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 --> 00:00:06.685 align:middle line:84% You both read really beautiful long poems and you talked-- 00:00:06.685 --> 00:00:08.310 align:middle line:84% Tiana you talked a little bit about why 00:00:08.310 --> 00:00:09.352 align:middle line:90% you wanted to write them. 00:00:09.352 --> 00:00:12.330 align:middle line:84% How, for each of these, you did you keep your attention 00:00:12.330 --> 00:00:14.433 align:middle line:84% going through the writing and successfully get 00:00:14.433 --> 00:00:16.350 align:middle line:84% all the way through to the end of a long poem? 00:00:16.350 --> 00:00:19.400 align:middle line:90% 00:00:19.400 --> 00:00:23.370 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:00:23.370 --> 00:00:24.300 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:24.300 --> 00:00:26.460 align:middle line:90% You know, it's hard. 00:00:26.460 --> 00:00:28.200 align:middle line:84% One of my friends, you know, told me 00:00:28.200 --> 00:00:31.005 align:middle line:84% that poetry is the organization of breath, right. 00:00:31.005 --> 00:00:33.630 align:middle line:84% And so in a long poem it's like, how do you sustain that breath 00:00:33.630 --> 00:00:34.960 align:middle line:90% 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 --> 00:00:37.410 align:middle line:84% How do you keep that engine going? 00:00:37.410 --> 00:00:39.868 align:middle line:84% You know, we're so used to the economy of words or thinking 00:00:39.868 --> 00:00:42.690 align:middle line:84% that a poem needs to be, like, 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 --> 00:00:48.707 align:middle line:84% these long poems just kept barreling out of me. 00:00:48.707 --> 00:00:51.040 align:middle line:84% And, like I talked about in my workshop the other night, 00:00:51.040 --> 00:00:52.810 align:middle line:84% there's so many poetry rules that we feel like have 00:00:52.810 --> 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 I-- 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 --> 00:01:11.652 align:middle line:84% And it felt, for me, and sometimes-- 00:01:11.652 --> 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 --> 00:01:16.120 align:middle line:90% was tumbling out of me. 00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:17.280 align:middle line:84% I think Ruth Stone said, you know, 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:19.410 align:middle line:84% when she felt a poem coming she heard rumbling down the hill 00:01:19.410 --> 00:01:20.670 align:middle line:84% and she's trying to catch the hem of it. 00:01:20.670 --> 00:01:23.100 align:middle line:84% So with a long poem, you're just like 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 I-- 00:01:27.950 --> 00:01:30.913 align:middle line:84% if you can tell, I talk very fast or write very fast. 00:01:30.913 --> 00:01:31.780 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:31.780 --> 00:01:33.683 align:middle line:84% And this is just like 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 --> 00:01:39.825 align:middle line:84% And instead of, like, pushing myself back, 00:01:39.825 --> 00:01:41.700 align:middle line:84% I was actually giving my permission, like, no 00:01:41.700 --> 00:01:42.990 align:middle line:90% keep going, don't stop. 00:01:42.990 --> 00:01:44.490 align:middle line:90% Like, get it, 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 --> 00:01:49.798 align:middle line:90% every single arena here. 00:01:49.798 --> 00:01:51.840 align:middle line:84% And you heard in that poem-- and they're actually 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:52.860 align:middle line:90% separated by [? dinkuses. ?] 00:01:52.860 --> 00:01:53.700 align:middle line:84% I know it's a fun word, but there's 00:01:53.700 --> 00:01:55.110 align:middle line:84% three asterisks where I was, like, turning 00:01:55.110 --> 00:01:56.280 align:middle line:90% a diamond on it's fast end. 00:01:56.280 --> 00:01:58.650 align:middle line:84% And it's just like I had turned the diamond 360, which I 00:01:58.650 --> 00:02:00.400 align:middle line:90% felt like I got to this place. 