WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.930 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.930 --> 00:00:03.000 align:middle line:84% Thank you so much, Rusty and Fred. 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:07.490 align:middle line:84% We're going to have you both come up for a Q&A. And OK. 00:00:07.490 --> 00:00:15.770 align:middle line:90% 00:00:15.770 --> 00:00:18.702 align:middle line:90% You guys can share that one. 00:00:18.702 --> 00:00:21.950 align:middle line:90% [SIDE CONVERSATION] 00:00:21.950 --> 00:00:22.880 align:middle line:90% 00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:26.890 align:middle line:90% Does anyone have a question? 00:00:26.890 --> 00:00:29.207 align:middle line:84% Do you listen to music when you write a first draft, 00:00:29.207 --> 00:00:30.790 align:middle line:84% or while you're writing a first draft? 00:00:30.790 --> 00:00:35.430 align:middle line:90% 00:00:35.430 --> 00:00:40.060 align:middle line:84% I listen to music all the time, basically. 00:00:40.060 --> 00:00:46.600 align:middle line:84% But I would say I don't consciously 00:00:46.600 --> 00:00:50.050 align:middle line:84% do it-- like, put something on something because I'm getting 00:00:50.050 --> 00:00:51.380 align:middle line:90% ready to write right then. 00:00:51.380 --> 00:00:56.140 align:middle line:84% But there's certainly-- and I listen 00:00:56.140 --> 00:00:58.550 align:middle line:90% in a kind of obsessive way. 00:00:58.550 --> 00:01:00.550 align:middle line:84% And now, the technology allows you 00:01:00.550 --> 00:01:04.060 align:middle line:84% to listen to the same song for 15 times in a row without-- 00:01:04.060 --> 00:01:07.300 align:middle line:90% so a lot of times, I'll do that. 00:01:07.300 --> 00:01:11.890 align:middle line:84% But I would say that there are a lot of things running 00:01:11.890 --> 00:01:15.370 align:middle line:84% through there, all of which kind of show up for me 00:01:15.370 --> 00:01:19.360 align:middle line:84% as music, some of which are songs and things that would 00:01:19.360 --> 00:01:20.980 align:middle line:90% be recognizable in that way. 00:01:20.980 --> 00:01:26.470 align:middle line:84% But a lot of it is just stuff that my kids say, you know? 00:01:26.470 --> 00:01:31.250 align:middle line:84% I mean, the music of it is important to me 00:01:31.250 --> 00:01:33.070 align:middle line:84% so that I don't try to spend a lot of time 00:01:33.070 --> 00:01:34.780 align:middle line:84% within the poem deciphering stuff. 00:01:34.780 --> 00:01:37.750 align:middle line:84% But I'm happy to try to do something like-- 00:01:37.750 --> 00:01:43.450 align:middle line:84% Perry is my three-year-old son Julian's sister 00:01:43.450 --> 00:01:46.097 align:middle line:84% that doesn't exist that he was mad 00:01:46.097 --> 00:01:47.680 align:middle line:84% that we weren't going to have for him, 00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:50.500 align:middle line:84% and so he decided that he was going to have Perry himself. 00:01:50.500 --> 00:01:52.690 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:52.690 --> 00:01:55.150 align:middle line:90% So you know, stuff like that. 00:01:55.150 --> 00:01:59.680 align:middle line:84% But it's sort of this music or this soundtrack 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:03.960 align:middle line:84% that keeps running through my life, I guess you could say. 00:02:03.960 --> 00:02:06.810 align:middle line:90% 00:02:06.810 --> 00:02:09.030 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:02:09.030 --> 00:02:09.720 align:middle line:90% Yeah, Fred. 00:02:09.720 --> 00:02:10.830 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:02:10.830 --> 00:02:14.910 align:middle line:84% How do you navigate this line between accessibility 00:02:14.910 --> 00:02:17.190 align:middle line:84% to those whose music you want to capture 00:02:17.190 --> 00:02:19.620 align:middle line:84% and the sort of radical avant-garde tradition 00:02:19.620 --> 00:02:22.550 align:middle line:90% that you find yourself in? 00:02:22.550 --> 00:02:25.005 align:middle line:84% So how does it feel, like, to have 00:02:25.005 --> 00:02:26.380 align:middle line:84% someone whose music you're trying 00:02:26.380 --> 00:02:28.540 align:middle line:90% to capture recognize the music? 