WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.840 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.840 --> 00:00:04.200 align:middle line:84% Hello, everyone. Oh, sorry, I'm loud. 00:00:04.200 --> 00:00:06.070 align:middle line:84% OK, let's go ahead and get started. 00:00:06.070 --> 00:00:07.680 align:middle line:90% My name is Cybele Knowles. 00:00:07.680 --> 00:00:10.020 align:middle line:84% I'm the events coordinator here at the Poetry Center. 00:00:10.020 --> 00:00:13.230 align:middle line:84% And I'm happy to welcome you to the Poetry Center-- 00:00:13.230 --> 00:00:15.960 align:middle line:84% or back, as a case maybe, if you're here last night. 00:00:15.960 --> 00:00:20.400 align:middle line:84% And I know very many of you were. 00:00:20.400 --> 00:00:22.800 align:middle line:84% Just want to thank you, Franz, for coming all the way 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:25.240 align:middle line:84% to Arizona to give a fantastic reading. 00:00:25.240 --> 00:00:27.512 align:middle line:90% It was really wonderful. 00:00:27.512 --> 00:00:29.470 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:29.470 --> 00:00:29.970 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:00:29.970 --> 00:00:32.910 align:middle line:90% 00:00:32.910 --> 00:00:34.560 align:middle line:84% I don't really think Franz Wright needs 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:36.435 align:middle line:84% any introduction at this point, but I'll just 00:00:36.435 --> 00:00:38.040 align:middle line:90% say a few quick words. 00:00:38.040 --> 00:00:38.950 align:middle line:90% He's a poet. 00:00:38.950 --> 00:00:40.170 align:middle line:90% He's a translator. 00:00:40.170 --> 00:00:41.860 align:middle line:90% He's a Pulitzer Prize winner. 00:00:41.860 --> 00:00:45.540 align:middle line:84% He won the Pulitzer for his 2003 collection, 00:00:45.540 --> 00:00:47.460 align:middle line:90% Walking to Martha's Vineyard. 00:00:47.460 --> 00:00:49.890 align:middle line:84% And another wonderful writer named 00:00:49.890 --> 00:00:53.820 align:middle line:84% Denis Johnson has said of Franz's poems, 00:00:53.820 --> 00:00:57.690 align:middle line:84% "they're like tiny jewels shaped by blunt, ruined fingers-- 00:00:57.690 --> 00:00:59.160 align:middle line:90% miraculous gifts." 00:00:59.160 --> 00:01:00.340 align:middle line:90% I love that. 00:01:00.340 --> 00:01:01.770 align:middle line:90% So thank you for coming. 00:01:01.770 --> 00:01:04.840 align:middle line:84% And we're going to just take questions. 00:01:04.840 --> 00:01:07.920 align:middle line:84% And if you could do me a favor and speak your questions 00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:11.520 align:middle line:84% into the mic, we're recording this Q&A session for posterity. 00:01:11.520 --> 00:01:14.760 align:middle line:84% And your question will get onto the tape if it goes to the mic. 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:16.965 align:middle line:84% So I'll run around and pass this about. 00:01:16.965 --> 00:01:20.820 align:middle line:90% 00:01:20.820 --> 00:01:23.460 align:middle line:84% What sense do you make of Rilke now. 00:01:23.460 --> 00:01:27.220 align:middle line:84% Have you changed your feelings about him? 00:01:27.220 --> 00:01:29.610 align:middle line:84% Sometimes he seems, like, ponderous, like, 00:01:29.610 --> 00:01:31.290 align:middle line:90% Rodin to me now. 00:01:31.290 --> 00:01:32.360 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:01:32.360 --> 00:01:33.840 align:middle line:90% That's a good question. 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:34.830 align:middle line:90% And that's true. 00:01:34.830 --> 00:01:39.330 align:middle line:90% 00:01:39.330 --> 00:01:43.122 align:middle line:84% And sometimes he almost seems to me like one of those-- 00:01:43.122 --> 00:01:44.580 align:middle line:90% there are certain writers-- 00:01:44.580 --> 00:01:47.040 align:middle line:84% he's not really, but there are certain writers 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:53.460 align:middle line:84% that I think appeal to younger people and adolescents 00:01:53.460 --> 00:01:56.520 align:middle line:90% and the adolescent in everyone. 00:01:56.520 --> 00:01:59.400 align:middle line:90% And he's a borderline. 00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:04.080 align:middle line:84% I mean, of course, well, there are very major writers 00:02:04.080 --> 00:02:05.640 align:middle line:90% that that could be said of. 00:02:05.640 --> 00:02:10.770 align:middle line:84% And it's a wonderful sort of form, 00:02:10.770 --> 00:02:12.850 align:middle line:90% writings for younger people. 00:02:12.850 --> 00:02:19.890 align:middle line:84% But I just think that I felt very differently. 00:02:19.890 --> 00:02:23.880 align:middle line:84% Well, I mean, I feel very differently about everything. 00:02:23.880 --> 00:02:29.460 align:middle line:84% But I think I had an exaggerated idea of-- 00:02:29.460 --> 00:02:32.130 align:middle line:90% 00:02:32.130 --> 00:02:35.850 align:middle line:84% I see better what's strong in him 00:02:35.850 --> 00:02:37.590 align:middle line:90% and what doesn't work as well. 00:02:37.590 --> 00:02:40.860 align:middle line:90% And I like his work that is-- 00:02:40.860 --> 00:02:43.890 align:middle line:84% my favorite work of his is the middle period-- 00:02:43.890 --> 00:02:47.280 align:middle line:90% Neue Gedichte, the New Poems. 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:53.400 align:middle line:84% The really crystalline sharp poems 00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:55.590 align:middle line:90% that often have to do with-- 00:02:55.590 --> 00:02:57.220 align:middle line:90% well, his idea was-- 00:02:57.220 --> 00:02:59.430 align:middle line:90% he was kind of stuck. 00:02:59.430 --> 00:03:02.910 align:middle line:84% Like Yates, he began writing in a much more flowery sort 00:03:02.910 --> 00:03:04.770 align:middle line:90% of 19th century romantic way. 00:03:04.770 --> 00:03:07.620 align:middle line:84% And then he was dissatisfied with that. 00:03:07.620 --> 00:03:11.010 align:middle line:90% And he became one of the-- 00:03:11.010 --> 00:03:13.740 align:middle line:84% I guess he could be called a modernist. 00:03:13.740 --> 00:03:21.325 align:middle line:90% 00:03:21.325 --> 00:03:22.200 align:middle line:90% I know what happened. 00:03:22.200 --> 00:03:26.370 align:middle line:90% He went to Paris to become-- 00:03:26.370 --> 00:03:31.770 align:middle line:84% when he was still probably in his late 20's or 30's-- 00:03:31.770 --> 00:03:35.250 align:middle line:84% Rodin's secretary, and which would 00:03:35.250 --> 00:03:37.620 align:middle line:90% sound like a pretty good job. 00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:43.020 align:middle line:84% But he did it for a while and then he, being Rilke, 00:03:43.020 --> 00:03:46.050 align:middle line:90% it didn't last very long. 00:03:46.050 --> 00:03:48.180 align:middle line:90% You can't have two major-- 00:03:48.180 --> 00:03:52.080 align:middle line:84% like, two guys who want to be the-- 00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:54.810 align:middle line:84% I mean, he had great reverence for him. 00:03:54.810 --> 00:03:57.330 align:middle line:84% What he learned from him was, I think 00:03:57.330 --> 00:03:59.550 align:middle line:84% it was Rodin who told him, you've 00:03:59.550 --> 00:04:01.520 align:middle line:90% written enough about your-- 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:03.210 align:middle line:90% you've looked inward enough. 00:04:03.210 --> 00:04:06.750 align:middle line:84% You need to look outward and go look at-- 00:04:06.750 --> 00:04:07.830 align:middle line:90% you need to think about-- 00:04:07.830 --> 00:04:10.640 align:middle line:90% 00:04:10.640 --> 00:04:13.080 align:middle line:84% it's interesting, sort of like the concept 00:04:13.080 --> 00:04:17.110 align:middle line:84% that the Japanese haiku poets had and some of the Chinese-- 00:04:17.110 --> 00:04:19.050 align:middle line:90% the Tang dynasty poets. 00:04:19.050 --> 00:04:21.180 align:middle line:90% If you look outward-- 00:04:21.180 --> 00:04:22.800 align:middle line:84% he would tell him to go to the zoo. 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:26.310 align:middle line:84% Like, go write a poem about an animal or something. 00:04:26.310 --> 00:04:28.770 align:middle line:84% He did write "The Panther," which to this day 00:04:28.770 --> 00:04:32.670 align:middle line:84% all German children learn in school. 00:04:32.670 --> 00:04:42.580 align:middle line:84% And the idea was somewhat like Elliott's 00:04:42.580 --> 00:04:45.220 align:middle line:90% objective correlative. 00:04:45.220 --> 00:04:48.250 align:middle line:84% Instead of saying straight out saying something 00:04:48.250 --> 00:04:53.490 align:middle line:84% about the way you feel, you talk about the way 00:04:53.490 --> 00:04:56.520 align:middle line:84% you feel by describing something outside yourself. 00:04:56.520 --> 00:05:01.770 align:middle line:84% And the way you speak about it will, in an unspoken way, 00:05:01.770 --> 00:05:04.200 align:middle line:84% be talking about the way you feel. 00:05:04.200 --> 00:05:11.760 align:middle line:84% And so that was when you start getting the real Rilke. 00:05:11.760 --> 00:05:15.670 align:middle line:84% And then he had different styles. 00:05:15.670 --> 00:05:20.500 align:middle line:84% Some of them are much like the later elegies and the "Sonnets 00:05:20.500 --> 00:05:21.210 align:middle line:90% to Orpheus." 00:05:21.210 --> 00:05:29.160 align:middle line:84% And I translated for a long time the unfinished fragmentary work 00:05:29.160 --> 00:05:34.740 align:middle line:84% that he did while he was trying to write The Elegies, 00:05:34.740 --> 00:05:38.130 align:middle line:84% trying to find a vocabulary and a style for The Elegies. 00:05:38.130 --> 00:05:40.860 align:middle line:84% And that work interests me very much. 00:05:40.860 --> 00:05:48.670 align:middle line:84% But to me, he was like THE poet, what a poet is. 00:05:48.670 --> 00:05:52.920 align:middle line:84% And he's still a poet I love very much. 00:05:52.920 --> 00:06:00.480 align:middle line:84% But I have to say the same kind of worshipful attitude 00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:00.980 align:middle line:90% about it. 00:06:00.980 --> 00:06:09.430 align:middle line:90% 00:06:09.430 --> 00:06:12.030 align:middle line:84% Last night, I think for a while there you 00:06:12.030 --> 00:06:15.780 align:middle line:84% were talking about channeling William Burroughs. 00:06:15.780 --> 00:06:19.410 align:middle line:84% And within your work that I heard, 00:06:19.410 --> 00:06:20.950 align:middle line:84% there's a lot of different voices, 00:06:20.950 --> 00:06:22.200 align:middle line:90% a lot of different characters. 00:06:22.200 --> 00:06:25.140 align:middle line:90% 00:06:25.140 --> 00:06:26.640 align:middle line:84% When you're composing, do you find 00:06:26.640 --> 00:06:28.890 align:middle line:90% yourself adopting a persona? 00:06:28.890 --> 00:06:31.410 align:middle line:84% You become someone else in order to deliver 00:06:31.410 --> 00:06:34.230 align:middle line:84% what would be your real authentic emotions, 00:06:34.230 --> 00:06:36.510 align:middle line:84% but perhaps create a different situation in which 00:06:36.510 --> 00:06:37.470 align:middle line:90% to present them? 00:06:37.470 --> 00:06:38.010 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:06:38.010 --> 00:06:39.360 align:middle line:90% And you do that. 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:42.420 align:middle line:84% Baudelaire's idea was that it's the very first thing 00:06:42.420 --> 00:06:44.550 align:middle line:84% a poet needs to do is create a persona. 00:06:44.550 --> 00:06:51.560 align:middle line:90% 00:06:51.560 --> 00:06:53.330 align:middle line:90% And you're always doing it. 00:06:53.330 --> 00:06:56.360 align:middle line:84% It's confusing, I think, because I also 00:06:56.360 --> 00:06:59.570 align:middle line:90% mentioned that lyric poetry-- 00:06:59.570 --> 00:07:01.280 align:middle line:84% you speak in the first person, everyone 00:07:01.280 --> 00:07:06.350 align:middle line:84% assumes that you're speaking literally about yourself 00:07:06.350 --> 00:07:07.160 align:middle line:90% all the time. 00:07:07.160 --> 00:07:09.830 align:middle line:84% Whereas in fiction, we accept the idea 00:07:09.830 --> 00:07:12.550 align:middle line:90% that it might be made up. 00:07:12.550 --> 00:07:14.510 align:middle line:84% It might be something you made up in order 00:07:14.510 --> 00:07:17.990 align:middle line:90% to tell a higher truth. 00:07:17.990 --> 00:07:22.070 align:middle line:84% And I feel like free to make things up, 00:07:22.070 --> 00:07:27.530 align:middle line:84% even though I'm speaking in the first person in a poem. 00:07:27.530 --> 00:07:33.250 align:middle line:84% But I think every poem you write you are 00:07:33.250 --> 00:07:35.330 align:middle line:90% looking for a different mask. 00:07:35.330 --> 00:07:39.710 align:middle line:84% I know what happened to me in the last couple of years. 