WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.296 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.296 --> 00:00:04.190 align:middle line:90%
[INTERPOSING VOICES]

00:00:04.190 --> 00:00:06.450 align:middle line:90%


00:00:06.450 --> 00:00:08.790 align:middle line:84%
This is real close
up television.

00:00:08.790 --> 00:00:11.370 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:00:11.370 --> 00:00:12.990 align:middle line:84%
I want to make a
few announcements

00:00:12.990 --> 00:00:14.280 align:middle line:90%
before the reading.

00:00:14.280 --> 00:00:17.010 align:middle line:84%
Next Wednesday night
in this auditorium,

00:00:17.010 --> 00:00:18.690 align:middle line:84%
poet named Robert
Mezey will read,

00:00:18.690 --> 00:00:22.500 align:middle line:84%
that's Wednesday,
February 18 at 8:30.

00:00:22.500 --> 00:00:28.620 align:middle line:84%
The following week, I guess,
March 4th Wednesday, March 4th.

00:00:28.620 --> 00:00:31.410 align:middle line:84%
A New York poet by the name
of Charles Simic will read.

00:00:31.410 --> 00:00:34.050 align:middle line:90%


00:00:34.050 --> 00:00:38.580 align:middle line:84%
And tonight, we have
Mr. Jon Anderson.

00:00:38.580 --> 00:00:40.710 align:middle line:90%
Anderson is on a--

00:00:40.710 --> 00:00:45.540 align:middle line:84%
is here under the auspices of
the Southwest creative writing

00:00:45.540 --> 00:00:47.850 align:middle line:84%
project, which is
sponsored by the National

00:00:47.850 --> 00:00:49.440 align:middle line:90%
Endowment for the Arts.

00:00:49.440 --> 00:00:52.830 align:middle line:84%
Which means, he'll go
on a tour for two weeks

00:00:52.830 --> 00:00:55.560 align:middle line:84%
reading poetry to
high school students

00:00:55.560 --> 00:00:57.000 align:middle line:90%
all over the Southwest.

00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:00.600 align:middle line:84%
And new Claremont
asked me to give you

00:01:00.600 --> 00:01:02.790 align:middle line:84%
some of the names
of the people who'll

00:01:02.790 --> 00:01:05.730 align:middle line:84%
be reading on that program
because also read here

00:01:05.730 --> 00:01:06.670 align:middle line:90%
or most of them.

00:01:06.670 --> 00:01:11.850 align:middle line:84%
Charles Simic, Ruth Stone,
J.D. Reid, Jim Harrison,

00:01:11.850 --> 00:01:17.970 align:middle line:84%
William Meredith, W.S. Merwin,
Galway Kinnell, Peter Wild,

00:01:17.970 --> 00:01:19.200 align:middle line:90%
and Louise Glück.

00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:21.570 align:middle line:84%
This is over a 12
month period, so you'll

00:01:21.570 --> 00:01:22.890 align:middle line:90%
see announcements about it.

00:01:22.890 --> 00:01:26.340 align:middle line:90%


00:01:26.340 --> 00:01:27.090 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:01:27.090 --> 00:01:30.570 align:middle line:84%
Jon Anderson grew
up-- was born in 1940,

00:01:30.570 --> 00:01:33.270 align:middle line:84%
grew up in Massachusetts,
got a master's

00:01:33.270 --> 00:01:36.870 align:middle line:84%
of Fine Arts degree in poetry
from the writers workshop

00:01:36.870 --> 00:01:38.790 align:middle line:90%
at the University of Iowa.

00:01:38.790 --> 00:01:40.830 align:middle line:84%
Taught in the graduate
program there for a year

00:01:40.830 --> 00:01:42.780 align:middle line:84%
and has been teaching
in the last two years

00:01:42.780 --> 00:01:46.260 align:middle line:84%
at the University of
Portland in Portland, Oregon.

00:01:46.260 --> 00:01:49.680 align:middle line:84%
He has one out by the
University of Pittsburgh press

00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:52.260 align:middle line:84%
called Looking For
Jonathan, which

00:01:52.260 --> 00:01:57.000 align:middle line:84%
was the runner up in the United
States of America contest 1967.

00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:01.200 align:middle line:84%
He has another book coming
out in, I guess next fall

00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:06.285 align:middle line:84%
to be also by Pittsburgh to
be called, Death and Friends.

00:02:06.285 --> 00:02:09.120 align:middle line:90%


00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:10.979 align:middle line:84%
He's-- Jon's one
of my best friends,

00:02:10.979 --> 00:02:13.396 align:middle line:84%
so I don't really know what
to say about him or I have too

00:02:13.396 --> 00:02:13.980 align:middle line:90%
much to say.

00:02:13.980 --> 00:02:16.110 align:middle line:84%
He-- the only thing
I can think of

00:02:16.110 --> 00:02:19.770 align:middle line:84%
is that this latest book
from which he'll probably

00:02:19.770 --> 00:02:23.220 align:middle line:84%
read most of his
poems, the poems

00:02:23.220 --> 00:02:26.470 align:middle line:84%
are depressing I guess, that
most of them are about death.

00:02:26.470 --> 00:02:29.010 align:middle line:84%
And he said to me once
that he giving a reading I

00:02:29.010 --> 00:02:33.802 align:middle line:84%
think in Eugene, Oregon that he
apologized before the reading

00:02:33.802 --> 00:02:35.760 align:middle line:84%
because he didn't want
to depress the audience,

00:02:35.760 --> 00:02:38.860 align:middle line:84%
he was very hesitant
to read them.

