WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.110 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.110 --> 00:00:05.358 align:middle line:84% Does anybody want to ask me an uncomfortable question? 00:00:05.358 --> 00:00:06.820 align:middle line:90% Or maybe a comfortable question. 00:00:06.820 --> 00:00:09.330 align:middle line:90% Or a comfortable question. 00:00:09.330 --> 00:00:10.980 align:middle line:84% I wanted to ask this earlier, but you 00:00:10.980 --> 00:00:13.650 align:middle line:90% seem to be the perfect person-- 00:00:13.650 --> 00:00:16.650 align:middle line:84% really, both of you-- to address this to, which is, 00:00:16.650 --> 00:00:19.720 align:middle line:90% you speak of living in metaphor. 00:00:19.720 --> 00:00:23.340 align:middle line:84% And I think of these very different countries, 00:00:23.340 --> 00:00:27.030 align:middle line:84% Catholic Mexico and Protestant America, 00:00:27.030 --> 00:00:31.470 align:middle line:84% and I wonder if you live in metaphor in different ways 00:00:31.470 --> 00:00:33.210 align:middle line:90% in the two languages. 00:00:33.210 --> 00:00:35.700 align:middle line:90% Do you see what I'm getting at? 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:36.670 align:middle line:90% Do you-- 00:00:36.670 --> 00:00:37.830 align:middle line:90% Do you if I live-- 00:00:37.830 --> 00:00:39.660 align:middle line:90% me, myself, and I, if I live-- 00:00:39.660 --> 00:00:40.984 align:middle line:90% Yes, and in your poetry. 00:00:40.984 --> 00:00:41.484 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:41.484 --> 00:00:45.270 align:middle line:84% You mean if I live in a different metaphor in English 00:00:45.270 --> 00:00:46.680 align:middle line:90% than I do in Spanish? 00:00:46.680 --> 00:00:47.950 align:middle line:90% Yes, uh-huh. 00:00:47.950 --> 00:00:48.780 align:middle line:90% I probably do. 00:00:48.780 --> 00:00:49.440 align:middle line:90% I probably do. 00:00:49.440 --> 00:00:52.590 align:middle line:84% Because metaphors are never the same in any language, 00:00:52.590 --> 00:00:56.330 align:middle line:84% and they construct themselves in different ways. 00:00:56.330 --> 00:01:00.660 align:middle line:84% And so, now that I've heard the poems in English translated 00:01:00.660 --> 00:01:02.610 align:middle line:84% by Wendy, definitely there is a different way 00:01:02.610 --> 00:01:04.440 align:middle line:90% of living in them. 00:01:04.440 --> 00:01:06.720 align:middle line:84% And in my mind specifically, because I 00:01:06.720 --> 00:01:10.800 align:middle line:84% do come from an American mother and a Mexican father, 00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:14.280 align:middle line:84% there's a constant war of translation. 00:01:14.280 --> 00:01:18.060 align:middle line:84% It's kind of like a workshop where pieces of language 00:01:18.060 --> 00:01:19.290 align:middle line:90% are being thrown around. 00:01:19.290 --> 00:01:20.880 align:middle line:84% That's the way it was in my childhood 00:01:20.880 --> 00:01:24.300 align:middle line:84% because there was always this constant fight between Spanish 00:01:24.300 --> 00:01:27.390 align:middle line:84% or English, and which of the two languages would win. 00:01:27.390 --> 00:01:30.660 align:middle line:84% And that war is, in itself, a metaphor. 00:01:30.660 --> 00:01:34.710 align:middle line:84% So I would say that, in my case, there is a metaphor of war, 00:01:34.710 --> 00:01:37.230 align:middle line:84% and of languages, and of workshop, 00:01:37.230 --> 00:01:40.950 align:middle line:84% and of constant translation, and of constant treason, 00:01:40.950 --> 00:01:43.680 align:middle line:84% in the sense that translation is a way of treason, 00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:47.430 align:middle line:84% and of what is lost in translation, as well. 00:01:47.430 --> 00:01:50.650 align:middle line:84% And that metaphor could also go on forever. 