WEBVTT

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Thank you, Mei-mei.

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So the authors will
take some questions now.

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We have a mic, which
I can pass around.

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So if you have questions
for the authors.

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This question is
directed for Alice.

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As you were reading,
I was really

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drawn to the quickness
of your delivery,

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particularly in the first
piece that you read,

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which seemed to create
this sort of heightened

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sense of emotional urgency.

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And I wonder for
those readers who

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are picking up your work
for the first time who

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aren't in this sort
of intimate arena

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in which the rich aural
qualities of your work

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come across, if you
intend for them to have

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the same experience of speed.

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Does it matter how
the work is read?

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And what sort of visual cues
do you rely on, typographical

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or spatial, to sort of
create that sense of pacing?

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What you need to do
is look at the book.

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It's a very particular book.

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And it's arranged in
a very particular way.

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The words are very
close together.

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And I think you're forced
to read it fast on the page.

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I don't know if you
would necessarily

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feel the same kinds of
emotion that I was conveying.

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And I don't know
if I would convey

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the same ones every single
time because it makes--

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each performance is different.

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And different kinds of
shapes get made every time.

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But in this book--

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this book is trying to replicate
the mind in action, partly.

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And partly, it's being something
like a Byzantine church

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with mosaics and icons in it.

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And the words break apart
because they're like pieces.

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They're like pieces--
they're like mosaic pieces.

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And the conception
is very intricate.

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But it's a particular book.

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It's a special book.

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And you have to look at the
book to find out what I'm doing.

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Does that answer it?

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I have a question for Alice
and a question for Mei-mei.

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Alice, I'm wondering if you
would talk about your writing

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process.

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I certainly experienced
your poems as, as you say,

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replicating the mind in action.

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And it's so interesting
to try to wonder about--

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it feels as though your
writing is the mind in action

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and there is no
replication involved.

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So I just wonder
how-- if you can talk

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about my experience of writing.

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You can't do the mind.

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You always end up making art.

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And that was what I did.

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And prosody takes over,
some form of prosody.

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And you and you're inside that.

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And I'm not sure the
mind has that at all.

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But on the other hand, I
don't know what the mind is.

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And I don't know
what writing is.

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And they're not very
separate from each other

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when you're the mind
doing the writing.

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I wrote very, very--

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it was composed on the computer.

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I wrote it very fast.

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I was wondering about the pace.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I started with a dream
image, usually, and then

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and wrote very fast,
as fast as I could.

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And then that was one day.

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And then the next
day I would shape it.

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And it's in stanzaic shapes
based on the number six,

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which is the magic number
for the Byzantines.

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OK.

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Good to know.

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Thank you.

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You're welcome.

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And Mei-mei, I
noted that when you

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introduced your poems
after the first one,

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you said they get rougher.

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And I cannot say that I
experienced them as rough

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at all.

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So I was curious about
what you meant by that.

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Well, if you saw--

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the first one is really
is finished when I read.

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Oh, that kind of rough.

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OK, go--

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The other two, I was still--

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I use radiant too much and
the and things like that.

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And so those are
things that I hope

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would get a little lighter
touch as the poem is finished.

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Well, for what it's
worth, not bad.

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This is a question for Mei-mei.

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Are the plants talking to you
more now as you listen to them?

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Well, yes.

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And I share this with Lainey,
that there's a process.

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There are books about it.

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And it's a process.

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But after a while
the whole process--

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the process of communicating
with your plant

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is internalized.

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So it can happen at any time.

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And you don't have
to be together.

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And I suppose that's true
of all who communicate.

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Yeah.

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More questions?

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No?

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