WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.460 align:middle line:84% I'm very honored to introduce Jennifer Lee 00:00:02.460 --> 00:00:07.680 align:middle line:90% Carrell as the next reader. 00:00:07.680 --> 00:00:11.220 align:middle line:84% Jennifer wanted to be an astronaut or a ballerina 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:14.550 align:middle line:90% when she was growing up. 00:00:14.550 --> 00:00:20.580 align:middle line:84% She went to Harvard and became a Shakespearean scholar, 00:00:20.580 --> 00:00:23.190 align:middle line:84% then she became a best-selling author. 00:00:23.190 --> 00:00:28.680 align:middle line:84% And one of her books has been translated into 28 languages. 00:00:28.680 --> 00:00:33.450 align:middle line:84% Well, I call that dancing on the moon. 00:00:33.450 --> 00:00:35.010 align:middle line:84% Please welcome Jennifer Lee Carrell. 00:00:35.010 --> 00:00:47.760 align:middle line:90% 00:00:47.760 --> 00:00:48.552 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Howard. 00:00:48.552 --> 00:00:51.790 align:middle line:90% 00:00:51.790 --> 00:00:55.060 align:middle line:84% Those of you who know my work, might be expecting 00:00:55.060 --> 00:00:57.190 align:middle line:90% me to read from Shakespeare. 00:00:57.190 --> 00:00:59.800 align:middle line:84% But I'm going to throw you a bit of a curveball 00:00:59.800 --> 00:01:04.060 align:middle line:84% and leap forward many centuries, whole centuries, although, 00:01:04.060 --> 00:01:07.660 align:middle line:84% not into this one, and read something 00:01:07.660 --> 00:01:10.690 align:middle line:84% by Alfred Lord Tennyson, who was one of Shakespeare's 00:01:10.690 --> 00:01:13.330 align:middle line:90% great followers in blank verse. 00:01:13.330 --> 00:01:16.830 align:middle line:84% This is an excerpt from "Ulysses." 00:01:16.830 --> 00:01:18.750 align:middle line:90% "I cannot rest from travel. 00:01:18.750 --> 00:01:22.420 align:middle line:84% I will drink life to the leaves All times 00:01:22.420 --> 00:01:25.320 align:middle line:84% I have enjoyed greatly, have suffered greatly, 00:01:25.320 --> 00:01:28.500 align:middle line:84% both with those that loved me, and alone-- 00:01:28.500 --> 00:01:31.110 align:middle line:84% on shore, and when through scudding drifts 00:01:31.110 --> 00:01:34.290 align:middle line:84% the rainy Hyades vexed the dim sea. 00:01:34.290 --> 00:01:36.030 align:middle line:90% I am become a name. 00:01:36.030 --> 00:01:38.400 align:middle line:84% For always roaming with a hungry heart, 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:40.770 align:middle line:90% much have I seen and known-- 00:01:40.770 --> 00:01:44.310 align:middle line:84% cities of men and manners, climates, councils, 00:01:44.310 --> 00:01:48.750 align:middle line:84% governments, myself not least, but honored of them all. 00:01:48.750 --> 00:01:51.510 align:middle line:84% And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 00:01:51.510 --> 00:01:55.080 align:middle line:84% far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 00:01:55.080 --> 00:01:57.510 align:middle line:84% I am a part of all that I have met, 00:01:57.510 --> 00:02:00.660 align:middle line:84% yet all experience is an arch wherethrough gleams 00:02:00.660 --> 00:02:04.470 align:middle line:84% that unraveled world, whose margin fades forever 00:02:04.470 --> 00:02:07.320 align:middle line:90% and forever when I move. 00:02:07.320 --> 00:02:13.200 align:middle line:84% How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, 00:02:13.200 --> 00:02:15.690 align:middle line:90% not to shine in use. 00:02:15.690 --> 00:02:18.060 align:middle line:90% As though to breathe for life. 00:02:18.060 --> 00:02:21.870 align:middle line:84% Life piled on life were all too little, and of one to me 00:02:21.870 --> 00:02:23.250 align:middle line:90% little remains. 00:02:23.250 --> 00:02:27.660 align:middle line:84% But every hour is saved from that eternal silence, something 00:02:27.660 --> 00:02:28.530 align:middle line:90% more-- 00:02:28.530 --> 00:02:30.420 align:middle line:90% a bringer of new things. 