WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.450 align:middle line:84% Thank you, all-- well, thank Laynie especially. 00:00:03.450 --> 00:00:05.560 align:middle line:90% Thank you all for being here. 00:00:05.560 --> 00:00:09.300 align:middle line:84% It's a pleasure to be here, especially coming from snowy 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:10.845 align:middle line:90% and freezing Rhode Island. 00:00:10.845 --> 00:00:15.470 align:middle line:90% 00:00:15.470 --> 00:00:18.700 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's amazing that you have this poetry center. 00:00:18.700 --> 00:00:22.170 align:middle line:90% I mean, it's great. 00:00:22.170 --> 00:00:26.890 align:middle line:84% I want to read from this new book "Driven to Abstraction." 00:00:26.890 --> 00:00:32.290 align:middle line:84% And I want to read from two different sequences in it. 00:00:32.290 --> 00:00:37.290 align:middle line:84% The first is called "Time Ravel," 00:00:37.290 --> 00:00:40.260 align:middle line:90% and it's sort of about memory. 00:00:40.260 --> 00:00:40.770 align:middle line:90% And-- 00:00:40.770 --> 00:00:42.420 align:middle line:90% Oh, not right. 00:00:42.420 --> 00:00:44.400 align:middle line:90% Is this better? 00:00:44.400 --> 00:00:45.330 align:middle line:90% Good, good. 00:00:45.330 --> 00:00:47.970 align:middle line:90% 00:00:47.970 --> 00:00:51.600 align:middle line:84% --it's about memory and about, also, 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:55.930 align:middle line:84% explorers who travel to America and elsewhere. 00:00:55.930 --> 00:00:59.610 align:middle line:90% So it's pretty straightforward. 00:00:59.610 --> 00:01:00.405 align:middle line:90% "Time Ravel." 00:01:00.405 --> 00:01:04.660 align:middle line:90% 00:01:04.660 --> 00:01:10.650 align:middle line:84% "With the mind's eye, we see against the light. 00:01:10.650 --> 00:01:13.490 align:middle line:90% The way we see the dead-- 00:01:13.490 --> 00:01:17.770 align:middle line:90% my father, reading at his desk. 00:01:17.770 --> 00:01:23.790 align:middle line:90% Read, road, door. 00:01:23.790 --> 00:01:26.670 align:middle line:84% Remains unclear how my brain chose 00:01:26.670 --> 00:01:30.120 align:middle line:84% to store this image rather than another, 00:01:30.120 --> 00:01:33.520 align:middle line:84% or how it veers toward the surface. 00:01:33.520 --> 00:01:36.160 align:middle line:84% Ulysses fights his way back to an Ithaca 00:01:36.160 --> 00:01:42.010 align:middle line:84% with four-lane highways, where serfdom has been replaced 00:01:42.010 --> 00:01:46.300 align:middle line:90% by alienation, enemy anxiety. 00:01:46.300 --> 00:01:52.190 align:middle line:90% Returns, reverts, replies. 00:01:52.190 --> 00:01:56.440 align:middle line:84% A borrowed book, a sword to it scabbard, 00:01:56.440 --> 00:01:58.620 align:middle line:90% in recompense, response. 00:01:58.620 --> 00:02:02.130 align:middle line:90% 00:02:02.130 --> 00:02:04.100 align:middle line:90% Two. 00:02:04.100 --> 00:02:06.080 align:middle line:84% The assumption is that the sirens 00:02:06.080 --> 00:02:10.820 align:middle line:84% have drowned in the alphabet and been replaced by warnings, war, 00:02:10.820 --> 00:02:12.670 align:middle line:90% warp. 00:02:12.670 --> 00:02:14.860 align:middle line:84% My father stopped reading to watch 00:02:14.860 --> 00:02:19.000 align:middle line:84% a magpie rising black and white against the sky. 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:21.310 align:middle line:90% Memories are many. 00:02:21.310 --> 00:02:26.400 align:middle line:84% Glitter in the brain, ready to be pilfered. 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:30.170 align:middle line:84% Does this fit my image of the real-- 00:02:30.170 --> 00:02:33.500 align:middle line:84% --where the norms of social interaction have multiplied 00:02:33.500 --> 00:02:38.190 align:middle line:84% and spontaneous acts come back as a mistake? 00:02:38.190 --> 00:02:40.780 align:middle line:90% A combustion? 00:02:40.780 --> 00:02:44.710 align:middle line:84% Natural feeling, temperament, disposition, impulse, energy-- 00:02:44.710 --> 00:02:47.650 align:middle line:90% all lashed fast to the mast. 00:02:47.650 --> 00:02:50.860 align:middle line:84% The rubrics of the dictionary, meaning business. 00:02:50.860 --> 00:02:55.090 align:middle line:90% 00:02:55.090 --> 00:02:55.590 align:middle line:90% Three. 00:02:55.590 --> 00:02:58.700 align:middle line:90% 00:02:58.700 --> 00:03:01.400 align:middle line:84% Columbus Crew were afraid that they would not 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:05.300 align:middle line:84% come back, unable to close the loop time won't permit. 