WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.500 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.500 --> 00:00:03.840 align:middle line:84% Well I want to welcome everyone to the Helena Schaefer 00:00:03.840 --> 00:00:05.040 align:middle line:90% building. 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:07.890 align:middle line:84% This is home of the Poetry Center in the Humanities 00:00:07.890 --> 00:00:09.120 align:middle line:90% Seminars Program. 00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:12.228 align:middle line:84% I'm Gail Brown, Executive Director of the Poetry Center. 00:00:12.228 --> 00:00:13.770 align:middle line:84% I see we get another group coming in, 00:00:13.770 --> 00:00:15.603 align:middle line:84% so I'm just going to pause here for a second 00:00:15.603 --> 00:00:18.540 align:middle line:84% and resume in a minute, while these folks get seated. 00:00:18.540 --> 00:00:21.810 align:middle line:84% It's really gratifying to see so many different groups of people 00:00:21.810 --> 00:00:24.630 align:middle line:84% in the audience tonight, this afternoon rather. 00:00:24.630 --> 00:00:28.860 align:middle line:84% We have students, former students, faculty, 00:00:28.860 --> 00:00:30.630 align:middle line:84% I think maybe not just from English 00:00:30.630 --> 00:00:32.820 align:middle line:84% but from some other departments across the College 00:00:32.820 --> 00:00:36.930 align:middle line:84% of Humanities, and of course, our friends and patrons 00:00:36.930 --> 00:00:40.950 align:middle line:84% of the Poetry Center, it's nice to see you all here. 00:00:40.950 --> 00:00:42.180 align:middle line:90% And what? 00:00:42.180 --> 00:00:43.590 align:middle line:90% Old folks. 00:00:43.590 --> 00:00:46.920 align:middle line:84% I didn't say that Liz, didn't come out of my mouth. 00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:49.200 align:middle line:84% You all should have bio sheets, they're 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:52.140 align:middle line:84% sort of more formal biographies, our panelists are here. 00:00:52.140 --> 00:00:54.120 align:middle line:84% This is a first of a series of events 00:00:54.120 --> 00:00:58.840 align:middle line:84% we hope to do with faculty from the creative writing program. 00:00:58.840 --> 00:00:59.770 align:middle line:90% So let's get started. 00:00:59.770 --> 00:01:01.830 align:middle line:84% We have a nice program and let's get going. 00:01:01.830 --> 00:01:06.330 align:middle line:90% 00:01:06.330 --> 00:01:11.370 align:middle line:84% "Once You've Settled Yourselves Like Books About You" 00:01:11.370 --> 00:01:14.400 align:middle line:84% is a title from a poem by Barbara Cully, in her book 00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:15.870 align:middle line:90% The New Intimacy. 00:01:15.870 --> 00:01:17.670 align:middle line:84% I have a feeling she may have had 00:01:17.670 --> 00:01:22.530 align:middle line:84% these words in mind, when she suggested today's panel to me. 00:01:22.530 --> 00:01:24.870 align:middle line:84% Our conversations over the years have often 00:01:24.870 --> 00:01:28.500 align:middle line:84% touched on the subject of identities, the writer 00:01:28.500 --> 00:01:33.930 align:middle line:84% self, the teacher self, the self as citizen of the world, 00:01:33.930 --> 00:01:35.940 align:middle line:84% and the different types of engagement 00:01:35.940 --> 00:01:39.120 align:middle line:90% those identities elicit from us. 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:43.380 align:middle line:84% So a life in letters is in Barbara's mind, 00:01:43.380 --> 00:01:46.470 align:middle line:84% and in mine, an opportunity for students 00:01:46.470 --> 00:01:50.550 align:middle line:84% to learn more about the work and working lives of their teachers 00:01:50.550 --> 00:01:53.850 align:middle line:84% and mentors, and for our various communities 00:01:53.850 --> 00:01:56.850 align:middle line:84% to engage with the poets they have read 00:01:56.850 --> 00:01:59.310 align:middle line:90% and admired for years. 00:01:59.310 --> 00:02:03.135 align:middle line:84% So please do gather yourself like books about you, 00:02:03.135 --> 00:02:08.070 align:middle line:84% and welcome poet, lecturer, teacher, Poetry Center Advisory 00:02:08.070 --> 00:02:10.590 align:middle line:84% Board Member and friend Barbara Cully. 00:02:10.590 --> 00:02:16.530 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:16.530 --> 00:02:17.940 align:middle line:90% Thank you Gail. 00:02:17.940 --> 00:02:21.790 align:middle line:84% Thank you everyone for being here. 00:02:21.790 --> 00:02:24.820 align:middle line:84% Our illustrious panel of poets will 00:02:24.820 --> 00:02:29.660 align:middle line:84% be introduced by some of their former students. 00:02:29.660 --> 00:02:35.340 align:middle line:84% Simmons Button will introduce Alison Deming. 00:02:35.340 --> 00:02:37.890 align:middle line:90% And, needs a microphone. 00:02:37.890 --> 00:02:40.555 align:middle line:90% 00:02:40.555 --> 00:02:42.930 align:middle line:84% And we're just doing this from the audience I understand, 00:02:42.930 --> 00:02:47.160 align:middle line:84% so should I sneak back over here, maybe I'll stand up. 00:02:47.160 --> 00:02:47.660 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:02:47.660 --> 00:02:51.060 align:middle line:84% I'm Simmons, and I would like to direct you 00:02:51.060 --> 00:02:55.133 align:middle line:84% this afternoon to the virtual Alison Hawthorne Deming. 00:02:55.133 --> 00:02:57.300 align:middle line:84% That's an Alison I'm very familiar with because I've 00:02:57.300 --> 00:02:59.100 align:middle line:90% helped in crafting her website. 00:02:59.100 --> 00:03:00.580 align:middle line:84% And if you've been to a website-- 00:03:00.580 --> 00:03:03.060 align:middle line:84% which is @alisonhawthornedeming.com-- 00:03:03.060 --> 00:03:05.400 align:middle line:84% you will find that there are a series of quotes that 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:08.760 align:middle line:84% rotate on the home page, and I'd like to just read 00:03:08.760 --> 00:03:10.860 align:middle line:90% real briefly from one of those. 00:03:10.860 --> 00:03:14.070 align:middle line:84% What it takes to dazzle us, masters of dazzle. 00:03:14.070 --> 00:03:16.800 align:middle line:84% All of us here together at the top of the world, 00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:20.880 align:middle line:84% is a night without neon or mercury lamps. 00:03:20.880 --> 00:03:24.040 align:middle line:84% Respectfully to Alison, I disagree. 00:03:24.040 --> 00:03:25.920 align:middle line:84% I think what it takes to dazzle us 00:03:25.920 --> 00:03:29.280 align:middle line:84% is an outstanding teacher, an excellent writer, 00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:31.420 align:middle line:90% and an amazing person. 00:03:31.420 --> 00:03:34.860 align:middle line:84% And I have been dazzled by Alison really since I first 00:03:34.860 --> 00:03:36.870 align:middle line:84% met her several years ago, when we 00:03:36.870 --> 00:03:39.428 align:middle line:90% met to discuss the MFA program. 00:03:39.428 --> 00:03:41.220 align:middle line:84% And I was trying to decide whether I should 00:03:41.220 --> 00:03:43.470 align:middle line:90% apply to poetry or nonfiction. 00:03:43.470 --> 00:03:45.000 align:middle line:84% I'd already met with Steve, but I 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:47.730 align:middle line:84% wanted to really talk about content versus form 00:03:47.730 --> 00:03:49.150 align:middle line:90% and a few other things. 00:03:49.150 --> 00:03:53.280 align:middle line:84% And I'll tell you again, I was dazzled from the beginning. 00:03:53.280 --> 00:03:57.060 align:middle line:84% When I entered the MFA program, and I worked with Alison both 00:03:57.060 --> 00:04:01.380 align:middle line:84% in nonfiction and poetry, I became further dazzled, 00:04:01.380 --> 00:04:05.540 align:middle line:84% further enamored, sorry-- you see I can't even talk about 00:04:05.540 --> 00:04:06.040 align:middle line:90% it-- 00:04:06.040 --> 00:04:08.760 align:middle line:84% I've been so dazzled, so enamored, 00:04:08.760 --> 00:04:15.000 align:middle line:84% that my wife got a little bit nervous actually. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:16.570 align:middle line:84% She sort of approached me point blank 00:04:16.570 --> 00:04:18.028 align:middle line:84% and said, "Is this something that I 00:04:18.028 --> 00:04:19.829 align:middle line:90% need to be worried about?" 00:04:19.829 --> 00:04:25.030 align:middle line:84% She had not yet met Alison in fact, and I said, "Well, 00:04:25.030 --> 00:04:26.810 align:middle line:84% I understand what your concern is." 00:04:26.810 --> 00:04:29.310 align:middle line:84% and not long after fortunately, we had a potluck at our home 00:04:29.310 --> 00:04:31.320 align:middle line:84% and Alison and many other folks came over. 00:04:31.320 --> 00:04:33.720 align:middle line:84% And she said, "OK, I completely understand 00:04:33.720 --> 00:04:35.610 align:middle line:84% why you are so exuberant about Alison, 00:04:35.610 --> 00:04:38.260 align:middle line:84% because she is just such a wonderful person." 00:04:38.260 --> 00:04:42.480 align:middle line:84% And, there are a few people I think who have such an energy, 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:43.600 align:middle line:90% such a passion. 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:47.130 align:middle line:84% I mean, Alison and these people are every bit as mortal 00:04:47.130 --> 00:04:51.330 align:middle line:84% as the rest of us and yet, when you're around them, 00:04:51.330 --> 00:04:56.190 align:middle line:84% they lift you up and it's kind of a wild, kind of a dizzying, 00:04:56.190 --> 00:04:58.530 align:middle line:84% but yet, still a delightful rhyme. 00:04:58.530 --> 00:05:00.780 align:middle line:84% And Alison is one of those people, 00:05:00.780 --> 00:05:02.340 align:middle line:84% it's evident in her poetry but more 00:05:02.340 --> 00:05:05.220 align:middle line:84% so I think in her personality, whether in the classroom 00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:06.280 align:middle line:90% or not. 00:05:06.280 --> 00:05:08.760 align:middle line:84% So, I don't think I could ask for anything more 00:05:08.760 --> 00:05:10.200 align:middle line:90% than to be dazzled. 00:05:10.200 --> 00:05:13.240 align:middle line:84% I certainly couldn't have hoped for more than a teacher, 00:05:13.240 --> 00:05:17.220 align:middle line:84% a mentor, and a friend, than what Allison gives. 00:05:17.220 --> 00:05:19.650 align:middle line:84% And so, I expect when we hear from her today, 00:05:19.650 --> 00:05:22.200 align:middle line:90% we all too will be dazzled. 00:05:22.200 --> 00:05:24.060 align:middle line:84% So really, it's my pleasure to introduce 00:05:24.060 --> 00:05:27.660 align:middle line:84% the wonderful, the inspiring, and of course, dazzling 00:05:27.660 --> 00:05:29.546 align:middle line:90% Alison Hawthorne Deming. 00:05:29.546 --> 00:05:37.162 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:37.162 --> 00:05:43.310 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:05:43.310 --> 00:05:45.800 align:middle line:90% Goes green, I'm so sorry. 00:05:45.800 --> 00:05:47.930 align:middle line:90% Do I have to start over? 00:05:47.930 --> 00:05:49.920 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:05:49.920 --> 00:05:51.920 align:middle line:84% Sorry to just ruin the whole moment, sorry Jane. 00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:52.420 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:05:52.420 --> 00:05:55.080 align:middle line:90% 00:05:55.080 --> 00:05:55.580 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:05:55.580 --> 00:05:59.630 align:middle line:84% So, "Coachella Valley Palm Trees" you guys got it, OK. 00:05:59.630 --> 00:06:01.640 align:middle line:84% So the trees are like big furry monsters 00:06:01.640 --> 00:06:03.560 align:middle line:84% from your childhood, the cuddly kind, 00:06:03.560 --> 00:06:06.140 align:middle line:84% and after walking around a bit hidden from the sun 00:06:06.140 --> 00:06:09.170 align:middle line:84% by this huge palm nest, you ultimately drive 00:06:09.170 --> 00:06:12.350 align:middle line:84% or hike back to where you came from, back into the aridness. 00:06:12.350 --> 00:06:14.390 align:middle line:84% And you were invigorated by this apparition 00:06:14.390 --> 00:06:17.900 align:middle line:84% of life, this entrancing important fissure in the earth 00:06:17.900 --> 00:06:21.260 align:middle line:84% that created some wondrous oasis. 00:06:21.260 --> 00:06:25.917 align:middle line:84% Jane, has the same effect for me, like the oasis, 00:06:25.917 --> 00:06:28.250 align:middle line:84% it's hard to tell if Jane is truly there in front of you 00:06:28.250 --> 00:06:29.300 align:middle line:90% at the time. 00:06:29.300 --> 00:06:35.090 align:middle line:84% Only later, do you know some peace has been put into motion, 00:06:35.090 --> 00:06:37.040 align:middle line:90% the fault is shifted. 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:39.570 align:middle line:84% When I was in my first semester as an MFA student, 00:06:39.570 --> 00:06:41.600 align:middle line:84% I felt like Jane was going to cut my head off, 00:06:41.600 --> 00:06:45.695 align:middle line:84% and hand it back to me with the big dark truth, and of course, 00:06:45.695 --> 00:06:46.820 align:middle line:90% what the hell is the truth? 00:06:46.820 --> 00:06:48.530 align:middle line:90% But it felt fantastic. 00:06:48.530 --> 00:06:52.460 align:middle line:84% And so, lucky am I to have Jane as teacher, mentor, reader, 00:06:52.460 --> 00:06:53.540 align:middle line:90% confidante. 00:06:53.540 --> 00:06:56.540 align:middle line:84% She cultivates presence like no one else. 00:06:56.540 --> 00:06:58.790 align:middle line:84% I want to share a quote from one of Jane's interviews, 00:06:58.790 --> 00:07:02.060 align:middle line:84% it reads, "Really, writers are still 00:07:02.060 --> 00:07:04.340 align:middle line:90% at that primal confrontation. 00:07:04.340 --> 00:07:06.590 align:middle line:84% What is this body I am dealing with? 00:07:06.590 --> 00:07:09.740 align:middle line:84% Where in the vast emotional immature self, 00:07:09.740 --> 00:07:12.080 align:middle line:84% is the one unsentimental deed that 00:07:12.080 --> 00:07:15.320 align:middle line:84% will access language of great refinement? 00:07:15.320 --> 00:07:19.280 align:middle line:84% Yes, these are the questions, and here is the fault line." 00:07:19.280 --> 00:07:21.140 align:middle line:90% Everyone, Jane Miller. 00:07:21.140 --> 00:07:27.390 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:07:27.390 --> 00:07:29.655 align:middle line:84% Think Clifford will introduce Steve Boylan. 00:07:29.655 --> 00:07:36.130 align:middle line:90% 00:07:36.130 --> 00:07:37.540 align:middle line:90% I'm still here Steve. 00:07:37.540 --> 00:07:39.340 align:middle line:90% Good afternoon. 00:07:39.340 --> 00:07:42.580 align:middle line:84% I spent a lot of years not understanding my father. 00:07:42.580 --> 00:07:45.580 align:middle line:84% He was hardworking to the point of absence, 00:07:45.580 --> 00:07:49.960 align:middle line:84% brooding, quick to anger, but every now and then, 00:07:49.960 --> 00:07:53.290 align:middle line:84% usually after a drink or two, he would sit my brother 00:07:53.290 --> 00:07:54.910 align:middle line:84% and me down at the dining room table 00:07:54.910 --> 00:07:57.490 align:middle line:84% and tell us stories of his childhood. 00:07:57.490 --> 00:08:00.400 align:middle line:84% Some careening narratives starring young country boys 00:08:00.400 --> 00:08:05.020 align:middle line:84% long since dead, and the mischief they caused. 00:08:05.020 --> 00:08:07.900 align:middle line:84% And my father would often stop, laugh to himself 00:08:07.900 --> 00:08:10.900 align:middle line:84% as if coming to terms with something he had forgotten, 00:08:10.900 --> 00:08:15.520 align:middle line:84% then take another drink and continue to confuse us. 00:08:15.520 --> 00:08:17.650 align:middle line:84% I didn't understand Steve when I first met him 00:08:17.650 --> 00:08:21.760 align:middle line:90% either, but over the years-- 00:08:21.760 --> 00:08:23.345 align:middle line:84% over the years of reading his poetry 00:08:23.345 --> 00:08:24.970 align:middle line:84% and occasionally being fortunate enough 00:08:24.970 --> 00:08:27.940 align:middle line:84% to sit down with him over a drink, 00:08:27.940 --> 00:08:31.270 align:middle line:84% he has taught me how to be more patient reader, and a more 00:08:31.270 --> 00:08:32.980 align:middle line:90% patient listener. 00:08:32.980 --> 00:08:39.280 align:middle line:84% His poetry is at times blunt, wry, sad, but always beautiful 00:08:39.280 --> 00:08:42.940 align:middle line:84% in its ability to place you in the midst of several emotions 00:08:42.940 --> 00:08:44.230 align:middle line:90% at once. 00:08:44.230 --> 00:08:48.640 align:middle line:84% Steve is one of the few poets that pisses me off, and awes, 00:08:48.640 --> 00:08:53.960 align:middle line:84% and humbles me, in the space of a few well-crafted lines. 