00:02:28.540 --> 00:02:36.170 align:middle line:90% 00:02:36.170 --> 00:02:39.125 align:middle line:84% Well, talking about lost parents-- 00:02:39.125 --> 00:02:42.545 align:middle line:90% 00:02:42.545 --> 00:02:45.620 align:middle line:84% a few days before my mom died, or maybe a month 00:02:45.620 --> 00:02:48.890 align:middle line:84% or so, I had my first chapbook come out, 00:02:48.890 --> 00:02:51.110 align:middle line:90% and I sent her a copy. 00:02:51.110 --> 00:02:53.990 align:middle line:90% And she called me to talk to me. 00:02:53.990 --> 00:02:57.200 align:middle line:84% And I think she always had a kind of total love 00:02:57.200 --> 00:03:01.010 align:middle line:84% for music and language, but for some reason, for her, 00:03:01.010 --> 00:03:05.432 align:middle line:84% poetry was always, in some sense, inaccessible for her. 00:03:05.432 --> 00:03:06.890 align:middle line:84% And so she was saying, I just don't 00:03:06.890 --> 00:03:08.720 align:middle line:90% know what you're talking about. 00:03:08.720 --> 00:03:12.090 align:middle line:84% And and so much of that first book 00:03:12.090 --> 00:03:16.160 align:middle line:84% literally would just be phrases lifted from stuff she said, 00:03:16.160 --> 00:03:17.906 align:middle line:90% stories she told. 00:03:17.906 --> 00:03:18.902 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:18.902 --> 00:03:22.280 align:middle line:84% So it was like her own stuff put back 00:03:22.280 --> 00:03:24.800 align:middle line:84% in a certain way that was not recognizable. 00:03:24.800 --> 00:03:30.890 align:middle line:90% And I remember feeling-- 00:03:30.890 --> 00:03:32.660 align:middle line:90% we talked for a long time. 00:03:32.660 --> 00:03:34.325 align:middle line:84% But it just was not going to be-- 00:03:34.325 --> 00:03:35.750 align:middle line:90% Did you tell her? 00:03:35.750 --> 00:03:36.860 align:middle line:90% Yeah, no, I told her. 00:03:36.860 --> 00:03:42.440 align:middle line:84% But it was partly just not being ready to recognize 00:03:42.440 --> 00:03:48.140 align:middle line:84% that her speech was material for poetry, you know? 00:03:48.140 --> 00:03:50.810 align:middle line:90% 00:03:50.810 --> 00:03:54.590 align:middle line:84% So that was a very real kind of experience of what 00:03:54.590 --> 00:03:56.250 align:middle line:90% I think you're asking about. 00:03:56.250 --> 00:04:00.410 align:middle line:84% But I guess I just had to decide to push on 00:04:00.410 --> 00:04:13.020 align:middle line:84% because what I'm trying to do is I don't want 00:04:13.020 --> 00:04:15.060 align:middle line:90% to capture the music, you know? 00:04:15.060 --> 00:04:17.610 align:middle line:90% I want to make music. 00:04:17.610 --> 00:04:19.890 align:middle line:84% And I can't play an instrument, but I 00:04:19.890 --> 00:04:21.910 align:middle line:90% can make music with words. 00:04:21.910 --> 00:04:26.940 align:middle line:84% And I want the music to have feeling in it 00:04:26.940 --> 00:04:32.070 align:middle line:84% and to have information and knowledge or questions 00:04:32.070 --> 00:04:34.350 align:middle line:90% or thought in it. 00:04:34.350 --> 00:04:41.520 align:middle line:84% But I'm also just really wary of-- 00:04:41.520 --> 00:04:43.620 align:middle line:84% it's not that I don't believe it's 00:04:43.620 --> 00:04:48.270 align:middle line:84% possible to have something direct and definitive to say. 00:04:48.270 --> 00:04:52.290 align:middle line:84% It's just that I'm working my way towards that. 00:04:52.290 --> 00:04:54.810 align:middle line:84% And I guess in a sort of unconscious way, 00:04:54.810 --> 