00:07:39.710 --> 00:07:42.400 align:middle line:84% The reason I was able to write this book of prose 00:07:42.400 --> 00:07:47.770 align:middle line:84% that I've been trying to finish is that, I had always 00:07:47.770 --> 00:07:50.500 align:middle line:90% told this to students. 00:07:50.500 --> 00:07:55.460 align:middle line:84% I had the idea that and I tried to do it when I was younger. 00:07:55.460 --> 00:07:59.350 align:middle line:84% If you find that you're really good at one particular thing, 00:07:59.350 --> 00:08:02.710 align:middle line:84% then focus on what you're not good at. 00:08:02.710 --> 00:08:07.720 align:middle line:84% And it makes something happens where the work becomes 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:09.010 align:middle line:90% fuller and more human. 00:08:09.010 --> 00:08:13.210 align:middle line:90% And for me, it was enough image. 00:08:13.210 --> 00:08:16.280 align:middle line:84% The image was very important to me. 00:08:16.280 --> 00:08:20.800 align:middle line:84% And so then I tried to learn more 00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:29.020 align:middle line:84% about technical things about sound, musical aspect 00:08:29.020 --> 00:08:29.710 align:middle line:90% of poetry. 00:08:29.710 --> 00:08:33.580 align:middle line:84% And then what helped me with the prose 00:08:33.580 --> 00:08:40.059 align:middle line:84% was I realized I had spent a lot of time reading theater stuff. 00:08:40.059 --> 00:08:42.880 align:middle line:84% And my favorite playwright is Harold Pinter. 00:08:42.880 --> 00:08:47.650 align:middle line:84% And his work strikes me almost as prose poems sometimes 00:08:47.650 --> 00:08:49.330 align:middle line:90% in an odd way. 00:08:49.330 --> 00:08:55.510 align:middle line:84% But a lot of reading in Beckett and Pinter and other 00:08:55.510 --> 00:08:58.540 align:middle line:90% playwrights, but not just them. 00:08:58.540 --> 00:09:02.530 align:middle line:84% Eugene O'Neill, I like very much-- and like that, 00:09:02.530 --> 00:09:06.070 align:middle line:84% and going back to the Greek playwrights. 00:09:06.070 --> 00:09:13.180 align:middle line:84% And I found out in these prose pieces 00:09:13.180 --> 00:09:16.930 align:middle line:84% that these other parts of myself could come out and talk. 00:09:16.930 --> 00:09:18.700 align:middle line:84% And sometimes several of them come out 00:09:18.700 --> 00:09:20.440 align:middle line:90% and talk to each other. 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:23.390 align:middle line:90% And they have a conversation. 00:09:23.390 --> 00:09:26.800 align:middle line:90% It's not a conversation-- 00:09:26.800 --> 00:09:28.610 align:middle line:84% they're conflicting with each other. 00:09:28.610 --> 00:09:31.330 align:middle line:90% It's like a sort of dissonance. 00:09:31.330 --> 00:09:35.350 align:middle line:84% And so that was what turned out to be 00:09:35.350 --> 00:09:37.930 align:middle line:84% the thing I needed to concentrate on, the thing 00:09:37.930 --> 00:09:38.820 align:middle line:90% I was weaker at. 00:09:38.820 --> 00:09:41.380 align:middle line:84% And then once I realized I could do that, 00:09:41.380 --> 00:09:44.980 align:middle line:84% I could put that together with the lyrical qualities 00:09:44.980 --> 00:09:45.760 align:middle line:90% of writing. 00:09:45.760 --> 00:09:47.840 align:middle line:90% Then I got something-- 00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:49.540 align:middle line:84% I don't know how successful it is, 00:09:49.540 --> 00:09:53.350 align:middle line:84% but it was so much more satisfying to me. 00:09:53.350 --> 00:10:01.750 align:middle line:84% I had a feeling I'd never had of something was lifted off of me. 00:10:01.750 --> 00:10:02.890 align:middle line:90% I felt lighter and-- 00:10:02.890 --> 00:10:03.760 align:middle line:90% It's convenient. 00:10:03.760 --> 00:10:04.600 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah. 00:10:04.600 --> 00:10:08.640 align:middle line:90% 00:10:08.640 --> 00:10:11.400 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:10:11.400 --> 00:10:14.010 align:middle line:84% So when you begin writing and you're 00:10:14.010 --> 00:10:16.620 align:middle line:84% aware of needing to adopt a persona, 00:10:16.620 --> 00:10:19.680 align:middle line:84% are you often already connected to the emotions 00:10:19.680 --> 00:10:22.770 align:middle line:84% you want to get at and you find the right voice? 00:10:22.770 --> 00:10:25.800 align:middle line:84% Or do you start with voice, hoping 00:10:25.800 --> 00:10:28.950 align:middle line:84% to be able to connect to something 00:10:28.950 --> 00:10:30.450 align:middle line:84% and get more clear about what you're 00:10:30.450 --> 00:10:32.380 align:middle line:90% feeling about the subject? 00:10:32.380 --> 00:10:34.230 align:middle line:90% I always start from language. 00:10:34.230 --> 00:10:40.170 align:middle line:84% I've never ever once written anything 00:10:40.170 --> 00:10:47.520 align:middle line:84% with a pre-meditated or a pre-conceived subject. 00:10:47.520 --> 00:10:49.473 align:middle line:84% Like, I'm going to write something about this, 00:10:49.473 --> 00:10:50.640 align:middle line:90% so I'm going to write some-- 00:10:50.640 --> 00:10:51.840 align:middle line:90% I never. 00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:55.290 align:middle line:84% Well, I tried when I was young and it never worked. 00:10:55.290 --> 00:10:56.910 align:middle line:90% It was too conscious. 00:10:56.910 --> 00:11:00.540 align:middle line:90% It was too wooden and stiff. 00:11:00.540 --> 00:11:07.440 align:middle line:84% And what I do is just keep what I know lots of writers do. 00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:10.080 align:middle line:84% For me what's always worked, and again it's 00:11:10.080 --> 00:11:12.210 align:middle line:84% something if a younger writer asked me, 00:11:12.210 --> 00:11:13.680 align:middle line:90% I always suggest this. 00:11:13.680 --> 00:11:19.320 align:middle line:84% I find myself saying this, never sit down with the idea 00:11:19.320 --> 00:11:23.020 align:middle line:84% that you were going to write a finished piece of work. 00:11:23.020 --> 00:11:24.570 align:middle line:90% It can happen. 00:11:24.570 --> 00:11:26.550 align:middle line:90% Rarely, but for me, rarely. 00:11:26.550 --> 00:11:29.880 align:middle line:90% 00:11:29.880 --> 00:11:32.900 align:middle line:84% To get depth and space in a piece of writing, 00:11:32.900 --> 00:11:40.490 align:middle line:84% I believe that you--should--you can go too far. 00:11:40.490 --> 00:11:43.790 align:middle line:84% But I remember saying to a teacher of mine, David Young, 00:11:43.790 --> 00:11:48.260 align:middle line:84% I always cultivate a deliberate unconsciousness 00:11:48.260 --> 00:11:49.400 align:middle line:90% of subject material. 00:11:49.400 --> 00:11:52.613 align:middle line:84% And David said, maybe you should cultivate a little bit 00:11:52.613 --> 00:11:53.405 align:middle line:90% more consciousness. 00:11:53.405 --> 00:11:54.560 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:11:54.560 --> 00:11:56.180 align:middle line:90% And he was right. 00:11:56.180 --> 00:11:59.870 align:middle line:84% If you do one thing, then try to do the opposite to balance it 00:11:59.870 --> 00:12:01.280 align:middle line:90% and get it more whole. 00:12:01.280 --> 00:12:02.520 align:middle line:90% So I needed to do that. 00:12:02.520 --> 00:12:04.250 align:middle line:84% I needed to become more conscious. 00:12:04.250 --> 00:12:11.600 align:middle line:84% But what works for me is I have just the habit of listening 00:12:11.600 --> 00:12:13.910 align:middle line:84% in on-- everyone has this, I think 00:12:13.910 --> 00:12:18.410 align:middle line:84% Breton called it the incessant murmur of language 00:12:18.410 --> 00:12:19.430 align:middle line:90% flowing through them. 00:12:19.430 --> 00:12:20.805 align:middle line:84% You hear it sometimes when you're 00:12:20.805 --> 00:12:23.750 align:middle line:84% going to sleep, this almost stream that's 00:12:23.750 --> 00:12:29.630 align:middle line:84% separate from your conscious control of your mind. 00:12:29.630 --> 00:12:33.650 align:middle line:84% You can hear it sometimes, snatches of it. 00:12:33.650 --> 00:12:36.180 align:middle line:84% It's this flowing underneath consciousness, 00:12:36.180 --> 00:12:39.320 align:middle line:84% a stream of just blah, blah, blah, like, different words 00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:42.110 align:middle line:84% coming from your memory and from your imagination 00:12:42.110 --> 00:12:43.880 align:middle line:90% and your hopes. 00:12:43.880 --> 00:12:50.540 align:middle line:90% And I've trained myself. 00:12:50.540 --> 00:12:53.570 align:middle line:84% That's what the first piece I read, I think, 00:12:53.570 --> 00:12:55.760 align:middle line:84% that there's an untitled prologue 00:12:55.760 --> 00:12:57.590 align:middle line:84% at the beginning of the prose book 00:12:57.590 --> 00:12:59.690 align:middle line:90% which is about that listening. 00:12:59.690 --> 00:13:02.870 align:middle line:84% And writing is paying attention and listening. 00:13:02.870 --> 00:13:06.170 align:middle line:84% And there are two different things. 00:13:06.170 --> 00:13:09.185 align:middle line:84% Listening is patience and waiting. 00:13:09.185 --> 00:13:13.640 align:middle line:90% 00:13:13.640 --> 00:13:17.480 align:middle line:84% We all talk to ourselves as you're walking along 00:13:17.480 --> 00:13:20.420 align:middle line:84% or when you're alone, especially. 00:13:20.420 --> 00:13:22.490 align:middle line:84% Mainly when you're alone, of course, 00:13:22.490 --> 00:13:24.140 align:middle line:90% you can hear it more clearly. 00:13:24.140 --> 00:13:30.900 align:middle line:84% And I would find that in a certain mood, 00:13:30.900 --> 00:13:35.010 align:middle line:84% in the right mood, that I would be listening 00:13:35.010 --> 00:13:37.710 align:middle line:90% to that inner conversation. 00:13:37.710 --> 00:13:40.110 align:middle line:84% The language would start to become heightened 00:13:40.110 --> 00:13:41.160 align:middle line:90% and more interesting. 00:13:41.160 --> 00:13:42.570 align:middle line:90% And then I would go, there. 00:13:42.570 --> 00:13:45.400 align:middle line:90% And I wouldn't start there. 00:13:45.400 --> 00:13:47.790 align:middle line:90% I would wait for a while. 00:13:47.790 --> 00:13:51.000 align:middle line:84% As soon as you start to write, everything changes. 00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:53.940 align:middle line:84% It's almost as if you're unconscious or withdraws, 00:13:53.940 --> 00:13:56.340 align:middle line:90% like it conceals itself again. 00:13:56.340 --> 00:14:02.250 align:middle line:84% And so I would wait and write something largely in my mind 00:14:02.250 --> 00:14:05.580 align:middle line:90% first before I went to go-- 00:14:05.580 --> 00:14:08.490 align:middle line:84% because your mind goes, oh, he's got a pen in his hand 00:14:08.490 --> 00:14:10.200 align:middle line:90% and he's ready now. 00:14:10.200 --> 00:14:11.655 align:middle line:90% Now we're going to shut down. 00:14:11.655 --> 00:14:12.420 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:14:12.420 --> 00:14:14.130 align:middle line:90% You get very inhibited. 00:14:14.130 --> 00:14:17.790 align:middle line:90% You get self-conscious. 00:14:17.790 --> 00:14:19.540 align:middle line:90% So I would wait. 00:14:19.540 --> 00:14:22.740 align:middle line:84% I get a good line or a couple of lines and I go, OK. 00:14:22.740 --> 00:14:25.860 align:middle line:84% And I'd wait before writing them down. 00:14:25.860 --> 00:14:29.700 align:middle line:84% I often do this while I'm walking somewhere 00:14:29.700 --> 00:14:31.200 align:middle line:90% and where there's no people. 00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:34.200 align:middle line:84% And I'd wait and see what would come next, 00:14:34.200 --> 00:14:36.360 align:middle line:84% if something was going to come next. 00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:37.375 align:middle line:90% And often it would. 00:14:37.375 --> 00:14:39.750 align:middle line:84% It would suggest something else, and then something else. 00:14:39.750 --> 00:14:42.150 align:middle line:84% Then at a certain point when I thought, all right, 00:14:42.150 --> 00:14:44.370 align:middle line:84% I've got enough material that I'm not 00:14:44.370 --> 00:14:46.050 align:middle line:84% going to be able to remember it all, 00:14:46.050 --> 00:14:47.700 align:middle line:90% then I would start writing. 