00:08:53.960 --> 00:08:56.660 align:middle line:84% His poetry forces you to be patient, 00:08:56.660 --> 00:08:59.360 align:middle line:84% not to give you answers, but questions 00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:02.300 align:middle line:84% that help you navigate you through your own experiences 00:09:02.300 --> 00:09:03.590 align:middle line:90% in the world. 00:09:03.590 --> 00:09:05.180 align:middle line:84% Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Orlen. 00:09:05.180 --> 00:09:17.410 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:09:17.410 --> 00:09:19.000 align:middle line:90% Can you hear me all right? 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:20.230 align:middle line:90% Excellent. 00:09:20.230 --> 00:09:23.210 align:middle line:84% I've had the pleasure of knowing Boyer Rickel for several years 00:09:23.210 --> 00:09:23.710 align:middle line:90% now. 00:09:23.710 --> 00:09:26.770 align:middle line:84% Initially as his student, and the MFA program as someone 00:09:26.770 --> 00:09:29.800 align:middle line:84% he invited to co-teach an undergraduate class, 00:09:29.800 --> 00:09:32.080 align:middle line:90% and then as his friend. 00:09:32.080 --> 00:09:34.120 align:middle line:84% As his student in the graduate program, 00:09:34.120 --> 00:09:36.370 align:middle line:84% I quickly learned that Boyer is immensely 00:09:36.370 --> 00:09:39.710 align:middle line:84% attuned to the cadence and music of a piece of writing. 00:09:39.710 --> 00:09:41.680 align:middle line:84% He has an incredible ear for sound, 00:09:41.680 --> 00:09:44.440 align:middle line:84% the most developed and focused of anyone I've met. 00:09:44.440 --> 00:09:48.040 align:middle line:84% And he helps develop that ear in everyone he works with. 00:09:48.040 --> 00:09:50.500 align:middle line:84% I later learned that his parents taught music, clearly 00:09:50.500 --> 00:09:52.450 align:middle line:84% a contributing factor to his awareness 00:09:52.450 --> 00:09:55.120 align:middle line:90% of the music and language. 00:09:55.120 --> 00:09:58.330 align:middle line:84% Boyer is precise, careful, and a meticulous writer, 00:09:58.330 --> 00:10:00.760 align:middle line:84% who often uses discipline processes, 00:10:00.760 --> 00:10:04.090 align:middle line:84% repeated over time to produce and craft his writing. 00:10:04.090 --> 00:10:06.820 align:middle line:84% This practice has produced-- among his other works-- 00:10:06.820 --> 00:10:09.580 align:middle line:84% Remanence which is a gorgeously lyric and meditative 00:10:09.580 --> 00:10:13.120 align:middle line:84% book of poetry, that offers much to come back to time and time 00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:14.320 align:middle line:90% again. 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:16.660 align:middle line:84% He is a detailed and insightful reader, 00:10:16.660 --> 00:10:20.350 align:middle line:84% who is both gracious and liberal with his feedback. 00:10:20.350 --> 00:10:24.260 align:middle line:84% Boyer is also a caring, genuine, and wonderful human being. 00:10:24.260 --> 00:10:27.550 align:middle line:84% He's immensely generous in both his mentorship, and teaching, 00:10:27.550 --> 00:10:29.380 align:middle line:90% and in his friendship. 00:10:29.380 --> 00:10:31.270 align:middle line:84% There are many of us in this room today 00:10:31.270 --> 00:10:34.720 align:middle line:84% who count him as an integral part of our writing community. 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:36.670 align:middle line:84% We're extremely blessed to have him 00:10:36.670 --> 00:10:38.440 align:middle line:84% here affiliated with the university, 00:10:38.440 --> 00:10:40.240 align:middle line:84% and our creative writing program. 00:10:40.240 --> 00:10:42.040 align:middle line:84% It's my absolute pleasure and honor 00:10:42.040 --> 00:10:43.480 align:middle line:90% to introduce Boyer Rickel. 00:10:43.480 --> 00:10:56.290 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:10:56.290 --> 00:10:59.050 align:middle line:84% When asked what poetry is, Dillon Thomas 00:10:59.050 --> 00:11:03.340 align:middle line:84% replied that a poem is like a city having many entrances. 00:11:03.340 --> 00:11:08.620 align:middle line:84% Poetry is the apex of culture, the spire of civilisations, 00:11:08.620 --> 00:11:13.180 align:middle line:84% the scalpel of emotion, and the anvil of thought, 00:11:13.180 --> 00:11:17.665 align:middle line:84% whispering and bellowing the unsayable with mere words. 00:11:17.665 --> 00:11:21.520 align:middle line:90% 00:11:21.520 --> 00:11:24.550 align:middle line:84% I'm going to add another quote, one that you 00:11:24.550 --> 00:11:27.010 align:middle line:90% might be familiar with. 00:11:27.010 --> 00:11:30.100 align:middle line:84% "The distinction between the personal and the political 00:11:30.100 --> 00:11:34.480 align:middle line:84% gives the political realm too much and too little scope. 00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:38.050 align:middle line:84% At the same time, it renders the personal too important 00:11:38.050 --> 00:11:40.670 align:middle line:90% and not important enough. 00:11:40.670 --> 00:11:43.510 align:middle line:84% We need a third term, one that can describe 00:11:43.510 --> 00:11:46.240 align:middle line:84% the space between the state and the supposedly 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:52.492 align:middle line:84% safe havens of the personal, let us call this space The Social. 00:11:52.492 --> 00:11:55.180 align:middle line:84% The Social is a place of struggle 00:11:55.180 --> 00:11:59.410 align:middle line:84% where books are published, courses are taught, 00:11:59.410 --> 00:12:03.040 align:middle line:90% and poems disseminated. 00:12:03.040 --> 00:12:05.290 align:middle line:90% It is a sphere in which." 00:12:05.290 --> 00:12:06.430 align:middle line:90% end quote. 00:12:06.430 --> 00:12:09.550 align:middle line:90% And that's from Carolyn Forché. 00:12:09.550 --> 00:12:14.560 align:middle line:84% A sphere in which we, this building, and this conversation 00:12:14.560 --> 00:12:15.060 align:middle line:90% reside. 00:12:15.060 --> 00:12:17.730 align:middle line:90% 00:12:17.730 --> 00:12:20.580 align:middle line:84% This panel was inspired with MFA students 00:12:20.580 --> 00:12:23.520 align:middle line:84% in mind, because they sought you out, 00:12:23.520 --> 00:12:25.500 align:middle line:84% they crossed rivers and mountains 00:12:25.500 --> 00:12:32.410 align:middle line:84% to study at your feet, but the audience is everyone. 00:12:32.410 --> 00:12:36.880 align:middle line:84% Does poetry matter to the world and in it? 00:12:36.880 --> 00:12:40.060 align:middle line:84% This is as much a question for us, the audience, 00:12:40.060 --> 00:12:45.170 align:middle line:84% as it is for our four illustrious panel of poets. 00:12:45.170 --> 00:12:48.920 align:middle line:84% The building we are in answers yes, 00:12:48.920 --> 00:12:52.100 align:middle line:84% the students who have come to learn and earn 00:12:52.100 --> 00:12:57.710 align:middle line:84% advanced degrees in poetry have answered yes, the University 00:12:57.710 --> 00:13:00.140 align:middle line:84% institution as a whole, by housing 00:13:00.140 --> 00:13:03.680 align:middle line:84% the poetic enterprise within its enterprise, 00:13:03.680 --> 00:13:07.610 align:middle line:90% has answered yes as well. 00:13:07.610 --> 00:13:10.880 align:middle line:84% A well remembered poet, Larry Levis said yes, 00:13:10.880 --> 00:13:16.280 align:middle line:84% by saying ecstasy is just as much a birthright in this world 00:13:16.280 --> 00:13:21.090 align:middle line:90% as misery is a condition of it. 00:13:21.090 --> 00:13:26.370 align:middle line:84% How do we nod our own yes to poetry while saying yes 00:13:26.370 --> 00:13:29.300 align:middle line:90% to everything else we love. 00:13:29.300 --> 00:13:31.040 align:middle line:90% And where do we put it? 00:13:31.040 --> 00:13:34.610 align:middle line:90% Next to everything else we love? 00:13:34.610 --> 00:13:37.580 align:middle line:84% Our poet teachers have managed this negotiation 00:13:37.580 --> 00:13:41.240 align:middle line:84% over a lifetime, measuring themselves out 00:13:41.240 --> 00:13:44.030 align:middle line:84% not with Prufrock's coffee spoons, 00:13:44.030 --> 00:13:47.450 align:middle line:84% but with the individual letters becoming books, 00:13:47.450 --> 00:13:53.000 align:middle line:84% one digital, lyrical, cognitive gesture at a time, 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:54.125 align:middle line:90% and we are grateful. 00:13:54.125 --> 00:13:56.730 align:middle line:90% 00:13:56.730 --> 00:13:58.770 align:middle line:84% The hope of this event is to prompt 00:13:58.770 --> 00:14:01.440 align:middle line:84% the individual and collective reflections 00:14:01.440 --> 00:14:04.440 align:middle line:84% about how these poets have made their choices. 00:14:04.440 --> 00:14:07.080 align:middle line:90% 00:14:07.080 --> 00:14:11.850 align:middle line:84% Aesthetic, philosophical, pedagogical, over years, 00:14:11.850 --> 00:14:19.110 align:middle line:84% and careers, but equally true, less lofty, and more humble. 00:14:19.110 --> 00:14:23.640 align:middle line:84% We are here because of a loneliness for, and a deep love 00:14:23.640 --> 00:14:25.610 align:middle line:90% of the conversation. 00:14:25.610 --> 00:14:28.940 align:middle line:90% 00:14:28.940 --> 00:14:33.200 align:middle line:84% I've overprepared, so the Cully seminar version of this event 00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:37.550 align:middle line:84% will appear next time I teach a graduate course in poetry. 00:14:37.550 --> 00:14:41.900 align:middle line:84% Today, the floor and microphones belong to the poets. 00:14:41.900 --> 00:14:44.420 align:middle line:84% I've prepared a set of questions, 00:14:44.420 --> 00:14:46.730 align:middle line:84% I'm hoping that more than one of you 00:14:46.730 --> 00:14:50.450 align:middle line:84% will answer each question so the similarities and disagreements 00:14:50.450 --> 00:14:52.640 align:middle line:90% among you will emerge. 00:14:52.640 --> 00:14:57.420 align:middle line:84% The premise here is as ambitious, as it is confident. 00:14:57.420 --> 00:15:01.640 align:middle line:84% What you have to say, what you have written, thought, 00:15:01.640 --> 00:15:05.910 align:middle line:84% and done, will inform us not only about you, 00:15:05.910 --> 00:15:09.140 align:middle line:84% but about the origins and destinations 00:15:09.140 --> 00:15:12.980 align:middle line:90% of poetry in our times. 00:15:12.980 --> 00:15:15.170 align:middle line:90% Thank you each for coming. 00:15:15.170 --> 00:15:19.610 align:middle line:90% 00:15:19.610 --> 00:15:24.170 align:middle line:84% And to start, what would you like to read to us of the books 00:15:24.170 --> 00:15:29.230 align:middle line:84% we have on the table or that you brought? 00:15:29.230 --> 00:15:34.210 align:middle line:84% I've put little post-its in some of your books, 00:15:34.210 --> 00:15:37.060 align:middle line:84% and I've put some of your books with those post-its right 00:15:37.060 --> 00:15:38.920 align:middle line:90% in front of you. 00:15:38.920 --> 00:15:42.850 align:middle line:84% But I know that you have brought some work 00:15:42.850 --> 00:15:44.770 align:middle line:84% and that you might have some planning 00:15:44.770 --> 00:15:47.260 align:middle line:84% that you did on your own, so ignore my post-its. 00:15:47.260 --> 00:15:49.570 align:middle line:90% It's just part of my-- 00:15:49.570 --> 00:15:52.310 align:middle line:84% we'll call it process or diagnosis. 00:15:52.310 --> 00:15:56.720 align:middle line:90% 00:15:56.720 --> 00:15:58.340 align:middle line:84% Before starting with the questions 00:15:58.340 --> 00:16:01.340 align:middle line:90% let's just hear a poem. 00:16:01.340 --> 00:16:05.830 align:middle line:84% And start with Jane because she has a mic down there. 00:16:05.830 --> 00:16:11.350 align:middle line:90% 00:16:11.350 --> 00:16:11.860 align:middle line:90% How's that? 00:16:11.860 --> 00:16:12.760 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:16:12.760 --> 00:16:16.510 align:middle line:84% This is for Valentine's Day, coming up for all of you. 00:16:16.510 --> 00:16:20.290 align:middle line:84% And the poem is called "A Little Myth." 00:16:20.290 --> 00:16:23.500 align:middle line:84% A little myth about me standing below a window shouting 00:16:23.500 --> 00:16:26.770 align:middle line:84% Valentina, Valentina, until I'm joined 00:16:26.770 --> 00:16:29.380 align:middle line:84% by a couple of friends who happened by and others 00:16:29.380 --> 00:16:31.630 align:middle line:84% on their way to dinner, end up joining 00:16:31.630 --> 00:16:36.100 align:middle line:84% in the melody Valentina, who apparently is not home. 00:16:36.100 --> 00:16:39.820 align:middle line:84% I announced, there is no Valentina, there never was. 00:16:39.820 --> 00:16:41.620 align:middle line:84% A little perturbed but forgiving, 00:16:41.620 --> 00:16:44.140 align:middle line:84% the crowd dissolves into night mist, 00:16:44.140 --> 00:16:49.720 align:middle line:84% but one last voice stays and tries again, Valentina. 00:16:49.720 --> 00:16:53.110 align:middle line:84% It amounts to so little, yet poetry remains 00:16:53.110 --> 00:16:55.345 align:middle line:90% on nearly every corner calling. 00:16:55.345 --> 00:17:01.230 align:middle line:90% 00:17:01.230 --> 00:17:02.560 align:middle line:90% Down the road. 00:17:02.560 --> 00:17:04.500 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:17:04.500 --> 00:17:06.630 align:middle line:90% "Metaleptic." 00:17:06.630 --> 00:17:10.230 align:middle line:84% Emotions float, the fish's motion 00:17:10.230 --> 00:17:15.079 align:middle line:84% is it's thought, unknown forms embedded in stone 00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:19.400 align:middle line:84% invite our guesses at things, at origins. 00:17:19.400 --> 00:17:24.829 align:middle line:84% Some ancients believed the soul adheres to bones, 00:17:24.829 --> 00:17:30.200 align:middle line:84% each surface is a depth, like corpusants a glow that's cold, 00:17:30.200 --> 00:17:32.900 align:middle line:90% its source invisible. 00:17:32.900 --> 00:17:37.700 align:middle line:84% Whispers at a wall, audible, yards, distant, 00:17:37.700 --> 00:17:42.080 align:middle line:84% sea bob of cormorants, a circling whale. 00:17:42.080 --> 00:17:46.400 align:middle line:84% What we take on faith that waves approaching shore advance 00:17:46.400 --> 00:17:51.170 align:middle line:84% is pattern, not displacement like wind, 00:17:51.170 --> 00:17:55.780 align:middle line:84% the rose a magnet makes of iron filings. 00:17:55.780 --> 00:18:01.150 align:middle line:84% Earth warms, fireflies, no longer light, a river's turns. 00:18:01.150 --> 00:18:04.480 align:middle line:84% What shakes the heart at the scent of skin, 00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:09.010 align:middle line:84% love stings, love swings, love rings, love strings, 00:18:09.010 --> 00:18:09.880 align:middle line:90% love wings. 00:18:09.880 --> 00:18:15.570 align:middle line:90% 00:18:15.570 --> 00:18:19.350 align:middle line:84% I came off a long period of several months, 00:18:19.350 --> 00:18:22.770 align:middle line:84% and it was of writing lyric poems which were in this book 00:18:22.770 --> 00:18:26.210 align:middle line:84% and, well I was able to start up again, 00:18:26.210 --> 00:18:31.970 align:middle line:84% I gave vent to my narrative, long winded pieces." 00:18:31.970 --> 00:18:34.610 align:middle line:90% This is called "The Last Train." 00:18:34.610 --> 00:18:37.260 align:middle line:84% She took me on my first train trip, 00:18:37.260 --> 00:18:41.660 align:middle line:84% the last time a train would take the twice daily 40-mile trip 00:18:41.660 --> 00:18:44.580 align:middle line:84% from Holyoke to Hartford and back. 00:18:44.580 --> 00:18:46.590 align:middle line:84% I was very small and don't remember much 00:18:46.590 --> 00:18:49.710 align:middle line:84% except, my mother had a sense of occasion. 00:18:49.710 --> 00:18:51.720 align:middle line:84% And though we weren't Catholic or rich, 00:18:51.720 --> 00:18:53.280 align:middle line:84% she dressed me up as though we were 00:18:53.280 --> 00:18:55.650 align:middle line:90% going to the Easter parade. 00:18:55.650 --> 00:18:59.970 align:middle line:84% Gray day, light rain, the depot crowded with the smells 00:18:59.970 --> 00:19:02.100 align:middle line:90% that will be gone in an hour. 00:19:02.100 --> 00:19:04.170 align:middle line:84% Across the street, the tenements they'd 00:19:04.170 --> 00:19:08.160 align:middle line:84% always been there, down Railroad Street, the canal and even 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:10.740 align:middle line:84% in the rain, men would have been fishing, 00:19:10.740 --> 00:19:14.760 align:middle line:84% and because it was Saturday, fishing with their sons. 00:19:14.760 --> 00:19:16.920 align:middle line:84% I don't remember boarding the train, or what 00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:18.960 align:middle line:90% passed in the window frames. 