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:02.910 align:middle line:84% When you end with [INAUDIBLE],, there's 00:02:02.910 --> 00:02:04.215 align:middle line:90% nowhere to go after that. 00:02:04.215 --> 00:02:04.910 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:04.910 --> 00:02:07.410 align:middle line:84% And so it just kind of felt like this, like, gymnastics step 00:02:07.410 --> 00:02:09.493 align:middle line:84% landing where I was just like, yes, OK, it's done. 00:02:09.493 --> 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 --> 00:02:20.970 align:middle line:84% But over the long poem, I think it's very obvious when 00:02:20.970 --> 00:02:22.230 align:middle line:90% it needs to end, you know. 00:02:22.230 --> 00:02:24.870 align:middle line:90% You're out of breath. 00:02:24.870 --> 00:02:27.100 align:middle line:84% I love what you say about breathlessness. 00:02:27.100 --> 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 --> 00:02:42.930 align:middle line:84% ''Tuol Sleng'' was originally published in my chapbook, 00:02:42.930 --> 00:02:46.560 align:middle line:84% Year Zero, 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 --> 00:02:56.460 align:middle line:84% If I'm calling a poem ''Tuol Sleng'', then I really need 00:02:56.460 --> 00:03:02.470 align:middle line:84% to talk about every single aspect of how it haunts me, 00:03:02.470 --> 00:03:04.080 align:middle line:90% my experiences there. 00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:08.100 align:middle line:84% When I'm thinking about that space as a museum. 00:03:08.100 --> 00:03:10.590 align:middle line:84% Thinking about the tourist experience. 00:03:10.590 --> 00:03:15.750 align:middle line:84% And as my own experience 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 --> 00:03:27.810 align:middle line:84% And I just spent a very long time thinking. 00:03:27.810 --> 00:03:29.700 align:middle line:90% Just thinking. 00:03:29.700 --> 00:03:32.964 align:middle line:84% And it's funny because all my teachers say, don't think. 00:03:32.964 --> 00:03:34.620 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:34.620 --> 00:03:39.660 align:middle line:84% Which brings me now to where I'm at in my writing process today. 00:03:39.660 --> 00:03:47.430 align:middle line:84% I had been given this prompt by Louise Glick 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 --> 00:04:00.930 align:middle line:90% And I did that. 00:04:00.930 --> 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 --> 00:04:25.110 align:middle line:84% and just keep on following that image. 00:04:25.110 --> 00:04:28.350 align:middle line:84% And circle back to it sometimes, see where repetition 00:04:28.350 --> 00:04:30.870 align:middle line:90% 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 --> 00:04:53.020 align:middle line:90% 00:04:53.020 --> 00:04:54.230 align:middle line:90% Any other questions? 00:04:54.230 --> 00:04:56.930 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:04:56.930 --> 00:05:00.920 align:middle line:84% Both of you mentioned that teachers of yours or professors 00:05:00.920 --> 00:05:04.460 align:middle line:84% or whatever have told you something and you defy it. 00:05:04.460 --> 00:05:07.010 align:middle line:90% 00:05:07.010 --> 00:05:08.750 align:middle line:90% 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 --> 00:05:16.790 align:middle line:90% About defiance or? 00:05:16.790 --> 00:05:18.760 align:middle line:90% I mean, tension, defiance. 00:05:18.760 --> 00:05:20.510 align:middle line:84% What do you mean by that in your question? 00:05:20.510 --> 00:05:22.223 align:middle line:84% Like, what does it mean to defy them? 00:05:22.223 --> 00:05:23.390 align:middle line:90% What do you mean by tension? 00:05:23.390 --> 00:05:23.890 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:05:23.890 --> 00:05:28.100 align:middle line:84% The tension within you as a writer, as a poet. 00:05:28.100 --> 00:05:29.870 align:middle line:90% What happens? 