00:14:47.700 --> 00:14:51.270 align:middle line:84% And then the act of writing, you feel confident because you 00:14:51.270 --> 00:14:53.380 align:middle line:84% already have this start, this material, 00:14:53.380 --> 00:14:56.500 align:middle line:84% so you don't feel as inhibited and you feel confident. 00:14:56.500 --> 00:14:59.430 align:middle line:84% Then each thing will suggest something else. 00:14:59.430 --> 00:15:02.040 align:middle line:84% And it just starts to roll along. 00:15:02.040 --> 00:15:03.720 align:middle line:84% And then you get a draft of something. 00:15:03.720 --> 00:15:07.560 align:middle line:90% And I never try to write-- 00:15:07.560 --> 00:15:11.310 align:middle line:84% it happens that I write finished things without revising them, 00:15:11.310 --> 00:15:12.990 align:middle line:90% but very seldom. 00:15:12.990 --> 00:15:17.940 align:middle line:84% To me, I would say writing is revision. 00:15:17.940 --> 00:15:19.350 align:middle line:90% It's like sculpting. 00:15:19.350 --> 00:15:21.970 align:middle line:90% 00:15:21.970 --> 00:15:25.320 align:middle line:84% That you get a draft and it's like a block of material 00:15:25.320 --> 00:15:27.810 align:middle line:84% that you can sculpt something out of or it's a canvas. 00:15:27.810 --> 00:15:31.170 align:middle line:90% 00:15:31.170 --> 00:15:37.770 align:middle line:84% And I write things 50 times, often. 00:15:37.770 --> 00:15:43.440 align:middle line:84% And now I have a new trick I've learned, which works magically. 00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:46.920 align:middle line:84% I wish I had stumbled on this sooner 00:15:46.920 --> 00:15:49.950 align:middle line:84% where I'll take a poem or a prose piece 00:15:49.950 --> 00:15:52.290 align:middle line:90% that I consider to be finished. 00:15:52.290 --> 00:15:53.250 align:middle line:90% It's finished. 00:15:53.250 --> 00:15:54.600 align:middle line:90% Can't do any more. 00:15:54.600 --> 00:15:57.365 align:middle line:84% And I'll take a notebook or a piece of paper 00:15:57.365 --> 00:16:00.210 align:middle line:84% and I'll copy it out by hand, slowly. 00:16:00.210 --> 00:16:03.930 align:middle line:84% I even have a brush I used that slows me down even more. 00:16:03.930 --> 00:16:07.500 align:middle line:84% It's a half pen, a half paintbrush. 00:16:07.500 --> 00:16:10.680 align:middle line:84% And it's like a calligraphy brush. 00:16:10.680 --> 00:16:14.010 align:middle line:90% And I'll do it in print instead. 00:16:14.010 --> 00:16:15.660 align:middle line:90% And that slows it down. 00:16:15.660 --> 00:16:20.670 align:middle line:84% And the more slowed down, it is the more meditative it becomes. 00:16:20.670 --> 00:16:22.050 align:middle line:90% forget. 00:16:22.050 --> 00:16:25.360 align:middle line:84% Your attention, again, turns outward rather than inward. 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:28.230 align:middle line:84% And so when your attention turns outward, 00:16:28.230 --> 00:16:30.630 align:middle line:84% those voices can start welling up. 00:16:30.630 --> 00:16:33.810 align:middle line:84% And I'll always find something-- not always, 00:16:33.810 --> 00:16:37.560 align:middle line:84% but I'll think something is absolutely finished 00:16:37.560 --> 00:16:41.340 align:middle line:84% and I'll copy it out by hand and find seven, eight places that I 00:16:41.340 --> 00:16:46.300 align:middle line:84% go, how did I not see that this could be made so much better. 00:16:46.300 --> 00:16:48.840 align:middle line:84% This could be said in so much better way. 00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:51.690 align:middle line:84% So the revision process, I continue 00:16:51.690 --> 00:16:56.560 align:middle line:84% to do it for a very, very long time 00:16:56.560 --> 00:17:00.100 align:middle line:84% before I consider something finished. 00:17:00.100 --> 00:17:01.480 align:middle line:90% I know that now. 00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:03.820 align:middle line:84% That was hard to accept for a while, but now I love it. 00:17:03.820 --> 00:17:06.430 align:middle line:90% I love that process. 00:17:06.430 --> 00:17:08.440 align:middle line:84% Because have something that's pretty finished, 00:17:08.440 --> 00:17:10.630 align:middle line:84% and then it gets even a little better. 00:17:10.630 --> 00:17:13.210 align:middle line:90% It's a wonderful feeling. 00:17:13.210 --> 00:17:16.240 align:middle line:84% It's like someone came up and said, pointed and went-- 00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:18.099 align:middle line:90% it's like you have this inner-- 00:17:18.099 --> 00:17:20.800 align:middle line:84% writing, in a way, it is splitting yourself 00:17:20.800 --> 00:17:23.890 align:middle line:84% into the person writing and the person watching and going, 00:17:23.890 --> 00:17:28.510 align:middle line:84% no, that's another person, a critic or an editor. 00:17:28.510 --> 00:17:32.290 align:middle line:84% If you're own critic, your own editor, as much as possible, 00:17:32.290 --> 00:17:35.395 align:middle line:90% then you can take it farther. 00:17:35.395 --> 00:17:38.650 align:middle line:90% 00:17:38.650 --> 00:17:44.320 align:middle line:84% But still, that also brings up the necessity for me. 00:17:44.320 --> 00:17:46.270 align:middle line:84% And I think, I don't know any writers 00:17:46.270 --> 00:17:48.640 align:middle line:84% who don't have a few people they show things to. 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:50.140 align:middle line:84% Well, of course, you have an editor. 00:17:50.140 --> 00:17:54.770 align:middle line:84% And I'm blessed with a particularly brilliant one, 00:17:54.770 --> 00:18:00.880 align:middle line:84% Deborah Garrison at Knopf who's just the most phenomenal. 00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:05.080 align:middle line:84% There's a kind of ESP that we've developed where she'll 00:18:05.080 --> 00:18:07.120 align:middle line:90% say something-- she's tactful. 00:18:07.120 --> 00:18:10.390 align:middle line:84% And she doesn't want me to get upset, because she 00:18:10.390 --> 00:18:13.423 align:middle line:90% knows that I go, what-- 00:18:13.423 --> 00:18:14.590 align:middle line:90% no, I'm not going to change. 00:18:14.590 --> 00:18:17.380 align:middle line:90% 00:18:17.380 --> 00:18:19.400 align:middle line:84% She won't bring up everything at once. 00:18:19.400 --> 00:18:21.490 align:middle line:84% She'll just touch on something enough so 00:18:21.490 --> 00:18:24.820 align:middle line:84% that it gets in my head and I think about it over a few days. 00:18:24.820 --> 00:18:26.680 align:middle line:84% And then I start doing, oh, I see. 00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:29.180 align:middle line:84% And then often, and this will happen-- 00:18:29.180 --> 00:18:30.520 align:middle line:90% it just happened recently. 00:18:30.520 --> 00:18:34.000 align:middle line:84% She'll say, I felt that the previous version of this 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:35.080 align:middle line:90% was maybe better. 00:18:35.080 --> 00:18:38.080 align:middle line:84% And I said, no, this one's so much better. 00:18:38.080 --> 00:18:40.430 align:middle line:84% Then I thought about it and I went, wait, 00:18:40.430 --> 00:18:43.660 align:middle line:84% the earlier one's ending was better. 00:18:43.660 --> 00:18:45.850 align:middle line:84% I need to get the ending and somehow 00:18:45.850 --> 00:18:50.140 align:middle line:84% graft it on to this longer, fuller piece. 00:18:50.140 --> 00:18:51.940 align:middle line:90% And then I did that. 00:18:51.940 --> 00:18:53.380 align:middle line:84% I mean, I wrote to her and I said, 00:18:53.380 --> 00:18:55.630 align:middle line:84% you know what I'm going to do, I'm 00:18:55.630 --> 00:18:58.450 align:middle line:84% going to sort what you said think about what you said 00:18:58.450 --> 00:19:02.620 align:middle line:84% by taking the ending from the other one, the previous one, 00:19:02.620 --> 00:19:04.280 align:middle line:90% and trying to get it onto this. 00:19:04.280 --> 00:19:06.910 align:middle line:84% And she immediately wrote back and she goes, she said, 00:19:06.910 --> 00:19:09.610 align:middle line:84% it's uncanny because that was what I exactly what I 00:19:09.610 --> 00:19:10.750 align:middle line:90% was going to suggest. 00:19:10.750 --> 00:19:15.760 align:middle line:84% So we've gotten to a point where we know each other's-- 00:19:15.760 --> 00:19:18.100 align:middle line:90% how we work pretty well. 00:19:18.100 --> 00:19:20.890 align:middle line:84% And my wife is really good at it. 00:19:20.890 --> 00:19:25.270 align:middle line:84% Part of revision is reading something out loud to her. 00:19:25.270 --> 00:19:30.550 align:middle line:84% And she has that same ability to not just come down 00:19:30.550 --> 00:19:35.290 align:middle line:90% on you with this is bad. 00:19:35.290 --> 00:19:40.990 align:middle line:84% She has a way of also saying, it's really good, Franz, really 00:19:40.990 --> 00:19:44.890 align:middle line:84% good, and building it up, and then, but, I like this. 00:19:44.890 --> 00:19:47.230 align:middle line:84% Because I'm very insecure and vain. 00:19:47.230 --> 00:19:51.520 align:middle line:84% And they're trying to wrong my right. 00:19:51.520 --> 00:19:54.460 align:middle line:90% 00:19:54.460 --> 00:19:56.230 align:middle line:90% So I have her. 00:19:56.230 --> 00:20:01.420 align:middle line:84% And I have several writer friends that I send things to. 00:20:01.420 --> 00:20:04.690 align:middle line:84% And I get all their suggestions all together. 00:20:04.690 --> 00:20:07.030 align:middle line:84% And then I choose from the ones that-- 00:20:07.030 --> 00:20:10.120 align:middle line:84% and again, the few times I've taught. 00:20:10.120 --> 00:20:11.350 align:middle line:90% I haven't-- not very often. 00:20:11.350 --> 00:20:16.120 align:middle line:84% But I always say, you got to shake this thing, which 00:20:16.120 --> 00:20:17.950 align:middle line:84% you have really strong when you're young, 00:20:17.950 --> 00:20:20.710 align:middle line:90% which is, this is sacred. 00:20:20.710 --> 00:20:21.970 align:middle line:90% You can't change a word of it. 00:20:21.970 --> 00:20:24.130 align:middle line:84% And you've got to realize, no, it's not. 00:20:24.130 --> 00:20:28.180 align:middle line:90% 00:20:28.180 --> 00:20:30.340 align:middle line:84% The wonderful thing is that you can 00:20:30.340 --> 00:20:34.000 align:middle line:84% go on and sharpening it, like sharpening it like a blade. 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:37.840 align:middle line:84% You can sharpen it till there's no blade. 00:20:37.840 --> 00:20:39.336 align:middle line:84% So you've got to know when to stop. 00:20:39.336 --> 00:20:44.110 align:middle line:90% 00:20:44.110 --> 00:20:46.790 align:middle line:84% This is something Charles Simic said to me-- 00:20:46.790 --> 00:20:50.200 align:middle line:84% I've been blessed with some really, really good teachers. 00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:53.080 align:middle line:84% They weren't teachers, but writers I correspond with 00:20:53.080 --> 00:20:56.360 align:middle line:84% and that mentored me in a way when I was younger. 00:20:56.360 --> 00:21:02.140 align:middle line:84% And he said, you have to leave something a little rough 00:21:02.140 --> 00:21:02.680 align:middle line:90% in front. 00:21:02.680 --> 00:21:04.960 align:middle line:84% He goes, you're trying too hard-- the lyrical absolute 00:21:04.960 --> 00:21:05.560 align:middle line:90% he said. 00:21:05.560 --> 00:21:08.710 align:middle line:84% You're trying to make it too perfect. 00:21:08.710 --> 00:21:13.420 align:middle line:84% A little roughness makes it poignant, human. 00:21:13.420 --> 00:21:16.000 align:middle line:84% It's like that Islamic thing about where they leave a flaw. 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:19.620 align:middle line:90% 00:21:19.620 --> 00:21:23.640 align:middle line:90% And that idea is different. 00:21:23.640 --> 00:21:26.115 align:middle line:90% It's not falling prey to hubris. 00:21:26.115 --> 00:21:30.198 align:middle line:90% 00:21:30.198 --> 00:21:32.580 align:middle line:84% The way that we're made in the image of God 00:21:32.580 --> 00:21:36.060 align:middle line:84% is that we can make something out of nothing. 00:21:36.060 --> 00:21:38.610 align:middle line:84% It's not like we look like-- that's what I think. 00:21:38.610 --> 00:21:41.820 align:middle line:90% We can do a little tiny-- 00:21:41.820 --> 00:21:45.210 align:middle line:84% in a small way, we can make something 00:21:45.210 --> 00:21:46.710 align:middle line:90% that didn't exist before. 00:21:46.710 --> 00:21:48.660 align:middle line:90% That's fabulous. 00:21:48.660 --> 00:21:51.730 align:middle line:84% And René Char has the most beautiful phrase in the world 00:21:51.730 --> 00:21:52.230 align:middle line:90% about that. 00:21:52.230 --> 00:21:54.960 align:middle line:84% He said, "A work of art of any kind 00:21:54.960 --> 00:22:04.340 align:middle line:84% is a contribution of the creature to the creation." 