00:05:03.600 align:middle line:84% it might be that there's a kind of, maybe later I'll get it. 00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:05.680 align:middle line:84% Maybe later, at least it'll seem that way to me. 00:05:05.680 --> 00:05:07.805 align:middle line:84% Probably not going to seem that way to anyone else. 00:05:07.805 --> 00:05:10.320 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:10.320 --> 00:05:11.740 align:middle line:90% 00:05:11.740 --> 00:05:12.280 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:05:12.280 --> 00:05:16.760 align:middle line:84% I have more of a comment than a question. 00:05:16.760 --> 00:05:22.140 align:middle line:84% The logline that comes to me is like, what beat is that? 00:05:22.140 --> 00:05:25.080 align:middle line:90% It's delightful. 00:05:25.080 --> 00:05:30.650 align:middle line:84% Being a student of jazz and blues and poetry, 00:05:30.650 --> 00:05:32.944 align:middle line:90% too, the music comes through. 00:05:32.944 --> 00:05:36.792 align:middle line:84% It just makes you want to go, what beat is that, anyway? 00:05:36.792 --> 00:05:38.178 align:middle line:90% Really, thank you. 00:05:38.178 --> 00:05:41.880 align:middle line:90% 00:05:41.880 --> 00:05:43.770 align:middle line:84% Somebody must have some questions for Rusty. 00:05:43.770 --> 00:05:45.670 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:45.670 --> 00:05:46.600 align:middle line:90% I do. 00:05:46.600 --> 00:05:49.920 align:middle line:84% Rusty, I heard you go into great detail 00:05:49.920 --> 00:05:54.280 align:middle line:90% when you were talking of-- 00:05:54.280 --> 00:05:57.570 align:middle line:90% what was it, experimentation? 00:05:57.570 --> 00:05:59.730 align:middle line:90% The one about your mother. 00:05:59.730 --> 00:06:02.940 align:middle line:84% You were describing the form in great detail. 00:06:02.940 --> 00:06:07.320 align:middle line:84% And it sounded to me that you love the forms of your poems. 00:06:07.320 --> 00:06:09.810 align:middle line:84% How long does it take, or how do you 00:06:09.810 --> 00:06:13.450 align:middle line:84% know when the form of your poem is right? 00:06:13.450 --> 00:06:16.620 align:middle line:84% I neglected to thank Janice for having us 00:06:16.620 --> 00:06:19.840 align:middle line:84% in her class, just so when Clive talked about this a little bit. 00:06:19.840 --> 00:06:23.940 align:middle line:84% So it's kind of fresh in my mind. 00:06:23.940 --> 00:06:28.830 align:middle line:90% For me, I trust that-- 00:06:28.830 --> 00:06:30.690 align:middle line:90% I'm always looking for form. 00:06:30.690 --> 00:06:33.690 align:middle line:84% Until I find a form for a process, 00:06:33.690 --> 00:06:36.630 align:middle line:84% I don't feel like I've really entered into writing the poems. 00:06:36.630 --> 00:06:41.370 align:middle line:84% And so I'll compose, or I'll bring language to a page. 00:06:41.370 --> 00:06:47.730 align:middle line:84% But there's a certain quality of color, a certain sensibility 00:06:47.730 --> 00:06:49.900 align:middle line:90% that I'm moving toward. 00:06:49.900 --> 00:06:53.550 align:middle line:84% And it's when the form constellates that I can then 00:06:53.550 --> 00:06:54.870 align:middle line:90% bring that to the page. 00:06:54.870 --> 00:07:02.610 align:middle line:84% But a really honest answer is I know the form is right when 00:07:02.610 --> 00:07:05.070 align:middle line:90% I get that kind of body shiver. 00:07:05.070 --> 00:07:06.630 align:middle line:90% And I really look for that. 00:07:06.630 --> 00:07:10.440 align:middle line:84% And I said this to the class that there's 00:07:10.440 --> 00:07:13.890 align:middle line:84% a great essay by Henri Bergson called "Laughter 00:07:13.890 --> 00:07:15.250 align:middle line:90% and the Meaning of the Comic." 00:07:15.250 --> 00:07:17.430 align:middle line:84% And he says something that really 00:07:17.430 --> 00:07:22.830 align:middle line:84% resonated for me, that when you hear a joke, you laugh. 