00:03:05.300 --> 00:03:10.180 align:middle line:84% But sometimes, a ghost or shifting winds-- 00:03:10.180 --> 00:03:12.670 align:middle line:84% or the memory of a big slab of ice 00:03:12.670 --> 00:03:15.670 align:middle line:84% that a man with leather mittens split across the middle 00:03:15.670 --> 00:03:19.000 align:middle line:84% to reveal the time hidden within where I might not 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:22.210 align:middle line:90% find my body for the cold. 00:03:22.210 --> 00:03:25.060 align:middle line:84% Until my mother wraps the slab in a rag 00:03:25.060 --> 00:03:27.730 align:middle line:84% before putting it in the icebox, it would not 00:03:27.730 --> 00:03:30.700 align:middle line:90% warm me enough to have a self. 00:03:30.700 --> 00:03:36.640 align:middle line:84% Same, identical, interest, confidence, esteem, reliance, 00:03:36.640 --> 00:03:39.140 align:middle line:90% respect. 00:03:39.140 --> 00:03:39.640 align:middle line:90% Skin. 00:03:39.640 --> 00:03:42.290 align:middle line:90% 00:03:42.290 --> 00:03:47.080 align:middle line:84% So it takes pains to remember caresses is marked by the roads 00:03:47.080 --> 00:03:48.175 align:middle line:90% that pain takes. 00:03:48.175 --> 00:03:51.810 align:middle line:90% 00:03:51.810 --> 00:03:53.780 align:middle line:90% Four. 00:03:53.780 --> 00:03:57.290 align:middle line:84% Color of fables, the Indies, scarves, curves-- 00:03:57.290 --> 00:04:00.830 align:middle line:84% every island Columbus found was a wild kept to the map 00:04:00.830 --> 00:04:02.810 align:middle line:90% with no elsewhere. 00:04:02.810 --> 00:04:06.020 align:middle line:84% High spirits and cloud theory reflect in the sea 00:04:06.020 --> 00:04:08.840 align:middle line:84% and stitch coordinates toward a flight of gulls-- 00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:10.910 align:middle line:90% of stairs. 00:04:10.910 --> 00:04:13.340 align:middle line:84% America becomes a continent where 00:04:13.340 --> 00:04:17.480 align:middle line:84% numbers pass through the air, soar out of bounds. 00:04:17.480 --> 00:04:22.480 align:middle line:84% Or run from danger, flicker of fear. 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:25.270 align:middle line:84% How can I remember my parents if I 00:04:25.270 --> 00:04:30.640 align:middle line:84% need to run my hand over my body to make sure it is there? 00:04:30.640 --> 00:04:34.180 align:middle line:84% Or lean forward to brace against our element, 00:04:34.180 --> 00:04:39.780 align:middle line:84% deflect its head on force into a more general time? 00:04:39.780 --> 00:04:42.660 align:middle line:84% While God, for love of us, wears clothes. 00:04:42.660 --> 00:04:46.090 align:middle line:90% 00:04:46.090 --> 00:04:46.590 align:middle line:90% Five. 00:04:46.590 --> 00:04:49.700 align:middle line:90% 00:04:49.700 --> 00:04:55.200 align:middle line:84% I can't hear my father's voice, moored as if among antibodies. 00:04:55.200 --> 00:04:58.100 align:middle line:84% Articulation, hindered by head hanging down 00:04:58.100 --> 00:05:00.200 align:middle line:90% and a spill of oceans-- 00:05:00.200 --> 00:05:04.730 align:middle line:90% spell, sperm, spatter, splash. 00:05:04.730 --> 00:05:07.850 align:middle line:90% 00:05:07.850 --> 00:05:10.880 align:middle line:84% If the mechanisms of subjectivity are disturbed, 00:05:10.880 --> 00:05:16.330 align:middle line:84% it requires total restructuring of the world. 00:05:16.330 --> 00:05:20.080 align:middle line:84% As when I first learned that the Earth turns on its axis, 00:05:20.080 --> 00:05:24.650 align:middle line:84% that spleen (noun) is a highly vascular ductless gland, 00:05:24.650 --> 00:05:28.180 align:middle line:84% which serves to produce certain changes in the blood. 00:05:28.180 --> 00:05:32.680 align:middle line:84% Merriment, obsolete, caprice, spite, anger, malice, 00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:35.930 align:middle line:90% moroseness, melancholy. 00:05:35.930 --> 00:05:39.650 align:middle line:84% Most marked in complex civilizations, where 00:05:39.650 --> 00:05:42.020 align:middle line:84% the pace of events and cordless voices 00:05:42.020 --> 00:05:47.700 align:middle line:84% exceeds all the running one can do just to stay in one place. 00:05:47.700 --> 00:05:52.050 align:middle line:84% So silver on clear days is the light. 00:05:52.050 --> 00:05:56.120 align:middle line:90% 00:05:56.120 --> 00:05:58.250 align:middle line:90% Six. 00:05:58.250 --> 00:06:02.090 align:middle line:84% In haste, we now blast ourselves beyond the clouds 00:06:02.090 --> 00:06:05.850 align:middle line:84% and get lost in skies behind the sky. 00:06:05.850 --> 00:06:09.540 align:middle line:84% It's hard to rescue time from such a sight. 