So when Annie invited me to be part of "Off the Page,"
I was thrilled and startled at the same time, that
how come it's suddenly become visible
that the thread could suddenly be an equal to the text?
That was something that gave me a lot of joy.
And so I came here.
And she wanted for me to do an installation.
But I saw that already many artists
have done thread pieces installations in the Poetry
Center.
So I didn't want to do any such thing even though I have been
doing such things for 40 years.
My first thread piece weaving an architectural site
that is recorded was from 1971.
It was done in my bedroom in [? Con Con ?]..
And actually, I brought with me a few cards
that I can share with you after this session
about the different ripples and consequences of having done all
this work out in space in the beaches,
to be erased by the ocean, in the streets,
to be trampled by the passers-by.
All this work that is invisible and has
formed a part of the circulation of life has had a trail.
And it has consequences in many poetries,
in many works as time passes.
And so, I will share that with you.
But getting back to where I was, which I have completely lost--
and where was I?
I think I was at the Poetry Center.
And I didn't want to do a thread piece.
So I proposed to Annie that I would do a piece weaving people
in the streets of Tucson and weaving the Poetry Center back
to the desert, back to the land itself.
And so my improvisation yesterday
was a little bit about that, about the fact
that it turned out that there were no people in Tucson
because everybody is so hot that they are all inside.
So we ended up weaving the saguaros.
We were weaving [? these threads ?],,,,
weaving all kinds of things like that
because people were just not available.
And so I left a few traces, two or three
little fragments of thread, here at the Poetry Center
for people to just simply experience the indication
that this thread, whatever--
I love the idea that somebody, I think
it's you that they were quoting, perhaps,
Johanna Drucker about materiality being probability.
The word matter is also associated to mother.
So who is the mother of matter?
The mother of matter, of course, is love, is energy.
Energy is a form of love.
And that is my view.
And so even the smallest the weakest fragment of thread
conveys all the threadness, all the web of life,
as far as I'm concerned.
I love also what you say, about the peace aspect of page
also including some violence.
And it is very extraordinary that I
have done very many architectural, huge, monumental
weavings associated to small towns where
the streets are woven or--
buildings, many floors of building woven.
And I have very often encountered
that these threads are perceived by the people as an attack.
What is it that is aggressive about a thread lying
on the floor or a thread crossing and uniting two poles?
And people have attacked, in turn, the thread, burnt them,
cut them.
So what is it about the idea of the umbilical cord
of the mother or the thread associated to the life
force itself as it's carried between,
within the mitochondria, that is only
carried by the female force, by the female side of the life
force?
So there's something in our culture.
And this is part of the intent of my work.
It feels-- for example, this morning just
before coming here, I was in a Skype conversation
with my partner, who is in New York.
And he was telling me that Bill Moyers
had interviewed Luis Urrea--
I think you pronounce You-ree-uh in English--
how he is being censored by the school district in here
in Arizona so that he won't be able to have his books
accessible to children here.
And I thought it was pretty amazing.
There was a gentleman here last night
that was bringing up that.
But a lady came up to me later.
I don't know if she's here.
I don't see her.
She came to me.
And she said it's not about Black and Brown.
We're all oppressed.
Our connectedness to the life force and our connectedness
to the idea that we can affect the world through poetry, that
is what is being cut off, disconnected, prevented,
censored, banned.
And it's banned by the worldview.
And everybody collaborates with that worldview
without being completely aware that you are collaborating
with the enemy.
So that's one of the projects that we're
working with with a group of artists and poets,
creating a collective project precisely
to undo this worldview, because this
is what's killing the Earth.
So each time you do something that
is so nothing, like a piece of thread,
you are really working with the spirit of connectedness.
And the last thing I would say is that there is a scientist--
I read a lot of science.
I'm very connected with the scientific world
through my imagination.
The scientific world doesn't know it and doesn't want
to know it because they have the hierarchical idea that they
know what we don't.
And we have to bridge that because poets have
to interfere with scientists.
Otherwise scientists are going to get away.
They're planning now to set the golden standard for truth.
Can you believe that?
So I don't want to be left out of that.
So that's also part of our project.
And you're all invited to take part in.
This scientist-- this is the last quote I will say.
David Deutsch says that now, quantum physics
has arrived at the point where the huge gap between quantum
physics and classical physics is going
to be bridged by a system by which science communicates
with the multiverse and interacts with the multiverse.
And I thought--I thought--I thought--I thought,
what a fantastic idea, that they think they are arriving there
were ancient peoples have been there all along.
That's all.