00:07:22.830 --> 00:07:25.720 align:middle line:84% And then only later do you figure out why it's funny. 00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:30.270 align:middle line:84% And I'm constantly fooling around with form 00:07:30.270 --> 00:07:31.890 align:middle line:90% as I'm writing a poem. 00:07:31.890 --> 00:07:34.170 align:middle line:90% And something will just-- 00:07:34.170 --> 00:07:36.330 align:middle line:84% I mean, he would call it the laugh. 00:07:36.330 --> 00:07:38.280 align:middle line:84% I'm going to call it the sort of, again, kind 00:07:38.280 --> 00:07:39.180 align:middle line:90% of a body shiver. 00:07:39.180 --> 00:07:42.600 align:middle line:84% And I think, oh, that's the way it should constellate. 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:45.940 align:middle line:90% That's the way it should work. 00:07:45.940 --> 00:07:47.820 align:middle line:90% So yeah, thanks. 00:07:47.820 --> 00:07:51.050 align:middle line:90% 00:07:51.050 --> 00:07:53.660 align:middle line:84% My question, I think, which is sort of for both of you, 00:07:53.660 --> 00:07:59.030 align:middle line:84% is maybe a little bit similar in terms of the form. 00:07:59.030 --> 00:08:02.450 align:middle line:84% And I'm wondering how much of it is visual 00:08:02.450 --> 00:08:08.250 align:middle line:84% as you're writing versus oral, [INAUDIBLE] oral. 00:08:08.250 --> 00:08:11.380 align:middle line:90% Do you want to answer this? 00:08:11.380 --> 00:08:13.870 align:middle line:84% Well, with this, what I just said-- well, actually, 00:08:13.870 --> 00:08:17.080 align:middle line:84% for this, the book that this is a part of, 00:08:17.080 --> 00:08:19.930 align:middle line:90% it's been very visual. 00:08:19.930 --> 00:08:24.830 align:middle line:90% So one of the poem-- 00:08:24.830 --> 00:08:27.370 align:middle line:84% well, there's a chapbook called I ran from it 00:08:27.370 --> 00:08:32.020 align:middle line:84% but was still in it, that this will be included in this book. 00:08:32.020 --> 00:08:34.870 align:middle line:84% And for some, reason I decided that I 00:08:34.870 --> 00:08:42.220 align:middle line:84% wanted to make things in boxes that I was just interested 00:08:42.220 --> 00:08:46.480 align:middle line:84% in that look on the page, partly, I think, 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:49.150 align:middle line:84% because I was always interested in sonnets. 00:08:49.150 --> 00:08:51.010 align:middle line:84% And when I first started writing poems, 00:08:51.010 --> 00:08:54.940 align:middle line:84% I think I must have written 7,000 sonnets. 00:08:54.940 --> 00:08:58.156 align:middle line:84% I thought in iambic pentameter for a long time. 00:08:58.156 --> 00:08:59.650 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:59.650 --> 00:09:04.390 align:middle line:84% So it's like getting back to that look on the page. 00:09:04.390 --> 00:09:07.480 align:middle line:84% And then with this one, it's much more 00:09:07.480 --> 00:09:08.980 align:middle line:90% spread out on the page. 00:09:08.980 --> 00:09:11.260 align:middle line:84% And I wanted there to be much more space. 00:09:11.260 --> 00:09:15.130 align:middle line:84% And even in the previous books, I 00:09:15.130 --> 00:09:18.160 align:middle line:84% knew I was writing this stuff that was pretty dense. 00:09:18.160 --> 00:09:21.820 align:middle line:84% And I felt that one way I could give people 00:09:21.820 --> 00:09:25.308 align:middle line:84% a break in a way was to just put some air in it, 00:09:25.308 --> 00:09:26.350 align:middle line:90% is what I was calling it. 00:09:26.350 --> 00:09:32.680 align:middle line:84% And so in Microsoft Word, you can single space or 1 00:09:32.680 --> 00:09:34.300 align:middle line:90% and 1/2 space or double space. 