00:02:30.420 --> 00:02:35.160 align:middle line:84% And vile it were for some three sons to store and hoard myself. 00:02:35.160 --> 00:02:39.480 align:middle line:84% And this great spirit yearning and desire to follow knowledge 00:02:39.480 --> 00:02:46.090 align:middle line:84% like a sinking star beyond the utmost bound of human thought." 00:02:46.090 --> 00:02:49.390 align:middle line:84% Well, we're talking a little bit about what poetry means to us, 00:02:49.390 --> 00:02:54.190 align:middle line:84% and so I just tell you a little bit why I chose that one. 00:02:54.190 --> 00:02:55.870 align:middle line:84% When I first read it, I fell in love 00:02:55.870 --> 00:02:57.850 align:middle line:90% with it many, many years ago. 00:02:57.850 --> 00:03:00.260 align:middle line:84% And it did what I think great poems do. 00:03:00.260 --> 00:03:04.480 align:middle line:84% Its cadences wove their way deep into my consciousness, 00:03:04.480 --> 00:03:07.630 align:middle line:84% and it has become a kind of shaping 00:03:07.630 --> 00:03:11.980 align:middle line:84% force I guess to my very idea of what a life lived 00:03:11.980 --> 00:03:14.500 align:middle line:90% well and fully would be. 00:03:14.500 --> 00:03:19.160 align:middle line:84% So it's a poem that's very dear to my heart. 00:03:19.160 --> 00:03:22.640 align:middle line:84% I happen to love blank verse and its sort 00:03:22.640 --> 00:03:27.020 align:middle line:84% of amazing combination of infinite flexibility 00:03:27.020 --> 00:03:28.490 align:middle line:90% and demanding form. 00:03:28.490 --> 00:03:31.070 align:middle line:90% So I love that. 00:03:31.070 --> 00:03:35.360 align:middle line:84% Right now, it's also got an extra dimension to my life 00:03:35.360 --> 00:03:39.050 align:middle line:84% because poetry has all different kinds of uses. 00:03:39.050 --> 00:03:41.120 align:middle line:84% And this one right now is sitting on my desk 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:45.470 align:middle line:84% as I work on my next book, which is about the great 15th century 00:03:45.470 --> 00:03:46.617 align:middle line:90% artist Jan van Eyck. 00:03:46.617 --> 00:03:48.950 align:middle line:84% And you might say, what does he have to do with Ulysses? 00:03:48.950 --> 00:03:53.210 align:middle line:84% Well, you know, he's quite famous as an artist of a light 00:03:53.210 --> 00:03:54.980 align:middle line:90% and perspective and detail-- 00:03:54.980 --> 00:03:58.280 align:middle line:84% a great experimenter as the medieval period 00:03:58.280 --> 00:03:59.750 align:middle line:90% became the Renaissance. 00:03:59.750 --> 00:04:03.200 align:middle line:84% But what many people don't know is that he was also a spy, 00:04:03.200 --> 00:04:07.820 align:middle line:84% and he was paid exorbitant sums to travel to unnamed and secret 00:04:07.820 --> 00:04:08.960 align:middle line:90% locations. 00:04:08.960 --> 00:04:11.060 align:middle line:84% And in the historical record, there 00:04:11.060 --> 00:04:14.180 align:middle line:84% are hints that some of them lay at or just 00:04:14.180 --> 00:04:16.880 align:middle line:84% beyond the bounds of not human thought 00:04:16.880 --> 00:04:20.600 align:middle line:84% but at least what was comfortably known about Europe. 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:25.740 align:middle line:84% So, in my mind, at least in the way that I'm making him up, 00:04:25.740 --> 00:04:27.830 align:middle line:84% he is a kind of avatar of Ulysses. 00:04:27.830 --> 00:04:32.480 align:middle line:84% So I'm using this poem as I try to do my own kind 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:33.365 align:middle line:90% of creative writing. 00:04:33.365 --> 00:04:35.930 align:middle line:90% 00:04:35.930 --> 00:04:38.500 align:middle line:84% What I thought I'd read next is-- 00:04:38.500 --> 00:04:39.000 align:middle line:90%