00:05:29.870 --> 00:05:32.870 align:middle line:84% So your teacher says this-- 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 --> 00:05:39.235 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I mean, I think for me so often 00:05:39.235 --> 00:05:40.610 align:middle line:84% we're taught of what does it mean 00:05:40.610 --> 00:05:42.562 align:middle line:90% to be a good student and obey? 00:05:42.562 --> 00:05:45.020 align:middle line:84% And growing up in church, I was told, like, a lot of things 00:05:45.020 --> 00:05:46.400 align:middle line:90% 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 --> 00:06:00.770 align:middle line:84% And so honestly, for me, it was guidance. 00:06:00.770 --> 00:06:02.670 align:middle line:84% Like that, when my teacher told me that. 00:06:02.670 --> 00:06:04.670 align:middle line:84% And it was why she told me that because she said 00:06:04.670 --> 00:06:05.480 align:middle line:90% it made her feel uncomfortable. 00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:06.560 align:middle line:90% And I was like, exactly. 00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:08.060 align:middle line:84% Like, I wanted you to feel uncomfortable. 00:06:08.060 --> 00:06:10.393 align:middle line:84% As if being uncomfortable was something that-- a product 00:06:10.393 --> 00:06:11.870 align:middle line:84% that I wouldn't want from my poem. 00:06:11.870 --> 00:06:16.370 align:middle line:84% Or that a poem has to make you feel appeased or that I'm here. 00:06:16.370 --> 00:06:18.050 align:middle line:84% And so it actually helped me define 00:06:18.050 --> 00:06:19.520 align:middle line:84% what my poetics, let me define what 00:06:19.520 --> 00:06:21.020 align:middle line:90% 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 --> 00:06:29.300 align:middle line:84% And so for me, it gave me that definition 00:06:29.300 --> 00:06:32.330 align:middle line:84% and that push of, like, where normally in the past 00:06:32.330 --> 00:06:34.310 align:middle line:84% I would have towered to that type of pressure, 00:06:34.310 --> 00:06:35.572 align:middle line:90% that type of authority figure. 00:06:35.572 --> 00:06:37.280 align:middle line:84% And, of course, you should respect, like, 00:06:37.280 --> 00:06:38.655 align:middle line:84% your elders and things like that, 00:06:38.655 --> 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 --> 00:06:51.073 align:middle line:84% I try to de-censor authority myself. 00:06:51.073 --> 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 the one in the room as 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 --> 00:06:57.740 align:middle line:84% or that I'm an expert that has the secret answer 00:06:57.740 --> 00:06:59.600 align:middle line:84% and you guys all have to guess what it is. 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:01.190 align:middle line:84% For me, I like approaching art that we're 00:07:01.190 --> 00:07:02.857 align:middle line:84% all students together and we're learning 00:07:02.857 --> 00:07:06.770 align:middle line:84% and interpreting this 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 --> 00:07:21.850 align:middle line:90% started at a very young age. 00:07:21.850 --> 00:07:24.650 align:middle line:84% So it's not necessarily something I-- 00:07:24.650 --> 00:07:27.390 align:middle line:84% I mean, I don't know if I will answer the question, 00:07:27.390 --> 00:07:30.750 align:middle line:90% like, regarding my teachers. 00:07:30.750 --> 00:07:32.880 align:middle line:90% I like breaking rules too. 00:07:32.880 --> 00:07:38.010 align:middle line:84% But I think in the context of my work, the history 00:07:38.010 --> 00:07:42.120 align:middle line:84% that I have been writing about, I 00:07:42.120 --> 00:07:45.510 align:middle line:84% thought that writing about history, 00:07:45.510 --> 00:07:47.130 align:middle line:84% by writing about history, I thought 00:07:47.130 --> 00:07:50.160 align:middle line:90% I could change what happened. 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:54.570 align:middle line:84% I realized through a lot of drafts and heartbreaks in those 00:07:54.570 --> 00:07:55.860 align:middle line:90% drafts, 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 --> 00:08:11.220 align:middle line:84% I wanted to defy, you know, I wanted 00:08:11.220 --> 00:08:17.340 align:middle line:84% to defy these power structures that made my people, 00:08:17.340 --> 00:08:21.870 align:middle line:84% my community, my family vulnerable in this world. 