you have to make sure something is evolving 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:44.760 align:middle line:90% throughout the entire poem. 00:04:44.760 --> 00:04:53.170 align:middle line:90% 00:04:53.170 --> 00:04:54.230 align:middle line:90% Any other question? 00:04:54.230 --> 00:04:56.930 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah. 00:04:56.930 --> 00:05:00.170 align:middle line:84% Both of you mentioned that teachers of yours, 00:05:00.170 --> 00:05:03.260 align:middle line:84% or professors or whatever, have told you something, 00:05:03.260 --> 00:05:08.750 align:middle line:84% and you defied it, and you continue to defy it. 00:05:08.750 --> 00:05:14.570 align:middle line:84% And how strong is that tension when it happens? 00:05:14.570 --> 00:05:15.740 align:middle line:90% About defiance? 00:05:15.740 --> 00:05:19.040 align:middle line:90% Or I mean, tension defiance. 00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:21.230 align:middle line:84% What do you mean with the end of your question? 00:05:21.230 --> 00:05:22.280 align:middle line:84% Just what does it mean to defy them? 00:05:22.280 --> 00:05:23.790 align:middle line:90% What do you mean by the tension? 00:05:23.790 --> 00:05:28.100 align:middle line:84% The tension within you as a writer, as a poet. 00:05:28.100 --> 00:05:28.870 align:middle line:90% What happens? 00:05:28.870 --> 00:05:32.870 align:middle line:84% So your teacher says, don't publish that poem, 00:05:32.870 --> 00:05:34.400 align:middle line:90% and you go ahead and you did it. 00:05:34.400 --> 00:05:35.300 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:05:35.300 --> 00:05:40.220 align:middle line:84% I think, for me, so often, we're taught 00:05:40.220 --> 00:05:43.070 align:middle line:84% of what does it mean to be a good student and obey. 00:05:43.070 --> 00:05:46.400 align:middle line:84% And growing up in church, I was told a lot of things to obey. 00:05:46.400 --> 00:05:48.410 align:middle line:84% And I grew up in a very regimented way. 00:05:48.410 --> 00:05:51.692 align:middle line:84% And it wasn't until I started questioning those things-- 00:05:51.692 --> 00:05:53.150 align:middle line:84% and I think the poem is a container 00:05:53.150 --> 00:05:56.120 align:middle line:84% for those unanswerable questions to wrestle and toggle 00:05:56.120 --> 00:05:57.033 align:middle line:90% with them. 00:05:57.033 --> 00:05:58.950 align:middle line:84% And I don't really like being told what to do. 00:05:58.950 --> 00:06:01.370 align:middle line:84% And so honestly, for me, it was guidance. 00:06:01.370 --> 00:06:03.037 align:middle line:90% When my teacher told me that-- 00:06:03.037 --> 00:06:04.370 align:middle line:90% and it was why she told me that. 00:06:04.370 --> 00:06:05.480 align:middle line:84% Because she said it made her feel uncomfortable. 00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:06.602 align:middle line:90% And I was like, exactly. 00:06:06.602 --> 00:06:08.060 align:middle line:84% I wanted you to feel uncomfortable, 00:06:08.060 --> 00:06:10.940 align:middle line:84% as if being uncomfortable was a product that I wouldn't want 00:06:10.940 --> 00:06:15.662 align:middle line:84% from my poem or that a poem has to make you feel appeased 00:06:15.662 --> 00:06:16.370 align:middle line:90% or that I'm here. 00:06:16.370 --> 00:06:18.853 align:middle line:84% And so that actually helped me define my poetics. 00:06:18.853 --> 00:06:21.020 align:middle line:84% It helped me define what I was pushing back against. 00:06:21.020 --> 00:06:23.458 align:middle line:84% So she was actually helping me define the wall 00:06:23.458 --> 00:06:26.000 align:middle line:84% that I felt the pressure on that I didn't know how to define. 