00:22:04.340 --> 00:22:04.840 align:middle line:90% Perfect. 00:22:04.840 --> 00:22:08.070 align:middle line:90% 00:22:08.070 --> 00:22:08.570 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:22:08.570 --> 00:22:09.650 align:middle line:90% That was so generous. 00:22:09.650 --> 00:22:10.150 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:22:10.150 --> 00:22:17.620 align:middle line:90% 00:22:17.620 --> 00:22:21.220 align:middle line:84% Franz, could you talk a little about your translation, 00:22:21.220 --> 00:22:25.180 align:middle line:84% what motivates you to translate, if you're 00:22:25.180 --> 00:22:29.740 align:middle line:84% bilingual in the language that you translate, and just 00:22:29.740 --> 00:22:31.872 align:middle line:84% in general comments on translating, 00:22:31.872 --> 00:22:32.830 align:middle line:90% what you get out of it. 00:22:32.830 --> 00:22:33.920 align:middle line:90% I don't anymore. 00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:36.850 align:middle line:84% I stopped really doing it quite a while ago. 00:22:36.850 --> 00:22:41.440 align:middle line:84% I think I did it really a lot between the ages of about 15 00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:44.365 align:middle line:90% and 30, a lot. 00:22:44.365 --> 00:22:47.920 align:middle line:90% 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:51.400 align:middle line:84% First of all, the first impulse was 00:22:51.400 --> 00:22:53.620 align:middle line:84% that I wasn't thinking about translation. 00:22:53.620 --> 00:22:57.310 align:middle line:84% I was thinking about how to read a poem in another language 00:22:57.310 --> 00:23:00.550 align:middle line:84% more closely, with more comprehension. 00:23:00.550 --> 00:23:02.740 align:middle line:84% And to begin to try to translate it 00:23:02.740 --> 00:23:04.390 align:middle line:84% is to do that, because you immediately 00:23:04.390 --> 00:23:06.610 align:middle line:84% start having to make your own choices about how 00:23:06.610 --> 00:23:07.930 align:middle line:90% you're going to do this. 00:23:07.930 --> 00:23:13.210 align:middle line:84% And pretty soon, you're kind of in the mind of the writer. 00:23:13.210 --> 00:23:16.270 align:middle line:84% You're not only understanding the poem better 00:23:16.270 --> 00:23:17.800 align:middle line:84% and the different levels of meaning, 00:23:17.800 --> 00:23:21.730 align:middle line:84% but you're starting to see into the process itself, 00:23:21.730 --> 00:23:24.850 align:middle line:84% how the writer arrived at certain things that 00:23:24.850 --> 00:23:28.240 align:middle line:90% seem very mysterious. 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:33.190 align:middle line:84% And so for me, it first started out as a way 00:23:33.190 --> 00:23:35.770 align:middle line:84% to read better in another language. 00:23:35.770 --> 00:23:40.445 align:middle line:84% And then once I got going translating-- 00:23:40.445 --> 00:23:42.070 align:middle line:84% and I started pretty early--my father-- 00:23:42.070 --> 00:23:48.640 align:middle line:90% 00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:52.660 align:middle line:84% You might remember in the '60s, Hermann Hesse became this 00:23:52.660 --> 00:23:53.680 align:middle line:90% huge-- 00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:57.490 align:middle line:84% he was rediscovered and was hugely like a rock star. 00:23:57.490 --> 00:24:02.770 align:middle line:84% Hermann Hesse-- those books sold hundreds of thousands 00:24:02.770 --> 00:24:04.060 align:middle line:90% of copies of his novels. 00:24:04.060 --> 00:24:08.080 align:middle line:84% And so he moved over to Farrar Straus Giroux 00:24:08.080 --> 00:24:12.970 align:middle line:84% and his editor there, one of them, Michael [INAUDIBLE],, 00:24:12.970 --> 00:24:15.220 align:middle line:84% asked him if he would-- because they were having 00:24:15.220 --> 00:24:19.930 align:middle line:84% so much success with Hermann Hesse's novels, they said, 00:24:19.930 --> 00:24:23.140 align:middle line:84% why not try to translate some of his poems, which 00:24:23.140 --> 00:24:24.670 align:middle line:90% are not great poems. 00:24:24.670 --> 00:24:29.110 align:middle line:84% But some of them are very beautiful and very nice. 00:24:29.110 --> 00:24:34.090 align:middle line:84% And so we did one that was called 00:24:34.090 --> 00:24:38.524 align:middle line:84% Wanderer, or Wandering or Traveling, 00:24:38.524 --> 00:24:41.860 align:middle line:90% that Hesse wrote literally. 00:24:41.860 --> 00:24:44.530 align:middle line:84% And he knew this, of course, I realize now. 00:24:44.530 --> 00:24:54.160 align:middle line:84% Basho created almost this form where, while going on foot, 00:24:54.160 --> 00:24:58.180 align:middle line:90% traveling long distances-- 00:24:58.180 --> 00:25:01.930 align:middle line:84% there's something about walking where your mind becomes still 00:25:01.930 --> 00:25:05.830 align:middle line:84% and the chattering slows down and it becomes still 00:25:05.830 --> 00:25:10.120 align:middle line:84% and voices can well up without your willing them to. 00:25:10.120 --> 00:25:13.990 align:middle line:84% And sometimes they're very interesting. 00:25:13.990 --> 00:25:18.160 align:middle line:84% So Basho had this style, which is 00:25:18.160 --> 00:25:22.210 align:middle line:84% very touching, he would talk about some interesting thing 00:25:22.210 --> 00:25:26.290 align:middle line:84% that had happened to him the day while he was walking somewhere. 00:25:26.290 --> 00:25:29.860 align:middle line:84% Then he would talk about the situation he was in, 00:25:29.860 --> 00:25:33.010 align:middle line:84% then give you the poem he wrote as a result of it. 00:25:33.010 --> 00:25:36.700 align:middle line:84% And Hesse did this with a book called Wandering-- 00:25:36.700 --> 00:25:40.930 align:middle line:84% I think it's still in print, I think it is-- 00:25:40.930 --> 00:25:45.640 align:middle line:84% where he would write a prose piece, not really 00:25:45.640 --> 00:25:51.340 align:middle line:84% a prose poem but a dialogue or travelogue or something. 00:25:51.340 --> 00:25:53.200 align:middle line:90% He describes some things he saw. 00:25:53.200 --> 00:25:57.310 align:middle line:84% He had been kind of booted out of Germany somehow 00:25:57.310 --> 00:26:03.040 align:middle line:84% for pacifist activities around the First World War. 00:26:03.040 --> 00:26:06.040 align:middle line:90% So he walked over the Alps-- 00:26:06.040 --> 00:26:09.700 align:middle line:84% is it the Alps-- into Switzerland from Italy, 00:26:09.700 --> 00:26:13.270 align:middle line:90% into Switzerland or something. 00:26:13.270 --> 00:26:18.610 align:middle line:90% He walked into Italy to get out. 00:26:18.610 --> 00:26:21.490 align:middle line:90% He walked from Germany to Italy. 00:26:21.490 --> 00:26:26.530 align:middle line:84% And partly with this in mind, it would give him 00:26:26.530 --> 00:26:28.480 align:middle line:90% ideas for things to write. 00:26:28.480 --> 00:26:30.430 align:middle line:90% So he'd write a prose piece. 00:26:30.430 --> 00:26:34.280 align:middle line:84% And they even included some of these little watercolors 00:26:34.280 --> 00:26:37.990 align:middle line:84% from little places he saw in Italy. 00:26:37.990 --> 00:26:39.940 align:middle line:84% Then he'd write a poem, then he'd have a poem. 00:26:39.940 --> 00:26:43.120 align:middle line:84% And my dad did the prose parts and I did the poems. 00:26:43.120 --> 00:26:47.590 align:middle line:84% And the poems are not very good, but they're like little songs. 00:26:47.590 --> 00:26:50.260 align:middle line:90% And they're lovely in German. 00:26:50.260 --> 00:26:52.300 align:middle line:84% They're very hard to get in English 00:26:52.300 --> 00:26:56.260 align:middle line:84% because it's a little bit like when you 00:26:56.260 --> 00:26:57.880 align:middle line:90% hear a song you really like. 00:26:57.880 --> 00:26:59.590 align:middle line:84% And then you just write the lyrics down. 00:26:59.590 --> 00:27:01.010 align:middle line:90% And it's like-- 00:27:01.010 --> 00:27:01.510 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:27:01.510 --> 00:27:03.730 align:middle line:84% Doesn't make it, because it's the combo-- 00:27:03.730 --> 00:27:07.280 align:middle line:90% it's this music and the words. 00:27:07.280 --> 00:27:09.280 align:middle line:84% So you almost feel with some of these poems 00:27:09.280 --> 00:27:14.477 align:middle line:84% that if there were music it would be better. 00:27:14.477 --> 00:27:15.560 align:middle line:90% So they're not that great. 00:27:15.560 --> 00:27:18.310 align:middle line:84% But I was like 17 years or something. 00:27:18.310 --> 00:27:19.960 align:middle line:90% So that was exciting. 00:27:19.960 --> 00:27:21.490 align:middle line:84% And I think the idea was that would 00:27:21.490 --> 00:27:25.760 align:middle line:84% help me pay my tuition at Oberlin when I went to school. 00:27:25.760 --> 00:27:30.060 align:middle line:84% And it did all right, because there would be a royalty check 00:27:30.060 --> 00:27:31.000 align:middle line:90% and we'd split it. 00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:33.520 align:middle line:90% And it would be a lot of money. 00:27:33.520 --> 00:27:40.270 align:middle line:84% It would be like $800, which in 1972 was a lot of money. 00:27:40.270 --> 00:27:44.200 align:middle line:84% I remember giving a friend $100 who need some money. 00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:49.150 align:middle line:84% And my rent was like $45 a month, whatever, 00:27:49.150 --> 00:27:54.310 align:middle line:84% and being able to live on it over the summer and just write. 00:27:54.310 --> 00:27:56.270 align:middle line:90% So it was great. 00:27:56.270 --> 00:27:58.720 align:middle line:84% And then my dad did one that was just poems. 00:27:58.720 --> 00:27:59.620 align:middle line:90% It's much better. 00:27:59.620 --> 00:28:01.270 align:middle line:90% That's a great book. 00:28:01.270 --> 00:28:02.920 align:middle line:90% I guess Herman Hesse's poems. 00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:08.470 align:middle line:84% It's one of those rare cases where the translation is better 00:28:08.470 --> 00:28:10.060 align:middle line:90% than the original-- they are. 00:28:10.060 --> 00:28:14.230 align:middle line:84% I mean, his translations are better than the original poem. 00:28:14.230 --> 00:28:16.330 align:middle line:90% That doesn't happen too much. 00:28:16.330 --> 00:28:20.230 align:middle line:84% The other case I can think of is maybe a Baudelaire translating 00:28:20.230 --> 00:28:22.060 align:middle line:90% Edgar Allan Poe. 00:28:22.060 --> 00:28:24.250 align:middle line:84% The French loved Edgar Allan Poe. 00:28:24.250 --> 00:28:28.360 align:middle line:84% And it's easy to see why, because he had this regular, 00:28:28.360 --> 00:28:30.735 align:middle line:84% long, like "The Raven--" da, da da, da, da, 00:28:30.735 --> 00:28:33.250 align:middle line:84% da-- it's the same rhythm over and over again. 00:28:33.250 --> 00:28:36.520 align:middle line:90% And the French like that. 00:28:36.520 --> 00:28:37.990 align:middle line:90% Because they have a longer line. 00:28:37.990 --> 00:28:43.180 align:middle line:84% Than they think more in terms of the iambic pentameter 00:28:43.180 --> 00:28:45.500 align:middle line:84% line, which is the basic line in English. 00:28:45.500 --> 00:28:48.370 align:middle line:84% There's a longer line, I think, in the French. 00:28:48.370 --> 00:28:51.850 align:middle line:84% And anyway, of course, Baudelaire's translations 00:28:51.850 --> 00:28:54.250 align:middle line:84% of Poe were going to be better than Poe's poems, 00:28:54.250 --> 00:28:56.440 align:middle line:84% He's like an infinitely better poet. 00:28:56.440 --> 00:28:59.290 align:middle line:84% But that doesn't necessarily mean it. 00:28:59.290 --> 00:29:01.900 align:middle line:90% But sometimes it happens. 00:29:01.900 --> 00:29:03.770 align:middle line:84% It's an uncanny thing when it happens. 00:29:03.770 --> 00:29:06.770 align:middle line:84% I've had the experience of a frankly, 00:29:06.770 --> 00:29:09.640 align:middle line:84% even with some of the very minor poems of Rilke, where 00:29:09.640 --> 00:29:14.650 align:middle line:84% suddenly I'll look at a line, and I'll go, it's better. 00:29:14.650 --> 00:29:16.180 align:middle line:90% Just by accident. 00:29:16.180 --> 00:29:18.560 align:middle line:84% I stumbled on something that's really better. 00:29:18.560 --> 00:29:23.590 align:middle line:84% It's got a bigger meaning, more levels of meaning. 00:29:23.590 --> 00:29:26.140 align:middle line:84% I forget what we're talking about now. 00:29:26.140 --> 00:29:27.490 align:middle line:90% Are you bilingual? 