00:09:34.300 --> 00:09:36.400 align:middle line:84% And I would just, almost at random, 00:09:36.400 --> 00:09:38.440 align:middle line:90% just kind of aerate the poems-- 00:09:38.440 --> 00:09:39.970 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:39.970 --> 00:09:43.570 align:middle line:84% --just to break up the density of it. 00:09:43.570 --> 00:09:46.750 align:middle line:84% But with this book, it's sort of a combination 00:09:46.750 --> 00:09:50.530 align:middle line:84% of those with making stuff really dense again and then 00:09:50.530 --> 00:09:52.990 align:middle line:84% creating even more space and using-- 00:09:52.990 --> 00:09:56.020 align:middle line:84% which is part of the reason why the print, 00:09:56.020 --> 00:09:59.140 align:middle line:84% it's printed out sideways with really long margins 00:09:59.140 --> 00:10:00.235 align:middle line:90% to give me more room. 00:10:00.235 --> 00:10:03.870 align:middle line:90% 00:10:03.870 --> 00:10:06.390 align:middle line:84% Yeah, it's very true for me, as well, 00:10:06.390 --> 00:10:12.490 align:middle line:84% that for me, the visual look is another voice. 00:10:12.490 --> 00:10:14.230 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's not fair to say it that way. 00:10:14.230 --> 00:10:18.630 align:middle line:84% But I can't come with the book and read my poems to you. 00:10:18.630 --> 00:10:24.510 align:middle line:84% But I can create a visual experience of a presence 00:10:24.510 --> 00:10:28.200 align:middle line:84% that I hope emerges from the way it takes shape on the page. 00:10:28.200 --> 00:10:35.790 align:middle line:84% And so seeing it is a speaking agency or a response agency 00:10:35.790 --> 00:10:37.620 align:middle line:90% that comes back at me. 00:10:37.620 --> 00:10:39.420 align:middle line:84% And then I think, OK, that's working 00:10:39.420 --> 00:10:42.780 align:middle line:84% because it's talking back at me from the structure 00:10:42.780 --> 00:10:43.905 align:middle line:90% as well as from the words. 00:10:43.905 --> 00:10:54.510 align:middle line:90% 00:10:54.510 --> 00:10:55.760 align:middle line:90% Just one more quick one, Fred. 00:10:55.760 --> 00:10:59.342 align:middle line:84% How do you deal with them allusions? 00:10:59.342 --> 00:11:04.130 align:middle line:84% You make so many allusions, both personal and public. 00:11:04.130 --> 00:11:05.300 align:middle line:90% How do you navigate that? 00:11:05.300 --> 00:11:07.367 align:middle line:84% Or do you just assume people are going to get it, 00:11:07.367 --> 00:11:09.200 align:middle line:84% you don't give a damn if they get it or not, 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:13.190 align:middle line:84% it means it personally to you, or what? 00:11:13.190 --> 00:11:16.700 align:middle line:84% Well, it's not that I don't give a damn, it's just that-- 00:11:16.700 --> 00:11:22.350 align:middle line:90% 00:11:22.350 --> 00:11:24.030 align:middle line:90% anybody ever see that movie-- 00:11:24.030 --> 00:11:25.600 align:middle line:84% I don't know why it came to my mind, 00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:28.440 align:middle line:84% but it's an-- see, that's the thing is [INAUDIBLE] my head. 00:11:28.440 --> 00:11:29.790 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:29.790 --> 00:11:32.460 align:middle line:90% But anybody ever see that movie? 00:11:32.460 --> 00:11:36.040 align:middle line:84% I believe it's called Semi-Tough. 00:11:36.040 --> 00:11:39.790 align:middle line:84% Kris Kristofferson and Mac Davis. 00:11:39.790 --> 00:11:41.320 align:middle line:84% They're playing for a team that's 00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:44.620 align:middle line:84% roughly equivalent to the Dallas Cowboys. 00:11:44.620 --> 00:11:48.325 align:middle line:84% There's this one moment before the big game where-- 00:11:48.325 --> 00:11:49.700 align:middle line:84% it's not Kris Kristofferson, it's 00:11:49.700 --> 00:11:55.420 align:middle line:84% Nic Nolte And Nic Nolte he can't play. 00:11:55.420 --> 00:11:57.250 align:middle line:90% He's been demoted. 