00:02:38.860 --> 00:02:41.730 align:middle line:84%
But there's also a
great deal of compassion

00:02:41.730 --> 00:02:46.470 align:middle line:84%
in the poems, a open
honesty, and ultimately I

00:02:46.470 --> 00:02:50.370 align:middle line:90%
think a joy in that.

00:02:50.370 --> 00:02:53.624 align:middle line:90%
So I give you Jon Anderson.

00:02:53.624 --> 00:02:57.033 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:02:57.033 --> 00:03:03.380 align:middle line:90%


00:03:03.380 --> 00:03:05.840 align:middle line:84%
I'm not used to such large
audiences for poetry readings.

00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:12.772 align:middle line:90%


00:03:12.772 --> 00:03:14.480 align:middle line:84%
Which gives me confidence
because someone

00:03:14.480 --> 00:03:15.438 align:middle line:90%
is bound to be pleased.

00:03:15.438 --> 00:03:18.170 align:middle line:90%


00:03:18.170 --> 00:03:19.880 align:middle line:84%
I want to begin
with a poem, which

00:03:19.880 --> 00:03:24.565 align:middle line:84%
is completely different from
anything else that I'll read.

00:03:24.565 --> 00:03:25.940 align:middle line:84%
That I want to
dedicate to Steve,

00:03:25.940 --> 00:03:27.357 align:middle line:84%
because it's a
poem that comes out

00:03:27.357 --> 00:03:31.160 align:middle line:84%
of our common experience,
our almost common experience.

00:03:31.160 --> 00:03:34.970 align:middle line:84%
Steve worked one summer when he
was a student in the writers'

00:03:34.970 --> 00:03:38.930 align:middle line:84%
workshop up at the University
of Iowa for Hallmark cards,

00:03:38.930 --> 00:03:40.145 align:middle line:90%
writing greeting card verse--

00:03:40.145 --> 00:03:42.707 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:03:42.707 --> 00:03:44.540 align:middle line:84%
Which I guess nobody
knows about here, right

00:03:44.540 --> 00:03:47.865 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:03:47.865 --> 00:03:49.290 align:middle line:90%


00:03:49.290 --> 00:03:51.930 align:middle line:84%
But he was well paid
and reasonably happy

00:03:51.930 --> 00:03:54.077 align:middle line:84%
and he told me
confidentially that he

00:03:54.077 --> 00:03:56.160 align:middle line:84%
was pretty sure they had
not used any of the verse

00:03:56.160 --> 00:03:56.820 align:middle line:90%
that he wrote.

00:03:56.820 --> 00:03:58.620 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:03:58.620 --> 00:04:01.590 align:middle line:84%
So I thought when the
next summer came along

00:04:01.590 --> 00:04:04.350 align:middle line:84%
that I would try to get a
job there too, but both of us

00:04:04.350 --> 00:04:09.300 align:middle line:84%
had-- had won prizes in
their [? Palma ?] contest

00:04:09.300 --> 00:04:10.407 align:middle line:90%
that they won every year.

00:04:10.407 --> 00:04:12.990 align:middle line:84%
And I'd won it for two years in
a row, so I was very confident

00:04:12.990 --> 00:04:14.610 align:middle line:84%
and thought I was
a shoo-in for it.

00:04:14.610 --> 00:04:19.620 align:middle line:84%
But to my surprise, they
sent me up a writing test

00:04:19.620 --> 00:04:22.980 align:middle line:84%
to see how fit I was for
writing greeting card verse.

00:04:22.980 --> 00:04:26.940 align:middle line:84%
And the upshot of it was,
I did not get the job.

00:04:26.940 --> 00:04:29.160 align:middle line:84%
And discovered that
writing greeting card verse

00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:32.380 align:middle line:84%
has an aesthetic of its
own, which I did not really

00:04:32.380 --> 00:04:32.880 align:middle line:90%
understand.

00:04:32.880 --> 00:04:34.680 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:04:34.680 --> 00:04:38.220 align:middle line:84%
For instance, I was directed
as a part of the test

00:04:38.220 --> 00:04:42.360 align:middle line:84%
to write a poem, a
birthday poem for a child.

00:04:42.360 --> 00:04:44.370 align:middle line:84%
And I wrote the poem and
after I'd sent it off,

00:04:44.370 --> 00:04:47.340 align:middle line:84%
I showed it to a friend
and he pointed out to me

00:04:47.340 --> 00:04:48.810 align:middle line:84%
that the theme of
this poem seemed

00:04:48.810 --> 00:04:50.970 align:middle line:84%
to be that it was
unnatural to grow older.

00:04:50.970 --> 00:04:54.428 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:04:54.428 --> 00:04:55.910 align:middle line:90%


00:04:55.910 --> 00:04:59.060 align:middle line:84%
I hadn't written any rhymed
verse for a long time,

00:04:59.060 --> 00:05:00.800 align:middle line:84%
the demands of it
was such-- well,

00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:05.270 align:middle line:84%
this same friend was very amused
by another one of the poems

00:05:05.270 --> 00:05:09.560 align:middle line:84%
that I wrote for this test
and he copied it down,

00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:13.700 align:middle line:84%
and we had a falling out
recently, and he sent it to me.

00:05:13.700 --> 00:05:17.050 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]