00:08:21.870 --> 00:08:24.900 align:middle line:84% So, like, when I read The Death of Henry Kissinger, 00:08:24.900 --> 00:08:29.280 align:middle line:84% he said that quote, in President Nixon's words, right, 00:08:29.280 --> 00:08:31.410 align:middle line:90% it's an order, it's to be done. 00:08:31.410 --> 00:08:34.860 align:middle line:84% Anything that flies at 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 --> 00:09:00.630 align:middle line:84% write poems because I disagree with something. 00:09:00.630 --> 00:09:03.510 align:middle line:84% Because I am made uncomfortable and I want to 00:09:03.510 --> 00:09:08.700 align:middle line:84% 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 --> 00:09:14.880 align:middle line:84% in those who are identifying with my narrative, 00:09:14.880 --> 00:09:18.330 align:middle line:84% Cambodian 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 --> 00:09:41.490 align:middle line:90% Because when you're made to-- 00:09:41.490 --> 00:09:43.470 align:middle line:84% when your history is, like, 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 --> 00:10:00.040 align:middle line:84% your relationship to defiance, 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 --> 00:10:06.090 align:middle line:90% and what I want now. 00:10:06.090 --> 00:10:09.457 align:middle line:90% 00:10:09.457 --> 00:10:15.720 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:17.790 align:middle line:84% I'm just wondering how you came to poetry 00:10:17.790 --> 00:10:22.230 align:middle line:84% to begin with as a child or young adult 00:10:22.230 --> 00:10:24.520 align:middle line:90% or how that happened? 00:10:24.520 --> 00:10:29.190 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I found an old, like, art project in my mom's house 00:10:29.190 --> 00:10:31.930 align:middle line:84% where I was-- like, you had to make a timeline of your life 00:10:31.930 --> 00:10:33.430 align:middle line:84% or something, like, in fourth grade, 00:10:33.430 --> 00:10:34.722 align:middle line:90% which was, like, kind of funny. 00:10:34.722 --> 00:10:37.320 align:middle line:84% And I put, like, a tick mark at, like, Asian [INAUDIBLE] poet. 00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:38.826 align:middle line:90% It's like, oh, OK. 00:10:38.826 --> 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 --> 00:10:45.460 align:middle line:90% His name was Bill Brown. 00:10:45.460 --> 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, I mean, 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 --> 00:11:01.158 align:middle line:84% He would always start the class with a contemporary poet. 00:11:01.158 --> 00:11:03.450 align:middle line:84% He was the first person that read the [? Leon Lee ?] me 00:11:03.450 --> 00:11:05.867 align:middle line:84% and Sharon Olds, and I was like, whoa, what is this thing? 00:11:05.867 --> 00:11:08.700 align:middle line:84% Like what-- this is like some magical, you know. 00:11:08.700 --> 00:11:12.532 align:middle line:84% It wasn't Chaucer and it wasn't all this stuff 00:11:12.532 --> 00:11:14.740 align:middle line:84% that I had been used to, kind of like, lit me within. 00:11:14.740 --> 00:11:17.430 align:middle line:84% And when you're a teenager with lots of angst 00:11:17.430 --> 00:11:19.260 align:middle line:84% and, you know, like, Daria, and you 00:11:19.260 --> 00:11:20.937 align:middle line:84% don't know how to contain your emotions 00:11:20.937 --> 00:11:22.770 align:middle line:84% and you hear Sharon Olds for the first time, 00:11:22.770 --> 00:11:24.000 align:middle line:90% that feels very exciting. 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:25.500 align:middle line:84% It feels very liberating, like whoa, 00:11:25.500 --> 00:11:26.917 align:middle line:84% there's this container where I can 00:11:26.917 --> 00:11:30.480 align:middle line:90% have this deluge of feelings. 00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:33.085 align:middle line:84% And he would always have a metronome in the class. 