00:29:27.490 --> 00:29:28.120 align:middle line:90% No. 00:29:28.120 --> 00:29:29.740 align:middle line:90% I don't really-- 00:29:29.740 --> 00:29:32.680 align:middle line:90% I would not be able to-- 00:29:32.680 --> 00:29:33.850 align:middle line:90% if ever. 00:29:33.850 --> 00:29:37.270 align:middle line:84% I guess I could speak German, sort of, when I was a kid. 00:29:37.270 --> 00:29:39.850 align:middle line:90% But no. 00:29:39.850 --> 00:29:41.920 align:middle line:90% No. 00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:44.020 align:middle line:84% I've translated a lot from French and German, 00:29:44.020 --> 00:29:47.340 align:middle line:84% but I don't really speak them very well. 00:29:47.340 --> 00:29:49.330 align:middle line:90% I found I had a knack for it. 00:29:49.330 --> 00:29:52.990 align:middle line:84% I get a dictionary, and I just sort of start. 00:29:52.990 --> 00:29:55.150 align:middle line:84% Sometimes I would look at other translations 00:29:55.150 --> 00:29:58.010 align:middle line:84% to see if I get a literal sense of what was happening. 00:29:58.010 --> 00:30:02.080 align:middle line:84% And I go, I know I can do better than that. 00:30:02.080 --> 00:30:03.220 align:middle line:90% Or I'd get somebody fluent. 00:30:03.220 --> 00:30:06.310 align:middle line:90% This is Pound's idea. 00:30:06.310 --> 00:30:10.450 align:middle line:84% One great way of translating is to get one person's a poet, 00:30:10.450 --> 00:30:12.820 align:middle line:84% and then you have someone who's fluent in the language. 00:30:12.820 --> 00:30:14.320 align:middle line:90% And they work together. 00:30:14.320 --> 00:30:17.480 align:middle line:84% And that that's an exciting way to go about it. 00:30:17.480 --> 00:30:19.150 align:middle line:90% So sometimes that worked. 00:30:19.150 --> 00:30:20.780 align:middle line:90% But I would do it by myself. 00:30:20.780 --> 00:30:24.790 align:middle line:84% And I would show them sometimes to-- 00:30:24.790 --> 00:30:27.490 align:middle line:84% like René Char-- very difficult poets. 00:30:27.490 --> 00:30:30.760 align:middle line:84% I just found that I had an intuition about it. 00:30:30.760 --> 00:30:32.600 align:middle line:90% I would just kind of-- 00:30:32.600 --> 00:30:35.270 align:middle line:84% even if I didn't fully understand. 00:30:35.270 --> 00:30:38.660 align:middle line:84% I remember Tomas Transtromer saying that at one point 00:30:38.660 --> 00:30:40.460 align:middle line:84% he got interested in Whitman so much, 00:30:40.460 --> 00:30:42.420 align:middle line:90% and he tried to translate him. 00:30:42.420 --> 00:30:42.920 align:middle line:90% No. 00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:43.880 align:middle line:90% He would read him. 00:30:43.880 --> 00:30:46.190 align:middle line:84% And he knew he was reading him incorrectly. 00:30:46.190 --> 00:30:49.160 align:middle line:84% But his interpretation of what he thought he 00:30:49.160 --> 00:30:52.970 align:middle line:90% saw, because the poet-- 00:30:52.970 --> 00:30:57.580 align:middle line:84% we're so in the habit of thinking that way, 00:30:57.580 --> 00:30:59.160 align:middle line:90% in language in that way. 00:30:59.160 --> 00:31:01.830 align:middle line:90% 00:31:01.830 --> 00:31:05.460 align:middle line:84% He would know it was incorrect, but it would be a good line, 00:31:05.460 --> 00:31:07.920 align:middle line:84% so he would use it in his own poems. 00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:09.930 align:middle line:90% That's interesting. 00:31:09.930 --> 00:31:11.930 align:middle line:90% But no. 00:31:11.930 --> 00:31:13.740 align:middle line:90% I just found out I could do it. 00:31:13.740 --> 00:31:17.010 align:middle line:84% I would show it to a fluent French-speaking person. 00:31:17.010 --> 00:31:19.170 align:middle line:90% They go, it's fine. 00:31:19.170 --> 00:31:22.110 align:middle line:84% And they went, your French is very good. 00:31:22.110 --> 00:31:23.220 align:middle line:90% And I go, no it's not. 00:31:23.220 --> 00:31:25.440 align:middle line:90% I don't know French at all. 00:31:25.440 --> 00:31:26.820 align:middle line:90% Hardly at all. 00:31:26.820 --> 00:31:27.990 align:middle line:90% German I know pretty well. 00:31:27.990 --> 00:31:35.735 align:middle line:90% 00:31:35.735 --> 00:31:39.630 align:middle line:84% What do you make of translations of your stuff? 00:31:39.630 --> 00:31:40.470 align:middle line:90% Oh. 00:31:40.470 --> 00:31:42.720 align:middle line:84% It's so exciting when that happens. 00:31:42.720 --> 00:31:44.610 align:middle line:90% And I've had the-- 00:31:44.610 --> 00:31:50.190 align:middle line:84% a woman at Amherst College, a wonderful young French 00:31:50.190 --> 00:31:53.520 align:middle line:84% professor, translated all of Walking to Martha's Vineyard 00:31:53.520 --> 00:31:54.150 align:middle line:90% into French. 00:31:54.150 --> 00:32:00.880 align:middle line:84% And I've seen poems of mine translated into Spanish, 00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:03.450 align:middle line:90% German, Vietnamese. 00:32:03.450 --> 00:32:06.450 align:middle line:84% On the internet I've come across sites where people-- 00:32:06.450 --> 00:32:07.680 align:middle line:90% there's a Vietnamese site. 00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:08.670 align:middle line:90% That's cool. 00:32:08.670 --> 00:32:13.500 align:middle line:84% A guy started writing to me from Iran. 00:32:13.500 --> 00:32:17.220 align:middle line:84% And he's studying, of all things-- 00:32:17.220 --> 00:32:21.645 align:middle line:84% in Tehran-- he's studying at the university American literature. 00:32:21.645 --> 00:32:23.040 align:middle line:90% [CHUCKLES] 00:32:23.040 --> 00:32:28.290 align:middle line:90% And we corresponded a lot. 00:32:28.290 --> 00:32:29.850 align:middle line:90% It was fun. 00:32:29.850 --> 00:32:33.840 align:middle line:84% And it was a while ago, so we said some things we might not 00:32:33.840 --> 00:32:35.070 align:middle line:90% say now. 00:32:35.070 --> 00:32:40.980 align:middle line:84% And we each had a few words to say about our own governments. 00:32:40.980 --> 00:32:45.470 align:middle line:90% 00:32:45.470 --> 00:32:47.840 align:middle line:84% At least, he might not want to say now. 00:32:47.840 --> 00:32:49.070 align:middle line:90% You can say anything here. 00:32:49.070 --> 00:32:51.780 align:middle line:84% That's the genius of the system here. 00:32:51.780 --> 00:32:53.990 align:middle line:84% Let everyone just say whatever they want. 00:32:53.990 --> 00:32:56.780 align:middle line:90% And then completely ignore them. 00:32:56.780 --> 00:32:57.840 align:middle line:90% It's great. 00:32:57.840 --> 00:32:59.460 align:middle line:90% It's freedom of speech. 00:32:59.460 --> 00:33:01.760 align:middle line:90% Freedom of speech. 00:33:01.760 --> 00:33:06.200 align:middle line:84% I almost sometimes think that maybe the Russians 00:33:06.200 --> 00:33:10.610 align:middle line:84% would kill their poets when they got out of line-- 00:33:10.610 --> 00:33:13.790 align:middle line:84% Mandelstam And maybe that gives them more power-- 00:33:13.790 --> 00:33:16.920 align:middle line:84% it certainly gives them more power. 00:33:16.920 --> 00:33:20.150 align:middle line:84% It's discovered again that language 00:33:20.150 --> 00:33:22.340 align:middle line:90% is subversive and dangerous. 00:33:22.340 --> 00:33:27.330 align:middle line:84% And ideas are the beginning of the first step 00:33:27.330 --> 00:33:30.000 align:middle line:90% towards dangerous developments. 00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.480 align:middle line:90% 00:33:34.480 --> 00:33:37.390 align:middle line:84% I think it's absolutely ingenious, 00:33:37.390 --> 00:33:43.480 align:middle line:84% the idea of freedom of speech, because it diffuses-- 00:33:43.480 --> 00:33:47.020 align:middle line:84% language is diffuse-- its power is diffused, in a way. 00:33:47.020 --> 00:33:49.750 align:middle line:84% You can say any damn thing you want. 00:33:49.750 --> 00:33:51.280 align:middle line:84% It's not going to do any good, but-- 00:33:51.280 --> 00:33:54.500 align:middle line:90% 00:33:54.500 --> 00:33:56.760 align:middle line:84% They're not going-- they don't care what you say. 00:33:56.760 --> 00:33:57.680 align:middle line:90% Say whatever you want. 00:33:57.680 --> 00:34:03.540 align:middle line:90% 00:34:03.540 --> 00:34:05.970 align:middle line:84% Franz, I'd like to ask you about one 00:34:05.970 --> 00:34:11.940 align:middle line:84% of the epigraphs in your most recent book, Wheeling Motel. 00:34:11.940 --> 00:34:14.969 align:middle line:84% Marguerite Yourcenar, the quote from her, 00:34:14.969 --> 00:34:18.780 align:middle line:84% maybe I'll read it so everyone has it in their mind. 00:34:18.780 --> 00:34:21.060 align:middle line:84% "He had reached that moment in life, 00:34:21.060 --> 00:34:24.989 align:middle line:84% different for each one of us, when a man abandons himself 00:34:24.989 --> 00:34:28.560 align:middle line:84% to his demon or to his genius, following 00:34:28.560 --> 00:34:33.179 align:middle line:84% a mysterious law, which bids him either to destroy or outdo 00:34:33.179 --> 00:34:36.040 align:middle line:90% himself." 00:34:36.040 --> 00:34:38.650 align:middle line:90% Those are Roman. 00:34:38.650 --> 00:34:42.699 align:middle line:84% It's the Memoirs of Hadrian, and a book that I cannot recommend 00:34:42.699 --> 00:34:43.880 align:middle line:90% to-- 00:34:43.880 --> 00:34:45.969 align:middle line:84% when I found this book, I thought 00:34:45.969 --> 00:34:49.570 align:middle line:84% it was among the very greatest books I'd ever read. 00:34:49.570 --> 00:34:52.402 align:middle line:84% I read it 10 times, and I can't-- 00:34:52.402 --> 00:34:54.610 align:middle line:84% I'd read it, and want to start reading it over again. 00:34:54.610 --> 00:34:56.469 align:middle line:90% She's a very great writer. 00:34:56.469 --> 00:34:58.270 align:middle line:90% Not always, but that book is-- 00:34:58.270 --> 00:35:01.540 align:middle line:90% God, what a masterpiece. 00:35:01.540 --> 00:35:07.450 align:middle line:84% But those are Roman concepts, one's genius and one's demon. 00:35:07.450 --> 00:35:11.560 align:middle line:84% Your genius, I suppose, is the nobler and better side 00:35:11.560 --> 00:35:14.050 align:middle line:90% of your nature and your soul. 00:35:14.050 --> 00:35:15.670 align:middle line:90% And everyone has one. 00:35:15.670 --> 00:35:18.730 align:middle line:84% It doesn't mean the way we use it, genius. 00:35:18.730 --> 00:35:23.920 align:middle line:84% And your demon being your more self-destructive or wilder 00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:28.570 align:middle line:84% or more animal like side of yourself. 00:35:28.570 --> 00:35:30.520 align:middle line:84% Of course, all human beings are-- 00:35:30.520 --> 00:35:38.130 align:middle line:84% we're always trying to subdue that other destructive part 00:35:38.130 --> 00:35:40.320 align:middle line:84% in ourselves, and try to transform it 00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:42.150 align:middle line:90% into something higher. 00:35:42.150 --> 00:35:43.140 align:middle line:90% We hope to. 00:35:43.140 --> 00:35:47.850 align:middle line:84% And sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we don't. 00:35:47.850 --> 00:35:52.660 align:middle line:84% But what is it about that quote that you're asking, though? 00:35:52.660 --> 00:35:58.630 align:middle line:90% 00:35:58.630 --> 00:36:01.180 align:middle line:84% I just thought-- to me, it meant-- 00:36:01.180 --> 00:36:02.750 align:middle line:90% it seems self-evident to me. 00:36:02.750 --> 00:36:04.650 align:middle line:84% I thought it was so wonderful because-- 00:36:04.650 --> 00:36:05.150 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:36:05.150 --> 00:36:05.775 align:middle line:90% It's beautiful. 00:36:05.775 --> 00:36:08.590 align:middle line:84% --you're in your 50s, and you go-- 00:36:08.590 --> 00:36:11.560 align:middle line:90% it's a point where-- 00:36:11.560 --> 00:36:13.900 align:middle line:84% I think poets in our culture, they 00:36:13.900 --> 00:36:17.860 align:middle line:84% do tend to start to repeat themselves or start 00:36:17.860 --> 00:36:24.610 align:middle line:84% producing paler versions of poems they did better. 00:36:24.610 --> 00:36:27.850 align:middle line:84% And I really was interested in consciously trying 00:36:27.850 --> 00:36:31.600 align:middle line:84% not to let that happen, and trying to go farther. 00:36:31.600 --> 00:36:35.110 align:middle line:84% And I'm not sure it's so evident in that book, 00:36:35.110 --> 00:36:37.120 align:middle line:90% but it's going to def-- 00:36:37.120 --> 00:36:39.430 align:middle line:84% I'm thinking, for sure, it's going 00:36:39.430 --> 00:36:42.610 align:middle line:84% to be evident in this new one, this prose one. 00:36:42.610 --> 00:36:46.210 align:middle line:84% It'll be the one nasty thing they won't be able to say, 00:36:46.210 --> 00:36:50.740 align:middle line:84% is that I just sound like my older work. 00:36:50.740 --> 00:36:51.670 align:middle line:90% Because it doesn't. 00:36:51.670 --> 00:36:55.390 align:middle line:90% And it's really different. 