00:19:18.960 --> 00:19:22.620 align:middle line:84% She probably squealed for joy when we crossed the Connecticut 00:19:22.620 --> 00:19:27.030 align:middle line:84% River, because she always referred to it as my river, 00:19:27.030 --> 00:19:29.220 align:middle line:84% and a week before she died she said, 00:19:29.220 --> 00:19:32.970 align:middle line:84% that's one thing they can't take away from me. 00:19:32.970 --> 00:19:35.250 align:middle line:84% I remember tugging at her sleeve, 00:19:35.250 --> 00:19:38.670 align:middle line:84% we were in Hartford by then standing on the platform 00:19:38.670 --> 00:19:41.040 align:middle line:84% and pointing, she bent and whispered 00:19:41.040 --> 00:19:43.750 align:middle line:90% that it's impolite to point. 00:19:43.750 --> 00:19:46.630 align:middle line:84% I imagine this journey meant the end of an era tour, 00:19:46.630 --> 00:19:50.080 align:middle line:84% and though she wasn't a particularly reflective person, 00:19:50.080 --> 00:19:52.930 align:middle line:84% she was sentimental, meaning she had 00:19:52.930 --> 00:19:55.900 align:middle line:84% an acute awareness of the passage of time 00:19:55.900 --> 00:19:58.360 align:middle line:90% and how it affected her. 00:19:58.360 --> 00:20:01.600 align:middle line:84% And the era that was passing on a single day, 00:20:01.600 --> 00:20:07.510 align:middle line:84% a Saturday in 1947, was a memory she spoke of often. 00:20:07.510 --> 00:20:09.910 align:middle line:84% As a little girl standing with her father 00:20:09.910 --> 00:20:15.130 align:middle line:84% in front of the small depot holding a sign "Rooms To Let." 00:20:15.130 --> 00:20:18.730 align:middle line:84% I was pointing at a Black boy, about my own age. 00:20:18.730 --> 00:20:21.130 align:middle line:84% I'd never before seen a Black person, 00:20:21.130 --> 00:20:23.680 align:middle line:84% I didn't know what to think or say. 00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:27.280 align:middle line:84% She said he was a Negro, it's all she said. 00:20:27.280 --> 00:20:29.470 align:middle line:84% I remember that the Negro boy, who 00:20:29.470 --> 00:20:32.890 align:middle line:84% must have seen plenty of white people in his brief life, 00:20:32.890 --> 00:20:35.210 align:middle line:90% was pointing back at me. 00:20:35.210 --> 00:20:36.960 align:middle line:90% He was smiling. 00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:39.300 align:middle line:84% When someone smiles and you don't know why, 00:20:39.300 --> 00:20:41.310 align:middle line:90% you join in anyway. 00:20:41.310 --> 00:20:44.340 align:middle line:84% We each held our mother's hand, I imagine 00:20:44.340 --> 00:20:47.250 align:middle line:84% the boy's mother caught my mother's eyes, 00:20:47.250 --> 00:20:52.290 align:middle line:84% and because they were both good people, both polite and aware 00:20:52.290 --> 00:20:56.130 align:middle line:84% of what can pass between people at moments like this, 00:20:56.130 --> 00:20:56.955 align:middle line:90% also smiling. 00:20:56.955 --> 00:21:00.790 align:middle line:90% 00:21:00.790 --> 00:21:06.790 align:middle line:84% It's so intriguing to have Barbara put these post-its. 00:21:06.790 --> 00:21:08.800 align:middle line:84% I love to read something but I think 00:21:08.800 --> 00:21:11.635 align:middle line:84% I'll follow what my pals have done and read something new. 00:21:11.635 --> 00:21:14.560 align:middle line:90% 00:21:14.560 --> 00:21:15.970 align:middle line:90% This is called "The Prisoner." 00:21:15.970 --> 00:21:19.480 align:middle line:90% 00:21:19.480 --> 00:21:25.150 align:middle line:84% The municipal gardener planted a laurel outside the County Jail, 00:21:25.150 --> 00:21:30.130 align:middle line:84% he placed it beneath the window, bars cutting up the light 00:21:30.130 --> 00:21:33.100 align:middle line:90% on the ground he worked. 00:21:33.100 --> 00:21:36.100 align:middle line:84% The prisoner could catch a whiff of fragrance 00:21:36.100 --> 00:21:40.820 align:middle line:84% for one week, the musk of spring. 00:21:40.820 --> 00:21:43.640 align:middle line:84% When the prisoner was released, the gardener 00:21:43.640 --> 00:21:48.410 align:middle line:84% happened to be kneeling pulling weeds invisible to everyone 00:21:48.410 --> 00:21:50.480 align:middle line:90% but himself. 00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:54.940 align:middle line:84% He glanced up to watch the prisoner cross the threshold 00:21:54.940 --> 00:22:00.640 align:middle line:84% to freedom, saw him pause, arrested by the fragrance 00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:04.610 align:middle line:90% he'd known in captivity. 00:22:04.610 --> 00:22:07.790 align:middle line:84% I know a prisoner, one who stays locked 00:22:07.790 --> 00:22:13.700 align:middle line:84% in her mind, no movie more compelling than the suspense 00:22:13.700 --> 00:22:19.070 align:middle line:84% of what one moment will do to the last and the next. 00:22:19.070 --> 00:22:23.240 align:middle line:84% The real plot unfolding in a theater 00:22:23.240 --> 00:22:28.220 align:middle line:84% where nothing happens but this separation of herself 00:22:28.220 --> 00:22:33.020 align:middle line:84% into parts that are not parts, but only the whole that 00:22:33.020 --> 00:22:37.570 align:middle line:84% feels partitioned, the argument that she should not 00:22:37.570 --> 00:22:39.430 align:middle line:84% feel a certain way, though feeling 00:22:39.430 --> 00:22:43.810 align:middle line:84% comes without pre-existing conditions, covenants, 00:22:43.810 --> 00:22:45.370 align:middle line:90% exclusions. 00:22:45.370 --> 00:22:49.630 align:middle line:84% You will not feel lonely, you will not feel angry, 00:22:49.630 --> 00:22:54.430 align:middle line:84% you will not feel lost, when love abandons you. 00:22:54.430 --> 00:22:59.960 align:middle line:84% Sensible shoes, and sensible goals, little dreamer. 00:22:59.960 --> 00:23:04.820 align:middle line:84% Come back to the bars on the windows and doors, 00:23:04.820 --> 00:23:10.160 align:middle line:84% this is the play of her mind, enthusiasm meeting 00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:16.580 align:middle line:84% antagonist, the scent of laurel caught in the neuron net. 00:23:16.580 --> 00:23:21.070 align:middle line:90% 00:23:21.070 --> 00:23:21.880 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:23:21.880 --> 00:23:25.290 align:middle line:90% 00:23:25.290 --> 00:23:30.670 align:middle line:84% The questions I have come in four different categories. 00:23:30.670 --> 00:23:35.120 align:middle line:84% And the first is the life, each of these poets 00:23:35.120 --> 00:23:38.780 align:middle line:84% have lived a life as an artist in the context 00:23:38.780 --> 00:23:42.350 align:middle line:84% of the academic setting, and each 00:23:42.350 --> 00:23:49.020 align:middle line:84% have made their aesthetic choices inside the community 00:23:49.020 --> 00:23:56.020 align:middle line:84% that they work in and give their work to. 00:23:56.020 --> 00:24:01.320 align:middle line:84% The first question I have about the life is, is your poetry 00:24:01.320 --> 00:24:08.280 align:middle line:84% the byproduct of a life or the engine of one? 00:24:08.280 --> 00:24:11.427 align:middle line:84% And I think Jane, you and I have talked about this a little bit 00:24:11.427 --> 00:24:13.260 align:middle line:84% so I thought you might want to take this on. 00:24:13.260 --> 00:24:16.560 align:middle line:90% 00:24:16.560 --> 00:24:19.190 align:middle line:90% But there are other-- 00:24:19.190 --> 00:24:20.560 align:middle line:90% no, no, no, no, no, no. 00:24:20.560 --> 00:24:22.940 align:middle line:84% No, I wouldn't either, that would be redundant, 00:24:22.940 --> 00:24:24.080 align:middle line:90% especially in public. 00:24:24.080 --> 00:24:27.110 align:middle line:90% 00:24:27.110 --> 00:24:34.135 align:middle line:84% Well, for me the answer is that it is very much. 00:24:34.135 --> 00:24:40.340 align:middle line:90% 00:24:40.340 --> 00:24:44.150 align:middle line:84% I guess I'm just a writer by accident, 00:24:44.150 --> 00:24:50.870 align:middle line:84% and I consider myself a lover with many failures 00:24:50.870 --> 00:24:55.160 align:middle line:84% and a few successes, but with that as the engine of my life. 00:24:55.160 --> 00:25:02.400 align:middle line:84% And writing is kind of on the side of all of that 00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:06.740 align:middle line:84% and, I do it very infrequently, and when I do, 00:25:06.740 --> 00:25:11.210 align:middle line:84% I try to disappear and to get it over with as fast as I can, 00:25:11.210 --> 00:25:14.340 align:middle line:90% so I can come back to my life. 00:25:14.340 --> 00:25:21.530 align:middle line:84% I realized that it is a part of my life, but it's very small. 00:25:21.530 --> 00:25:25.810 align:middle line:84% I love words and I love people who use words even more. 00:25:25.810 --> 00:25:26.740 align:middle line:90% So-- 00:25:26.740 --> 00:25:27.240 align:middle line:90% Nice. 00:25:27.240 --> 00:25:27.750 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:25:27.750 --> 00:25:30.950 align:middle line:84% Who would you like to answer that question next? 00:25:30.950 --> 00:25:31.890 align:middle line:90% Who would I? 00:25:31.890 --> 00:25:32.970 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:25:32.970 --> 00:25:34.770 align:middle line:84% I guess I'd love to hear Boyer's answer. 00:25:34.770 --> 00:25:37.280 align:middle line:90% 00:25:37.280 --> 00:25:39.540 align:middle line:84% Boyer, is your poetry the byproduct 00:25:39.540 --> 00:25:42.410 align:middle line:90% of a life of the engine of one? 00:25:42.410 --> 00:25:47.920 align:middle line:84% Oh, those are hard metaphors to attach to. 00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:52.090 align:middle line:84% And you can discard them for your own. 00:25:52.090 --> 00:25:54.730 align:middle line:84% I mean, there is such an integration for me 00:25:54.730 --> 00:25:58.630 align:middle line:84% of the experience of my community and the writing 00:25:58.630 --> 00:26:01.240 align:middle line:84% that I do, that it's hard for me to-- 00:26:01.240 --> 00:26:03.820 align:middle line:84% it is hard for me to separate them. 00:26:03.820 --> 00:26:07.180 align:middle line:84% I can't imagine the life without the writing, 00:26:07.180 --> 00:26:12.610 align:middle line:84% but I would never have arrived at the community without poetry 00:26:12.610 --> 00:26:15.490 align:middle line:84% and in the opportunity for teaching. 00:26:15.490 --> 00:26:19.360 align:middle line:84% I know that when I was in a very low place in my life-- 00:26:19.360 --> 00:26:21.370 align:middle line:90% seven or eight years ago-- 00:26:21.370 --> 00:26:26.650 align:middle line:84% and was not writing, it was through a relationship 00:26:26.650 --> 00:26:30.730 align:middle line:84% of language and imagination that a student who 00:26:30.730 --> 00:26:32.680 align:middle line:84% became a close friend brought me to, 00:26:32.680 --> 00:26:34.910 align:middle line:90% that restored me to my writing. 00:26:34.910 --> 00:26:38.710 align:middle line:84% So it's a very complicated relationship for me, 00:26:38.710 --> 00:26:42.850 align:middle line:84% and if I'm not writing I don't feel terribly alive actually. 00:26:42.850 --> 00:26:48.130 align:middle line:84% It's extremely important to me to be engaged with language 00:26:48.130 --> 00:26:51.880 align:middle line:84% and imagination at all times, in relation to the world 00:26:51.880 --> 00:26:52.870 align:middle line:90% that I experience. 00:26:52.870 --> 00:26:55.990 align:middle line:84% And so, I wish there were a way to create 00:26:55.990 --> 00:27:02.980 align:middle line:84% a hybrid of the things that those two metaphors suggest, 00:27:02.980 --> 00:27:07.550 align:middle line:84% because that's how it would be for me. 00:27:07.550 --> 00:27:08.050 align:middle line:90% Softie. 00:27:08.050 --> 00:27:11.362 align:middle line:90% 00:27:11.362 --> 00:27:13.570 align:middle line:84% And you don't have to answer it if you don't want to, 00:27:13.570 --> 00:27:14.980 align:middle line:84% I can give you a different question. 00:27:14.980 --> 00:27:15.690 align:middle line:90% No I'd like to. 00:27:15.690 --> 00:27:16.450 align:middle line:90% You like to? 00:27:16.450 --> 00:27:16.950 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:27:16.950 --> 00:27:19.380 align:middle line:84% I can, because you can throw anything in there, 00:27:19.380 --> 00:27:20.610 align:middle line:90% into that question I mean. 00:27:20.610 --> 00:27:23.180 align:middle line:90% 00:27:23.180 --> 00:27:26.180 align:middle line:84% Poetry is just the whole thing for me except for my wife 00:27:26.180 --> 00:27:29.270 align:middle line:84% and son, and drinks with my friends, 00:27:29.270 --> 00:27:30.980 align:middle line:90% I don't want to leave it. 00:27:30.980 --> 00:27:33.530 align:middle line:84% My wife and I are the same way about this, 00:27:33.530 --> 00:27:36.830 align:middle line:84% we both just like to do our work all the time, 00:27:36.830 --> 00:27:41.350 align:middle line:84% and then, it's like parallel play you know, and-- 00:27:41.350 --> 00:27:43.930 align:middle line:90% 00:27:43.930 --> 00:27:48.260 align:middle line:84% So, she likes to be inside her imagination all the time, 00:27:48.260 --> 00:27:52.330 align:middle line:84% which is visual, and I like to be inside my verbal one, 00:27:52.330 --> 00:27:56.580 align:middle line:84% as many hours a day as I can do it, which is six, seven, eight. 00:27:56.580 --> 00:27:57.960 align:middle line:90% And I was born-- 00:27:57.960 --> 00:28:01.320 align:middle line:84% this sounds like more than I mean it to sound-- 00:28:01.320 --> 00:28:05.410 align:middle line:84% but in a sense I was born to be a writer of some kind, 00:28:05.410 --> 00:28:06.940 align:middle line:90% as I was born with-- 00:28:06.940 --> 00:28:10.870 align:middle line:84% like my father and my son-- with the ability 00:28:10.870 --> 00:28:13.540 align:middle line:84% to use language, and grammar, and spelling, 00:28:13.540 --> 00:28:17.440 align:middle line:84% without having to study it, and also 00:28:17.440 --> 00:28:19.780 align:middle line:90% just to love words right away. 00:28:19.780 --> 00:28:22.460 align:middle line:84% My father sent me to the dictionary all the time 00:28:22.460 --> 00:28:26.160 align:middle line:90% and, I love the sound of them. 00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:27.990 align:middle line:84% What made me different from my father 00:28:27.990 --> 00:28:32.580 align:middle line:84% was that, he had no sensibility, he had no particularly well 00:28:32.580 --> 00:28:37.830 align:middle line:84% examined innner life, and like many of our fathers. 00:28:37.830 --> 00:28:40.260 align:middle line:90% But, I was born with that-- 00:28:40.260 --> 00:28:44.370 align:middle line:84% I started to grow into that terrible confusion 00:28:44.370 --> 00:28:48.300 align:middle line:84% that you have in childhood, of trying to figure things out 00:28:48.300 --> 00:28:52.510 align:middle line:84% in some way, and you have nothing, no experience yet 00:28:52.510 --> 00:28:55.600 align:middle line:90% to help you with all of that. 00:28:55.600 --> 00:28:57.375 align:middle line:84% And that produces the alienation, 00:28:57.375 --> 00:29:00.580 align:middle line:84% I think that's common to many writers, 00:29:00.580 --> 00:29:03.880 align:middle line:84% and it also produced in me the desire 00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:08.035 align:middle line:84% to try to understand how people live. 00:29:08.035 --> 00:29:12.670 align:middle line:84% I felt like I didn't know how to be and so, 00:29:12.670 --> 00:29:14.890 align:middle line:90% my poems began that way. 00:29:14.890 --> 00:29:17.770 align:middle line:84% I was trying to figure out how other people live, 00:29:17.770 --> 00:29:20.950 align:middle line:84% so I could learn how to live, and for the most part 00:29:20.950 --> 00:29:26.090 align:middle line:84% I haven't stopped my engagement with that. 00:29:26.090 --> 00:29:31.820 align:middle line:84% So, it's my engine, everything else is lard, I don't know. 00:29:31.820 --> 00:29:34.460 align:middle line:90% 00:29:34.460 --> 00:29:40.370 align:middle line:84% Well, I guess maybe fewer, I don't like engine or byproduct 00:29:40.370 --> 00:29:41.570 align:middle line:90% but I'll take fuel. 00:29:41.570 --> 00:29:46.040 align:middle line:84% I think my writing is really, really central to my life, 00:29:46.040 --> 00:29:49.890 align:middle line:84% it's what gives me energy and a sense of direction, 00:29:49.890 --> 00:29:55.220 align:middle line:84% a sense of having a shred of hope that I might resolve many 00:29:55.220 --> 00:29:57.880 align:middle line:84% of the confusions that I live with, to which all of us 00:29:57.880 --> 00:29:58.380 align:middle line:90% live with. 00:29:58.380 --> 00:30:01.430 align:middle line:84% I mean, I love what Steve says about the terrible confusion 00:30:01.430 --> 00:30:04.700 align:middle line:84% of childhood, I felt that way in my childhood so profoundly, 00:30:04.700 --> 00:30:07.940 align:middle line:84% and I think books saved me, reading saved me. 00:30:07.940 --> 00:30:11.540 align:middle line:84% I saw things that I was experiencing in my inner life 00:30:11.540 --> 00:30:15.960 align:middle line:84% kind of lifting off of pages and it was remarkable. 