00:11:57.250 --> 00:11:59.890 align:middle line:84% And he's all upset, and he had just 00:11:59.890 --> 00:12:03.970 align:middle line:84% shot his knee up with Novocaine trying to sacrifice himself yet 00:12:03.970 --> 00:12:05.590 align:middle line:90% again. 00:12:05.590 --> 00:12:07.600 align:middle line:84% And then he realizes that, well, the reason 00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:09.790 align:middle line:84% that they had shot him up was to convince 00:12:09.790 --> 00:12:13.210 align:middle line:84% the guy who they really wanted to play to shoot up, too. 00:12:13.210 --> 00:12:16.030 align:middle line:84% So he'd been used in this kind of really venal way. 00:12:16.030 --> 00:12:18.190 align:middle line:84% And his best friend was the quarterback 00:12:18.190 --> 00:12:22.300 align:middle line:84% played by Mac Davis, kind of loosely based on Don Meredith. 00:12:22.300 --> 00:12:26.380 align:middle line:84% And the Don Meredith character called the Nic Nolte character 00:12:26.380 --> 00:12:28.180 align:middle line:90% poot for some reason. 00:12:28.180 --> 00:12:31.300 align:middle line:84% And at one point, he's complaining, I'm not going to-- 00:12:31.300 --> 00:12:33.850 align:middle line:84% they took my job away, they won't let me start. 00:12:33.850 --> 00:12:35.680 align:middle line:84% And Mac Davis' character says, he 00:12:35.680 --> 00:12:37.852 align:middle line:84% says, I can't worry about that right now, poot. 00:12:37.852 --> 00:12:39.460 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:12:39.460 --> 00:12:40.930 align:middle line:84% And that's basically where I'm at. 00:12:40.930 --> 00:12:47.140 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:12:47.140 --> 00:12:48.940 align:middle line:84% It's not that I don't give a damn. 00:12:48.940 --> 00:12:51.640 align:middle line:90% It's just I can't-- 00:12:51.640 --> 00:12:53.770 align:middle line:84% what I'm trying to do, I just can't-- 00:12:53.770 --> 00:13:00.100 align:middle line:84% so what I do try to do, see, is it's like-- 00:13:00.100 --> 00:13:03.700 align:middle line:84% I mean, we were talking about this at dinner with Sean. 00:13:03.700 --> 00:13:08.650 align:middle line:84% Painters make paintings with paint. 00:13:08.650 --> 00:13:11.380 align:middle line:90% And I do what I do with words. 00:13:11.380 --> 00:13:13.570 align:middle line:90% And it's material for me. 00:13:13.570 --> 00:13:16.330 align:middle line:84% And the material is not reducible to the meaning 00:13:16.330 --> 00:13:17.240 align:middle line:90% of the words. 00:13:17.240 --> 00:13:21.520 align:middle line:84% The meaning is part of the word, but it's not all of the word. 00:13:21.520 --> 00:13:23.335 align:middle line:84% And I feel like I got to try to take-- 00:13:23.335 --> 00:13:25.990 align:middle line:90% 00:13:25.990 --> 00:13:27.790 align:middle line:84% what I'm trying to do requires me 00:13:27.790 --> 00:13:31.450 align:middle line:84% to not simply subordinate everything 00:13:31.450 --> 00:13:36.110 align:middle line:84% to the meaning of the words, even though at the same time, 00:13:36.110 --> 00:13:38.920 align:middle line:84% so much of the meaning is connected to stuff I've seen 00:13:38.920 --> 00:13:42.100 align:middle line:84% or music that I love or something that my kids are 00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:45.640 align:middle line:90% saying to me or some memory. 00:13:45.640 --> 00:13:48.550 align:middle line:84% I mean, a lot of those names of people 00:13:48.550 --> 00:13:52.630 align:middle line:84% that my mom went to school with, that one section, 00:13:52.630 --> 00:13:55.210 align:middle line:84% I grew up in a-- it's like my autobiography. 00:13:55.210 --> 00:13:57.250 align:middle line:84% I grew up in a bass community in Las Vegas. 00:13:57.250 --> 00:13:59.590 align:middle line:84% And then we went to Pittsburgh and then to Arkansas. 