00:36:55.390 --> 00:36:56.170 align:middle line:90% That's all. 00:36:56.170 --> 00:37:03.880 align:middle line:84% I think in middle age, and advanced middle age, you do. 00:37:03.880 --> 00:37:06.250 align:middle line:84% You're faced with this-- you're like, 00:37:06.250 --> 00:37:10.420 align:middle line:84% am I really going to do anything better than I've done? 00:37:10.420 --> 00:37:14.680 align:middle line:84% Is there any point, even, in going through this hell 00:37:14.680 --> 00:37:18.370 align:middle line:84% that you go through when you write a book. 00:37:18.370 --> 00:37:27.430 align:middle line:84% Once you're into it, for me, anyway, I take it too hard. 00:37:27.430 --> 00:37:29.200 align:middle line:90% It kind of takes over. 00:37:29.200 --> 00:37:32.200 align:middle line:90% I remember my father saying-- 00:37:32.200 --> 00:37:34.870 align:middle line:84% he was at a party somewhere, and he was sulking, 00:37:34.870 --> 00:37:36.660 align:middle line:84% and he was depressed about something. 00:37:36.660 --> 00:37:40.960 align:middle line:84% And Kenneth Rexroth came over to him and said, Jim. 00:37:40.960 --> 00:37:42.790 align:middle line:84% He goes, the problem with you is you 00:37:42.790 --> 00:37:45.130 align:middle line:90% worry too much about poetry. 00:37:45.130 --> 00:37:50.830 align:middle line:84% He says, poetry is the work of a-- 00:37:50.830 --> 00:37:52.390 align:middle line:90% a pastime of a gentleman. 00:37:52.390 --> 00:37:56.065 align:middle line:90% And somebody-- a book person-- 00:37:56.065 --> 00:37:58.150 align:middle line:84% you shouldn't take-- it shouldn't be so-- 00:37:58.150 --> 00:38:01.500 align:middle line:84% if you make it like everything, it's just going to-- 00:38:01.500 --> 00:38:05.590 align:middle line:84% And then my dad asked him, well, Kenneth, 00:38:05.590 --> 00:38:06.970 align:middle line:90% why do you write poetry? 00:38:06.970 --> 00:38:12.970 align:middle line:84% And he responded immediately in a rather crude way 00:38:12.970 --> 00:38:14.127 align:middle line:90% that was interesting. 00:38:14.127 --> 00:38:15.460 align:middle line:90% I don't know if I should say it. 00:38:15.460 --> 00:38:20.380 align:middle line:84% But his response was to fuck women and undermine 00:38:20.380 --> 00:38:21.950 align:middle line:90% the capitalist system. 00:38:21.950 --> 00:38:24.130 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:38:24.130 --> 00:38:27.220 align:middle line:84% He said, you got to have some other reason besides-- 00:38:27.220 --> 00:38:29.410 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:38:29.410 --> 00:38:32.140 align:middle line:84% And then it frees your creativity. 00:38:32.140 --> 00:38:34.820 align:middle line:90% 00:38:34.820 --> 00:38:39.140 align:middle line:84% But you do, you find yourself, should I even bother. 00:38:39.140 --> 00:38:42.980 align:middle line:84% Right now, I'm at this other point where I feel-- 00:38:42.980 --> 00:38:43.670 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:38:43.670 --> 00:38:45.710 align:middle line:90% I wrote this book in one year. 00:38:45.710 --> 00:38:47.300 align:middle line:84% That's nev-- well, it has happened. 00:38:47.300 --> 00:38:48.758 align:middle line:84% I wrote The Beforelife in one year. 00:38:48.758 --> 00:38:51.680 align:middle line:90% But this is a much bigger deal. 00:38:51.680 --> 00:38:54.690 align:middle line:84% And I know I can't go through this again. 00:38:54.690 --> 00:38:58.160 align:middle line:90% I know I can't. 00:38:58.160 --> 00:39:03.290 align:middle line:84% Not for a very long time, if ever. 00:39:03.290 --> 00:39:05.030 align:middle line:90% Because I'm done, man. 00:39:05.030 --> 00:39:08.930 align:middle line:90% I'm so mentally wasted. 00:39:08.930 --> 00:39:10.775 align:middle line:90% Just nothing left. 00:39:10.775 --> 00:39:13.430 align:middle line:90% 00:39:13.430 --> 00:39:16.610 align:middle line:84% What I find now, I'm having a great time 00:39:16.610 --> 00:39:20.660 align:middle line:90% going back and rewriting things. 00:39:20.660 --> 00:39:22.910 align:middle line:90% I have one more I have to write. 00:39:22.910 --> 00:39:24.600 align:middle line:84% It's just, I keep putting it off. 00:39:24.600 --> 00:39:25.400 align:middle line:90% It's like the old-- 00:39:25.400 --> 00:39:28.040 align:middle line:84% I'm fleeing from it and putting it off. 00:39:28.040 --> 00:39:31.070 align:middle line:84% And whereas, while I was in the middle of working on these, 00:39:31.070 --> 00:39:33.740 align:middle line:84% I was writing several of them a week. 00:39:33.740 --> 00:39:38.600 align:middle line:84% And I wrote well over a hundred of them in a year, 00:39:38.600 --> 00:39:43.090 align:middle line:84% so I was at least writing two a week. 00:39:43.090 --> 00:39:45.380 align:middle line:84% And I was writing several at the same time. 00:39:45.380 --> 00:39:46.440 align:middle line:90% I couldn't stop. 00:39:46.440 --> 00:39:49.220 align:middle line:90% It was a big river of stuff. 00:39:49.220 --> 00:39:54.380 align:middle line:84% And I'm pretty much out of gas now. 00:39:54.380 --> 00:39:59.540 align:middle line:90% 00:39:59.540 --> 00:40:03.260 align:middle line:84% I feel kind of resentful about it sometimes. 00:40:03.260 --> 00:40:09.080 align:middle line:84% I never get to enjoy anything, any accomplishment, or anything 00:40:09.080 --> 00:40:11.330 align:middle line:84% that I do that I think is pretty good. 00:40:11.330 --> 00:40:15.530 align:middle line:84% Because I'm immediately in the middle of the frustrations 00:40:15.530 --> 00:40:17.750 align:middle line:90% of working on another one. 00:40:17.750 --> 00:40:21.650 align:middle line:84% And so I never get this sense of accomplishment. 00:40:21.650 --> 00:40:24.260 align:middle line:90% And I almost feel like-- 00:40:24.260 --> 00:40:27.230 align:middle line:90% I got this book of prose. 00:40:27.230 --> 00:40:29.990 align:middle line:84% I got a new book of poems at the same time that I wrote. 00:40:29.990 --> 00:40:34.580 align:middle line:84% And how this happened, I do not know, but it did. 00:40:34.580 --> 00:40:38.960 align:middle line:90% And I go, these can't be. 00:40:38.960 --> 00:40:40.790 align:middle line:90% I must be diluting myself. 00:40:40.790 --> 00:40:44.720 align:middle line:84% And I've shown them to people who tell me the truth. 00:40:44.720 --> 00:40:47.300 align:middle line:84% And they go, no, it's pretty good. 00:40:47.300 --> 00:40:51.890 align:middle line:84% And some of it is some of your best stuff. 00:40:51.890 --> 00:40:53.420 align:middle line:90% It's like gambling. 00:40:53.420 --> 00:40:57.620 align:middle line:84% Maybe it would be good to quit while you're-- 00:40:57.620 --> 00:41:00.830 align:middle line:84% before you start doing that thing where you start to lose, 00:41:00.830 --> 00:41:05.540 align:middle line:84% and then you panic and you lose everything. 00:41:05.540 --> 00:41:07.250 align:middle line:90% That wouldn't happen. 00:41:07.250 --> 00:41:08.630 align:middle line:90% I just feel tired. 00:41:08.630 --> 00:41:12.390 align:middle line:90% And I feel like it's killing me. 00:41:12.390 --> 00:41:12.890 align:middle line:90% Really. 00:41:12.890 --> 00:41:15.580 align:middle line:90% And it pisses me off. 00:41:15.580 --> 00:41:24.080 align:middle line:84% I feel like I've been doing this for over 40 years. 00:41:24.080 --> 00:41:27.800 align:middle line:84% Don't people retire after certain-- 00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:29.570 align:middle line:90% why not? 00:41:29.570 --> 00:41:32.540 align:middle line:84% But my wife goes, sure you will, Franz. 00:41:32.540 --> 00:41:33.890 align:middle line:90% Sure, you'll stop. 00:41:33.890 --> 00:41:35.330 align:middle line:90% What will you do then? 00:41:35.330 --> 00:41:39.530 align:middle line:90% 00:41:39.530 --> 00:41:42.787 align:middle line:84% It scares me because it's the only time I really feel good. 00:41:42.787 --> 00:41:44.120 align:middle line:90% It's the only time I feel happy. 00:41:44.120 --> 00:41:45.750 align:middle line:90% It's when I'm working. 00:41:45.750 --> 00:41:47.160 align:middle line:90% It drives me out of my mind. 00:41:47.160 --> 00:41:49.920 align:middle line:84% But when it's going well, it's the only time 00:41:49.920 --> 00:41:52.500 align:middle line:90% I really feel like myself. 00:41:52.500 --> 00:41:55.110 align:middle line:84% I don't know what to do, what's going to happen. 00:41:55.110 --> 00:42:00.010 align:middle line:90% 00:42:00.010 --> 00:42:00.940 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:42:00.940 --> 00:42:01.700 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:42:01.700 --> 00:42:02.200 align:middle line:90% Oh, OK. 00:42:02.200 --> 00:42:02.890 align:middle line:90% We'll get you. 00:42:02.890 --> 00:42:08.220 align:middle line:90% 00:42:08.220 --> 00:42:13.140 align:middle line:84% Our instrument, practical instrument, for living. 00:42:13.140 --> 00:42:16.170 align:middle line:84% That's the way I experience your stuff. 00:42:16.170 --> 00:42:18.570 align:middle line:84% It's like a flashlight, or a [INAUDIBLE] 00:42:18.570 --> 00:42:19.900 align:middle line:90% or an energy [INAUDIBLE] 00:42:19.900 --> 00:42:23.050 align:middle line:84% That's not how I experience it, though. 00:42:23.050 --> 00:42:28.330 align:middle line:90% I wanted to tell you thank you. 00:42:28.330 --> 00:42:28.918 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:42:28.918 --> 00:42:29.710 align:middle line:90% --big help for me-- 00:42:29.710 --> 00:42:30.970 align:middle line:90% That's-- well, that's-- 00:42:30.970 --> 00:42:33.050 align:middle line:84% Reading your book last night, and I thought, wow, 00:42:33.050 --> 00:42:35.124 align:middle line:90% I could've used this. 00:42:35.124 --> 00:42:37.318 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] to the soul. 00:42:37.318 --> 00:42:38.360 align:middle line:90% That's a wonderful thing. 00:42:38.360 --> 00:42:40.730 align:middle line:84% And I think that's why it's been helpful [INAUDIBLE] 00:42:40.730 --> 00:42:42.260 align:middle line:84% That's a wonderful thing to hear. 00:42:42.260 --> 00:42:47.990 align:middle line:84% And the reason that's so wonderful to hear 00:42:47.990 --> 00:42:52.850 align:middle line:84% is that's what poetry meant to me when I was young. 00:42:52.850 --> 00:42:53.930 align:middle line:90% It saved me. 00:42:53.930 --> 00:42:58.130 align:middle line:84% I would find, oh, someone else has felt this, 00:42:58.130 --> 00:43:02.090 align:middle line:84% has experienced this, and found a way to express it. 00:43:02.090 --> 00:43:05.060 align:middle line:90% And something in me. 00:43:05.060 --> 00:43:07.490 align:middle line:90% And that's the greatest thing. 00:43:07.490 --> 00:43:10.250 align:middle line:84% And then, if you find that you can do that, 00:43:10.250 --> 00:43:13.130 align:middle line:84% you've done that for somebody else, you just gave me-- 00:43:13.130 --> 00:43:20.630 align:middle line:84% that's the greatest payment, greatest gift for writing 00:43:20.630 --> 00:43:21.830 align:middle line:90% that a writer could hear. 00:43:21.830 --> 00:43:24.590 align:middle line:84% Because that's, I think, why writers start. 00:43:24.590 --> 00:43:28.490 align:middle line:84% Because they want to do that, what writing does to them. 00:43:28.490 --> 00:43:29.750 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:43:29.750 --> 00:43:32.084 align:middle line:84% You wanted to say something, right? 00:43:32.084 --> 00:43:36.020 align:middle line:90% 00:43:36.020 --> 00:43:39.025 align:middle line:84% Well, I now have a new question in relation to his. 00:43:39.025 --> 00:43:42.310 align:middle line:90% 00:43:42.310 --> 00:43:45.310 align:middle line:84% What do you feel when you reread your poetry, if you ever do? 00:43:45.310 --> 00:43:47.110 align:middle line:90% I don't really. 00:43:47.110 --> 00:43:49.450 align:middle line:90% I don't look back. 00:43:49.450 --> 00:43:52.450 align:middle line:84% I'm afraid that it will-- it's a distraction 00:43:52.450 --> 00:43:54.160 align:middle line:90% from writing new ones. 00:43:54.160 --> 00:43:57.490 align:middle line:84% I look at them when I'm going to give a reading sometimes. 00:43:57.490 --> 00:43:59.950 align:middle line:90% I really don't. 00:43:59.950 --> 00:44:06.140 align:middle line:84% Because sometimes they embarrass me very much. 00:44:06.140 --> 00:44:07.670 align:middle line:84% And then when I know they're good, 00:44:07.670 --> 00:44:14.570 align:middle line:84% the few that I really feel I know are good, 00:44:14.570 --> 00:44:19.580 align:middle line:84% they're not alive to me the same way anymore. 00:44:19.580 --> 00:44:24.500 align:middle line:84% What's alive for me is what I'm working on now. 00:44:24.500 --> 00:44:30.470 align:middle line:90% That's what's keeping me going. 