00:30:15.960 --> 00:30:19.334 align:middle line:84% So I fell in love with language because of that. 00:30:19.334 --> 00:30:22.280 align:middle line:90% 00:30:22.280 --> 00:30:24.260 align:middle line:84% For me I don't write all the time, 00:30:24.260 --> 00:30:26.030 align:middle line:84% I always have a lot of writing projects 00:30:26.030 --> 00:30:29.090 align:middle line:84% going, either poetry or nonfiction, 00:30:29.090 --> 00:30:31.340 align:middle line:84% and I go through periods where it's really hard 00:30:31.340 --> 00:30:36.020 align:middle line:84% to find the time to write but, it's 00:30:36.020 --> 00:30:39.650 align:middle line:84% really central to my sense of who I am, 00:30:39.650 --> 00:30:42.200 align:middle line:84% my trajectory, my sense of balance, 00:30:42.200 --> 00:30:46.280 align:middle line:84% my sense of place in the world, and I don't separate it out 00:30:46.280 --> 00:30:48.290 align:middle line:84% like oh, there's teaching and writing. 00:30:48.290 --> 00:30:52.993 align:middle line:84% One of my teachers way back at Stanford W. S. Di Piero 00:30:52.993 --> 00:30:55.160 align:middle line:84% you know, I said, "Oh, I have this terrible struggle 00:30:55.160 --> 00:30:57.770 align:middle line:84% between work and what I have to do for money, and my writing." 00:30:57.770 --> 00:30:59.330 align:middle line:90% He said, "Why is it a struggle? 00:30:59.330 --> 00:31:00.350 align:middle line:90% It's all one thing." 00:31:00.350 --> 00:31:05.030 align:middle line:84% And, I've tried for a long time to feel that that was true 00:31:05.030 --> 00:31:08.120 align:middle line:84% and all of a sudden it does feel true, it is all one thing 00:31:08.120 --> 00:31:09.485 align:middle line:90% and it's all fuel. 00:31:09.485 --> 00:31:13.950 align:middle line:90% 00:31:13.950 --> 00:31:18.510 align:middle line:84% When reading your work Alison, I noticed the tension in it that 00:31:18.510 --> 00:31:22.740 align:middle line:84% you make very good aesthetic use of, which seems like a tension 00:31:22.740 --> 00:31:24.180 align:middle line:90% that-- like you're saying-- 00:31:24.180 --> 00:31:28.200 align:middle line:84% exists in your life as well, and the way I characterize that is, 00:31:28.200 --> 00:31:31.560 align:middle line:84% the tension between knowing and mystery, and not 00:31:31.560 --> 00:31:35.550 align:middle line:84% knowing and solving, and witnessing and healing, 00:31:35.550 --> 00:31:40.170 align:middle line:84% enigma and documentary, and this notion 00:31:40.170 --> 00:31:44.310 align:middle line:84% of solving for x or not and as an alternative, 00:31:44.310 --> 00:31:49.170 align:middle line:84% allowing the dissolution of all things to happen around you. 00:31:49.170 --> 00:31:52.830 align:middle line:84% And, I felt very much that there was 00:31:52.830 --> 00:31:55.260 align:middle line:84% no distinction between the art and the life 00:31:55.260 --> 00:32:01.530 align:middle line:84% in looking at your books over the course of my review of them 00:32:01.530 --> 00:32:07.980 align:middle line:84% especially as you have written your most recent work, 00:32:07.980 --> 00:32:11.220 align:middle line:84% it seems like that is a dominant theme. 00:32:11.220 --> 00:32:13.920 align:middle line:90% 00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:19.740 align:middle line:84% In terms of the integration of the life and the aesthetic, 00:32:19.740 --> 00:32:23.730 align:middle line:84% I have a question for Boyer that goes into the aesthetic realm, 00:32:23.730 --> 00:32:26.310 align:middle line:84% because it seems like if we look at your work 00:32:26.310 --> 00:32:30.780 align:middle line:84% where we've got a kind of C change-- 00:32:30.780 --> 00:32:34.020 align:middle line:90% maybe almost literally "sea"-- 00:32:34.020 --> 00:32:38.220 align:middle line:84% because I know that you like to hang out at the water's edge. 00:32:38.220 --> 00:32:40.590 align:middle line:84% And, I was wondering if you could-- 00:32:40.590 --> 00:32:45.510 align:middle line:84% in continuing your discussion of the the art and the life 00:32:45.510 --> 00:32:48.930 align:middle line:90% being so integrated-- 00:32:48.930 --> 00:32:52.320 align:middle line:84% where then does this transformation-- 00:32:52.320 --> 00:32:58.230 align:middle line:84% the C change that appears in the work come from? 00:32:58.230 --> 00:33:02.110 align:middle line:90% 00:33:02.110 --> 00:33:04.720 align:middle line:90% Teaching and my students. 00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:07.600 align:middle line:84% About 16 years ago, 18 years ago, 00:33:07.600 --> 00:33:10.930 align:middle line:84% Steve said, "You need to teach the form's course, 00:33:10.930 --> 00:33:11.860 align:middle line:90% it's your turn." 00:33:11.860 --> 00:33:14.890 align:middle line:84% And, I don't know if he was just bored with it or, because he 00:33:14.890 --> 00:33:18.770 align:middle line:84% had taught it so much or, he had some better project and I 00:33:18.770 --> 00:33:19.270 align:middle line:90% didn't. 00:33:19.270 --> 00:33:22.300 align:middle line:84% Of course, I wanted to do it because I didn't know what 00:33:22.300 --> 00:33:25.990 align:middle line:84% it was about, and so, I started teaching that course 00:33:25.990 --> 00:33:29.350 align:middle line:84% with the notion that I was just a student at the table. 00:33:29.350 --> 00:33:32.050 align:middle line:84% And I still very much teach that course 00:33:32.050 --> 00:33:36.400 align:middle line:84% as a student at the table, because I don't have 00:33:36.400 --> 00:33:42.520 align:middle line:84% a deep writing history in the traditions of form 00:33:42.520 --> 00:33:46.990 align:middle line:84% and traditional English prosody, but I love it. 00:33:46.990 --> 00:33:50.500 align:middle line:84% And, the first four or five times that I taught the course, 00:33:50.500 --> 00:33:53.260 align:middle line:84% I did the assignments every week. 00:33:53.260 --> 00:33:56.800 align:middle line:84% I wrote the sonnets and the villanelle's, 00:33:56.800 --> 00:34:01.660 align:middle line:84% and the horrible blank verse poems, 00:34:01.660 --> 00:34:06.340 align:middle line:84% and I put them on the worksheets not to be discussed, but just 00:34:06.340 --> 00:34:09.429 align:middle line:84% as a form of demonstrating that I 00:34:09.429 --> 00:34:12.520 align:middle line:84% was in the middle of this humiliating experience 00:34:12.520 --> 00:34:14.469 align:middle line:90% with my students. 00:34:14.469 --> 00:34:17.150 align:middle line:84% They could see how I was struggling with the forms. 00:34:17.150 --> 00:34:19.150 align:middle line:84% But what I discovered was that I love 00:34:19.150 --> 00:34:22.850 align:middle line:84% having a set of conventions to work through. 00:34:22.850 --> 00:34:26.110 align:middle line:84% So often, those formal conventions 00:34:26.110 --> 00:34:28.150 align:middle line:84% led me into places imaginatively, 00:34:28.150 --> 00:34:29.770 align:middle line:84% and intellectually, and emotionally, 00:34:29.770 --> 00:34:31.353 align:middle line:84% that I don't think I would have gotten 00:34:31.353 --> 00:34:36.219 align:middle line:84% to if I didn't have the conventions to consider 00:34:36.219 --> 00:34:41.110 align:middle line:84% and to constantly be working in tension at some level against. 00:34:41.110 --> 00:34:46.360 align:middle line:84% And it led me to think about creating my own conventions, 00:34:46.360 --> 00:34:52.210 align:middle line:84% poems that would be written in series so that I would find out 00:34:52.210 --> 00:34:55.120 align:middle line:84% how my mind when writing in series fell into patterns, 00:34:55.120 --> 00:34:57.010 align:middle line:84% and then I could challenge those patterns. 00:34:57.010 --> 00:35:00.610 align:middle line:84% And, at the same time that I was beginning to realize that I 00:35:00.610 --> 00:35:03.340 align:middle line:84% could work in a new way that would actually give me more 00:35:03.340 --> 00:35:07.630 align:middle line:84% work to do rather than each poem being a reinvention of myself 00:35:07.630 --> 00:35:10.210 align:middle line:84% as a poet-- which is the way I had worked for so many years-- 00:35:10.210 --> 00:35:12.740 align:middle line:90% 00:35:12.740 --> 00:35:16.680 align:middle line:84% poets in my classes started taking me to new poets 00:35:16.680 --> 00:35:21.850 align:middle line:84% that I might not have gotten to, and I started rereading poets 00:35:21.850 --> 00:35:24.320 align:middle line:84% that I'd always loved but not quite understood why, 00:35:24.320 --> 00:35:29.330 align:middle line:84% and what it was about them that I found ungraspable and yet, 00:35:29.330 --> 00:35:31.520 align:middle line:90% necessary in my reading of them. 00:35:31.520 --> 00:35:34.610 align:middle line:90% 00:35:34.610 --> 00:35:40.580 align:middle line:84% Rae Armantrout, Peter Gizzi, there 00:35:40.580 --> 00:35:44.480 align:middle line:84% are so many poets now who are central to my love 00:35:44.480 --> 00:35:46.340 align:middle line:84% of contemporary poetry, that were 00:35:46.340 --> 00:35:47.690 align:middle line:90% brought to me by my students. 00:35:47.690 --> 00:35:50.390 align:middle line:84% And, at the time, I was seeing how 00:35:50.390 --> 00:35:52.760 align:middle line:84% these new forms of imagination were functioning, 00:35:52.760 --> 00:35:55.880 align:middle line:84% I was trying to overlay them with these personal conventions 00:35:55.880 --> 00:35:57.470 align:middle line:90% and these forms. 00:35:57.470 --> 00:35:59.390 align:middle line:90% And, that's how it happened. 00:35:59.390 --> 00:36:00.890 align:middle line:84% I mean, I can't imagine how I would 00:36:00.890 --> 00:36:03.350 align:middle line:84% have gotten into the place of the sequences 00:36:03.350 --> 00:36:05.720 align:middle line:84% that I've been working on without that interplay 00:36:05.720 --> 00:36:09.890 align:middle line:84% of the life of teaching a course that I was forced to teach, 00:36:09.890 --> 00:36:13.910 align:middle line:84% and these amazing students who came in and took me 00:36:13.910 --> 00:36:17.150 align:middle line:84% in directions I don't know that I would have gotten to. 00:36:17.150 --> 00:36:21.210 align:middle line:90% 00:36:21.210 --> 00:36:25.030 align:middle line:84% Steve, all of your poems are moving. 00:36:25.030 --> 00:36:27.720 align:middle line:84% And I mean that in both senses of the word, 00:36:27.720 --> 00:36:30.570 align:middle line:84% they move on the page, they tell stories, 00:36:30.570 --> 00:36:35.190 align:middle line:84% and they also move us emotionally. 00:36:35.190 --> 00:36:40.260 align:middle line:84% For example the poem "The Pripet Marshes" you remember that one? 00:36:40.260 --> 00:36:42.390 align:middle line:84% It might have ended after the first page 00:36:42.390 --> 00:36:44.680 align:middle line:90% but, what keeps it going? 00:36:44.680 --> 00:36:48.900 align:middle line:84% What keeps the poem going and moving 00:36:48.900 --> 00:36:52.350 align:middle line:84% so that it will eventually move us? 00:36:52.350 --> 00:36:54.180 align:middle line:90% And what keeps you writing? 00:36:54.180 --> 00:36:57.990 align:middle line:84% After that point where it might have ended. 00:36:57.990 --> 00:36:58.490 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:36:58.490 --> 00:37:01.810 align:middle line:90% 00:37:01.810 --> 00:37:07.580 align:middle line:84% I always write my first drafts fast and without looking back, 00:37:07.580 --> 00:37:08.700 align:middle line:90% and I don't care. 00:37:08.700 --> 00:37:12.620 align:middle line:84% I mean, I have to have a rhythm and a subject to start me 00:37:12.620 --> 00:37:16.750 align:middle line:84% and, I just scribbled till I run out. 00:37:16.750 --> 00:37:22.060 align:middle line:84% And, there's usually an ending in narrative 00:37:22.060 --> 00:37:25.640 align:middle line:84% but, in that kind of buildup that you find in narrative. 00:37:25.640 --> 00:37:29.780 align:middle line:84% And so, that tells me where the poem is going to end. 00:37:29.780 --> 00:37:31.370 align:middle line:90% And then, when I work on it-- 00:37:31.370 --> 00:37:34.790 align:middle line:84% this is what I've learned from writing lyric poetry-- 00:37:34.790 --> 00:37:37.910 align:middle line:84% is to keep going past that ending. 00:37:37.910 --> 00:37:42.380 align:middle line:84% And, sometimes it's stupid, nothing interesting comes of it 00:37:42.380 --> 00:37:46.620 align:middle line:84% but, when I was writing lyric poems, I'd have four lines. 00:37:46.620 --> 00:37:48.200 align:middle line:90% So where can I go next? 00:37:48.200 --> 00:37:51.230 align:middle line:84% Elsewhere, is what I was learning-- 00:37:51.230 --> 00:37:53.540 align:middle line:84% and where do I go after the next thing? 00:37:53.540 --> 00:37:54.590 align:middle line:90% Elsewhere. 00:37:54.590 --> 00:37:59.690 align:middle line:84% And, it's a different kind of logic to these lyric poems 00:37:59.690 --> 00:38:01.580 align:middle line:90% that I was-- 00:38:01.580 --> 00:38:03.390 align:middle line:84% many of them-- that I was working on. 00:38:03.390 --> 00:38:08.110 align:middle line:84% And so, I think it's the same thing with the narrative poems. 00:38:08.110 --> 00:38:10.210 align:middle line:90% I want to go-- 00:38:10.210 --> 00:38:15.580 align:middle line:84% if I tie things together, have I made it hard for myself? 00:38:15.580 --> 00:38:17.810 align:middle line:90% Have I put myself in a corner? 00:38:17.810 --> 00:38:20.530 align:middle line:84% Which is what most poetry does, you 00:38:20.530 --> 00:38:22.810 align:middle line:84% said resolved but I know you didn't mean resolve 00:38:22.810 --> 00:38:25.180 align:middle line:84% the issues in your life, but at least put them 00:38:25.180 --> 00:38:27.280 align:middle line:84% out there for yourself to examine. 00:38:27.280 --> 00:38:35.320 align:middle line:84% And so, the narrative brings me all the way through. 00:38:35.320 --> 00:38:39.760 align:middle line:84% It's what happens in between or what I end up 00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:43.975 align:middle line:84% putting afterwards, is the more challenging and interesting 00:38:43.975 --> 00:38:46.090 align:middle line:90% part. 00:38:46.090 --> 00:38:47.830 align:middle line:84% And you even you said in an interview 00:38:47.830 --> 00:38:51.070 align:middle line:84% one time, that you didn't think that you told stories exactly 00:38:51.070 --> 00:38:52.930 align:middle line:84% correctly, and there was kind of a quirk 00:38:52.930 --> 00:38:56.290 align:middle line:84% that you have of getting sidetracked, and in that way 00:38:56.290 --> 00:39:00.280 align:middle line:84% it became almost a habit of form. 00:39:00.280 --> 00:39:02.270 align:middle line:84% Can you talk about that a little bit? 00:39:02.270 --> 00:39:03.540 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:39:03.540 --> 00:39:05.280 align:middle line:90% I mean, it's not a-- 00:39:05.280 --> 00:39:07.210 align:middle line:90% is it a form? 00:39:07.210 --> 00:39:09.300 align:middle line:84% It's a method of development or-- 00:39:09.300 --> 00:39:10.120 align:middle line:90% A process. 00:39:10.120 --> 00:39:13.830 align:middle line:84% A process of-- it's how you'd get from one thing 00:39:13.830 --> 00:39:15.570 align:middle line:84% to another in a poem, and reading 00:39:15.570 --> 00:39:17.970 align:middle line:84% a straightforward chronological narrative, 00:39:17.970 --> 00:39:20.540 align:middle line:84% unless you're reading fiction, and it's 00:39:20.540 --> 00:39:22.260 align:middle line:90% kind of boring in poetry. 00:39:22.260 --> 00:39:27.470 align:middle line:84% So, mine just mirrors the meandering of my mind 00:39:27.470 --> 00:39:31.790 align:middle line:84% that associates its left branching, it just goes around 00:39:31.790 --> 00:39:34.070 align:middle line:84% and I have to fix these things up later, 00:39:34.070 --> 00:39:37.490 align:middle line:84% and sometimes they have to create segues. 00:39:37.490 --> 00:39:40.130 align:middle line:84% But, I think it's the way my uncles used 00:39:40.130 --> 00:39:43.970 align:middle line:84% to have conversations, they'd sit down with their big cigars 00:39:43.970 --> 00:39:46.370 align:middle line:84% and drink, and they'd be telling stories 00:39:46.370 --> 00:39:48.885 align:middle line:84% and you just couldn't follow them, because they went here, 00:39:48.885 --> 00:39:50.510 align:middle line:84% and then they went over there, and then 00:39:50.510 --> 00:39:52.790 align:middle line:84% someone would interrupt, and they'd go back. 00:39:52.790 --> 00:39:55.940 align:middle line:84% And, maybe I learned that way but, what I'm doing 00:39:55.940 --> 00:40:00.800 align:middle line:84% is a mirror because, I do write very quickly on a first draft. 