00:13:59.590 --> 00:14:00.965 align:middle line:84% There's all these names of people 00:14:00.965 --> 00:14:02.260 align:middle line:90% my mom went to school with. 00:14:02.260 --> 00:14:05.410 align:middle line:90% But I'm not trying to-- 00:14:05.410 --> 00:14:08.680 align:middle line:84% what I'm trying to do is to use that material in order 00:14:08.680 --> 00:14:13.960 align:middle line:84% to convey a kind of content that is not 00:14:13.960 --> 00:14:16.570 align:middle line:84% reducible to the meaning of those words 00:14:16.570 --> 00:14:18.730 align:middle line:84% but to the sum of the meaning of those words 00:14:18.730 --> 00:14:21.790 align:middle line:84% when they're put together, trying to make something-- 00:14:21.790 --> 00:14:25.630 align:middle line:84% to use the old-fashioned form, where the whole is 00:14:25.630 --> 00:14:27.130 align:middle line:90% greater than the parts. 00:14:27.130 --> 00:14:31.714 align:middle line:90% 00:14:31.714 --> 00:14:36.440 align:middle line:84% Just riffing off that, it seems like the sentence in both 00:14:36.440 --> 00:14:41.090 align:middle line:84% of your work is the base, the baseline. 00:14:41.090 --> 00:14:47.350 align:middle line:84% That other meaning that is achieved is about progression. 00:14:47.350 --> 00:14:51.309 align:middle line:84% And it may be one of the only things, I think, 00:14:51.309 --> 00:14:55.650 align:middle line:84% in your work is the baseline is the sentence 00:14:55.650 --> 00:14:57.360 align:middle line:90% and how you disrupt it. 00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:03.420 align:middle line:84% And the other motive is to talk about progression in all 00:15:03.420 --> 00:15:06.970 align:middle line:90% of its different meanings. 00:15:06.970 --> 00:15:09.946 align:middle line:84% I'm wondering if that means anything to you. 00:15:09.946 --> 00:15:12.930 align:middle line:90% 00:15:12.930 --> 00:15:15.870 align:middle line:84% Well, it's funny you say that because we were talking earlier 00:15:15.870 --> 00:15:22.380 align:middle line:84% today about Whitehead and Olson and that we both share 00:15:22.380 --> 00:15:25.740 align:middle line:84% an affinity with that kind of work, 00:15:25.740 --> 00:15:29.940 align:middle line:84% that what's most important to me is the movement that I'm 00:15:29.940 --> 00:15:32.850 align:middle line:84% seeing, that I don't want the sentence 00:15:32.850 --> 00:15:36.330 align:middle line:84% to be a static experience for myself 00:15:36.330 --> 00:15:39.360 align:middle line:84% so that each time I return to my own sentences, 00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:42.720 align:middle line:90% they shift perhaps mid-sentence. 00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:46.050 align:middle line:84% So even those short, terse sentences in "please 00:15:46.050 --> 00:15:49.740 align:middle line:84% advise stop," I want them to change up on their way 00:15:49.740 --> 00:15:50.520 align:middle line:90% to the end. 00:15:50.520 --> 00:15:55.020 align:middle line:90% And so, too, in the other work. 00:15:55.020 --> 00:15:58.920 align:middle line:84% That shifting valence is probably 00:15:58.920 --> 00:16:02.850 align:middle line:84% the real subject matter that is most important to me. 00:16:02.850 --> 00:16:06.180 align:middle line:84% And then the content layers on top of that. 00:16:06.180 --> 00:16:11.670 align:middle line:84% But my struggle is to not be a thing in the world but a moving 00:16:11.670 --> 00:16:12.520 align:middle line:90% space. 00:16:12.520 --> 00:16:17.700 align:middle line:84% And so if that can happen on the page, that's-- 00:16:17.700 --> 00:16:20.220 align:middle line:84% thank you for saying that because that's 00:16:20.220 --> 00:16:22.050 align:middle line:90% kind of the magic for me. 00:16:22.050 --> 00:16:25.010 align:middle line:90% 00:16:25.010 --> 00:16:28.250 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I mean, part of me, I'm interested in-- 00:16:28.250 --> 00:16:31.820 align:middle line:90% 00:16:31.820 --> 00:16:34.490 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think Rusty's at a place 00:16:34.490 --> 00:16:37.130 align:middle line:84% that I'm trying to get to, to have 00:16:37.130 --> 00:16:43.530 align:middle line:84% a bit more comfort with everything 00:16:43.530 --> 00:16:48.000 align:middle line:90% that the sentence can do. 