WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.988 align:middle line:90% [CLAPPING] 00:00:02.988 --> 00:00:07.970 align:middle line:90% 00:00:07.970 --> 00:00:10.550 align:middle line:84% Hi, thank you, everyone, for being here. 00:00:10.550 --> 00:00:16.370 align:middle line:84% And thank you so much for the Poetry Center's invitation 00:00:16.370 --> 00:00:17.630 align:middle line:90% and graciousness. 00:00:17.630 --> 00:00:19.800 align:middle line:84% And it's quite a pleasure to be here. 00:00:19.800 --> 00:00:23.630 align:middle line:84% So I'm going to start off by reading some poems 00:00:23.630 --> 00:00:25.700 align:middle line:84% from a project that's been in the works 00:00:25.700 --> 00:00:27.680 align:middle line:84% for about 2 and 1/2, three years now, 00:00:27.680 --> 00:00:29.510 align:middle line:90% called The Putterer's Notebook. 00:00:29.510 --> 00:00:35.460 align:middle line:84% And it's an anti-memoir, but then I forgot what that means. 00:00:35.460 --> 00:00:39.350 align:middle line:84% So basically, the ideal is to think about narrative 00:00:39.350 --> 00:00:41.900 align:middle line:84% and recreating the body of a life 00:00:41.900 --> 00:00:45.320 align:middle line:84% through the questioning of that life 00:00:45.320 --> 00:00:48.860 align:middle line:84% and through the dispersions of narrative. 00:00:48.860 --> 00:00:51.140 align:middle line:84% And the primary question that drives 00:00:51.140 --> 00:00:53.900 align:middle line:84% this book, The Putterer's Notebook, this very, very 00:00:53.900 --> 00:00:58.670 align:middle line:84% long poem is from Giorgio Agamben's The Coming Community, 00:00:58.670 --> 00:01:01.130 align:middle line:84% where he poses the question about, what 00:01:01.130 --> 00:01:03.600 align:middle line:90% is the primary duty of repair? 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:10.280 align:middle line:84% So that's what got me into this particular investigation. 00:01:10.280 --> 00:01:14.540 align:middle line:84% And at some point, I'm going to collaborate The Putterer's 00:01:14.540 --> 00:01:17.660 align:middle line:84% Notebook with a section from A Toast 00:01:17.660 --> 00:01:22.238 align:middle line:84% in the House of Friends called the-- 00:01:22.238 --> 00:01:24.290 align:middle line:84% da, da, da, what is that section called? 00:01:24.290 --> 00:01:25.940 align:middle line:90% Aha, I love this title too-- 00:01:25.940 --> 00:01:30.170 align:middle line:84% "An Arranging Guard of Angels Thusly coming to Greet." 00:01:30.170 --> 00:01:34.400 align:middle line:84% So I'll switch text back and forth, eventually. 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:37.240 align:middle line:90% [FLIPPING PAGES] 00:01:37.240 --> 00:01:44.890 align:middle line:90% 00:01:44.890 --> 00:01:49.120 align:middle line:84% "As if lateral lines and neo-nationalism were 00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:53.290 align:middle line:84% essentials, the world tipped around an image of you 00:01:53.290 --> 00:01:56.980 align:middle line:84% I create on the train, collecting ruins. 00:01:56.980 --> 00:02:00.700 align:middle line:84% This is an epistemology of forget, 00:02:00.700 --> 00:02:07.420 align:middle line:84% or then curiously, I am a system of relations, later devotion, 00:02:07.420 --> 00:02:11.530 align:middle line:84% Los Angeles, treacherous, a surface recedes, 00:02:11.530 --> 00:02:15.160 align:middle line:84% a narrative of whoever collects shorelines, 00:02:15.160 --> 00:02:18.640 align:middle line:90% a disassociation between forms. 00:02:18.640 --> 00:02:24.370 align:middle line:84% You, my ongoing query, what do you dream? 00:02:24.370 --> 00:02:27.760 align:middle line:84% We, who are at opposite ends of a myth 00:02:27.760 --> 00:02:31.240 align:middle line:84% of lineage requiring negotiation. 