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:27.380 align:middle line:84% She gave me the lexicon for that. 00:06:27.380 --> 00:06:30.950 align:middle line:84% And so for me, it gave me that definition and that push, 00:06:30.950 --> 00:06:32.510 align:middle line:84% where normally, in the past, I would 00:06:32.510 --> 00:06:34.310 align:middle line:84% have cowered to that type of pressure, 00:06:34.310 --> 00:06:35.577 align:middle line:90% that type of authority figure. 00:06:35.577 --> 00:06:37.910 align:middle line:84% And of course, you should respect your elders and things 00:06:37.910 --> 00:06:38.410 align:middle line:90% like that. 00:06:38.410 --> 00:06:40.650 align:middle line:84% But I think there's just a time and place. 00:06:40.650 --> 00:06:42.920 align:middle line:84% And I think the graduate school is a time 00:06:42.920 --> 00:06:46.340 align:middle line:84% to reckon and wrestle with authority and the canon 00:06:46.340 --> 00:06:47.330 align:middle line:90% and to ask questions. 00:06:47.330 --> 00:06:49.160 align:middle line:84% I think, for me as a professor now, 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:51.115 align:middle line:84% I try to decenter authority myself. 00:06:51.115 --> 00:06:52.490 align:middle line:84% I don't really like that approach 00:06:52.490 --> 00:06:53.720 align:middle line:84% that I'm in the room as an expert. 00:06:53.720 --> 00:06:55.730 align:middle line:84% I don't like looking at poetry as a code to crack 00:06:55.730 --> 00:06:57.772 align:middle line:84% or that I'm an expert that has the secret answer, 00:06:57.772 --> 00:06:59.600 align:middle line:84% and you guys all have to guess what it is. 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:01.308 align:middle line:84% For me, I like approaching art that we're 00:07:01.308 --> 00:07:04.790 align:middle line:84% all students together, and we're learning and interpreting this 00:07:04.790 --> 00:07:06.770 align:middle line:90% together in a community. 00:07:06.770 --> 00:07:09.020 align:middle line:84% And so for me, it actually not only defined my poetics 00:07:09.020 --> 00:07:11.600 align:middle line:84% but defined my pedagogical approach, as well. 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:16.500 align:middle line:90% 00:07:16.500 --> 00:07:19.740 align:middle line:84% I think my relationship to defiance 00:07:19.740 --> 00:07:21.820 align:middle line:90% started at a very young age. 00:07:21.820 --> 00:07:25.290 align:middle line:84% So it's not necessarily something-- 00:07:25.290 --> 00:07:28.530 align:middle line:84% I don't know if I will answer the question regarding 00:07:28.530 --> 00:07:30.750 align:middle line:90% my teachers. 00:07:30.750 --> 00:07:32.880 align:middle line:90% I like breaking rules, too. 00:07:32.880 --> 00:07:36.600 align:middle line:84% But I think in the context of my work, 00:07:36.600 --> 00:07:41.850 align:middle line:84% the history that I had been writing about, 00:07:41.850 --> 00:07:46.860 align:middle line:84% I thought that by writing about history, 00:07:46.860 --> 00:07:51.490 align:middle line:84% I thought I could change what happened and realized, 00:07:51.490 --> 00:07:55.140 align:middle line:84% through a lot of drafts and heartbreaks in those drafts, 00:07:55.140 --> 00:07:55.860 align:middle line:90% I couldn't. 00:07:55.860 --> 00:07:58.690 align:middle line:90% I couldn't change anything. 00:07:58.690 --> 00:08:01.380 align:middle line:84% So there's a lot that I had to address 00:08:01.380 --> 00:08:03.510 align:middle line:90% that I couldn't reverse. 00:08:03.510 --> 00:08:07.380 align:middle line:90% But I wanted to defy something. 00:08:07.380 --> 00:08:10.860 align:middle line:90% 00:08:10.860 --> 00:08:14.730 align:middle line:84% I wanted to defy these power structures that 00:08:14.730 --> 00:08:18.600 align:middle line:84% made my people, my community, my family, 00:08:18.600 --> 00:08:21.870 align:middle line:90% vulnerable in this world. 00:08:21.870 --> 00:08:24.870 align:middle line:84% So when I read "The Death of Henry Kissinger," 00:08:24.870 --> 00:08:29.195 align:middle line:84% he said that quote, in President Nixon's words. 