00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:05.930 align:middle line:84% I'm really just mirroring the meanderings of my mind. 00:40:05.930 --> 00:40:07.370 align:middle line:90% Hey, not bad. 00:40:07.370 --> 00:40:11.330 align:middle line:90% 00:40:11.330 --> 00:40:14.820 align:middle line:84% But when I run out of story, usually the poem 00:40:14.820 --> 00:40:16.170 align:middle line:90% is going to fail. 00:40:16.170 --> 00:40:21.180 align:middle line:84% If I can't find a reason in narrative for continuing with 00:40:21.180 --> 00:40:23.280 align:middle line:84% this story-- which happens to be quite a bit-- 00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:26.490 align:middle line:84% then I'll put it away and maybe something 00:40:26.490 --> 00:40:29.640 align:middle line:84% will happen later but, that's another thing I 00:40:29.640 --> 00:40:31.110 align:middle line:90% liked about the lyric poem. 00:40:31.110 --> 00:40:34.500 align:middle line:84% To start with nothing but four lines, 00:40:34.500 --> 00:40:38.580 align:middle line:84% or to take a narrative poem that I didn't like, 00:40:38.580 --> 00:40:40.710 align:middle line:84% but it had these great four lines I thought-- 00:40:40.710 --> 00:40:43.950 align:middle line:84% great four lines in there-- and then to build a poem around it, 00:40:43.950 --> 00:40:47.440 align:middle line:84% in front of it, and then back of it, that was interesting. 00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:52.080 align:middle line:84% Would it take two pages of a bad narrative poem, 00:40:52.080 --> 00:40:55.740 align:middle line:84% and end up with eight lines from within it? 00:40:55.740 --> 00:41:00.460 align:middle line:84% And that was the poem, and it was a lyric poem. 00:41:00.460 --> 00:41:02.500 align:middle line:84% We're kind of excavating the poem out 00:41:02.500 --> 00:41:04.430 align:middle line:90% of the draft of the poem. 00:41:04.430 --> 00:41:08.290 align:middle line:90% Yeah, I did some of that. 00:41:08.290 --> 00:41:09.850 align:middle line:84% Well, when I learned more about-- 00:41:09.850 --> 00:41:13.480 align:middle line:84% when I started to understand some of the lyric strategies 00:41:13.480 --> 00:41:19.390 align:middle line:84% that I could take, I did it in as many ways as I could. 00:41:19.390 --> 00:41:23.060 align:middle line:84% And made a reliable process out of that. 00:41:23.060 --> 00:41:24.310 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:41:24.310 --> 00:41:30.680 align:middle line:84% What's fortunate is I'm a moron and I forget what I've done. 00:41:30.680 --> 00:41:36.520 align:middle line:84% And so, I have to rediscover what I do every time I do it. 00:41:36.520 --> 00:41:38.080 align:middle line:84% No wonder it takes eight hours a day. 00:41:38.080 --> 00:41:38.890 align:middle line:90% Yeah, that's right. 00:41:38.890 --> 00:41:41.290 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:41:41.290 --> 00:41:43.840 align:middle line:84% Well it takes eight hours a day because I'm slow, 00:41:43.840 --> 00:41:47.470 align:middle line:84% and because I don't see everything right away, 00:41:47.470 --> 00:41:52.000 align:middle line:84% I don't take any distance from the poem as I keep drafting. 00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:54.680 align:middle line:84% It's not a good idea, but I'm right up close to it. 00:41:54.680 --> 00:41:56.380 align:middle line:84% And so, I don't see sometimes, you just 00:41:56.380 --> 00:41:58.750 align:middle line:90% cut the first half or-- 00:41:58.750 --> 00:42:00.610 align:middle line:84% And so, I end up putting as much work 00:42:00.610 --> 00:42:04.630 align:middle line:84% into a poem that's not going to work as I do into a poem that's 00:42:04.630 --> 00:42:05.290 align:middle line:90% going to work. 00:42:05.290 --> 00:42:08.840 align:middle line:84% A bad poem, same amount of hours, 00:42:08.840 --> 00:42:10.840 align:middle line:90% days, months as a good one. 00:42:10.840 --> 00:42:13.990 align:middle line:84% I mean, I'm working on a bunch at the same time so-- 00:42:13.990 --> 00:42:15.430 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:42:15.430 --> 00:42:15.940 align:middle line:90% Does that? 00:42:15.940 --> 00:42:18.513 align:middle line:84% Which is a good function of a studio. 00:42:18.513 --> 00:42:20.680 align:middle line:84% It sounds like you have a functional studio that you 00:42:20.680 --> 00:42:22.720 align:middle line:84% can enter each day, whether or not 00:42:22.720 --> 00:42:25.630 align:middle line:84% there's going to be something productive at the end of it, 00:42:25.630 --> 00:42:29.050 align:middle line:90% and that you trust that. 00:42:29.050 --> 00:42:34.300 align:middle line:84% Well, it's my office, I write in my office seven days a week. 00:42:34.300 --> 00:42:39.300 align:middle line:84% But, unless I'm in the middle of two or three drafts at the same 00:42:39.300 --> 00:42:42.690 align:middle line:84% time-- which happens but doesn't happen all the time like 00:42:42.690 --> 00:42:43.530 align:middle line:90% today-- 00:42:43.530 --> 00:42:47.340 align:middle line:84% and, you're not a poet unless you're writing a poem, 00:42:47.340 --> 00:42:49.860 align:middle line:84% and you don't know where the next one's going to come from. 00:42:49.860 --> 00:42:53.820 align:middle line:84% And, another one came to me today, and then 00:42:53.820 --> 00:42:56.490 align:middle line:84% by the end of the day, I said no, I don't 00:42:56.490 --> 00:42:58.980 align:middle line:90% think this is going to do it. 00:42:58.980 --> 00:43:01.230 align:middle line:84% Well, you all know if you're an artist that there's 00:43:01.230 --> 00:43:06.655 align:middle line:84% a great anxiety if you don't know what's going to come next, 00:43:06.655 --> 00:43:09.030 align:middle line:84% so I like it best when I'm in the middle of three or four 00:43:09.030 --> 00:43:10.410 align:middle line:90% different poems. 00:43:10.410 --> 00:43:18.105 align:middle line:84% Different rough drafts or less than rough drafts. 00:43:18.105 --> 00:43:21.170 align:middle line:90% 00:43:21.170 --> 00:43:23.700 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:43:23.700 --> 00:43:25.620 align:middle line:84% This is a question I'm going to direct to Jane 00:43:25.620 --> 00:43:27.990 align:middle line:84% but, I think that maybe others of you 00:43:27.990 --> 00:43:30.590 align:middle line:90% have thought about it too. 00:43:30.590 --> 00:43:32.840 align:middle line:84% How do you deal with the tremendous power 00:43:32.840 --> 00:43:36.290 align:middle line:84% of traditional forms and genres to reinscribe 00:43:36.290 --> 00:43:40.580 align:middle line:84% familiar arguments about the world? 00:43:40.580 --> 00:43:43.730 align:middle line:84% It seems like there's almost an ideology that comes, 00:43:43.730 --> 00:43:49.470 align:middle line:84% or baggage of ideology that comes with a traditional form. 00:43:49.470 --> 00:43:53.630 align:middle line:84% So, how do you work against that power of the form 00:43:53.630 --> 00:43:59.720 align:middle line:84% to reinscribe familiar arguments about the world? 00:43:59.720 --> 00:44:02.340 align:middle line:90% And how does that play out? 00:44:02.340 --> 00:44:06.110 align:middle line:84% And I know Jane, you and I have talked about this especially 00:44:06.110 --> 00:44:12.290 align:middle line:84% in terms of confessional poetry, or whether you want 00:44:12.290 --> 00:44:15.290 align:middle line:90% to write from lived experience. 00:44:15.290 --> 00:44:19.850 align:middle line:84% And, the idea of narrative itself, 00:44:19.850 --> 00:44:25.640 align:middle line:84% the arc of a narrative seems to posit that it's possible 00:44:25.640 --> 00:44:29.540 align:middle line:84% to make a kind of order out of the chaos of our lives, 00:44:29.540 --> 00:44:33.200 align:middle line:84% and you I think-- especially in your book Midnight's-- have 00:44:33.200 --> 00:44:40.100 align:middle line:84% resisted that the lie, the fiction, 00:44:40.100 --> 00:44:47.010 align:middle line:84% that order would come by simply writing up the events 00:44:47.010 --> 00:44:47.510 align:middle line:90% of a life. 00:44:47.510 --> 00:44:50.470 align:middle line:90% 00:44:50.470 --> 00:44:53.000 align:middle line:90% What was the question? 00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:55.330 align:middle line:84% How do you deal with the tremendous power 00:44:55.330 --> 00:44:58.990 align:middle line:84% of traditional forms and genres to reinscribe 00:44:58.990 --> 00:45:01.570 align:middle line:84% familiar arguments about the world, 00:45:01.570 --> 00:45:04.720 align:middle line:90% and do something else instead? 00:45:04.720 --> 00:45:08.770 align:middle line:84% Well, I have a very easy time of avoiding form. 00:45:08.770 --> 00:45:11.780 align:middle line:90% 00:45:11.780 --> 00:45:17.930 align:middle line:84% I think it's because I have a lot of order in my daily life. 00:45:17.930 --> 00:45:23.390 align:middle line:84% I eat regularly, and I try to exercise regularly, 00:45:23.390 --> 00:45:26.360 align:middle line:84% and I try to pay close attention to the people I love. 00:45:26.360 --> 00:45:35.250 align:middle line:84% And so, as an artist, I have no regard for order, diligence, 00:45:35.250 --> 00:45:37.160 align:middle line:90% attention, of that sort. 00:45:37.160 --> 00:45:40.750 align:middle line:84% I do have a lot of attention for my work, 00:45:40.750 --> 00:45:42.800 align:middle line:90% but it isn't ordered at all. 00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:48.730 align:middle line:84% In fact, after having an office near Steve Orlen for over 20 00:45:48.730 --> 00:45:53.140 align:middle line:84% years, and have to watch him go in there every day, 00:45:53.140 --> 00:45:57.670 align:middle line:84% create something every day, I mean, 00:45:57.670 --> 00:45:59.050 align:middle line:90% I could just strangle him. 00:45:59.050 --> 00:46:01.960 align:middle line:90% 00:46:01.960 --> 00:46:05.410 align:middle line:84% The guilt and regret that I have over not 00:46:05.410 --> 00:46:09.310 align:middle line:84% being able to live that kind of a life as an artist but, 00:46:09.310 --> 00:46:12.520 align:middle line:84% of course, one goes on in one's own way. 00:46:12.520 --> 00:46:17.170 align:middle line:84% So for me, anything formal that I do 00:46:17.170 --> 00:46:19.480 align:middle line:84% has to sneak up on me without my being aware 00:46:19.480 --> 00:46:22.330 align:middle line:84% and eventually it is the last thing that I pay attention to, 00:46:22.330 --> 00:46:24.400 align:middle line:90% and I have to, so I do. 00:46:24.400 --> 00:46:29.140 align:middle line:84% But, I write in a very messy way and try to pull it together 00:46:29.140 --> 00:46:31.525 align:middle line:90% at the very last moment. 00:46:31.525 --> 00:46:34.162 align:middle line:90% 00:46:34.162 --> 00:46:36.120 align:middle line:84% I don't know whether that answers your question 00:46:36.120 --> 00:46:47.180 align:middle line:84% but, it's an ordeal to face the sense of stanza organization, 00:46:47.180 --> 00:46:49.640 align:middle line:84% or over the long haul, and I've actually 00:46:49.640 --> 00:46:51.950 align:middle line:84% forced myself to write very long books so I would have 00:46:51.950 --> 00:46:58.040 align:middle line:84% to have an overarching order there to find, 00:46:58.040 --> 00:47:05.290 align:middle line:84% and even having at one point written a book of essays 00:47:05.290 --> 00:47:10.246 align:middle line:84% that almost killed me because, I could not make order out of it 00:47:10.246 --> 00:47:13.160 align:middle line:84% until the very last moment, and with a lot of help 00:47:13.160 --> 00:47:16.790 align:middle line:84% from many, many people, my students, my peers, 00:47:16.790 --> 00:47:18.980 align:middle line:90% and you in fact, Barbara. 00:47:18.980 --> 00:47:21.770 align:middle line:90% And Alison can jump in here. 00:47:21.770 --> 00:47:26.660 align:middle line:84% She's very accomplished in two genres. 00:47:26.660 --> 00:47:31.030 align:middle line:84% She writes essays and poetry, and I 00:47:31.030 --> 00:47:35.830 align:middle line:84% imagine struggles with the conventions of both. 00:47:35.830 --> 00:47:39.460 align:middle line:84% Yeah, of course, we all want to always be doing something new, 00:47:39.460 --> 00:47:43.630 align:middle line:84% and I never want to be-- what was the terrifying phrase 00:47:43.630 --> 00:47:45.040 align:middle line:90% about the old arguments? 00:47:45.040 --> 00:47:48.460 align:middle line:84% You know, here we go again, let's say it one more time. 00:47:48.460 --> 00:47:50.020 align:middle line:90% What was that awful-- 00:47:50.020 --> 00:47:52.700 align:middle line:84% Reinscribing the familiar argument about the world. 00:47:52.700 --> 00:47:55.510 align:middle line:84% I mean, of course, none of us want to be doing that, 00:47:55.510 --> 00:47:58.315 align:middle line:84% and it's a terrible shock when you do something 00:47:58.315 --> 00:48:00.190 align:middle line:84% that you think is very new and you look at it 00:48:00.190 --> 00:48:02.440 align:middle line:84% and you said, "I've been saying the same thing for 20 years, 00:48:02.440 --> 00:48:03.350 align:middle line:90% how did that happen? 00:48:03.350 --> 00:48:05.980 align:middle line:84% And so, is how we're feeling about 5,000 other people 00:48:05.980 --> 00:48:10.930 align:middle line:84% I can think of but nonetheless, one is under the obligation 00:48:10.930 --> 00:48:13.480 align:middle line:84% to try to make it new on one's own terms 00:48:13.480 --> 00:48:15.475 align:middle line:90% and in one's own forms. 00:48:15.475 --> 00:48:18.460 align:middle line:84% I have a different relationship to order actually, 00:48:18.460 --> 00:48:23.590 align:middle line:84% I have a tremendous sense of artistic chaos. 00:48:23.590 --> 00:48:28.480 align:middle line:84% I do think that writing poems, and essays, and lyric essays, 00:48:28.480 --> 00:48:32.680 align:middle line:84% are all about creating art and I don't necessarily 00:48:32.680 --> 00:48:34.990 align:middle line:84% mean imposing a false sense of order 00:48:34.990 --> 00:48:41.110 align:middle line:84% so much as I mean, how do we find a temporary sense of order 00:48:41.110 --> 00:48:44.680 align:middle line:84% that encompasses more of the chaos with which we're 00:48:44.680 --> 00:48:48.080 align:middle line:84% forced to live, because of the time in which we live? 00:48:48.080 --> 00:48:50.800 align:middle line:84% And, I think when we're struggling for form, 00:48:50.800 --> 00:48:55.540 align:middle line:84% we're struggling for some sense of temporary order and pattern 00:48:55.540 --> 00:48:57.250 align:middle line:90% that helps us to feel-- 00:48:57.250 --> 00:48:59.380 align:middle line:84% even as in this little poem I read-- 00:48:59.380 --> 00:49:03.970 align:middle line:84% that there is a whole of which this chaos is a part, 00:49:03.970 --> 00:49:06.850 align:middle line:84% and somehow artistic form is one of the ways 00:49:06.850 --> 00:49:10.808 align:middle line:84% we metonymically create a sense of the whole of which 00:49:10.808 --> 00:49:12.100 align:middle line:90% all these fragments are a part. 00:49:12.100 --> 00:49:16.930 align:middle line:84% So, just to say one other thing about that is that, sometimes-- 00:49:16.930 --> 00:49:20.470 align:middle line:84% because this spins off of the last thing Steve said-- 00:49:20.470 --> 00:49:23.005 align:middle line:84% how do you keep the thing going when that's the question 00:49:23.005 --> 00:49:25.630 align:middle line:84% and you don't know how to do it, and you've got a pile of chaos 00:49:25.630 --> 00:49:26.230 align:middle line:90% on your desk? 00:49:26.230 --> 00:49:30.460 align:middle line:84% Sometimes for me, it is a formal challenge and particularly 00:49:30.460 --> 00:49:33.940 align:middle line:90% if I'm working on a long poem. 00:49:33.940 --> 00:49:36.910 align:middle line:84% I'll come up with some arbitrary thing I want to do, 00:49:36.910 --> 00:49:38.950 align:middle line:84% like there's a long poem called "The Flight" 00:49:38.950 --> 00:49:41.260 align:middle line:84% that's about 20 pages long in my new book, 00:49:41.260 --> 00:49:45.910 align:middle line:84% and it's got a six line stanza that steps in like the Williams 00:49:45.910 --> 00:49:47.860 align:middle line:84% triptych line-- for those of you who know it-- 00:49:47.860 --> 00:49:49.690 align:middle line:84% except it's to go 6 times and it's 00:49:49.690 --> 00:49:51.910 align:middle line:84% got all these different ideas of flight. 00:49:51.910 --> 00:49:55.150 align:middle line:84% And every time I got stuck, I just tried to say all right, 00:49:55.150 --> 00:49:56.650 align:middle line:84% you're going to stay with this form, 00:49:56.650 --> 00:49:58.510 align:middle line:84% you're just going to keep going with it, 00:49:58.510 --> 00:50:00.820 align:middle line:84% and you're also going to stitch it together 00:50:00.820 --> 00:50:03.400 align:middle line:90% with this little word, so. 00:50:03.400 --> 00:50:05.170 align:middle line:90% That once you get stuck-- 00:50:05.170 --> 00:50:09.100 align:middle line:84% and it's a little joke about sewing but it's SO-- 00:50:09.100 --> 00:50:11.620 align:middle line:84% so the poem sort of gets stuck and runs out of steam, 00:50:11.620 --> 00:50:14.590 align:middle line:84% and I pick up the next gesture by saying, 00:50:14.590 --> 00:50:17.140 align:middle line:84% so, I'm waiting for the plane to take off. 00:50:17.140 --> 00:50:20.590 align:middle line:84% And you can connect anything to anything with one little word, 00:50:20.590 --> 00:50:24.760 align:middle line:84% and then it becomes a kind of unifying gesture that I don't 00:50:24.760 --> 00:50:26.530 align:middle line:84% think is an imposing of false order, 00:50:26.530 --> 00:50:29.380 align:middle line:84% it's allowing a word to help you create 00:50:29.380 --> 00:50:31.690 align:middle line:90% a pattern that feels orderly. 