00:02:31.240 --> 00:02:33.850 align:middle line:84% All these abstractions in my teeth, 00:02:33.850 --> 00:02:37.120 align:middle line:84% I could tell you stories, you skyver. 00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:42.250 align:middle line:84% I will talk while we work, for example, I am seduced 00:02:42.250 --> 00:02:45.880 align:middle line:90% or I offer me as proposal. 00:02:45.880 --> 00:02:49.420 align:middle line:84% We don't recognize ourselves as vulnerable landing here 00:02:49.420 --> 00:02:52.900 align:middle line:84% at the airport, I hide at a newsstand for hours 00:02:52.900 --> 00:02:55.360 align:middle line:90% waiting for the terror to fade. 00:02:55.360 --> 00:03:00.520 align:middle line:84% My raw sexuality watches horses sleep in Jersey. 00:03:00.520 --> 00:03:05.110 align:middle line:84% I attempt I to degender violence to no God. 00:03:05.110 --> 00:03:07.510 align:middle line:84% I remember your body asleep in aspersions. 00:03:07.510 --> 00:03:10.390 align:middle line:84% You told me about a childhood in Minnesota, 00:03:10.390 --> 00:03:12.550 align:middle line:90% and I thought of the movies. 00:03:12.550 --> 00:03:16.240 align:middle line:84% And I thought of how tough it is to learn to read, 00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:18.910 align:middle line:84% knowing ultimately I would betray you. 00:03:18.910 --> 00:03:21.460 align:middle line:84% And I thought of death again, as a way 00:03:21.460 --> 00:03:23.560 align:middle line:84% of looking through funny mirrors. 00:03:23.560 --> 00:03:27.700 align:middle line:84% Or the tightrope and the angelic failure to catch you. 00:03:27.700 --> 00:03:29.890 align:middle line:84% But even now when it's all said and done, 00:03:29.890 --> 00:03:33.070 align:middle line:84% I missed the momentary frail vision. 00:03:33.070 --> 00:03:37.870 align:middle line:84% The chaotic bodies in hip black shimmering down Bedford. 00:03:37.870 --> 00:03:41.110 align:middle line:84% Like apparitions, like liars, I had 00:03:41.110 --> 00:03:45.130 align:middle line:90% expected to find allies there. 00:03:45.130 --> 00:03:48.400 align:middle line:84% Unforgivable violence, something dropped. 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:52.330 align:middle line:84% Untouched, inhabit a queered more plural. 00:03:52.330 --> 00:03:57.790 align:middle line:84% I'm here, Theresa hotel that collapse, shining Prince 00:03:57.790 --> 00:04:01.240 align:middle line:84% Castro, all of us fatigued the century, 00:04:01.240 --> 00:04:04.690 align:middle line:84% I as in not Freudian mistranslation. 00:04:04.690 --> 00:04:06.760 align:middle line:90% When is the tipping point? 00:04:06.760 --> 00:04:09.550 align:middle line:84% New York, I've been back, back many times. 00:04:09.550 --> 00:04:14.500 align:middle line:84% Sacred Heart been back, back many times, eluding best time. 00:04:14.500 --> 00:04:18.700 align:middle line:84% Then conquered, then hairdressers remembering smell. 00:04:18.700 --> 00:04:20.980 align:middle line:90% Burnt alterity. 00:04:20.980 --> 00:04:23.290 align:middle line:84% I'll never leave you no matter what. 00:04:23.290 --> 00:04:27.070 align:middle line:84% When I saw you, your said architecture I shook. 00:04:27.070 --> 00:04:29.440 align:middle line:90% I architecture, shook. 00:04:29.440 --> 00:04:31.540 align:middle line:90% House, a dangerous weave. 00:04:31.540 --> 00:04:33.250 align:middle line:90% House, a dagger. 00:04:33.250 --> 00:04:38.150 align:middle line:90% A dagger, "Yes, yes," it mimics. 00:04:38.150 --> 00:04:43.850 align:middle line:84% This body, a public adornment to speak of in relation to scale. 00:04:43.850 --> 00:04:47.090 align:middle line:84% In the Charlton's close, I collect epigraphs 00:04:47.090 --> 00:04:49.100 align:middle line:90% to mark this forum is urgent. 