00:01:50.650 --> 00:01:53.460 align:middle line:84% So I don't know if Wendy would have 00:01:53.460 --> 00:01:54.630 align:middle line:90% something different to say. 00:01:54.630 --> 00:01:59.850 align:middle line:90% 00:01:59.850 --> 00:02:03.030 align:middle line:84% There is a wonderful poem that Tedi 00:02:03.030 --> 00:02:05.535 align:middle line:84% wrote in her book, "Luz por aire y 00:02:05.535 --> 00:02:11.820 align:middle line:84% aqua," which translates to "Light Through Air and Water." 00:02:11.820 --> 00:02:13.980 align:middle line:90% Great title, by the way. 00:02:13.980 --> 00:02:17.710 align:middle line:84% And it's called-- its title is "Sin Título," which, of course, 00:02:17.710 --> 00:02:19.500 align:middle line:90% means "untitled." 00:02:19.500 --> 00:02:22.110 align:middle line:84% And it's dedicated to Tedi's mom. 00:02:22.110 --> 00:02:26.310 align:middle line:84% And I was just thinking that, as you asked the question, Fenton, 00:02:26.310 --> 00:02:29.190 align:middle line:84% and then as you answered, Tedi, because there's 00:02:29.190 --> 00:02:32.580 align:middle line:84% a part in the poem where Tedi says, 00:02:32.580 --> 00:02:36.000 align:middle line:84% I hear the word orange slow on your tongue. 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:39.540 align:middle line:84% And then, right behind it, I hear "naranja" really quickly, 00:02:39.540 --> 00:02:41.010 align:middle line:90% those three quick syllables. 00:02:41.010 --> 00:02:43.947 align:middle line:90% And then she goes on to say-- 00:02:43.947 --> 00:02:45.030 align:middle line:90% and there is the metaphor. 00:02:45.030 --> 00:02:45.840 align:middle line:90% It's the oranges. 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:48.060 align:middle line:84% They're sitting in an orange crate. 00:02:48.060 --> 00:02:53.760 align:middle line:84% And she says, and then I hear "huacal" but it doesn't-- 00:02:53.760 --> 00:02:56.520 align:middle line:84% I'm paraphrasing here, of course-- it doesn't 00:02:56.520 --> 00:02:59.250 align:middle line:90% seem as real as "crate." 00:02:59.250 --> 00:03:03.180 align:middle line:84% And I think that that's an example from your work 00:03:03.180 --> 00:03:07.590 align:middle line:84% that I would respond to your question with. 00:03:07.590 --> 00:03:18.540 align:middle line:90% 00:03:18.540 --> 00:03:21.210 align:middle line:84% I noticed in your work and in some 00:03:21.210 --> 00:03:24.450 align:middle line:84% of the work of other contemporary Mexican women 00:03:24.450 --> 00:03:29.310 align:middle line:84% poets, a real ease and comfort and confidence with philosophy 00:03:29.310 --> 00:03:33.720 align:middle line:84% and a real sense of being able to make large proclamations 00:03:33.720 --> 00:03:38.070 align:middle line:84% about big things, like the nature of will, for example. 00:03:38.070 --> 00:03:41.010 align:middle line:84% And I don't see that in contemporary US 00:03:41.010 --> 00:03:43.060 align:middle line:90% women's writing as much. 00:03:43.060 --> 00:03:47.190 align:middle line:84% And so I wonder if there's something that-- 00:03:47.190 --> 00:03:50.640 align:middle line:84% where do you draw, personally, your own sense of comfort 00:03:50.640 --> 00:03:56.550 align:middle line:84% with philosophy or with taking on larger questions that 00:03:56.550 --> 00:03:59.860 align:middle line:84% are both abstract and physical at the same time, 00:03:59.860 --> 00:04:00.930 align:middle line:90% in your own writing? 00:04:00.930 --> 00:04:05.080 align:middle line:84% What was your own impulse to do that? 00:04:05.080 --> 00:04:08.040 align:middle line:84% Well, first of all, I studied philosophy so I have-- 00:04:08.040 --> 00:04:11.280 align:middle line:84% it's kind of like a vice with me. 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:14.880 align:middle line:84% And then, the subject of will has always astounded me, 00:04:14.880 --> 00:04:16.529 align:middle line:90% how one does not control it. 00:04:16.529 --> 00:04:17.623 align:middle line:90% It's like an animal. 00:04:17.623 --> 00:04:19.290 align:middle line:84% Because one can make a lot of decisions. 