00:50:31.690 --> 00:50:34.780 align:middle line:84% So, I don't know, that sort of spins off right. 00:50:34.780 --> 00:50:38.470 align:middle line:84% And simultaneously, the poem is unraveling itself as well as, 00:50:38.470 --> 00:50:39.700 align:middle line:90% stitching itself together. 00:50:39.700 --> 00:50:41.075 align:middle line:90% Exactly. 00:50:41.075 --> 00:50:41.575 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:50:41.575 --> 00:50:44.290 align:middle line:90% 00:50:44.290 --> 00:50:46.630 align:middle line:84% Continuing with the aesthetic decisions 00:50:46.630 --> 00:50:51.520 align:middle line:84% that we make as poets, and thinking about this chaos 00:50:51.520 --> 00:50:55.240 align:middle line:84% issue, we certainly encounter enough chaos in the world 00:50:55.240 --> 00:50:58.540 align:middle line:84% and sometimes that creates enough sorrow 00:50:58.540 --> 00:51:01.660 align:middle line:90% that we need to write. 00:51:01.660 --> 00:51:07.660 align:middle line:84% But this question sort of flips it on its head. 00:51:07.660 --> 00:51:10.810 align:middle line:84% When you write, do you preserve or destroy 00:51:10.810 --> 00:51:12.460 align:middle line:90% your source materials? 00:51:12.460 --> 00:51:17.323 align:middle line:90% 00:51:17.323 --> 00:51:18.490 align:middle line:90% Anybody want to answer that? 00:51:18.490 --> 00:51:19.890 align:middle line:90% Reserve. 00:51:19.890 --> 00:51:21.768 align:middle line:90% I'm a hoarder, OK. 00:51:21.768 --> 00:51:23.310 align:middle line:84% What do you mean by source materials? 00:51:23.310 --> 00:51:23.820 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:51:23.820 --> 00:51:27.600 align:middle line:84% Well, Alison answered that in terms 00:51:27.600 --> 00:51:30.720 align:middle line:90% of her process materials-- 00:51:30.720 --> 00:51:34.530 align:middle line:90% you keep the drafts. 00:51:34.530 --> 00:51:40.860 align:middle line:84% And that's an interesting answer interpretation of the question. 00:51:40.860 --> 00:51:43.150 align:middle line:84% I was thinking more for instance, 00:51:43.150 --> 00:51:47.130 align:middle line:84% if your source material is your third grade 00:51:47.130 --> 00:51:51.090 align:middle line:84% year at a Catholic school, when you write about 00:51:51.090 --> 00:51:55.380 align:middle line:84% that source material do you preserve it or do 00:51:55.380 --> 00:52:02.070 align:middle line:84% you destroy it, if you write out of a lived experience? 00:52:02.070 --> 00:52:04.500 align:middle line:84% I've gotten further and further away 00:52:04.500 --> 00:52:07.500 align:middle line:84% from the source that starts me to write the poem. 00:52:07.500 --> 00:52:09.360 align:middle line:90% Maybe my third grade teacher. 00:52:09.360 --> 00:52:11.960 align:middle line:90% 00:52:11.960 --> 00:52:20.330 align:middle line:84% And I've gotten myself my autobiographical self, 00:52:20.330 --> 00:52:25.580 align:middle line:84% appears less frequently as an engine in the poems. 00:52:25.580 --> 00:52:28.940 align:middle line:84% It may have started that way but, I take that out 00:52:28.940 --> 00:52:39.340 align:middle line:84% and, I mean I've got poems where the whole thing was changed. 00:52:39.340 --> 00:52:44.800 align:middle line:84% And then, I got into fictions that are personalized, 00:52:44.800 --> 00:52:47.710 align:middle line:84% but then I've lived a part of that. 00:52:47.710 --> 00:52:53.760 align:middle line:84% And so, I'm creating 3/4 of a new character, 00:52:53.760 --> 00:52:55.740 align:middle line:90% then the rest is my voice. 00:52:55.740 --> 00:53:01.350 align:middle line:84% But I end up destroying it more and more as I've gotten older. 00:53:01.350 --> 00:53:02.835 align:middle line:90% Who cares about myself? 00:53:02.835 --> 00:53:05.510 align:middle line:90% 00:53:05.510 --> 00:53:07.920 align:middle line:84% Jane, what about you on this one? 00:53:07.920 --> 00:53:12.260 align:middle line:84% I care about my small self, not over much 00:53:12.260 --> 00:53:18.320 align:middle line:84% but, I try to get farther and farther into myself, 00:53:18.320 --> 00:53:20.840 align:middle line:84% until I blast out the back, where 00:53:20.840 --> 00:53:26.750 align:middle line:84% I hope there's some sort of communal archetypal human 00:53:26.750 --> 00:53:28.027 align:middle line:90% that I can connect with. 00:53:28.027 --> 00:53:30.110 align:middle line:84% But I have to go all the way through the material, 00:53:30.110 --> 00:53:34.145 align:middle line:84% and I try as hard as I can to be honest. 00:53:34.145 --> 00:53:38.450 align:middle line:90% 00:53:38.450 --> 00:53:42.230 align:middle line:84% Just exactly as I remember it, and if I can't remember I 00:53:42.230 --> 00:53:44.060 align:middle line:84% wait, and then I wait more, and I just 00:53:44.060 --> 00:53:47.060 align:middle line:84% wrack my brains trying to get every single angle of it 00:53:47.060 --> 00:53:52.670 align:middle line:90% until some design comes through. 00:53:52.670 --> 00:54:01.590 align:middle line:84% That is I guess, humane in the sense 00:54:01.590 --> 00:54:03.540 align:middle line:84% that it belongs to more than just me. 00:54:03.540 --> 00:54:06.390 align:middle line:84% Sort of Jung's idea that, if you get down 00:54:06.390 --> 00:54:07.890 align:middle line:84% to the bottom of your dreams, you'll 00:54:07.890 --> 00:54:10.350 align:middle line:84% find archetypal imagery there, it's 00:54:10.350 --> 00:54:15.455 align:middle line:84% shared, and communal, and interesting. 00:54:15.455 --> 00:54:16.830 align:middle line:84% So I don't think I'm interesting, 00:54:16.830 --> 00:54:19.560 align:middle line:84% but I think that which I have in common with everybody 00:54:19.560 --> 00:54:22.960 align:middle line:84% can be terribly interesting if I could just find it. 00:54:22.960 --> 00:54:25.360 align:middle line:84% So, while I'm looking for me I'm looking for you. 00:54:25.360 --> 00:54:29.220 align:middle line:90% 00:54:29.220 --> 00:54:30.420 align:middle line:90% I'm looking for us. 00:54:30.420 --> 00:54:33.360 align:middle line:84% And Boyer, I think that you might 00:54:33.360 --> 00:54:36.690 align:middle line:90% want to add something to that. 00:54:36.690 --> 00:54:39.690 align:middle line:84% At the same time, I've seen in your work 00:54:39.690 --> 00:54:44.820 align:middle line:84% a kind of shift from telling stories and working 00:54:44.820 --> 00:54:47.130 align:middle line:84% from lived experience that you may or may not 00:54:47.130 --> 00:54:49.230 align:middle line:84% preserve or destroy in the process, 00:54:49.230 --> 00:54:54.000 align:middle line:84% and Arreboles your first book or in Taboo, your collection 00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:57.960 align:middle line:84% of essays, but, kind of on the heels of that 00:54:57.960 --> 00:55:00.510 align:middle line:84% question, why do you tell stories? 00:55:00.510 --> 00:55:04.890 align:middle line:84% If you do, and why do you work from fragments? 00:55:04.890 --> 00:55:05.640 align:middle line:90% If you do. 00:55:05.640 --> 00:55:09.030 align:middle line:90% 00:55:09.030 --> 00:55:15.980 align:middle line:84% Oh, my source material actually is languages fragments, 00:55:15.980 --> 00:55:18.900 align:middle line:84% is stuff that I collect and cull in recent years 00:55:18.900 --> 00:55:22.170 align:middle line:84% from anywhere I possibly can, and when life is good 00:55:22.170 --> 00:55:25.140 align:middle line:90% everything seems usable. 00:55:25.140 --> 00:55:29.430 align:middle line:84% I collect in notebooks and then, when 00:55:29.430 --> 00:55:32.250 align:middle line:84% I'm feeling the sort of confidence, 00:55:32.250 --> 00:55:36.270 align:middle line:84% I can't write every day but I consider myself a writer 00:55:36.270 --> 00:55:38.460 align:middle line:90% as long as I'm collecting. 00:55:38.460 --> 00:55:41.130 align:middle line:84% But when I feel the confidence that I'm 00:55:41.130 --> 00:55:45.030 align:middle line:84% ready to make the kinds of spontaneous connections 00:55:45.030 --> 00:55:48.120 align:middle line:84% that will lead to something that matters, 00:55:48.120 --> 00:55:50.760 align:middle line:84% then I start combing through the notebooks 00:55:50.760 --> 00:55:53.610 align:middle line:84% and depending on whatever conventions 00:55:53.610 --> 00:55:55.830 align:middle line:90% I've decided to work through. 00:55:55.830 --> 00:56:00.120 align:middle line:84% The shaping works against the tension 00:56:00.120 --> 00:56:04.470 align:middle line:84% of the materials and my life does come forward from time 00:56:04.470 --> 00:56:06.630 align:middle line:90% to time. 00:56:06.630 --> 00:56:09.240 align:middle line:84% Remanence is primarily a sequence 00:56:09.240 --> 00:56:14.250 align:middle line:84% of poems built on five individual separate sentences 00:56:14.250 --> 00:56:18.730 align:middle line:84% under a title that connects them in some way, 00:56:18.730 --> 00:56:21.990 align:middle line:84% though they don't tell a story or provide a single argument. 00:56:21.990 --> 00:56:25.260 align:middle line:84% My hope is, and my thinking as I created each one, 00:56:25.260 --> 00:56:30.390 align:middle line:84% was that there's a range of resonances among them, 00:56:30.390 --> 00:56:33.930 align:middle line:84% and that it leaves a kind of floating or indeterminate set 00:56:33.930 --> 00:56:36.030 align:middle line:84% of possibilities in relation to that title. 00:56:36.030 --> 00:56:38.880 align:middle line:84% So, I've really moved away from story 00:56:38.880 --> 00:56:42.690 align:middle line:84% but, if one reads this I think, from beginning to end quickly, 00:56:42.690 --> 00:56:46.470 align:middle line:84% you begin to see there are characters actually who recur, 00:56:46.470 --> 00:56:49.770 align:middle line:84% there's landscape that is very central to the sequence 00:56:49.770 --> 00:56:51.552 align:middle line:90% as a whole. 00:56:51.552 --> 00:57:00.030 align:middle line:84% And, a kind of very indirect story with the only themes 00:57:00.030 --> 00:57:00.720 align:middle line:90% I know-- 00:57:00.720 --> 00:57:05.470 align:middle line:90% Eros and Thanatos-- are present. 00:57:05.470 --> 00:57:08.850 align:middle line:84% In the end it doesn't arrive at a different place thematically 00:57:08.850 --> 00:57:13.140 align:middle line:84% as far as I can tell from my first two books but, I did feel 00:57:13.140 --> 00:57:16.470 align:middle line:84% also after Taboo-- which has autobiographical essays-- 00:57:16.470 --> 00:57:19.180 align:middle line:90% 00:57:19.180 --> 00:57:22.120 align:middle line:84% that I simply couldn't do that again ever. 00:57:22.120 --> 00:57:26.380 align:middle line:84% That I had gone into places in as direct a fashion 00:57:26.380 --> 00:57:30.320 align:middle line:84% as I could, and it was really a form of difficulty 00:57:30.320 --> 00:57:33.130 align:middle line:84% I didn't want to do again, and didn't think I needed to. 00:57:33.130 --> 00:57:37.030 align:middle line:84% And so, it was a long process coming to the new material 00:57:37.030 --> 00:57:39.782 align:middle line:90% and the new process of writing. 00:57:39.782 --> 00:57:40.990 align:middle line:90% I don't know if that answers. 00:57:40.990 --> 00:57:43.060 align:middle line:90% Yeah, it does. 00:57:43.060 --> 00:57:50.020 align:middle line:84% In talking with you it's clear that your work is incubated 00:57:50.020 --> 00:57:52.060 align:middle line:90% in a life story for all of you. 00:57:52.060 --> 00:57:57.730 align:middle line:84% And one of my questions about community has to do with-- 00:57:57.730 --> 00:58:04.090 align:middle line:84% were quite simply-- are you a citizen poet or a private poet? 00:58:04.090 --> 00:58:09.750 align:middle line:84% Anybody who teaches has one leg in community automatically, 00:58:09.750 --> 00:58:12.110 align:middle line:90% you are in a classroom. 00:58:12.110 --> 00:58:16.430 align:middle line:84% And so, I would like to know if you 00:58:16.430 --> 00:58:18.230 align:middle line:84% have an answer to that question, are you 00:58:18.230 --> 00:58:20.870 align:middle line:84% a citizen poet or a private poet? 00:58:20.870 --> 00:58:25.280 align:middle line:84% But also in conjunction with that, looking back 00:58:25.280 --> 00:58:29.720 align:middle line:84% over all the classes and the classrooms that you've been in, 00:58:29.720 --> 00:58:32.330 align:middle line:84% and you've been teaching in, what 00:58:32.330 --> 00:58:37.250 align:middle line:84% choices have you made over time that make you the teacher 00:58:37.250 --> 00:58:44.045 align:middle line:84% that you are, or make you the citizen poet that you are? 00:58:44.045 --> 00:58:52.600 align:middle line:90% 00:58:52.600 --> 00:58:55.010 align:middle line:84% Well, I love teaching, I love my job, 00:58:55.010 --> 00:58:59.060 align:middle line:84% but it has gotten in the way of my work. 00:58:59.060 --> 00:59:01.450 align:middle line:84% And so, it's become my work and that happened to me. 00:59:01.450 --> 00:59:03.790 align:middle line:84% And so, I'm grateful now for it but, I've 00:59:03.790 --> 00:59:07.030 align:middle line:90% fought it all the way. 00:59:07.030 --> 00:59:11.860 align:middle line:84% I feel I'm a very private person, so I entertain and try 00:59:11.860 --> 00:59:14.830 align:middle line:84% to be as controversial as I can in the classroom 00:59:14.830 --> 00:59:17.950 align:middle line:84% so that I can leave it all there. 00:59:17.950 --> 00:59:20.680 align:middle line:84% And I'm just exhausted at the end of every class, 00:59:20.680 --> 00:59:22.130 align:middle line:90% I can't remember what happened. 00:59:22.130 --> 00:59:24.610 align:middle line:84% And by the time I walk about 35 feet, 00:59:24.610 --> 00:59:28.810 align:middle line:84% it's as if it never happened, which is part of my process. 00:59:28.810 --> 00:59:30.760 align:middle line:84% I just have to just get it all out so 00:59:30.760 --> 00:59:32.650 align:middle line:84% that I can go back to my deepest self 00:59:32.650 --> 00:59:37.160 align:middle line:84% again and, thank you for understanding me. 00:59:37.160 --> 00:59:39.160 align:middle line:84% I'm sorry I haven't had you all over for dinner, 00:59:39.160 --> 00:59:42.170 align:middle line:90% but this is why. 00:59:42.170 --> 00:59:44.630 align:middle line:84% And, as my friend Richard [? Cutrover ?] 00:59:44.630 --> 00:59:46.700 align:middle line:90% says love you a lot. 00:59:46.700 --> 00:59:51.110 align:middle line:84% But honestly, I've always admired the poet 00:59:51.110 --> 00:59:54.110 align:middle line:84% William Merwin who would have been 00:59:54.110 --> 00:59:56.240 align:middle line:84% and he still can choose to-- would 00:59:56.240 --> 00:59:58.940 align:middle line:84% have been a great teacher, and walked away from that 00:59:58.940 --> 01:00:02.510 align:middle line:84% because he felt like it would take too much out of him. 01:00:02.510 --> 01:00:04.820 align:middle line:84% It's taken almost everything out of me 01:00:04.820 --> 01:00:06.200 align:middle line:84% to be a teacher because, I wanted 01:00:06.200 --> 01:00:07.400 align:middle line:90% to be a really good teacher. 01:00:07.400 --> 01:00:09.320 align:middle line:90% And so, I've just-- 01:00:09.320 --> 01:00:11.965 align:middle line:84% like all of us here-- we work really hard at what we do 01:00:11.965 --> 01:00:13.590 align:middle line:84% and I know that we're very proud of it, 01:00:13.590 --> 01:00:18.290 align:middle line:84% but for me, if I don't get away from you all now and then, 01:00:18.290 --> 01:00:21.130 align:middle line:84% I have nothing, no self at all to bring to the classroom 01:00:21.130 --> 01:00:25.010 align:middle line:84% so, I try to get away as much as I can, as far as I can, 01:00:25.010 --> 01:00:27.270 align:middle line:84% and as deep into myself as I can. 01:00:27.270 --> 01:00:29.000 align:middle line:84% And so, the answer is, I wish I could 01:00:29.000 --> 01:00:31.640 align:middle line:90% be a better political person. 01:00:31.640 --> 01:00:34.880 align:middle line:84% I have come out for certain causes, 01:00:34.880 --> 01:00:38.120 align:middle line:90% so far out that I don't know-- 01:00:38.120 --> 01:00:41.450 align:middle line:84% I like to think that when I have to, I will be there, 01:00:41.450 --> 01:00:44.220 align:middle line:84% but it really is like pulling teeth. 01:00:44.220 --> 01:00:46.220 align:middle line:84% I remember when I first came out as a gay person 01:00:46.220 --> 01:00:50.610 align:middle line:84% at this University it was scandalous, 01:00:50.610 --> 01:00:54.810 align:middle line:84% this was back in like the 18th century or something. 