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:51.570 align:middle line:84% And I'm still not there yet, I think. 00:16:51.570 --> 00:16:57.610 align:middle line:84% So my tendency is more to suspend the sentence, 00:16:57.610 --> 00:17:00.000 align:middle line:84% just let everybody-- just say, you're free to go. 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:01.460 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:17:01.460 --> 00:17:07.740 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] But I think in the last couple of years, 00:17:07.740 --> 00:17:12.780 align:middle line:84% I've been trying really hard to not let go of all the things 00:17:12.780 --> 00:17:14.339 align:middle line:90% that the sentence can do. 00:17:14.339 --> 00:17:18.069 align:middle line:84% And there's a writer who I don't know if she's been here yet, 00:17:18.069 --> 00:17:21.780 align:middle line:84% but I hope you all have a chance to have her, 00:17:21.780 --> 00:17:24.809 align:middle line:90% named Renee [? Gladden. ?] 00:17:24.809 --> 00:17:26.010 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:17:26.010 --> 00:17:28.920 align:middle line:84% And the work that she does with the sentence 00:17:28.920 --> 00:17:36.840 align:middle line:84% and with just new ways of both disrupting and augmenting 00:17:36.840 --> 00:17:40.183 align:middle line:84% the sentence as an already-given form 00:17:40.183 --> 00:17:41.850 align:middle line:84% but also, at the same time, still taking 00:17:41.850 --> 00:17:45.780 align:middle line:84% advantage of what it can do has been an inspiration. 00:17:45.780 --> 00:17:49.170 align:middle line:84% And in a lot of ways, those blocky, 00:17:49.170 --> 00:17:52.530 align:middle line:84% kind of box-like poems that I've been working on were an attempt 00:17:52.530 --> 00:17:56.460 align:middle line:90% to try to-- 00:17:56.460 --> 00:17:59.550 align:middle line:84% I mean, at one point, I started calling them like shape prose 00:17:59.550 --> 00:18:03.390 align:middle line:84% in a way that would help me to get back 00:18:03.390 --> 00:18:06.820 align:middle line:84% towards some of what sentences can do 00:18:06.820 --> 00:18:14.374 align:middle line:84% and as a kind of possibility for just using words as materials. 00:18:14.374 --> 00:18:21.120 align:middle line:84% Well, I just have to add that in my reading of your work, 00:18:21.120 --> 00:18:28.770 align:middle line:84% I am amazed by how the disruption, nonetheless, 00:18:28.770 --> 00:18:33.030 align:middle line:84% the next page and the next page hold together. 00:18:33.030 --> 00:18:35.190 align:middle line:84% It's like watching someone walking on air, 00:18:35.190 --> 00:18:38.010 align:middle line:84% and they don't have any land into them. 00:18:38.010 --> 00:18:39.540 align:middle line:84% The sentence seems to have stopped, 00:18:39.540 --> 00:18:41.160 align:middle line:90% but I'm still walking with you. 00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:43.275 align:middle line:84% And so to me, that's pretty amazing. 00:18:43.275 --> 00:18:48.420 align:middle line:90% 00:18:48.420 --> 00:18:49.955 align:middle line:84% We have time for one more question. 00:18:49.955 --> 00:18:54.680 align:middle line:90% 00:18:54.680 --> 00:18:56.850 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:18:56.850 --> 00:18:57.350 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:18:57.350 --> 00:19:00.155 align:middle line:84% Well, thank you, Fred and Rusty, so much. 00:19:00.155 --> 00:19:01.520 align:middle line:90% I speak for all of us. 00:19:01.520 --> 00:19:04.870 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:19:04.870 --> 00:19:10.000 align:middle line:90%