00:06:09.540 --> 00:06:12.360 align:middle line:84% Until they cast a shadow, perspective 00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:15.520 align:middle line:90% has no power over clouds. 00:06:15.520 --> 00:06:18.190 align:middle line:90% Bodies without surface. 00:06:18.190 --> 00:06:23.020 align:middle line:84% They vanished, the moment before the move into abstraction. 00:06:23.020 --> 00:06:26.320 align:middle line:84% The way my mother's large body evaporates 00:06:26.320 --> 00:06:31.210 align:middle line:84% before I can ask her to show me the breast I did not take. 00:06:31.210 --> 00:06:34.540 align:middle line:84% Columbus, though-- Magellan, Vasco, 00:06:34.540 --> 00:06:39.680 align:middle line:84% in the name of Christ and King, took firm hold of new markets. 00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:43.070 align:middle line:84% A mirror for a parrot, scissors for cinnamon, 00:06:43.070 --> 00:06:45.920 align:middle line:84% a playing card for a girl naked to the waist, 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:50.330 align:middle line:84% a kingdom for a horse, and dust in everyone's eye 00:06:50.330 --> 00:06:53.980 align:middle line:90% for private purchase and sale. 00:06:53.980 --> 00:06:57.630 align:middle line:84% What does it mean to recall the past if I have 00:06:57.630 --> 00:06:59.265 align:middle line:90% little sense of the present? 00:06:59.265 --> 00:07:03.065 align:middle line:90% 00:07:03.065 --> 00:07:03.565 align:middle line:90% Seven. 00:07:03.565 --> 00:07:06.390 align:middle line:90% 00:07:06.390 --> 00:07:09.720 align:middle line:84% Names multiplied in the wake of caravels, clippers, 00:07:09.720 --> 00:07:11.760 align:middle line:90% communicating vessels. 00:07:11.760 --> 00:07:16.140 align:middle line:84% The spelling capricious, (see spleen) as the winds. 00:07:16.140 --> 00:07:19.170 align:middle line:84% Track itineraries, track vanished and erased, 00:07:19.170 --> 00:07:24.380 align:middle line:84% track how many pages between Circe's island and Charybdis. 00:07:24.380 --> 00:07:28.070 align:middle line:84% It is not that our sensations need to match images 00:07:28.070 --> 00:07:30.260 align:middle line:84% in the brain, but that the brain needs 00:07:30.260 --> 00:07:32.960 align:middle line:90% a body for frame of reference. 00:07:32.960 --> 00:07:36.500 align:middle line:84% No matter if it be square or can, short, squat-- 00:07:36.500 --> 00:07:40.250 align:middle line:84% parts fitted together to enclose a window, door, picture, 00:07:40.250 --> 00:07:43.600 align:middle line:90% or disposition of the mind. 00:07:43.600 --> 00:07:48.070 align:middle line:84% Just as emotion shows if we are ready for the future hovering 00:07:48.070 --> 00:07:49.750 align:middle line:90% at the edge of our eye. 00:07:49.750 --> 00:07:53.345 align:middle line:90% 00:07:53.345 --> 00:07:53.845 align:middle line:90% Eight. 00:07:53.845 --> 00:07:56.690 align:middle line:90% 00:07:56.690 --> 00:08:01.160 align:middle line:84% Great beginnings, too, can end up a small world-- 00:08:01.160 --> 00:08:04.850 align:middle line:90% whirl old. 00:08:04.850 --> 00:08:07.430 align:middle line:84% Set sail on the power of imagination 00:08:07.430 --> 00:08:11.750 align:middle line:84% for hearsay, geographies, and real dangers. 00:08:11.750 --> 00:08:15.560 align:middle line:84% With greed, a secret motor, it drove them back home 00:08:15.560 --> 00:08:19.250 align:middle line:84% to cities crazy for spices and gold. 00:08:19.250 --> 00:08:24.840 align:middle line:84% In between, waves and more waves. 00:08:24.840 --> 00:08:28.470 align:middle line:84% When I think of my mother, I am heavy in the pelvis 00:08:28.470 --> 00:08:32.650 align:middle line:84% with the children she wanted and begin to sing. 00:08:32.650 --> 00:08:35.919 align:middle line:90% A complex song of if and so-- 00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:41.620 align:middle line:84% I never had a voice to introduce an exclamation, condition, 00:08:41.620 --> 00:08:45.730 align:middle line:84% stipulation, untenable argument, or wish. 00:08:45.730 --> 00:08:50.350 align:middle line:84% On condition, in the event that allowing that these long term 00:08:50.350 --> 00:08:52.510 align:middle line:90% memories are abstractions-- 00:08:52.510 --> 00:08:57.070 align:middle line:84% a different mode of thought from the short term ones. 00:08:57.070 --> 00:09:02.060 align:middle line:84% And that their difference shapes my sense of time. 00:09:02.060 --> 00:09:06.700 align:middle line:84% A violet's blue, as a sign of distance.