01:00:54.810 --> 01:00:56.585 align:middle line:84% In other words, it's just like it is now. 01:00:56.585 --> 01:00:59.270 align:middle line:90% 01:00:59.270 --> 01:01:02.060 align:middle line:84% And, everybody thought it was just sort 01:01:02.060 --> 01:01:04.400 align:middle line:84% of brave and outrageous, and I didn't really 01:01:04.400 --> 01:01:06.170 align:middle line:90% notice that I had done it. 01:01:06.170 --> 01:01:12.260 align:middle line:84% So, I guess I am political, but not really when I mean to be. 01:01:12.260 --> 01:01:15.230 align:middle line:84% And so, thank you for respecting my privacy. 01:01:15.230 --> 01:01:21.660 align:middle line:90% 01:01:21.660 --> 01:01:23.910 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:01:23.910 --> 01:01:28.440 align:middle line:84% It's really curious what happens in a life, 01:01:28.440 --> 01:01:31.680 align:middle line:84% I was a teenage mother and pretty much emotionally 01:01:31.680 --> 01:01:33.120 align:middle line:90% disowned from my family. 01:01:33.120 --> 01:01:36.060 align:middle line:84% I ran off to northern Vermont, I was a welfare mother 01:01:36.060 --> 01:01:38.040 align:middle line:84% and raised my daughter myself, and worked 01:01:38.040 --> 01:01:40.560 align:middle line:84% for Planned Parenthood and other women's health care 01:01:40.560 --> 01:01:41.250 align:middle line:90% organizations. 01:01:41.250 --> 01:01:44.110 align:middle line:84% That was like 15 years of my young life. 01:01:44.110 --> 01:01:48.510 align:middle line:84% So, when I came into University, life was very late you know. 01:01:48.510 --> 01:01:52.140 align:middle line:84% I was in my mid-40s, so I don't feel the same way 01:01:52.140 --> 01:01:55.150 align:middle line:84% about universities and teaching that some of my colleagues do. 01:01:55.150 --> 01:01:56.983 align:middle line:84% They've been doing it since they were seven. 01:01:56.983 --> 01:02:01.150 align:middle line:90% 01:02:01.150 --> 01:02:03.223 align:middle line:84% So, that's a good thing but it's weird. 01:02:03.223 --> 01:02:04.890 align:middle line:84% The really strange thing that's happened 01:02:04.890 --> 01:02:06.930 align:middle line:84% is, I was a very private poet and wrote 01:02:06.930 --> 01:02:08.370 align:middle line:90% in the closet for a long time. 01:02:08.370 --> 01:02:14.010 align:middle line:84% And, it was an amazing discovery earlier in my life 01:02:14.010 --> 01:02:18.660 align:middle line:84% to feel the social pleasures and the social function of art, 01:02:18.660 --> 01:02:21.582 align:middle line:84% and what it meant to share poetry, 01:02:21.582 --> 01:02:23.790 align:middle line:84% and the experience of poetry, and love of the poetry, 01:02:23.790 --> 01:02:26.550 align:middle line:84% and the craziness of poetry with other people and loved it. 01:02:26.550 --> 01:02:28.800 align:middle line:84% I mean, how thrilling that was for me, 01:02:28.800 --> 01:02:32.850 align:middle line:84% and also thrilling that when you read your poem people's eyes 01:02:32.850 --> 01:02:35.370 align:middle line:84% get bigger and you realize you can bridge 01:02:35.370 --> 01:02:36.770 align:middle line:90% something between people. 01:02:36.770 --> 01:02:39.240 align:middle line:84% It's a staggering realization if you've 01:02:39.240 --> 01:02:42.360 align:middle line:84% written by yourself for many years as most of us have. 01:02:42.360 --> 01:02:45.930 align:middle line:84% And over the years, that's gotten stranger for me 01:02:45.930 --> 01:02:50.760 align:middle line:84% because I didn't plan to become a public poet or a citizen 01:02:50.760 --> 01:02:53.940 align:middle line:84% poet, but it's something that happened that came out 01:02:53.940 --> 01:02:56.700 align:middle line:84% of my work, that more and more people kept asking me to come 01:02:56.700 --> 01:02:58.830 align:middle line:84% and do a reading for this environmental thing, 01:02:58.830 --> 01:03:01.530 align:middle line:84% or for the Fishing and Game Department of Florida, 01:03:01.530 --> 01:03:03.600 align:middle line:90% I'm thinking, what? 01:03:03.600 --> 01:03:04.230 align:middle line:90% OK. 01:03:04.230 --> 01:03:05.580 align:middle line:90% And, you know-- 01:03:05.580 --> 01:03:08.020 align:middle line:84% And you're a poet laureate for zoos now. 01:03:08.020 --> 01:03:08.520 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:03:08.520 --> 01:03:11.400 align:middle line:84% I'm a poet in residence at the Jacksonville zoo in Florida, 01:03:11.400 --> 01:03:12.900 align:middle line:84% one of five poets around the country 01:03:12.900 --> 01:03:15.090 align:middle line:84% putting poetry installations up in zoos. 01:03:15.090 --> 01:03:18.930 align:middle line:84% So, this evolved and I can't tell you 01:03:18.930 --> 01:03:23.160 align:middle line:84% how much I love it, the feeling that people are doing really 01:03:23.160 --> 01:03:27.900 align:middle line:84% hard work to try to soften the brutality of human beings 01:03:27.900 --> 01:03:30.660 align:middle line:84% on the natural world, want what we do, 01:03:30.660 --> 01:03:32.850 align:middle line:84% and that has meaning for them, and we don't always 01:03:32.850 --> 01:03:36.580 align:middle line:84% know exactly why or how, but it's true, it really does. 01:03:36.580 --> 01:03:40.980 align:middle line:84% And so, I've become more and more committed to participating 01:03:40.980 --> 01:03:42.400 align:middle line:90% in these kinds of things. 01:03:42.400 --> 01:03:47.460 align:middle line:84% And so, I now believe much more strongly 01:03:47.460 --> 01:03:51.150 align:middle line:84% than I could have possibly 20 years ago or even 10 years ago, 01:03:51.150 --> 01:03:55.200 align:middle line:84% in the possibility for some poets and writers 01:03:55.200 --> 01:04:01.320 align:middle line:84% to really be out there, and be a voice in a way. 01:04:01.320 --> 01:04:03.930 align:middle line:84% I could go on for seven weeks, I got one more thing to say 01:04:03.930 --> 01:04:06.750 align:middle line:84% and I'll stop but, I think one of the things we've 01:04:06.750 --> 01:04:09.840 align:middle line:84% learned through the terrible era of George Bush 01:04:09.840 --> 01:04:12.420 align:middle line:84% is that, having data and empirical knowledge 01:04:12.420 --> 01:04:16.290 align:middle line:84% does not help us solve the terrible wounding, 01:04:16.290 --> 01:04:18.660 align:middle line:84% and the terrible problems, and the terrible diminishment 01:04:18.660 --> 01:04:19.470 align:middle line:90% of the world. 01:04:19.470 --> 01:04:21.030 align:middle line:90% Data doesn't do that. 01:04:21.030 --> 01:04:23.460 align:middle line:84% People don't care about climate change, 01:04:23.460 --> 01:04:25.980 align:middle line:84% and they don't care about the extinction of animals, 01:04:25.980 --> 01:04:28.440 align:middle line:84% because they don't feel it keenly enough. 01:04:28.440 --> 01:04:31.240 align:middle line:84% We bring the heart into everything. 01:04:31.240 --> 01:04:34.050 align:middle line:84% And so, there's a role for us and even the science 01:04:34.050 --> 01:04:36.810 align:middle line:84% communities are asking us to bring that 01:04:36.810 --> 01:04:38.260 align:middle line:90% into the conversation. 01:04:38.260 --> 01:04:42.870 align:middle line:84% And so, I'm caught constantly now in that challenge 01:04:42.870 --> 01:04:45.990 align:middle line:84% of how to remain true to the really private and inner 01:04:45.990 --> 01:04:48.930 align:middle line:84% calling of being a poet, and at the same time 01:04:48.930 --> 01:04:50.790 align:middle line:84% give something to those communities who 01:04:50.790 --> 01:04:54.930 align:middle line:84% want a poetic voice in their particular social and political 01:04:54.930 --> 01:04:55.500 align:middle line:90% struggles. 01:04:55.500 --> 01:04:58.770 align:middle line:90% So, anyway-- 01:04:58.770 --> 01:04:59.455 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 01:04:59.455 --> 01:04:59.955 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:04:59.955 --> 01:05:05.700 align:middle line:90% 01:05:05.700 --> 01:05:07.710 align:middle line:84% The way that you describe yourself Steve, 01:05:07.710 --> 01:05:10.740 align:middle line:84% is kind of like the introvert poet. 01:05:10.740 --> 01:05:13.320 align:middle line:84% I think we're all recovering introverts, 01:05:13.320 --> 01:05:18.220 align:middle line:84% those of us who write, but we teach, we're in our classrooms. 01:05:18.220 --> 01:05:23.640 align:middle line:84% And, there's another aspect to this notion 01:05:23.640 --> 01:05:30.300 align:middle line:84% of being part of a community and that is that we publish. 01:05:30.300 --> 01:05:35.490 align:middle line:84% And, when I was in my MFA program, 01:05:35.490 --> 01:05:39.250 align:middle line:84% there was a lot of talk about who are your influences, 01:05:39.250 --> 01:05:43.410 align:middle line:84% and what are the origins of your work, 01:05:43.410 --> 01:05:45.600 align:middle line:84% the source materials like we've talked 01:05:45.600 --> 01:05:47.250 align:middle line:90% about some of those but-- 01:05:47.250 --> 01:05:52.470 align:middle line:84% So, this next question sort of pushes it a little bit. 01:05:52.470 --> 01:05:55.140 align:middle line:84% Much has been said about the origins of poetry 01:05:55.140 --> 01:05:58.950 align:middle line:84% in cultures and in individual artists lives, what interests 01:05:58.950 --> 01:06:03.960 align:middle line:84% me more these days is the destination of what we write, 01:06:03.960 --> 01:06:06.930 align:middle line:84% no matter from where you launch it, 01:06:06.930 --> 01:06:11.300 align:middle line:84% where is it that you want your work to land, and to detonate? 01:06:11.300 --> 01:06:14.400 align:middle line:90% 01:06:14.400 --> 01:06:20.010 align:middle line:84% That makes you a political poet or a citizen poet too, 01:06:20.010 --> 01:06:25.770 align:middle line:84% or at least it's launched out of your living room, and somewhere 01:06:25.770 --> 01:06:26.490 align:middle line:90% else. 01:06:26.490 --> 01:06:31.770 align:middle line:84% And, unless it's going into a time capsule, where do 01:06:31.770 --> 01:06:32.550 align:middle line:90% you want it to be? 01:06:32.550 --> 01:06:35.115 align:middle line:90% Where do you want it to explode? 01:06:35.115 --> 01:06:45.130 align:middle line:90% 01:06:45.130 --> 01:06:46.870 align:middle line:90% Yeah, there it is. 01:06:46.870 --> 01:06:51.120 align:middle line:84% I speak from green, it's great we're under the interrogation 01:06:51.120 --> 01:06:51.620 align:middle line:90% lamp here. 01:06:51.620 --> 01:06:54.950 align:middle line:90% The sun is just blinding us. 01:06:54.950 --> 01:06:56.720 align:middle line:90% No, maybe she should-- 01:06:56.720 --> 01:07:00.935 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I can't see these beautiful people, feel dreams. 01:07:00.935 --> 01:07:04.930 align:middle line:90% 01:07:04.930 --> 01:07:13.080 align:middle line:84% Auden said this great thing about, "A poet is someone 01:07:13.080 --> 01:07:18.330 align:middle line:84% who writes things by himself or herself in a room, 01:07:18.330 --> 01:07:23.100 align:middle line:84% and to be read by another person sitting by himself or herself, 01:07:23.100 --> 01:07:24.390 align:middle line:90% alone in a room." 01:07:24.390 --> 01:07:34.780 align:middle line:90% 01:07:34.780 --> 01:07:37.630 align:middle line:90% So, that's who my audience is. 01:07:37.630 --> 01:07:42.010 align:middle line:84% I want someone else to follow my thinking 01:07:42.010 --> 01:07:44.980 align:middle line:84% and see if there's anything interesting about it. 01:07:44.980 --> 01:07:51.070 align:middle line:84% And, I always wanted to move people, less now, 01:07:51.070 --> 01:07:53.410 align:middle line:84% I think I want people to feel and think 01:07:53.410 --> 01:07:58.390 align:middle line:84% but necessarily, break out into tears, that was my goal when I 01:07:58.390 --> 01:07:59.725 align:middle line:90% was a young poet, make you cry. 01:07:59.725 --> 01:08:03.010 align:middle line:90% 01:08:03.010 --> 01:08:04.170 align:middle line:90% So, that's my audience. 01:08:04.170 --> 01:08:10.210 align:middle line:84% I'm not a political person, I avoid confrontation, 01:08:10.210 --> 01:08:13.120 align:middle line:84% I don't feel like I'm part of any community except, 01:08:13.120 --> 01:08:16.359 align:middle line:84% about a dozen friends who are all over the country 01:08:16.359 --> 01:08:19.180 align:middle line:84% and we talk on the phone, and some are here too. 01:08:19.180 --> 01:08:24.160 align:middle line:84% But I'm really happy for the academy that gave me a job, 01:08:24.160 --> 01:08:26.495 align:middle line:90% I'm good for nothing. 01:08:26.495 --> 01:08:27.370 align:middle line:90% I'm good for nothing. 01:08:27.370 --> 01:08:29.890 align:middle line:84% My father asked the principal of junior high, 01:08:29.890 --> 01:08:31.640 align:middle line:90% "Should he take Latin or French? 01:08:31.640 --> 01:08:34.149 align:middle line:84% Which will help him get into college?" 01:08:34.149 --> 01:08:35.890 align:middle line:84% And he said, "You don't have to worry 01:08:35.890 --> 01:08:38.800 align:middle line:84% about your son going to college, he's going to jail." 01:08:38.800 --> 01:08:40.990 align:middle line:90% And he hung up on him. 01:08:40.990 --> 01:08:41.979 align:middle line:90% That's a true story. 01:08:41.979 --> 01:08:46.000 align:middle line:90% 01:08:46.000 --> 01:08:50.229 align:middle line:84% So, even though I spent all this time in my office, 01:08:50.229 --> 01:08:52.630 align:middle line:84% I feel very uncomfortable in the academy. 01:08:52.630 --> 01:08:55.120 align:middle line:84% I like to teach, I like to sit down with a group of people 01:08:55.120 --> 01:08:59.029 align:middle line:84% if they're nice, and if they're smart or smarter than I am, 01:08:59.029 --> 01:09:01.810 align:middle line:84% which I have this semester and last semester. 01:09:01.810 --> 01:09:05.069 align:middle line:84% I've been lucky enough to have, before that I had some. 01:09:05.069 --> 01:09:10.290 align:middle line:84% I was going to retire because everybody was nasty but-- 01:09:10.290 --> 01:09:12.630 align:middle line:84% That's what it means by postmodernism. 01:09:12.630 --> 01:09:13.350 align:middle line:90% Yeah, right. 01:09:13.350 --> 01:09:18.080 align:middle line:90% 01:09:18.080 --> 01:09:24.069 align:middle line:84% So, I'm just a parasite here you know. 01:09:24.069 --> 01:09:27.410 align:middle line:84% I give something to it but, what teaching 01:09:27.410 --> 01:09:30.830 align:middle line:84% has done for me is to help me, force 01:09:30.830 --> 01:09:35.029 align:middle line:84% me to articulate what I do intuitively. 01:09:35.029 --> 01:09:38.000 align:middle line:84% I do it intuitively on the page, but one has to work, 01:09:38.000 --> 01:09:41.880 align:middle line:84% and the students have to do the same thing, then articulate it. 01:09:41.880 --> 01:09:43.520 align:middle line:84% And the older I get, the less good 01:09:43.520 --> 01:09:47.284 align:middle line:84% I'm at it, because I can't remember what I used to know. 01:09:47.284 --> 01:09:50.390 align:middle line:90% 01:09:50.390 --> 01:09:54.530 align:middle line:84% My students will say, "Well, that should do such and such." 01:09:54.530 --> 01:09:59.090 align:middle line:84% Oh Yeah, I remember that, I used to say that too. 01:09:59.090 --> 01:10:02.870 align:middle line:84% So, the forcing to articulate, plus I enjoyed people you know, 01:10:02.870 --> 01:10:06.240 align:middle line:84% I like to see their lives and see their lives as they 01:10:06.240 --> 01:10:07.635 align:middle line:90% come out in their poems. 01:10:07.635 --> 01:10:10.230 align:middle line:90% 01:10:10.230 --> 01:10:11.280 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:10:11.280 --> 01:10:15.780 align:middle line:84% And, Jane you answered this question in print one time 01:10:15.780 --> 01:10:21.720 align:middle line:84% in APR, January, February issue, 2008. 01:10:21.720 --> 01:10:25.980 align:middle line:84% This issue about where your poems are launched from, 01:10:25.980 --> 01:10:29.940 align:middle line:90% and where you want them to land. 01:10:29.940 --> 01:10:33.090 align:middle line:84% So I'll read a little passage that you wrote and then 01:10:33.090 --> 01:10:38.780 align:middle line:84% maybe, you can add to it and update it since now it is 2010. 01:10:38.780 --> 01:10:42.860 align:middle line:84% But you said, "Confessional material launches these poems," 01:10:42.860 --> 01:10:47.000 align:middle line:84% and you were talking about poems in Midnight's, "But 01:10:47.000 --> 01:10:52.010 align:middle line:84% the destination is an emotional panoply, a spreading out, 01:10:52.010 --> 01:10:56.060 align:middle line:84% my version of continuing my life as a painter in poetry, 01:10:56.060 --> 01:10:58.940 align:middle line:84% which in part is what I have always done. 01:10:58.940 --> 01:11:02.660 align:middle line:84% That is why in particular, it is such a pleasure and an honor, 01:11:02.660 --> 01:11:06.500 align:middle line:84% to have a master artist such as Beverly, Beverly Pepper, 01:11:06.500 --> 01:11:13.360 align:middle line:84% who contributed the artwork to the publication of Midnight's. 01:11:13.360 --> 01:11:15.400 align:middle line:84% The human figure and human heart have always 01:11:15.400 --> 01:11:19.270 align:middle line:84% been central in my work starting points and process. 