WEBVTT

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All right, so talk
a bit of talk.

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One of the things that
I'm working with now,

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and I used to--

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and by used to, I mean
like two months ago,

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I had this bad
idea that I could--

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the good idea was
I could come up

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with kind of "ars poetica,"
which I'd like to call

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kind of an "arsehole poetica."

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[LAUGHTER]

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But I thought that
what I would do

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is I would connect
that to specific poems

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that I've written, as if one
poem would be easily classified

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as one thing.

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That's stupid.

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So what I started
doing instead is

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thinking about a system
of gestures and dynamics,

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so I really appreciate the
body and writing session

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we had earlier today because all
of these gestures and concepts

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come from movement.

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So far, I have
shuffled, stagger--

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you saw some of the shuffle,
stagger, and shimmy.

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I'm working now on stammer,
struggle, and stumble.

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Now, what occurs with
each of these things?

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So let's just kind of
walk through them briefly.

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So shuffle, as you all know,
is kind of this abject sort

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of minstrel sort of act.

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[VOCALIZING]

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And to me, that's something
about an imbalance in ground.

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The person who's shuffling
is at a lower position

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on unstable ground
to somebody in power.

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But what's interesting is if
you take somebody like Muhammad

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Ali, his footwork oftentimes
resembled a kind of shuffling.

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Boxer's footwork,
or his rope-a-dope.

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Because what's interesting
to me about that

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is if the ground is unstable,
and I don't own the ground,

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then the person who's being--

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I'm speaking right into this.

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Too many hip hop videos.

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Hey, what's up?

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[LAUGHTER]

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Then the person-- then the
person who owns the ground

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is actually the person
who's in trouble.

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So the shuffle can have a
combative aspect to it as well.

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Stagger-- very similar.

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The stagger is usually
done by somebody

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who lacks control of
their body-- the drunk.

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[STAGGERING]

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The person who's just been shot
in a movie and is about to die.

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[STAGGERING]

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The zombie.

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[STAGGERING]

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All these are people who are
not in control of their bodies.

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Yet if you think of
dance, many dances

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are actually controlled falls.

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And so it actually
takes somebody

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who is in great control
of their body to do them.

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For example, the Roger Rabbit.

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[DANCING]

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That kind of thing.

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Or a martial art
form like capoeira,

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which I won't
demonstrate because I got

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banned from doing it
because I did so horribly.

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But the stagger or even
drunkeN-style Kung Fu

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is actually taking
that idea of control,

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bring it back into the body,
and kind of an awareness

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of the body and the shape.

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And some of that I relate
to kind of formal practices

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in the visual aspect of
my work, which you'll

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be seeing more of in a moment.

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The shimmy is an act
that is an offering.

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It looks like an offering,
but it's actually a lure.

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It's kind of a here it is.

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No it isn't.

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Here it is.

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No it isn't.

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Here it is.

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No it isn't.

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And all of these I think of
as being absent presences,

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physical alibis.

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Here, I'm offering.

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Oh no, come.

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Here's an offering.

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Here's an offering.

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And actually, instead
of it being an offering,

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it becomes some way that
gets the person who's

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being shimmied at to be
drawn in to the shimmier.

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So it can become about
the shimmier's desire

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in an interesting
sort of equilibrium.

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And there's ambivalence in
all of these sort of things,

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and I love ambivalence.

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I think that these gestures
sort of mimic a dynamic

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that I think about
a lot in terms

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of managing contradiction.

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The management of contradiction
seems to me in many ways to be

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an African-American aesthetic
project since before

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the presence here-- so African--

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but especially sharp in here.

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One of the great examples
of this the most popular

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is probably something
like soul music, which

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manages the
contradiction of the body

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and the spirit in the same space
by using techniques that you

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might use in a gospel song.

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(SINGING) Oh, Lord Jesus.

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Oh, Jesus, Jesus.

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Oh, Jesus.

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I said, Jesus.

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Oh, Jesus.

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You can just turn that
to (SINGING) Oh, baby.

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Oh, baby.

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Oh, baby.

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Oh, baby.

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Oh, baby.

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Oh, baby.

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Oh, baby.

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Oh, baby.

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I said, baby.

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Oh, baby.

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I said, baby.

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Oh, baby.

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Baby, be mine.

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It's that kind of thing
that's managing and kind

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of a contradiction
right in that space.

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[CHEERING]

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You're only clapping
because I'm good.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And of course contradiction
would be an important project

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for kind of a cultural and
cognitive inquiry when you're

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going, I'm a person,
and everything you says,

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no you're not.

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But I'm a person.

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No you're not.

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But I'm a-- well,
then, what am I?

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So I think that that's
something that's

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really an interesting question
that we can ask about our form

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and an interesting
way of dealing

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with some of the
questions that are

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particular about this symposium.

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The question of when are
we reading versus looking?

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How do we take advantage
of a space like the page

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and translate that
into what in some cases

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is really an analog
of the page, which can

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be a web page or some blogs?

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But how do we transform that?

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And how do we make that
transformation meaningful and

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not just a kind of a new
coating, a new shell?

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How can we make that meaningful?

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And I don't-- anybody who's
been at the panels yesterday

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doesn't need me to
think about that.

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So please grab one
of the panels if you

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weren't here because they
could do a better job.

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So that's a lot of talking.

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Let's go back to poetry.

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Poetry.

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All right--