00:04:19.290 --> 00:04:21.660 align:middle line:84% I'm going to-- I'm going to stop doing this. 00:04:21.660 --> 00:04:23.790 align:middle line:84% But your will always goes another way. 00:04:23.790 --> 00:04:25.440 align:middle line:90% So will is a very strange thing. 00:04:25.440 --> 00:04:28.230 align:middle line:84% It's like the animal that we have inside. 00:04:28.230 --> 00:04:30.540 align:middle line:90% And also, what you said about-- 00:04:30.540 --> 00:04:33.960 align:middle line:84% I don't know about other women poets in Mexico-- 00:04:33.960 --> 00:04:35.990 align:middle line:84% about American poetry not being like that. 00:04:35.990 --> 00:04:38.490 align:middle line:84% I've been reading, now that I've been at the Poetry Cottage, 00:04:38.490 --> 00:04:41.070 align:middle line:84% I've taken advantage of the library they have there. 00:04:41.070 --> 00:04:43.387 align:middle line:84% And I've been reading Jorie Graham. 00:04:43.387 --> 00:04:45.220 align:middle line:84% And I think she's a very philosophical poet. 00:04:45.220 --> 00:04:46.380 align:middle line:90% You're right, yes. 00:04:46.380 --> 00:04:47.415 align:middle line:90% Extremely philosophical. 00:04:47.415 --> 00:04:49.300 align:middle line:90% All her poems are very long. 00:04:49.300 --> 00:04:50.910 align:middle line:90% They're meandering poems. 00:04:50.910 --> 00:04:55.380 align:middle line:84% And they are poems about thought more than about experience, 00:04:55.380 --> 00:04:58.560 align:middle line:84% or let's say about experience through thought. 00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:01.050 align:middle line:84% It's like if one can never really be there 00:05:01.050 --> 00:05:02.530 align:middle line:90% unless one thinks about it. 00:05:02.530 --> 00:05:06.038 align:middle line:84% And I think she's very much in that kind of atmosphere. 00:05:06.038 --> 00:05:07.830 align:middle line:84% That's the atmosphere of most of her poems. 00:05:07.830 --> 00:05:13.130 align:middle line:90% 00:05:13.130 --> 00:05:15.200 align:middle line:84% I've translated Anne Carson into Spanish. 00:05:15.200 --> 00:05:17.768 align:middle line:84% And I think she's also quite a philosophical poet. 00:05:17.768 --> 00:05:19.310 align:middle line:84% But, of course, she has the privilege 00:05:19.310 --> 00:05:23.810 align:middle line:84% of knowing ancient Greek and an irony to that privilege, which 00:05:23.810 --> 00:05:25.100 align:middle line:90% makes her very special. 00:05:25.100 --> 00:05:27.198 align:middle line:90% But maybe you're right. 00:05:27.198 --> 00:05:27.740 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:05:27.740 --> 00:05:29.960 align:middle line:84% I don't know what other Mexican poets you refer to. 00:05:29.960 --> 00:05:33.800 align:middle line:84% But, in any case, it does start from something that I studied. 00:05:33.800 --> 00:05:36.800 align:middle line:84% And, in the case of will, that very savage animal 00:05:36.800 --> 00:05:38.168 align:middle line:90% that I have inside. 00:05:38.168 --> 00:05:39.104 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:05:39.104 --> 00:05:48.960 align:middle line:90% 00:05:48.960 --> 00:05:51.240 align:middle line:84% One thing I would just say very quickly 00:05:51.240 --> 00:05:55.860 align:middle line:84% is that three wonderful Mexican novelists 00:05:55.860 --> 00:05:58.200 align:middle line:90% are here as well today. 00:05:58.200 --> 00:06:00.220 align:middle line:90% Actually, they're in the room. 00:06:00.220 --> 00:06:04.200 align:middle line:84% And many of us enjoyed hearing their presentation just prior 00:06:04.200 --> 00:06:04.920 align:middle line:90% to this one. 00:06:04.920 --> 00:06:07.050 align:middle line:84% And one of them, Cristina Rivera-Garza, 00:06:07.050 --> 00:06:10.860 align:middle line:84% was talking about how, as someone who teaches in the US, 00:06:10.860 --> 00:06:13.290 align:middle line:84% she brought her students over to her house 00:06:13.290 --> 00:06:15.630 align:middle line:84% for a presentation and a reading of their work. 00:06:15.630 --> 00:06:17.340 align:middle line:84% And they were so impressed by the fact 00:06:17.340 --> 00:06:19.080 align:middle line:90% that she has a PhD in history. 