00:44:30.470 --> 00:44:34.130 align:middle line:84% But largely it's because they embarrass me. 00:44:34.130 --> 00:44:37.130 align:middle line:90% Every single book of mine has-- 00:44:37.130 --> 00:44:40.340 align:middle line:84% I know I'm going to find things where I go, why did you 00:44:40.340 --> 00:44:42.290 align:middle line:90% have to put that in? 00:44:42.290 --> 00:44:44.930 align:middle line:84% The book would have been so much better without that poem. 00:44:44.930 --> 00:44:48.260 align:middle line:90% And it's too late. 00:44:48.260 --> 00:44:49.490 align:middle line:90% Sometimes it's not. 00:44:49.490 --> 00:44:52.610 align:middle line:84% I have had opportunities to fix that. 00:44:52.610 --> 00:44:57.770 align:middle line:84% Doing a selection-- Knopf did of my first four books, 00:44:57.770 --> 00:45:00.260 align:middle line:84% and I got a chance to rewrite some things. 00:45:00.260 --> 00:45:02.000 align:middle line:90% And that was very satisfying. 00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:03.770 align:middle line:90% And delete some things. 00:45:03.770 --> 00:45:05.900 align:middle line:90% And that saved me. 00:45:05.900 --> 00:45:07.798 align:middle line:90% Just things that really-- 00:45:07.798 --> 00:45:09.590 align:middle line:84% I would wake up in the middle of the night, 00:45:09.590 --> 00:45:13.550 align:middle line:84% and rise with humiliation and embarrassment. 00:45:13.550 --> 00:45:18.740 align:middle line:84% And I got a chance to kill them and like get rid of them. 00:45:18.740 --> 00:45:23.150 align:middle line:84% But I'm afraid that those are the ones I tend to notice. 00:45:23.150 --> 00:45:24.835 align:middle line:90% The good ones, I go, OK, good. 00:45:24.835 --> 00:45:26.210 align:middle line:84% And then I'll go look at the ones 00:45:26.210 --> 00:45:29.330 align:middle line:90% that embarrass me, and writhe. 00:45:29.330 --> 00:45:31.880 align:middle line:84% So that's why I don't like to do that now. 00:45:31.880 --> 00:45:35.480 align:middle line:90% 00:45:35.480 --> 00:45:39.090 align:middle line:84% The other thing relates to growing as a poet, 00:45:39.090 --> 00:45:42.570 align:middle line:84% and how the important thing is to cultivate what 00:45:42.570 --> 00:45:44.400 align:middle line:90% you're not focusing on. 00:45:44.400 --> 00:45:46.500 align:middle line:84% But it can be hard to even really notice 00:45:46.500 --> 00:45:48.250 align:middle line:90% what you're not focusing on. 00:45:48.250 --> 00:45:50.070 align:middle line:84% And that's where teachers are important. 00:45:50.070 --> 00:45:53.613 align:middle line:90% 00:45:53.613 --> 00:45:55.280 align:middle line:84% How did you get a foothold on this thing 00:45:55.280 --> 00:45:57.650 align:middle line:84% that you're not intuitively or naturally doing? 00:45:57.650 --> 00:46:00.155 align:middle line:90% 00:46:00.155 --> 00:46:01.530 align:middle line:84% I usually have a pretty good idea 00:46:01.530 --> 00:46:03.570 align:middle line:90% of what my strong points are. 00:46:03.570 --> 00:46:06.850 align:middle line:84% And then I can try to go the other way. 00:46:06.850 --> 00:46:10.380 align:middle line:90% But what you say about teachers. 00:46:10.380 --> 00:46:15.900 align:middle line:84% To me, one of the most wonderful things a teacher can do-- 00:46:15.900 --> 00:46:19.050 align:middle line:84% and I think teaching is really just about the greatest thing 00:46:19.050 --> 00:46:22.050 align:middle line:90% that a human being can do. 00:46:22.050 --> 00:46:25.540 align:middle line:84% Many of the very greatest people in history have been teachers. 00:46:25.540 --> 00:46:30.060 align:middle line:84% And what you can do, and what my best teachers did, 00:46:30.060 --> 00:46:31.830 align:middle line:90% was save me time-- 00:46:31.830 --> 00:46:34.530 align:middle line:90% years-- by directing me. 00:46:34.530 --> 00:46:37.005 align:middle line:84% Not telling me what to do, but go read this. 00:46:37.005 --> 00:46:40.740 align:middle line:90% 00:46:40.740 --> 00:46:43.350 align:middle line:84% Things that I wouldn't have known how to find. 00:46:43.350 --> 00:46:46.500 align:middle line:84% I might have taken me years to come across them. 00:46:46.500 --> 00:46:47.880 align:middle line:90% So you save you time. 00:46:47.880 --> 00:46:53.890 align:middle line:90% 00:46:53.890 --> 00:46:56.730 align:middle line:84% You always have teachers all through your life. 00:46:56.730 --> 00:47:01.020 align:middle line:84% I always have looked for people to be teachers to me. 00:47:01.020 --> 00:47:04.560 align:middle line:84% And it's very interesting to find myself at a point 00:47:04.560 --> 00:47:07.260 align:middle line:84% where I seem to be in that position myself 00:47:07.260 --> 00:47:09.130 align:middle line:90% with younger people. 00:47:09.130 --> 00:47:15.720 align:middle line:84% And I find that very humbling and very exciting, too. 00:47:15.720 --> 00:47:18.900 align:middle line:90% 00:47:18.900 --> 00:47:20.820 align:middle line:90% Is that enough of an answer? 00:47:20.820 --> 00:47:23.235 align:middle line:84% But I'm not quite sure I fully understand your question. 00:47:23.235 --> 00:47:27.690 align:middle line:90% 00:47:27.690 --> 00:47:29.690 align:middle line:90% I think so. 00:47:29.690 --> 00:47:32.650 align:middle line:90% And, well, one more question. 00:47:32.650 --> 00:47:34.650 align:middle line:90% It relates to poetry and prose. 00:47:34.650 --> 00:47:35.580 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:47:35.580 --> 00:47:37.770 align:middle line:90% And how it seems to me-- 00:47:37.770 --> 00:47:40.770 align:middle line:84% this may be very simplistic-- but how in poetry, there's 00:47:40.770 --> 00:47:44.640 align:middle line:84% one voice, and in prose, there are many voices. 00:47:44.640 --> 00:47:46.770 align:middle line:84% And the problem with having many voices 00:47:46.770 --> 00:47:53.410 align:middle line:84% is that they clump together, and it's hard to make it as clear. 00:47:53.410 --> 00:47:54.570 align:middle line:90% It can be true. 00:47:54.570 --> 00:47:56.230 align:middle line:90% That could be true. 00:47:56.230 --> 00:47:58.690 align:middle line:90% That's always a big question. 00:47:58.690 --> 00:48:00.250 align:middle line:90% This question always comes up. 00:48:00.250 --> 00:48:04.750 align:middle line:84% What's the difference between poetry and prose? 00:48:04.750 --> 00:48:07.450 align:middle line:90% Eliot said prose has more words. 00:48:07.450 --> 00:48:10.420 align:middle line:90% But he was just being sarcastic. 00:48:10.420 --> 00:48:13.420 align:middle line:90% 00:48:13.420 --> 00:48:17.560 align:middle line:84% The difference to me is that usually-- 00:48:17.560 --> 00:48:20.110 align:middle line:84% I don't know about the voices thing. 00:48:20.110 --> 00:48:22.000 align:middle line:84% There can be different voices in a poem. 00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:28.650 align:middle line:84% But to me, poems are closer to a feeling of singing. 00:48:28.650 --> 00:48:30.330 align:middle line:90% And it makes sense. 00:48:30.330 --> 00:48:35.160 align:middle line:90% Lyric poetry, they're lyrics. 00:48:35.160 --> 00:48:40.050 align:middle line:84% There was a time, right up until, well, it even 00:48:40.050 --> 00:48:44.580 align:middle line:84% was true in the Elizabethan age, a lot of poetry was sung. 00:48:44.580 --> 00:48:46.350 align:middle line:90% They're the lyrics of songs. 00:48:46.350 --> 00:48:48.270 align:middle line:84% And certainly, in the ancient world, 00:48:48.270 --> 00:48:52.710 align:middle line:84% the idea of a poem without music would have been preposterous. 00:48:52.710 --> 00:48:56.160 align:middle line:84% The Iliad was sung, and all poetry was sung. 00:48:56.160 --> 00:48:59.970 align:middle line:90% They were the lyrics of songs. 00:48:59.970 --> 00:49:03.090 align:middle line:84% We get the words, but no one knows 00:49:03.090 --> 00:49:04.500 align:middle line:90% what Greek music sounds like. 00:49:04.500 --> 00:49:07.880 align:middle line:84% So we're missing out on half the-- 00:49:07.880 --> 00:49:08.760 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:49:08.760 --> 00:49:12.840 align:middle line:84% Poetry to me feels like it's more 00:49:12.840 --> 00:49:21.690 align:middle line:84% a matter of what you can suggest to the reader, 00:49:21.690 --> 00:49:27.105 align:middle line:84% and less a matter of what you're going to tell the reader. 00:49:27.105 --> 00:49:30.780 align:middle line:90% You give the reader credit for-- 00:49:30.780 --> 00:49:33.840 align:middle line:84% this is the analogy that I use, again, 00:49:33.840 --> 00:49:36.600 align:middle line:90% the few times I've taught. 00:49:36.600 --> 00:49:38.880 align:middle line:84% This seemed to be a useful analogy. 00:49:38.880 --> 00:49:43.600 align:middle line:84% Poems, in some ways, to me, seem like they work like jokes. 00:49:43.600 --> 00:49:44.850 align:middle line:90% They have a punch line. 00:49:44.850 --> 00:49:47.140 align:middle line:84% It's a dark punch line, an anti-punch line. 00:49:47.140 --> 00:49:51.460 align:middle line:84% But they work like jokes in this way. 00:49:51.460 --> 00:49:55.420 align:middle line:84% If you tell somebody a joke and explain to them why it's funny, 00:49:55.420 --> 00:49:58.090 align:middle line:90% it's not funny, is it. 00:49:58.090 --> 00:49:59.590 align:middle line:90% Think how a joke works. 00:49:59.590 --> 00:50:03.130 align:middle line:84% You're counting on the fact that the listener 00:50:03.130 --> 00:50:06.370 align:middle line:84% is going to instantaneously fill in the certain missing 00:50:06.370 --> 00:50:10.300 align:middle line:84% information that you're not saying in order to get it. 00:50:10.300 --> 00:50:11.980 align:middle line:90% To get it. 00:50:11.980 --> 00:50:15.490 align:middle line:84% And a poem, I think, works in a very similar way as a joke. 00:50:15.490 --> 00:50:18.460 align:middle line:90% 00:50:18.460 --> 00:50:19.940 align:middle line:90% That's another aspect of it. 00:50:19.940 --> 00:50:26.950 align:middle line:84% But it's more of a form of singing. 00:50:26.950 --> 00:50:28.675 align:middle line:84% It's like comparing singing and talking. 00:50:28.675 --> 00:50:34.740 align:middle line:90% 00:50:34.740 --> 00:50:37.990 align:middle line:84% Franz, could you talk to us a little bit 00:50:37.990 --> 00:50:39.940 align:middle line:90% about winning the Pulitzer? 00:50:39.940 --> 00:50:43.570 align:middle line:84% What was the dark side of it, as well as the bright side? 00:50:43.570 --> 00:50:48.040 align:middle line:90% 00:50:48.040 --> 00:50:51.130 align:middle line:84% Right at the start, it was the most shocking thing 00:50:51.130 --> 00:50:54.850 align:middle line:84% that I could possibly have imagined. 00:50:54.850 --> 00:50:59.330 align:middle line:84% That day, April 5 in 2004, I was in Fayetteville, Arkansas. 00:50:59.330 --> 00:51:06.280 align:middle line:84% And I cannot possibly imagine a more shocking, 00:51:06.280 --> 00:51:13.630 align:middle line:84% more unexpected thing that had to happen. 00:51:13.630 --> 00:51:15.310 align:middle line:84% They call you, and you go, come on. 00:51:15.310 --> 00:51:19.330 align:middle line:84% You know it's a friend calling you, putting you on. 00:51:19.330 --> 00:51:21.910 align:middle line:84% They're getting somebody to do this. 00:51:21.910 --> 00:51:24.220 align:middle line:84% I wouldn't believe it for a while. 00:51:24.220 --> 00:51:26.260 align:middle line:90% I went, no, I didn't. 00:51:26.260 --> 00:51:27.970 align:middle line:90% And then they go, yeah, you did. 00:51:27.970 --> 00:51:30.520 align:middle line:84% And then pretty soon, every newspaper in the world 00:51:30.520 --> 00:51:33.460 align:middle line:84% starts calling you, and then your phone never stops ringing, 00:51:33.460 --> 00:51:35.740 align:middle line:90% and it's frightening. 00:51:35.740 --> 00:51:39.700 align:middle line:90% 00:51:39.700 --> 00:51:42.520 align:middle line:84% Nobody had paid any really attention to me critically. 00:51:42.520 --> 00:51:46.660 align:middle line:84% I published about five books with small presses, university 00:51:46.660 --> 00:51:49.240 align:middle line:84% presses, and private presses, and no one 00:51:49.240 --> 00:51:52.660 align:middle line:84% had really reviewed me very much or paid very much attention 00:51:52.660 --> 00:51:54.730 align:middle line:90% to me. 00:51:54.730 --> 00:51:56.980 align:middle line:90% I wasn't unknown. 00:51:56.980 --> 00:51:58.180 align:middle line:90% I'd won a Guggenheim grant. 00:51:58.180 --> 00:52:00.790 align:middle line:84% I've won a lot of NEA grants and Guggenheim grants, 00:52:00.790 --> 00:52:04.450 align:middle line:84% and I published a lot in magazines, 00:52:04.450 --> 00:52:09.470 align:middle line:84% and I was known to other writers. 00:52:09.470 --> 00:52:09.970 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:52:09.970 --> 00:52:13.040 align:middle line:90% You go to a different-- 00:52:13.040 --> 00:52:18.050 align:middle line:84% One problem for me was I'm a very immature and disturbed 00:52:18.050 --> 00:52:22.970 align:middle line:84% person, and I do stupid things that I regret very easily. 