WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.770 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.770 --> 00:00:05.940 align:middle line:84% Well, what I'm going to do is to read some of my own poems 00:00:05.940 --> 00:00:08.440 align:middle line:84% for perhaps about three-quarters of an hour. 00:00:08.440 --> 00:00:11.370 align:middle line:84% And I should say, at the end of that, if any of you 00:00:11.370 --> 00:00:13.410 align:middle line:90% would like to ask me questions-- 00:00:13.410 --> 00:00:14.820 align:middle line:90% and please do. 00:00:14.820 --> 00:00:17.880 align:middle line:84% I'm quite used, in England, to doing a sort of reading which 00:00:17.880 --> 00:00:19.110 align:middle line:90% ends with questions. 00:00:19.110 --> 00:00:23.490 align:middle line:84% And I shan't be at all put out, however antagonistic 00:00:23.490 --> 00:00:26.340 align:middle line:90% and searching they are. 00:00:26.340 --> 00:00:31.590 align:middle line:84% I tend to write, I am told by critics, two kinds of poem, 00:00:31.590 --> 00:00:33.300 align:middle line:90% by and large. 00:00:33.300 --> 00:00:36.360 align:middle line:84% On the one hand, a sort of lighthearted, frivolous, rather 00:00:36.360 --> 00:00:39.540 align:middle line:84% jokey sort of poem, which hopefully reads quite well 00:00:39.540 --> 00:00:40.470 align:middle line:90% aloud. 00:00:40.470 --> 00:00:43.860 align:middle line:84% And on the other hand, a sort of fairly intense, serious, 00:00:43.860 --> 00:00:46.170 align:middle line:90% personal poem. 00:00:46.170 --> 00:00:48.660 align:middle line:84% I think of the connection between these 00:00:48.660 --> 00:00:53.220 align:middle line:84% as being very much one through form and structure, which, 00:00:53.220 --> 00:00:58.150 align:middle line:84% to a considerable degree, very much obsesses me as a writer. 00:00:58.150 --> 00:01:00.720 align:middle line:84% Now, I shan't tell you before I read them which ones I think 00:01:00.720 --> 00:01:03.420 align:middle line:84% are the light jokey ones and which the intense serious ones. 00:01:03.420 --> 00:01:06.360 align:middle line:84% You'll sort of work that out for yourselves. 00:01:06.360 --> 00:01:11.370 align:middle line:84% I'll begin with a poem from my last book, The Night of Stones, 00:01:11.370 --> 00:01:16.410 align:middle line:90% which is called "Marshall." 00:01:16.410 --> 00:01:20.700 align:middle line:84% Is there anybody called Marshall in the audience? 00:01:20.700 --> 00:01:23.310 align:middle line:84% Either first or second name would do. 00:01:23.310 --> 00:01:27.570 align:middle line:84% Shout out "I am Marshall" if there is. 00:01:27.570 --> 00:01:28.440 align:middle line:90% Nobody shouts. 00:01:28.440 --> 00:01:29.730 align:middle line:90% Nobody ever shouts, you know. 00:01:29.730 --> 00:01:32.490 align:middle line:84% I've read this poem now about four times in America 00:01:32.490 --> 00:01:34.590 align:middle line:90% and about 44 times in England. 00:01:34.590 --> 00:01:37.110 align:middle line:84% And I always ask this question, and there's never 00:01:37.110 --> 00:01:38.350 align:middle line:90% anybody called Marshall. 00:01:38.350 --> 00:01:39.120 align:middle line:90% It's amazing. 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:41.293 align:middle line:90% The name is clearly dying out. 00:01:41.293 --> 00:01:42.210 align:middle line:90% You wouldn't think so. 00:01:42.210 --> 00:01:47.160 align:middle line:84% I mean, what with Marshall McLuhan and General Marshall, 00:01:47.160 --> 00:01:50.010 align:middle line:84% you'd think the place would be full of Marshalls, but not so. 00:01:50.010 --> 00:01:53.340 align:middle line:84% Anyway, why the poem is called Marshall is quite unclear. 00:01:53.340 --> 00:01:56.520 align:middle line:84% Everything else about it, I think, is fairly clear. 00:01:56.520 --> 00:01:57.875 align:middle line:90% "Marshall" 00:01:57.875 --> 00:02:00.300 align:middle line:90% 00:02:00.300 --> 00:02:05.160 align:middle line:84% It occurred to Marshall that if he were a vegetable, 00:02:05.160 --> 00:02:07.800 align:middle line:90% he'd be a bean. 00:02:07.800 --> 00:02:14.830 align:middle line:84% Not one of your thin, stringy green beans or your dry, marbly 00:02:14.830 --> 00:02:17.430 align:middle line:90% borlotti beans. 00:02:17.430 --> 00:02:25.290 align:middle line:84% No, he'd be a broad bean, a rich, nutritious, meaningful 00:02:25.290 --> 00:02:30.240 align:middle line:84% bean, alert for advantages, inquisitive with potatoes, 00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:34.380 align:middle line:84% mixing with every kind and condition of vegetable, 00:02:34.380 --> 00:02:38.010 align:middle line:84% and a good friend to meat and lager. 00:02:38.010 --> 00:02:41.310 align:middle line:84% Yes, he'd leap from his huge, rough pod 00:02:41.310 --> 00:02:44.700 align:middle line:84% with a loud popping sound into the pot. 00:02:44.700 --> 00:02:47.070 align:middle line:84% Always in hot water and out of it, 00:02:47.070 --> 00:02:51.600 align:middle line:84% with a soft heart inside his horny carapace. 00:02:51.600 --> 00:02:56.610 align:middle line:84% He'd carry the whole world's hunger on his broad shoulders, 00:02:56.610 --> 00:03:02.430 align:middle line:84% green with bess butter or brown with gravy. 00:03:02.430 --> 00:03:06.840 align:middle line:84% And if some starving Indian saw his flesh bleeding 00:03:06.840 --> 00:03:11.550 align:middle line:84% when the gas was turned on or the knife went in, 00:03:11.550 --> 00:03:16.920 align:middle line:84% he'd accept the homage and prayers and become a god 00:03:16.920 --> 00:03:24.600 align:middle line:84% and die like a man, which, as things were, wasn't so easy. 00:03:24.600 --> 00:03:27.690 align:middle line:90% 00:03:27.690 --> 00:03:31.820 align:middle line:90% Well, that's "Marshall."