00:06:19.080 --> 00:06:25.620 align:middle line:84% And she went on to comment about how, in Mexico, it's 00:06:25.620 --> 00:06:26.430 align:middle line:90% quite uncommon-- 00:06:26.430 --> 00:06:29.040 align:middle line:84% I think she said there's one university where you can now 00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:31.093 align:middle line:90% study creative writing. 00:06:31.093 --> 00:06:33.010 align:middle line:84% As opposed to here in the US where, of course, 00:06:33.010 --> 00:06:34.950 align:middle line:84% we have many creative writing programs. 00:06:34.950 --> 00:06:38.190 align:middle line:84% And perhaps that's a part of the puzzle too, 00:06:38.190 --> 00:06:41.760 align:middle line:84% that in Mexico we have so many wonderful contemporary poets 00:06:41.760 --> 00:06:45.370 align:middle line:84% who are all experts in something in addition, 00:06:45.370 --> 00:06:49.470 align:middle line:84% something else besides their poetry or their fiction 00:06:49.470 --> 00:06:52.740 align:middle line:90% or their essays, their crónica. 00:06:52.740 --> 00:06:54.720 align:middle line:84% And it's a good reminder to us that we 00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:57.240 align:middle line:90% need to study very hard. 00:06:57.240 --> 00:06:58.800 align:middle line:90% Many things, I'd say. 00:06:58.800 --> 00:07:02.920 align:middle line:90% 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:06.570 align:middle line:84% I had a question about English versus Spanish poetry. 00:07:06.570 --> 00:07:12.420 align:middle line:84% And if you, Ms. Mills, if you always start from Spanish, 00:07:12.420 --> 00:07:15.570 align:middle line:84% or if you sometimes write English poetry and then 00:07:15.570 --> 00:07:18.623 align:middle line:84% translate it, or how your process works. 00:07:18.623 --> 00:07:20.290 align:middle line:84% No I've never written poetry in English. 00:07:20.290 --> 00:07:23.520 align:middle line:84% When I started writing, when I was an adolescent, 00:07:23.520 --> 00:07:25.860 align:middle line:90% English was predominant in my-- 00:07:25.860 --> 00:07:29.508 align:middle line:84% it was the language that I spoke, that I mostly spoke in 00:07:29.508 --> 00:07:31.050 align:middle line:84% because I went to an American school, 00:07:31.050 --> 00:07:32.910 align:middle line:84% because my mother was a predominant figure 00:07:32.910 --> 00:07:34.020 align:middle line:90% in my adolescence. 00:07:34.020 --> 00:07:37.050 align:middle line:84% So English was the strongest language when I was, let's say, 00:07:37.050 --> 00:07:38.700 align:middle line:90% up to the age of 15. 00:07:38.700 --> 00:07:41.730 align:middle line:84% And then I decided that it was politically incorrect to speak 00:07:41.730 --> 00:07:43.410 align:middle line:90% in English in Mexico. 00:07:43.410 --> 00:07:46.020 align:middle line:84% Because I always had to do a lot of explaining. 00:07:46.020 --> 00:07:51.610 align:middle line:84% So I forced myself to only write and think in Spanish. 00:07:51.610 --> 00:07:53.160 align:middle line:84% And it was really torture for a while 00:07:53.160 --> 00:07:56.340 align:middle line:84% because when a thought started, let's say 00:07:56.340 --> 00:07:58.620 align:middle line:84% the stream of consciousness started in English, 00:07:58.620 --> 00:08:00.880 align:middle line:84% I would stop it and say, no, you have to do it again, 00:08:00.880 --> 00:08:02.910 align:middle line:90% but in Spanish. 00:08:02.910 --> 00:08:04.890 align:middle line:90% So it was a very tricky process. 00:08:04.890 --> 00:08:06.803 align:middle line:84% It made me very self-conscious, obviously. 00:08:06.803 --> 00:08:08.220 align:middle line:84% I was always thinking about what I 00:08:08.220 --> 00:08:10.710 align:middle line:84% was thinking, that I had to think in Spanish and not 00:08:10.710 --> 00:08:11.490 align:middle line:90% in English. 00:08:11.490 --> 00:08:14.250 align:middle line:90% So I became very unspontaneous. 00:08:14.250 --> 00:08:17.340 align:middle line:84% But at that time, when English was the predominant language, 00:08:17.340 --> 00:08:21.090 align:middle line:84% I started writing prose, not poetry, in English. 