00:11:33.085 --> 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 --> 00:11:52.700 align:middle line:84% I didn't even know that poetry was something that I could even 00:11:52.700 --> 00:11:55.820 align:middle line:90% access, you know. 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, like, a Foreign Service Officer. 00:12:03.350 --> 00:12:06.290 align:middle line:84% I love learning languages, I thought I was going to travel. 00:12:06.290 --> 00:12:09.458 align:middle line:90% Work for the government, ha-ha. 00:12:09.458 --> 00:12:10.880 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:12:10.880 --> 00:12:13.272 align:middle line:84% Of course, that's not going to happen. 00:12:13.272 --> 00:12:14.690 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 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 --> 00:12:24.380 align:middle line:84% that I couldn't when I was living 00:12:24.380 --> 00:12:26.840 align:middle line:90% in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:30.710 align:middle line:84% But I always, as I was studying the histories 00:12:30.710 --> 00:12:32.810 align:middle line:84% of other countries and all the stuff, 00:12:32.810 --> 00:12:38.930 align:middle line:84% I didn't see anything about my country, like Cambodia. 00:12:38.930 --> 00:12:41.690 align:middle line:90% I didn't see anything. 00:12:41.690 --> 00:12:43.520 align:middle line:84% Even when we talked about the Vietnam War. 00:12:43.520 --> 00:12:45.255 align:middle line:90% So I always just-- 00:12:45.255 --> 00:12:46.130 align:middle line:90% I was like, OK, cool. 00:12:46.130 --> 00:12:48.470 align:middle line:84% There's a course called US, China, and Japan. 00:12:48.470 --> 00:12:52.140 align:middle line:84% What about like other countries in Asia, you know? 00:12:52.140 --> 00:12:53.750 align:middle line:90% I didn't see myself anywhere. 00:12:53.750 --> 00:12:55.370 align:middle line:84% And I didn't see myself growing-- 00:12:55.370 --> 00:13:01.670 align:middle line:84% you know, I didn't see myself reflected in TV, books, 00:13:01.670 --> 00:13:03.990 align:middle line:90% anything in Pennsylvania. 00:13:03.990 --> 00:13:05.450 align:middle line:90% And so it's just-- 00:13:05.450 --> 00:13:08.712 align:middle line:84% Toni Morrison said if there's a book that you haven't-- 00:13:08.712 --> 00:13:10.670 align:middle line:84% that you want to read but you haven't read yet, 00:13:10.670 --> 00:13:12.337 align:middle line:84% then you need to be the one to write it. 00:13:12.337 --> 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 --> 00:13:35.720 align:middle line:84% because I was close enough to that history in a different way 00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:38.900 align:middle line:84% where I had to look at myself and my own privilege 00:13:38.900 --> 00:13:41.180 align:middle line:84% as an American, as a person of diaspora. 00:13:41.180 --> 00:13:44.690 align:middle line:84% But also as a daughter of former refugees 00:13:44.690 --> 00:13:48.620 align:middle line:84% who was in that context 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 --> 00:13:55.880 align:middle line:84% I also thought that writing poetry, 00:13:55.880 --> 00:14:00.170 align:middle line:84% like, I thought I couldn't call myself a poet until I knew 00:14:00.170 --> 00:14:02.280 align:middle line:90% what love was, which is funny. 00:14:02.280 --> 00:14:04.520 align:middle line:84% But because now it's like, oh no, 00:14:04.520 --> 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 --> 00:14:18.710 align:middle line:84% And that was very apparent for me growing up 00:14:18.710 --> 00:14:23.450 align:middle line:84% as a kid who had to navigate my parents' PTSD and familial 00:14:23.450 --> 00:14:24.510 align:middle line:90% 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 we end there on questions. 00:14:38.490 --> 00:14:39.761 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much. 00:14:39.761 --> 00:14:41.970 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:14:41.970 --> 00:14:43.220 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:14:43.220 --> 00:14:44.000 align:middle line:90%