WEBVTT

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We've asked Joel Arthur
to introduce Dan.

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Some of you were at Joel's
shoptalk on Dan Beachy-Quick

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last week.

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Joel is a graduate
of the MFA program,

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a good friend of the center.

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He's a front desk volunteer.

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And welcome him to the podium.

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[APPLAUSE]

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I think Gail and I are
of similar heights.

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Maybe not.

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Is this good?

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From 2003 to 2009,
Dan Beachy-Quick

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has published four books
of verse, North True South

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Bright, Spell, Mulberry, and
his latest, This Nest, Swift

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Passerine.

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This is in addition
to his book of essays,

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the Whaler's
Dictionary, which was

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part of the process I
believe for his second book

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Spell, which takes
as its inspiration

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the text of Moby Dick.

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So what we're working
with today is a poet

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who works with found text.

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This poet has
found another text,

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voices who seek to contextualize
one's relative relationship

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between what I can see
is the inherent symbolism

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of natural elements
and the repercussions

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of our interactions
with these elements.

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Green, rose, worms,
oil, various birds

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are used to challenge our
awareness of our interactions

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within these interactions.

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The idea of being aware
of the process we're

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in while we're aware
of it is mostly

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applied to human discourse
and human interactions.

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However, Dan Beachy-Quick
wants to enliven our dialogue

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with the nature and urges
us to be aware of how we're

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interacting it in the context.

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We are treated to this as
readers as the poet moves

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from image to image, not from
cause to effect necessarily

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or from if to then,
but from images

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that what some would call
map out the life of the mind.

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A postmodern mind?

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I was asked this--
is he postmodern?

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I'd have to know the
definition, wouldn't I?

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Is he a romantic?

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I'd probably have to
know the definition.

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When we say postmodern, we
think of the idea of process

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more than the solution.

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We think of the
answers are never

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coming, because they're
never supposed to.

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We're always engaged in it.

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Romantic, because perhaps
some people seen as work

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a affection for the
intuitive over the pragmatic,

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over the theoretical, over
the abstractions of rhetoric

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and some of the language that
we get to probe our psyche.

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We get this through images.

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But if this helps,
we are not only

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invited to participate in
the intimacy of one's dynamic

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within a natural
environment, but also

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to participate in the ethereal
space created by its effects.

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We get tropes throughout
his collections

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of Spell, light, dark, and
the metaphysical record

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keeping many have attempted.

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In these found texts that
Dan Beachy-Quick has used

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he often selects
precolonial works.

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Works of, for example,
Thomas Harriot of 1588.

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His document, I believe,
A Brief Something

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of the New Found Land.

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It seems to have skipped
my page in my mind.

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But the reason I
find this so exciting

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is because he uses text
in which people are

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exploring their environment.

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And through that he
has found his own way

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to explore his context.

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So not only does the idea of
metaphysical record keeping

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becomes important.

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But this recording of events
becomes increasingly important

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as tropes associated to
the materials of writing

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begin to occur
throughout his work, ink,

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blank pages, the
importance of one's

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writing papers and utensils.

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With that being said, I
won't keep this too long,

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because I'm excited to
hear him more than me.

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But I would like
to read a selection

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of a poem that meant a lot
to me when I first read it.

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In fact, it meant so much to me.

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I decided I only
wanted to buy this book

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at the right bookstore.

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And I waited until I
went to San Francisco,

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was about three months.

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In hindsight I lost three
months of great poetry.

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But at the time, it
seemed like a great idea.

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This is from Mulberry.

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And the inspiration
for this text

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was William Byrd
II's The Secret Diary

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of William Byrd of
Westover 1790-1720.

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"With ink my red lips blush
more red outward unsaid.

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Words I will not say.

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The darkly, I must write."

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With that I humbly
introduce Dan Beachy-Quick.

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