00:08:29.195 --> 00:08:29.820 align:middle line:90% "It's an order. 00:08:29.820 --> 00:08:31.410 align:middle line:90% It's to be done-- 00:08:31.410 --> 00:08:34.860 align:middle line:84% anything that flies or anything that moves." 00:08:34.860 --> 00:08:37.289 align:middle line:84% When people say these things when they have power, 00:08:37.289 --> 00:08:40.630 align:middle line:84% they're not thinking about human lives at all. 00:08:40.630 --> 00:08:45.300 align:middle line:84% So what do I say, as a daughter of genocide survivors? 00:08:45.300 --> 00:08:48.690 align:middle line:84% I get to defy what has been spoken. 00:08:48.690 --> 00:08:52.260 align:middle line:84% I get to do that through language. 00:08:52.260 --> 00:08:57.960 align:middle line:84% And I'm also thinking a lot about how sometimes, I 00:08:57.960 --> 00:09:01.200 align:middle line:84% write poems because I disagree with something, because I 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:02.760 align:middle line:90% am made uncomfortable. 00:09:02.760 --> 00:09:08.700 align:middle line:84% And I want to defy just power that I maybe don't have. 00:09:08.700 --> 00:09:11.790 align:middle line:84% But then I end up empowering myself and other people 00:09:11.790 --> 00:09:15.450 align:middle line:84% and those who are identifying with my narrative, Cambodian 00:09:15.450 --> 00:09:18.330 align:middle line:84% or not-- anybody in this world who has 00:09:18.330 --> 00:09:20.800 align:middle line:90% been subject to US imperialism. 00:09:20.800 --> 00:09:23.580 align:middle line:84% So for me, that's really important. 00:09:23.580 --> 00:09:28.500 align:middle line:84% But also, I think I'm also moving away 00:09:28.500 --> 00:09:31.170 align:middle line:90% from defiance and into desire. 00:09:31.170 --> 00:09:34.590 align:middle line:84% And that's something that I didn't know I could have. 00:09:34.590 --> 00:09:38.910 align:middle line:84% I didn't know I could actually feed into my own desire. 00:09:38.910 --> 00:09:43.470 align:middle line:84% Because when your history is reduced or erased 00:09:43.470 --> 00:09:48.060 align:middle line:84% or marginalized, you don't know that you can desire anything. 00:09:48.060 --> 00:09:51.960 align:middle line:84% So now, in that way, I think desire can also 00:09:51.960 --> 00:09:54.150 align:middle line:90% be a form of defiance. 00:09:54.150 --> 00:09:56.910 align:middle line:84% And I think it's informed by one's history, 00:09:56.910 --> 00:09:58.500 align:middle line:90% your relationship to defiance. 00:09:58.500 --> 00:10:00.040 align:middle line:90% Everybody has that. 00:10:00.040 --> 00:10:04.620 align:middle line:84% But I really think it's informed by my history 00:10:04.620 --> 00:10:06.060 align:middle line:90% and what I want now. 00:10:06.060 --> 00:10:15.720 align:middle line:90% 00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:18.810 align:middle line:84% I'm just wondering how you came to poetry to begin with, 00:10:18.810 --> 00:10:24.520 align:middle line:84% as a child or young adult or how that happened? 00:10:24.520 --> 00:10:29.190 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I found an old art project in my mom's house 00:10:29.190 --> 00:10:31.950 align:middle line:84% where it was like you had to make a timeline of your life 00:10:31.950 --> 00:10:34.260 align:middle line:84% or something in fourth grade, which is kind of funny. 00:10:34.260 --> 00:10:35.490 align:middle line:90% And I put a tick mark. 00:10:35.490 --> 00:10:37.320 align:middle line:84% It was like, age nine, became poet. 00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:38.388 align:middle line:90% It's like, oh, OK. 00:10:38.388 --> 00:10:40.140 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:40.140 --> 00:10:43.835 align:middle line:84% But the real answer is I had just an amazing teacher 00:10:43.835 --> 00:10:44.460 align:middle line:90% in high school. 