00:08:21.090 --> 00:08:23.220 align:middle line:84% And, as usually happens when you're an adolescent, 00:08:23.220 --> 00:08:24.618 align:middle line:84% I thought I was very interesting. 00:08:24.618 --> 00:08:26.410 align:middle line:84% And I thought my life was very interesting, 00:08:26.410 --> 00:08:30.210 align:middle line:84% so I started writing my autobiography in English. 00:08:30.210 --> 00:08:33.490 align:middle line:84% And then, when I turned to Spanish, 00:08:33.490 --> 00:08:35.669 align:middle line:84% I stopped writing for a very long time. 00:08:35.669 --> 00:08:39.179 align:middle line:84% I didn't write until I was in college studying philosophy. 00:08:39.179 --> 00:08:41.730 align:middle line:84% And then I immediately started writing in Spanish. 00:08:41.730 --> 00:08:43.919 align:middle line:84% And I never again wrote in English. 00:08:43.919 --> 00:08:47.220 align:middle line:84% And a poem has never occurred to me in English, 00:08:47.220 --> 00:08:49.215 align:middle line:84% although I do read a lot in English. 00:08:49.215 --> 00:08:54.270 align:middle line:90% 00:08:54.270 --> 00:08:59.424 align:middle line:84% Heidi, do you ever write any poems in Spanish? 00:08:59.424 --> 00:09:00.400 align:middle line:90% Oh, to Wendy. 00:09:00.400 --> 00:09:00.930 align:middle line:90% Yes, Wendy. 00:09:00.930 --> 00:09:01.680 align:middle line:90% Do you write any-- 00:09:01.680 --> 00:09:02.180 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry. 00:09:02.180 --> 00:09:03.032 align:middle line:90% I thought-- 00:09:03.032 --> 00:09:07.230 align:middle line:90% 00:09:07.230 --> 00:09:10.500 align:middle line:84% When I was a student studying Spanish in college, 00:09:10.500 --> 00:09:14.310 align:middle line:84% I did sometimes have to write exercises and poems in Spanish. 00:09:14.310 --> 00:09:15.360 align:middle line:90% And I really enjoyed it. 00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:17.910 align:middle line:84% And I went on to write a couple of poems in Spanish. 00:09:17.910 --> 00:09:20.520 align:middle line:84% And, at some point-- or, you know, bilingual poems. 00:09:20.520 --> 00:09:26.220 align:middle line:84% At some point, I felt like that was a pose, and sort 00:09:26.220 --> 00:09:27.525 align:middle line:90% of an uncomfortable pose. 00:09:27.525 --> 00:09:29.700 align:middle line:84% Kind of the opposite side of what 00:09:29.700 --> 00:09:31.710 align:middle line:84% Tedi is saying with political correctness, 00:09:31.710 --> 00:09:38.220 align:middle line:84% that as somebody who is not of Latina ancestry, 00:09:38.220 --> 00:09:41.310 align:middle line:84% for me to write poems in Spanish, 00:09:41.310 --> 00:09:44.040 align:middle line:84% it didn't seem like the right thing to do. 00:09:44.040 --> 00:09:46.740 align:middle line:90% I decided that it was wrong. 00:09:46.740 --> 00:09:55.140 align:middle line:84% That it was not right for me to do this in any serious way. 00:09:55.140 --> 00:09:58.560 align:middle line:84% But, of course, I think it is right and interesting 00:09:58.560 --> 00:10:02.550 align:middle line:84% for me to do it as an exercise and as a way to improve 00:10:02.550 --> 00:10:05.630 align:middle line:90% my own Spanish. 00:10:05.630 --> 00:10:08.870 align:middle line:90% So it's interesting. 00:10:08.870 --> 00:10:10.970 align:middle line:84% We've kind of had complementary experiences 00:10:10.970 --> 00:10:13.550 align:middle line:84% in that way, an experience of starting out in one way 00:10:13.550 --> 00:10:16.430 align:middle line:84% and then making a conscious choice that no, 00:10:16.430 --> 00:10:19.075 align:middle line:84% that's not the right way for me to go. 00:10:19.075 --> 00:10:20.450 align:middle line:84% We're sort of like a mirror, huh? 00:10:20.450 --> 00:10:23.810 align:middle line:90% 00:10:23.810 --> 00:10:25.500 align:middle line:90% So we're out of time. 00:10:25.500 --> 00:10:27.940 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Tedi and Wendy. 00:10:27.940 --> 00:10:29.216 align:middle line:90%