00:52:22.970 --> 00:52:27.320 align:middle line:84% I'm constantly trying to watch that I don't, but I do. 00:52:27.320 --> 00:52:30.265 align:middle line:84% And something comes out, and I go, no, you're 00:52:30.265 --> 00:52:31.140 align:middle line:90% not going to do that. 00:52:31.140 --> 00:52:31.940 align:middle line:90% And it goes, yes, I am. 00:52:31.940 --> 00:52:32.565 align:middle line:90% And it does it. 00:52:32.565 --> 00:52:33.140 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:52:33.140 --> 00:52:33.890 align:middle line:90% And it's too late. 00:52:33.890 --> 00:52:39.250 align:middle line:90% 00:52:39.250 --> 00:52:42.310 align:middle line:84% For one thing, whenever I do something really stupid, 00:52:42.310 --> 00:52:47.230 align:middle line:84% or make a fool of myself, it would be localized, 00:52:47.230 --> 00:52:49.790 align:middle line:90% and I could move somewhere else. 00:52:49.790 --> 00:52:51.610 align:middle line:90% Now that's not possible. 00:52:51.610 --> 00:52:56.410 align:middle line:84% And there's nowhere to hide anymore. 00:52:56.410 --> 00:52:58.150 align:middle line:90% It was very thrilling. 00:52:58.150 --> 00:53:01.840 align:middle line:84% The first thing I did was I just went out 00:53:01.840 --> 00:53:04.660 align:middle line:84% and walked for about two hours, and I just 00:53:04.660 --> 00:53:05.620 align:middle line:90% thought about my dad. 00:53:05.620 --> 00:53:09.730 align:middle line:90% 00:53:09.730 --> 00:53:11.770 align:middle line:90% It made me feel-- 00:53:11.770 --> 00:53:15.460 align:middle line:84% I talked to him in a way that I hadn't for a long time. 00:53:15.460 --> 00:53:17.260 align:middle line:90% Like, what do you think of this? 00:53:17.260 --> 00:53:18.850 align:middle line:90% And this is weird. 00:53:18.850 --> 00:53:26.680 align:middle line:84% And it was psychologically strange to-- 00:53:26.680 --> 00:53:27.250 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:53:27.250 --> 00:53:28.990 align:middle line:90% It was thrilling. 00:53:28.990 --> 00:53:32.110 align:middle line:90% And it was fun and thrilling. 00:53:32.110 --> 00:53:34.810 align:middle line:84% And then people say a lot of wonderful things about you, 00:53:34.810 --> 00:53:35.860 align:middle line:90% and you go, yeah, yeah. 00:53:35.860 --> 00:53:36.510 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:53:36.510 --> 00:53:37.540 align:middle line:90% You agree with that. 00:53:37.540 --> 00:53:42.940 align:middle line:84% And then the other people start coming out, which they will 00:53:42.940 --> 00:53:45.430 align:middle line:90% no matter who wins. 00:53:45.430 --> 00:53:48.940 align:middle line:84% I know people who-- like Simic and Strand, 00:53:48.940 --> 00:53:52.060 align:middle line:84% and different-- they've been getting this critical attention 00:53:52.060 --> 00:53:56.260 align:middle line:84% from the time they were in their 30s, sometimes early, mid-30s. 00:53:56.260 --> 00:53:58.210 align:middle line:90% I had no practice with this. 00:53:58.210 --> 00:54:03.730 align:middle line:84% I had no callus over myself when it came to negative-- 00:54:03.730 --> 00:54:05.560 align:middle line:90% which you're going to get. 00:54:05.560 --> 00:54:10.060 align:middle line:84% As soon as you have some little degree of success, 00:54:10.060 --> 00:54:12.770 align:middle line:84% all these people are going to come out and go, 00:54:12.770 --> 00:54:16.430 align:middle line:90% his stuff isn't so hot. 00:54:16.430 --> 00:54:19.890 align:middle line:84% You didn't apply to win this prize. 00:54:19.890 --> 00:54:20.810 align:middle line:90% You didn't ask to. 00:54:20.810 --> 00:54:23.730 align:middle line:90% 00:54:23.730 --> 00:54:24.990 align:middle line:90% And I'm the first one-- 00:54:24.990 --> 00:54:27.300 align:middle line:84% I made a list of all the poets better 00:54:27.300 --> 00:54:29.280 align:middle line:90% than me who never won it. 00:54:29.280 --> 00:54:32.310 align:middle line:90% That made me feel better. 00:54:32.310 --> 00:54:34.260 align:middle line:90% But I got a lot of-- 00:54:34.260 --> 00:54:36.600 align:middle line:90% yeah. 00:54:36.600 --> 00:54:40.980 align:middle line:84% The worst one-- as I think some people know, 00:54:40.980 --> 00:54:42.015 align:middle line:90% I have my nemesis-- 00:54:42.015 --> 00:54:44.730 align:middle line:90% 00:54:44.730 --> 00:54:46.230 align:middle line:90% what's his name-- 00:54:46.230 --> 00:54:48.840 align:middle line:90% William Logan. 00:54:48.840 --> 00:54:51.360 align:middle line:84% Everyone kept saying to me, Franz, 00:54:51.360 --> 00:54:53.340 align:middle line:84% if he wrote a good review of you, 00:54:53.340 --> 00:54:58.320 align:middle line:84% it would be the ultimate humiliation. 00:54:58.320 --> 00:55:03.120 align:middle line:84% Because he only writes about the most successful 00:55:03.120 --> 00:55:05.250 align:middle line:90% poets, to put them down. 00:55:05.250 --> 00:55:07.440 align:middle line:84% Because he's a very bitter guy who's 00:55:07.440 --> 00:55:11.040 align:middle line:84% never gotten any attention for his work because it sucks. 00:55:11.040 --> 00:55:11.800 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:55:11.800 --> 00:55:13.320 align:middle line:90% It's really bad. 00:55:13.320 --> 00:55:19.150 align:middle line:84% And so he figured, at some point, I can get attention. 00:55:19.150 --> 00:55:21.030 align:middle line:90% It's very childish. 00:55:21.030 --> 00:55:25.950 align:middle line:84% The reviews, if you read them, they are so viciously personal. 00:55:25.950 --> 00:55:31.050 align:middle line:84% And I didn't know how to go, it's not you. 00:55:31.050 --> 00:55:34.395 align:middle line:84% It's the fact that you've become noticed. 00:55:34.395 --> 00:55:36.840 align:middle line:90% It would happen to anyone. 00:55:36.840 --> 00:55:44.610 align:middle line:84% And I'm a pretty fragile person, and my sense of self. 00:55:44.610 --> 00:55:50.760 align:middle line:84% And an easily enraged person, too. 00:55:50.760 --> 00:55:53.880 align:middle line:90% I took it personally. 00:55:53.880 --> 00:55:56.160 align:middle line:84% But I've gotten a lot better at it. 00:55:56.160 --> 00:55:57.870 align:middle line:90% But it took a while. 00:55:57.870 --> 00:56:01.530 align:middle line:84% It's been, now, about five years, and I'm pretty good. 00:56:01.530 --> 00:56:02.590 align:middle line:90% Much better at it. 00:56:02.590 --> 00:56:04.155 align:middle line:90% I haven't mastered it. 00:56:04.155 --> 00:56:08.070 align:middle line:90% I still get mad sometimes. 00:56:08.070 --> 00:56:13.230 align:middle line:84% The thing that's so aggravating about criticism is that I was 00:56:13.230 --> 00:56:16.980 align:middle line:84% reading with Louise Gluck-- which was a staggering honor 00:56:16.980 --> 00:56:17.970 align:middle line:90% for me-- 00:56:17.970 --> 00:56:21.210 align:middle line:84% at Houston a couple of years ago, a few years ago. 00:56:21.210 --> 00:56:23.700 align:middle line:90% And somebody brought this up. 00:56:23.700 --> 00:56:25.930 align:middle line:84% What do you think about reviewing. 00:56:25.930 --> 00:56:28.410 align:middle line:90% And I just said-- 00:56:28.410 --> 00:56:31.200 align:middle line:84% I knew they were bating me, and they were trying to get me to-- 00:56:31.200 --> 00:56:35.820 align:middle line:84% and I just said, oh, well, I believe that they don't 00:56:35.820 --> 00:56:38.020 align:middle line:90% read the books they review. 00:56:38.020 --> 00:56:40.390 align:middle line:84% It's absolutely clear to me, when 00:56:40.390 --> 00:56:43.060 align:middle line:84% I read a review of a book of mine, 00:56:43.060 --> 00:56:47.080 align:middle line:84% that the person has spent about 10 minutes leafing 00:56:47.080 --> 00:56:53.410 align:middle line:84% through the book and hasn't read maybe half or 3/4 of the poems. 00:56:53.410 --> 00:56:57.010 align:middle line:84% It's easy to tell because they will say something 00:56:57.010 --> 00:57:01.570 align:middle line:84% about your work that is completely contradicted by it 00:57:01.570 --> 00:57:03.670 align:middle line:84% later, in another part of the book, 00:57:03.670 --> 00:57:07.750 align:middle line:84% that you answer yourself, that you know yourself, and have 00:57:07.750 --> 00:57:09.070 align:middle line:90% already responded to. 00:57:09.070 --> 00:57:12.460 align:middle line:84% And they act like it's not there, 00:57:12.460 --> 00:57:14.860 align:middle line:90% because they haven't read it. 00:57:14.860 --> 00:57:16.090 align:middle line:90% And I can see that. 00:57:16.090 --> 00:57:19.000 align:middle line:84% If you were a reviewer, and you get all these books every 00:57:19.000 --> 00:57:22.360 align:middle line:84% month, and you have to write reviews, 00:57:22.360 --> 00:57:25.840 align:middle line:84% you're not going to spend-- you can't. 00:57:25.840 --> 00:57:28.480 align:middle line:84% You might not even know the person's work that well. 00:57:28.480 --> 00:57:31.660 align:middle line:90% 00:57:31.660 --> 00:57:33.760 align:middle line:90% Reviews are stupid. 00:57:33.760 --> 00:57:37.510 align:middle line:84% The good thing about them is that if you 00:57:37.510 --> 00:57:41.455 align:middle line:84% get a review in a prominent journal that a lot of people 00:57:41.455 --> 00:57:44.650 align:middle line:90% see, it sells books. 00:57:44.650 --> 00:57:46.900 align:middle line:84% If you get a review in The New York Times Book Review, 00:57:46.900 --> 00:57:48.910 align:middle line:90% you don't care. 00:57:48.910 --> 00:57:51.835 align:middle line:84% They can accuse you of murdering children. 00:57:51.835 --> 00:57:54.730 align:middle line:90% 00:57:54.730 --> 00:57:59.830 align:middle line:84% You go look at Amazon and on a Sunday morning or something 00:57:59.830 --> 00:58:01.810 align:middle line:84% when the New York Sun New York Times. 00:58:01.810 --> 00:58:02.470 align:middle line:90% It's happened. 00:58:02.470 --> 00:58:04.750 align:middle line:84% Because my every my editor told me, 00:58:04.750 --> 00:58:08.020 align:middle line:84% you're the only poet on our list right now 00:58:08.020 --> 00:58:10.960 align:middle line:84% who's every single one of your last four 00:58:10.960 --> 00:58:13.390 align:middle line:90% books is received a review-- 00:58:13.390 --> 00:58:16.435 align:middle line:84% a full-page review-- in The New York Times Book Review. 00:58:16.435 --> 00:58:20.035 align:middle line:90% 00:58:20.035 --> 00:58:22.180 align:middle line:90% They have those sales numbers. 00:58:22.180 --> 00:58:26.680 align:middle line:84% It'll be like 500,000, 200,000 and the higher the number 00:58:26.680 --> 00:58:29.238 align:middle line:84% means the worse the sales, and it goes down. 00:58:29.238 --> 00:58:31.030 align:middle line:84% The lower the number, the better the sales. 00:58:31.030 --> 00:58:33.070 align:middle line:90% And you can see it. 00:58:33.070 --> 00:58:38.260 align:middle line:90% It goes from 700,000 to 3,000. 00:58:38.260 --> 00:58:40.060 align:middle line:90% And it's like, whoa. 00:58:40.060 --> 00:58:43.780 align:middle line:84% You want to watch it all day, like the stock market. 00:58:43.780 --> 00:58:46.540 align:middle line:84% You want to take a picture of it. 00:58:46.540 --> 00:58:50.590 align:middle line:90% 00:58:50.590 --> 00:58:53.920 align:middle line:84% The day I won the Pulitzer Prize, it went to 200. 00:58:53.920 --> 00:58:56.680 align:middle line:90% Which is like novel stuff. 00:58:56.680 --> 00:59:00.240 align:middle line:90% 00:59:00.240 --> 00:59:04.620 align:middle line:84% A lot of things happen that really boost your egos. 00:59:04.620 --> 00:59:09.060 align:middle line:84% Like, they finally notice how wonderful I am. 00:59:09.060 --> 00:59:14.190 align:middle line:84% And then you got to deal with the other-- 00:59:14.190 --> 00:59:17.760 align:middle line:84% and I'm learning how not to respond. 00:59:17.760 --> 00:59:19.500 align:middle line:90% I didn't know. 00:59:19.500 --> 00:59:20.970 align:middle line:90% I had no practice. 00:59:20.970 --> 00:59:28.950 align:middle line:84% And I'm very, very easily wounded. 00:59:28.950 --> 00:59:31.530 align:middle line:90% It's a very thin skin. 00:59:31.530 --> 00:59:32.340 align:middle line:90% That was tough. 00:59:32.340 --> 00:59:38.170 align:middle line:90% 00:59:38.170 --> 00:59:42.790 align:middle line:84% Unfortunately, we're out of time, so we'll end there. 00:59:42.790 --> 00:59:43.900 align:middle line:90% Franz, thank you so much-- 00:59:43.900 --> 00:59:44.400 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:59:44.400 --> 00:59:46.600 align:middle line:84% --for your poetry, and your candor, 00:59:46.600 --> 00:59:48.340 align:middle line:90% and for coming to see us. 00:59:48.340 --> 00:59:48.860 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:59:48.860 --> 00:59:51.090 align:middle line:84% Let's give him another round of applause. 00:59:51.090 --> 00:59:53.000 align:middle line:90%