00:10:44.460 --> 00:10:45.420 align:middle line:90% His name is Bill Brown. 00:10:45.420 --> 00:10:47.760 align:middle line:84% He was kind of a poet of the Beat Generation. 00:10:47.760 --> 00:10:51.057 align:middle line:90% And I felt so lucky. 00:10:51.057 --> 00:10:53.640 align:middle line:84% And so many schools don't have these creative writing programs 00:10:53.640 --> 00:10:54.280 align:middle line:90% anymore. 00:10:54.280 --> 00:10:56.490 align:middle line:84% And so for the last two years of high school, 00:10:56.490 --> 00:10:58.198 align:middle line:84% I would spend an hour with him every day. 00:10:58.198 --> 00:11:01.260 align:middle line:84% He would always start the class with a contemporary poet. 00:11:01.260 --> 00:11:03.223 align:middle line:84% He was the first person that read Li-Young Lee 00:11:03.223 --> 00:11:04.140 align:middle line:90% to me and Sharon Olds. 00:11:04.140 --> 00:11:06.090 align:middle line:84% And I was like, whoa, what is this thing? 00:11:06.090 --> 00:11:08.700 align:middle line:90% This is like some magical-- 00:11:08.700 --> 00:11:12.570 align:middle line:84% it wasn't Chaucer, and it wasn't all this stuff 00:11:12.570 --> 00:11:13.590 align:middle line:90% that I had been used to. 00:11:13.590 --> 00:11:14.850 align:middle line:90% It kind of lit me within. 00:11:14.850 --> 00:11:18.990 align:middle line:84% When you're a teenager with lots of angst and like Daria, 00:11:18.990 --> 00:11:20.990 align:middle line:84% and you don't know how to contain your emotions, 00:11:20.990 --> 00:11:22.823 align:middle line:84% and you hear Sharon Olds for the first time, 00:11:22.823 --> 00:11:23.978 align:middle line:90% that feels very exciting. 00:11:23.978 --> 00:11:25.020 align:middle line:90% It feels very liberating. 00:11:25.020 --> 00:11:26.470 align:middle line:84% Like, whoa, there's this container 00:11:26.470 --> 00:11:30.480 align:middle line:84% where I can have this deluge of feelings. 00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:33.043 align:middle line:84% And he would always have a metronome in the class. 00:11:33.043 --> 00:11:34.710 align:middle line:84% And we would always write to that click. 00:11:34.710 --> 00:11:35.790 align:middle line:84% And so I still feel like I'm writing 00:11:35.790 --> 00:11:37.080 align:middle line:90% to that click in my life. 00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:41.210 align:middle line:90% 00:11:41.210 --> 00:11:45.320 align:middle line:84% I came to poetry not when I was young. 00:11:45.320 --> 00:11:50.117 align:middle line:84% I came to poetry when I was 19, and I was in college. 00:11:50.117 --> 00:11:51.950 align:middle line:84% I didn't even know that poetry was something 00:11:51.950 --> 00:11:53.045 align:middle line:90% that I could even access. 00:11:53.045 --> 00:11:55.820 align:middle line:90% 00:11:55.820 --> 00:12:00.320 align:middle line:84% But I was studying in Washington, DC. 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:03.350 align:middle line:84% I thought I wanted to be a foreign service officer. 00:12:03.350 --> 00:12:04.550 align:middle line:90% I loved learning languages. 00:12:04.550 --> 00:12:08.120 align:middle line:84% I thought I was going to travel, work for the government-- ha 00:12:08.120 --> 00:12:08.984 align:middle line:90% ha. 00:12:08.984 --> 00:12:14.690 align:middle line:84% [LAUGHS] Of course, that's not going to happen. 00:12:14.690 --> 00:12:17.960 align:middle line:84% But I studied international studies. 00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:22.340 align:middle line:84% I really wanted to access the world in a way 00:12:22.340 --> 00:12:24.410 align:middle line:84% that I couldn't when I was living 00:12:24.410 --> 00:12:26.840 align:middle line:90% in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:31.670 align:middle line:84% But as I was studying the histories of other countries 00:12:31.670 --> 00:12:34.670 align:middle line:84% and all the stuff, I didn't see anything 00:12:34.670 --> 00:12:38.930 align:middle line:90% about my country, Cambodia. 