01:11:19.270 --> 01:11:23.050 align:middle line:84% These autobiographical elements launch or lurch outward, 01:11:23.050 --> 01:11:26.080 align:middle line:84% spreading by way of disassociation, distance, 01:11:26.080 --> 01:11:30.430 align:middle line:84% faulty memory, music, the transformations of dream, 01:11:30.430 --> 01:11:33.910 align:middle line:84% all of the distortions and refinement of improvisational 01:11:33.910 --> 01:11:37.330 align:middle line:84% and composition, and finally, become 01:11:37.330 --> 01:11:43.435 align:middle line:84% other, or just enough other, for me to see and to work with. 01:11:43.435 --> 01:11:47.240 align:middle line:90% 01:11:47.240 --> 01:11:51.200 align:middle line:84% Well, I think I may have said that, I'm not sure. 01:11:51.200 --> 01:11:54.470 align:middle line:84% I think that the beginning of the question 01:11:54.470 --> 01:11:56.750 align:middle line:84% was where I would hope these would land. 01:11:56.750 --> 01:12:00.050 align:middle line:90% These distortions. 01:12:00.050 --> 01:12:03.560 align:middle line:84% I would hope to have a very young audience, 01:12:03.560 --> 01:12:06.290 align:middle line:90% I don't know if it's possible. 01:12:06.290 --> 01:12:10.670 align:middle line:84% But whenever I speak with a young reader, or someone new 01:12:10.670 --> 01:12:11.570 align:middle line:90% to poetry-- 01:12:11.570 --> 01:12:14.270 align:middle line:84% who is not young in years, but new to poetry-- 01:12:14.270 --> 01:12:17.510 align:middle line:84% it's always very exciting, if any of this lands in someone's 01:12:17.510 --> 01:12:20.360 align:middle line:84% young mind, I feel really thrilled. 01:12:20.360 --> 01:12:24.530 align:middle line:84% And I've had some experience with that teaching here 01:12:24.530 --> 01:12:29.660 align:middle line:84% in the undergraduate program, where anything lands, not 01:12:29.660 --> 01:12:31.280 align:middle line:84% just my own work but where a poem will 01:12:31.280 --> 01:12:33.050 align:middle line:84% land in a very young mind, and just 01:12:33.050 --> 01:12:36.847 align:middle line:84% alter the mind considerably, and quickly, and it's very magical. 01:12:36.847 --> 01:12:38.930 align:middle line:84% I think it's one of the great rewards of teaching, 01:12:38.930 --> 01:12:41.720 align:middle line:84% to see how quickly that can happen. 01:12:41.720 --> 01:12:45.500 align:middle line:84% And, it's a reminder I hope to me, but to anybody 01:12:45.500 --> 01:12:48.950 align:middle line:84% who wants to be reminded to remain young in that way, 01:12:48.950 --> 01:12:54.290 align:middle line:84% and to be able to respond so wide open. 01:12:54.290 --> 01:12:57.590 align:middle line:90% 01:12:57.590 --> 01:12:59.540 align:middle line:84% Boyer, we've talked about this a little bit. 01:12:59.540 --> 01:13:04.520 align:middle line:84% I remember one time when my book Desire Reclining was just 01:13:04.520 --> 01:13:06.860 align:middle line:84% about ready to be published and Gail asked me 01:13:06.860 --> 01:13:10.430 align:middle line:84% if I was excited about what was going to happen when it came 01:13:10.430 --> 01:13:15.080 align:middle line:84% out, and I looked at her and I said "Gail, I 01:13:15.080 --> 01:13:18.870 align:middle line:84% consider publication the end of the process." 01:13:18.870 --> 01:13:24.170 align:middle line:84% And, I think I was young, I was very 01:13:24.170 --> 01:13:27.980 align:middle line:84% naive in a way about my own sense of myself 01:13:27.980 --> 01:13:30.590 align:middle line:90% as a citizen poet at the time. 01:13:30.590 --> 01:13:33.500 align:middle line:84% And I don't think I'd answer that way anymore, 01:13:33.500 --> 01:13:37.640 align:middle line:84% although I don't have illusions about going on big book tours. 01:13:37.640 --> 01:13:43.020 align:middle line:84% But, Boyer, we've talked about this. 01:13:43.020 --> 01:13:47.360 align:middle line:84% We've talked about the urgency to publish manuscripts 01:13:47.360 --> 01:13:52.190 align:middle line:84% that we've had that we've finished and put in a drawer, 01:13:52.190 --> 01:13:58.400 align:middle line:84% or finished and showed to publishers who, 01:13:58.400 --> 01:14:04.720 align:middle line:84% for one reason or another didn't snap it up 01:14:04.720 --> 01:14:08.290 align:middle line:90% and yet, our books keep coming. 01:14:08.290 --> 01:14:11.560 align:middle line:84% So, where are you on this question 01:14:11.560 --> 01:14:18.880 align:middle line:84% of where we know where it comes from, but where is it going? 01:14:18.880 --> 01:14:22.540 align:middle line:84% Well, I certainly want readers, and the sense 01:14:22.540 --> 01:14:25.750 align:middle line:84% of community from reading and having others 01:14:25.750 --> 01:14:30.970 align:middle line:84% read my work is a powerful motivation but, 01:14:30.970 --> 01:14:32.590 align:middle line:84% I have a sense that I would really-- 01:14:32.590 --> 01:14:34.840 align:middle line:84% I mean ideally this is ridiculous-- 01:14:34.840 --> 01:14:36.793 align:middle line:84% but, I would love to be a part of 01:14:36.793 --> 01:14:38.710 align:middle line:84% the contemporary conversation about the nature 01:14:38.710 --> 01:14:39.590 align:middle line:90% of imagination. 01:14:39.590 --> 01:14:44.050 align:middle line:84% I would like to be somewhere in the stream of things 01:14:44.050 --> 01:14:46.260 align:middle line:84% that are happening right now with the language. 01:14:46.260 --> 01:14:53.050 align:middle line:84% Language is of course in a constant state of motion and, I 01:14:53.050 --> 01:14:58.780 align:middle line:90% don't want to fall into some-- 01:14:58.780 --> 01:15:04.390 align:middle line:84% I really want to be a part of what is happening now 01:15:04.390 --> 01:15:09.310 align:middle line:84% in naming the world, so that if sometime in the future somebody 01:15:09.310 --> 01:15:11.500 align:middle line:84% comes back and happens to find something I wrote, 01:15:11.500 --> 01:15:15.670 align:middle line:84% it will in some way reflect through a sensitivity 01:15:15.670 --> 01:15:21.160 align:middle line:84% to the way in which imagination continues to grow and shift 01:15:21.160 --> 01:15:22.690 align:middle line:90% where we are now. 01:15:22.690 --> 01:15:30.100 align:middle line:84% It's an abstract ambition, it's not the person down the street 01:15:30.100 --> 01:15:32.920 align:middle line:84% sitting alone in a room, it's more a sense, 01:15:32.920 --> 01:15:35.470 align:middle line:84% I have this vision of language as a kind of, 01:15:35.470 --> 01:15:38.050 align:middle line:84% I don't know almost liquid field, 01:15:38.050 --> 01:15:43.930 align:middle line:84% and I want to be a part of that, as the currents shift and turn, 01:15:43.930 --> 01:15:45.040 align:middle line:90% as long as I'm alive. 01:15:45.040 --> 01:15:45.850 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:15:45.850 --> 01:15:49.900 align:middle line:84% And now more than ever, it is possible to upload our work 01:15:49.900 --> 01:15:53.720 align:middle line:84% into the culture, with the internet, 01:15:53.720 --> 01:15:56.620 align:middle line:84% whether or not you get a card catalog number 01:15:56.620 --> 01:15:58.990 align:middle line:90% from the Library of Congress. 01:15:58.990 --> 01:16:05.500 align:middle line:84% It is possible to do that, and to interpolate our own thoughts 01:16:05.500 --> 01:16:08.900 align:middle line:90% into the larger conversation. 01:16:08.900 --> 01:16:13.590 align:middle line:84% And, I think that that's part of teaching too, 01:16:13.590 --> 01:16:16.020 align:middle line:84% is letting students know that they have the agency 01:16:16.020 --> 01:16:21.180 align:middle line:84% to do that if they want to, it's available, 01:16:21.180 --> 01:16:25.305 align:middle line:84% with pretty low production costs. 01:16:25.305 --> 01:16:28.670 align:middle line:90% 01:16:28.670 --> 01:16:32.000 align:middle line:84% Well, thank you for entertaining my questions, 01:16:32.000 --> 01:16:36.200 align:middle line:84% and it's time to entertain some questions from the audience. 01:16:36.200 --> 01:16:40.395 align:middle line:84% So, we'll take questions from you. 01:16:40.395 --> 01:16:44.030 align:middle line:90% 01:16:44.030 --> 01:16:48.740 align:middle line:84% Wondering if you could talk for a moment about poetic concerns 01:16:48.740 --> 01:16:51.860 align:middle line:84% that maybe you've moved away from since you've 01:16:51.860 --> 01:16:55.310 align:middle line:84% been writing for a while, or poetic concerns that 01:16:55.310 --> 01:16:59.465 align:middle line:84% seem to have stuck with you through several projects. 01:16:59.465 --> 01:17:04.730 align:middle line:90% 01:17:04.730 --> 01:17:07.060 align:middle line:84% I wish Barbara would answer this question for me 01:17:07.060 --> 01:17:12.010 align:middle line:84% but, I wish I could say that my themes and interests have 01:17:12.010 --> 01:17:16.300 align:middle line:84% changed, but I don't know that they have. 01:17:16.300 --> 01:17:22.310 align:middle line:84% I'm interested in tragedy and suffering, 01:17:22.310 --> 01:17:25.010 align:middle line:84% and the transformation of tragedy and suffering 01:17:25.010 --> 01:17:27.590 align:middle line:84% into kind of higher consciousness. 01:17:27.590 --> 01:17:30.490 align:middle line:90% 01:17:30.490 --> 01:17:31.540 align:middle line:90% I used to think that-- 01:17:31.540 --> 01:17:32.873 align:middle line:90% I've said this in classes-- 01:17:32.873 --> 01:17:34.540 align:middle line:84% I used to think that the function of art 01:17:34.540 --> 01:17:37.260 align:middle line:84% was the transformation of sorrow, 01:17:37.260 --> 01:17:39.330 align:middle line:84% but I now think it's a transformation 01:17:39.330 --> 01:17:42.227 align:middle line:84% of consciousness, but in the sense 01:17:42.227 --> 01:17:43.810 align:middle line:84% that I'm interested in transformation. 01:17:43.810 --> 01:17:46.260 align:middle line:84% I don't think that my subjects have changed very much. 01:17:46.260 --> 01:17:58.010 align:middle line:90% 01:17:58.010 --> 01:18:02.310 align:middle line:84% The poems I've written in the last several years, 01:18:02.310 --> 01:18:07.660 align:middle line:84% they are all about men, women, love, sex, marriage, 01:18:07.660 --> 01:18:11.570 align:middle line:84% and I realized that, I better get out 01:18:11.570 --> 01:18:14.450 align:middle line:90% of that as the only thing. 01:18:14.450 --> 01:18:22.100 align:middle line:84% And, I don't usually challenge myself thematically or subject 01:18:22.100 --> 01:18:24.290 align:middle line:84% matter wise, but I have been doing that lately 01:18:24.290 --> 01:18:25.910 align:middle line:84% and it's been kind of interesting, 01:18:25.910 --> 01:18:31.150 align:middle line:84% is to take a public, to find myself in a public issue 01:18:31.150 --> 01:18:38.150 align:middle line:84% like, I've been working on a poem where historic deep hist-- 01:18:38.150 --> 01:18:40.850 align:middle line:84% deep history is the wrong word but, it's historical, 01:18:40.850 --> 01:18:45.260 align:middle line:84% archaeological, going way back and seeing 01:18:45.260 --> 01:18:49.850 align:middle line:90% how it relates to now. 01:18:49.850 --> 01:18:52.490 align:middle line:84% It didn't make any sense, because you don't have the poem 01:18:52.490 --> 01:18:56.870 align:middle line:84% but, I'm running around a museum with this little old man, 01:18:56.870 --> 01:18:58.850 align:middle line:84% a docent in the little provincial museum, 01:18:58.850 --> 01:19:02.780 align:middle line:84% in an unnamed European country village, 01:19:02.780 --> 01:19:05.720 align:middle line:84% and we start to talk about the relics in there. 01:19:05.720 --> 01:19:09.080 align:middle line:84% Now, that's not my usual subject matter, 01:19:09.080 --> 01:19:11.450 align:middle line:90% but I had such a great time. 01:19:11.450 --> 01:19:13.830 align:middle line:90% I wasn't in the poem. 01:19:13.830 --> 01:19:15.690 align:middle line:84% And then so I told my wife, "Hey, I'm 01:19:15.690 --> 01:19:17.670 align:middle line:84% working on this great poem and I'm not in it." 01:19:17.670 --> 01:19:18.870 align:middle line:90% She said, "No, no. 01:19:18.870 --> 01:19:21.360 align:middle line:84% Your poems have to have you in them." 01:19:21.360 --> 01:19:23.400 align:middle line:84% And she's right, that I do best with that. 01:19:23.400 --> 01:19:25.560 align:middle line:90% So I nudged my way into it. 01:19:25.560 --> 01:19:29.480 align:middle line:90% 01:19:29.480 --> 01:19:30.360 align:middle line:90% That's all. 01:19:30.360 --> 01:19:32.720 align:middle line:84% Oh, the other thing that's stayed the same though, 01:19:32.720 --> 01:19:34.890 align:middle line:84% is same as Boyer especially, Boyer 01:19:34.890 --> 01:19:38.840 align:middle line:84% and I share a passion for rhythm and song, 01:19:38.840 --> 01:19:44.000 align:middle line:84% and for me, it's syntax and line that go along with that. 01:19:44.000 --> 01:19:48.770 align:middle line:84% Those are the mechanical, technical variations, 01:19:48.770 --> 01:19:52.190 align:middle line:84% that I have the most fun with, that I work on those 01:19:52.190 --> 01:19:55.730 align:middle line:84% and hope that new subject matter, 01:19:55.730 --> 01:19:59.510 align:middle line:84% new lines will come in, because that line's too long, 01:19:59.510 --> 01:20:01.710 align:middle line:84% for the syntax doesn't feel fulfilled, 01:20:01.710 --> 01:20:04.580 align:middle line:84% so I can make something up, and it's formal 01:20:04.580 --> 01:20:07.930 align:middle line:84% just like you got to rhyme with something. 01:20:07.930 --> 01:20:11.750 align:middle line:90% Syntax has its expectations. 01:20:11.750 --> 01:20:16.370 align:middle line:84% You can predict by the first three parts of syntax 01:20:16.370 --> 01:20:18.860 align:middle line:84% where it might possibly go, and you 01:20:18.860 --> 01:20:22.800 align:middle line:84% can feel it when it ends, that's a sentence. 01:20:22.800 --> 01:20:24.500 align:middle line:84% And I started writing long sentences, 01:20:24.500 --> 01:20:27.285 align:middle line:84% because I didn't know how to start new ones. 01:20:27.285 --> 01:20:28.910 align:middle line:84% And then, just was something I couldn't 01:20:28.910 --> 01:20:30.530 align:middle line:90% do, start a new sentence. 01:20:30.530 --> 01:20:32.990 align:middle line:84% Sometimes I have to look at some book of prose 01:20:32.990 --> 01:20:35.330 align:middle line:84% or somebody else's books, figure out 01:20:35.330 --> 01:20:37.970 align:middle line:84% what this new syntax was going to be, 01:20:37.970 --> 01:20:39.600 align:middle line:90% in the next line of the poem. 01:20:39.600 --> 01:20:44.120 align:middle line:84% So I started writing long lines and long lines, longer 01:20:44.120 --> 01:20:44.800 align:middle line:90% sentences. 01:20:44.800 --> 01:20:47.750 align:middle line:90% 01:20:47.750 --> 01:20:52.550 align:middle line:84% I find when you're working on a formal issue, 01:20:52.550 --> 01:20:54.740 align:middle line:84% stupid stuff gets out of the poem. 01:20:54.740 --> 01:20:55.280 align:middle line:90% Say what? 01:20:55.280 --> 01:20:57.230 align:middle line:84% It's too many syllables, or stresses, 01:20:57.230 --> 01:20:59.717 align:middle line:90% or the line is too long. 01:20:59.717 --> 01:21:01.550 align:middle line:84% So you have to take out a couple of clauses, 01:21:01.550 --> 01:21:05.220 align:middle line:84% and then you realize, Oh, I didn't need those. 01:21:05.220 --> 01:21:06.050 align:middle line:90% Anyways that's-- 01:21:06.050 --> 01:21:10.420 align:middle line:90% 01:21:10.420 --> 01:21:11.795 align:middle line:84% Time for maybe one more question. 01:21:11.795 --> 01:21:15.810 align:middle line:90% 01:21:15.810 --> 01:21:18.420 align:middle line:84% Well, if not, we also have plenty of time to buy books. 01:21:18.420 --> 01:21:20.910 align:middle line:84% I forgot to mention that the UA bookstore is here 01:21:20.910 --> 01:21:23.460 align:middle line:90% with books by our poets. 01:21:23.460 --> 01:21:25.680 align:middle line:84% I want to thank Barbara so much for organizing 01:21:25.680 --> 01:21:28.840 align:middle line:84% this panel, "Life and Letters" Alison, Steve, Boyer, 01:21:28.840 --> 01:21:30.840 align:middle line:84% and Jane, let's give them all round of applause. 01:21:30.840 --> 01:21:39.610 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 01:21:39.610 --> 01:21:42.300 align:middle line:84% Thanks all for coming, appreciate seeing you here. 01:21:42.300 --> 01:21:46.590 align:middle line:84% Come back next week Sinan Antoon much to enjoy the Poetry Center 01:21:46.590 --> 01:21:49.650 align:middle line:84% and hopefully, we'll have another installment of "Life 01:21:49.650 --> 01:21:51.920 align:middle line:90% and Letters" very soon.