00:12:38.930 --> 00:12:42.312 align:middle line:84% I didn't see anything, even when we 00:12:42.312 --> 00:12:43.520 align:middle line:90% talked about the Vietnam War. 00:12:43.520 --> 00:12:46.340 align:middle line:84% So I was, like, hey, cool, there's 00:12:46.340 --> 00:12:48.470 align:middle line:84% a course called US, China, and Japan. 00:12:48.470 --> 00:12:52.140 align:middle line:84% What about other countries in Asia? 00:12:52.140 --> 00:12:53.750 align:middle line:90% I didn't see myself anywhere. 00:12:53.750 --> 00:12:55.610 align:middle line:90% And I didn't see myself going-- 00:12:55.610 --> 00:13:01.670 align:middle line:84% I didn't see myself reflected in TV, books, 00:13:01.670 --> 00:13:05.450 align:middle line:90% anything in Pennsylvania. 00:13:05.450 --> 00:13:09.362 align:middle line:84% Toni Morrison said if there's a book that you want to read 00:13:09.362 --> 00:13:10.820 align:middle line:84% but that you haven't read yet, then 00:13:10.820 --> 00:13:12.278 align:middle line:84% you need to be the one to write it. 00:13:12.278 --> 00:13:17.120 align:middle line:84% And I think that was a really big green light for me. 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:22.520 align:middle line:84% But I came to poetry, I think, just because I was 00:13:22.520 --> 00:13:24.810 align:middle line:90% curious about my own history. 00:13:24.810 --> 00:13:31.280 align:middle line:84% And I committed to my craft when I studied in Vietnam. 00:13:31.280 --> 00:13:34.910 align:middle line:84% Because I was close enough to that history 00:13:34.910 --> 00:13:37.820 align:middle line:84% in a different way, where I had to look at myself 00:13:37.820 --> 00:13:39.750 align:middle line:84% and my own privilege as an American, 00:13:39.750 --> 00:13:41.660 align:middle line:84% as a person of diaspora, but also 00:13:41.660 --> 00:13:47.060 align:middle line:84% as a daughter of former refugees who was, in that context, 00:13:47.060 --> 00:13:48.620 align:middle line:90% that had so many questions. 00:13:48.620 --> 00:13:51.710 align:middle line:84% So I think I became a poet because I 00:13:51.710 --> 00:13:54.180 align:middle line:90% had a lot of questions. 00:13:54.180 --> 00:13:56.150 align:middle line:84% I also thought that writing poetry, 00:13:56.150 --> 00:14:00.170 align:middle line:84% I thought I couldn't call myself a poet until I knew 00:14:00.170 --> 00:14:02.900 align:middle line:90% what love was, which is funny. 00:14:02.900 --> 00:14:06.296 align:middle line:90% Because now, it's like, oh, no. 00:14:06.296 --> 00:14:08.660 align:middle line:84% You can call yourself a poet any time, really. 00:14:08.660 --> 00:14:12.650 align:middle line:84% But I think we all come into this world with a lot 00:14:12.650 --> 00:14:14.690 align:middle line:90% of heartbreak already. 00:14:14.690 --> 00:14:18.080 align:middle line:84% And that was very apparent for me, 00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:21.410 align:middle line:84% growing up as a kid who had to navigate 00:14:21.410 --> 00:14:24.510 align:middle line:84% my parents' PTSD and familial silence and everything. 00:14:24.510 --> 00:14:26.760 align:middle line:84% So I just had a lot of questions. 00:14:26.760 --> 00:14:30.410 align:middle line:84% And I think that those questions naturally led into poetry. 00:14:30.410 --> 00:14:35.430 align:middle line:90% 00:14:35.430 --> 00:14:38.490 align:middle line:84% So why don't end there on questions. 00:14:38.490 --> 00:14:39.746 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much. 00:14:39.746 --> 00:14:40.598 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:14:40.598 --> 00:14:42.180 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:14:42.180 --> 00:14:44.630 align:middle line:90% There are books for sale--