00:04:49.100 --> 00:04:53.450 align:middle line:84% Sinking replicable, and twisting like nightmare 00:04:53.450 --> 00:04:55.250 align:middle line:90% seeking solitude. 00:04:55.250 --> 00:04:58.160 align:middle line:84% Nostalgic in postcolonial light, I 00:04:58.160 --> 00:05:02.330 align:middle line:84% am not seeking more than an indicant of our love. 00:05:02.330 --> 00:05:06.200 align:middle line:84% That broken umbilicus left ungrounded 00:05:06.200 --> 00:05:08.720 align:middle line:90% for so many refused season. 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:11.990 align:middle line:90% A bargaining chip between us. 00:05:11.990 --> 00:05:14.300 align:middle line:84% Beautiful boys, girls, beautiful. 00:05:14.300 --> 00:05:16.580 align:middle line:84% Beautiful boys, girls, beautiful. 00:05:16.580 --> 00:05:18.950 align:middle line:90% I'm extending to you this ah. 00:05:18.950 --> 00:05:21.470 align:middle line:90% I am extending to you this ah. 00:05:21.470 --> 00:05:25.280 align:middle line:84% I am extending to you this ah, ah, ah. 00:05:25.280 --> 00:05:29.510 align:middle line:90% I am extending to you this ah. 00:05:29.510 --> 00:05:32.450 align:middle line:84% Traveling to and away, then I was 00:05:32.450 --> 00:05:34.220 align:middle line:90% carrying the baby in my arms. 00:05:34.220 --> 00:05:38.660 align:middle line:84% And as I said that, the energy shifted again. 00:05:38.660 --> 00:05:40.820 align:middle line:90% Desire is not clean. 00:05:40.820 --> 00:05:42.890 align:middle line:90% Desire is not clean. 00:05:42.890 --> 00:05:45.950 align:middle line:84% Desire is not clean, it's not clean, it's not clean, 00:05:45.950 --> 00:05:48.590 align:middle line:90% is not desire sing. 00:05:48.590 --> 00:05:54.540 align:middle line:84% And once again, leaving this filmy mist that surrounds. 00:05:54.540 --> 00:05:55.550 align:middle line:90% Stay. 00:05:55.550 --> 00:05:56.690 align:middle line:90% Let go, no. 00:05:56.690 --> 00:05:59.360 align:middle line:90% Stay here in me a little longer. 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:04.970 align:middle line:84% Keep you here in my body, a little longer on earth. 00:06:04.970 --> 00:06:07.730 align:middle line:84% I didn't expect to be in this temple. 00:06:07.730 --> 00:06:09.920 align:middle line:84% I want you to tell me things like, "It's 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:12.740 align:middle line:84% so beautiful out there," you'd tell me 00:06:12.740 --> 00:06:14.690 align:middle line:90% when you tell me things. 00:06:14.690 --> 00:06:18.710 align:middle line:84% It's your innocence and complexity that floors me. 00:06:18.710 --> 00:06:24.710 align:middle line:84% Are you my ancestor, my angel, my guide, my chosen one 00:06:24.710 --> 00:06:30.090 align:middle line:84% in this cycle of little deaths even now? 00:06:30.090 --> 00:06:32.190 align:middle line:90% Yellow shirt days. 00:06:32.190 --> 00:06:33.780 align:middle line:90% Vandal days. 00:06:33.780 --> 00:06:35.700 align:middle line:90% Hush mouth days. 00:06:35.700 --> 00:06:37.170 align:middle line:90% Mistaken days. 00:06:37.170 --> 00:06:38.220 align:middle line:90% Grace days. 00:06:38.220 --> 00:06:39.120 align:middle line:90% Go days. 00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:40.800 align:middle line:90% Thank you u days. 00:06:40.800 --> 00:06:41.970 align:middle line:90% Little days. 00:06:41.970 --> 00:06:43.650 align:middle line:90% Days of, "let me go." 00:06:43.650 --> 00:06:48.870 align:middle line:84% Days up, "Oh beautiful boy days, beautiful girl days." 00:06:48.870 --> 00:06:54.180 align:middle line:84% Then I commanded the stage again, as embodied activism 00:06:54.180 --> 00:06:55.320 align:middle line:90% this time. 00:06:55.320 --> 00:07:00.780 align:middle line:84% A gone time from a before, then, if, so, therefore, 00:07:00.780 --> 00:07:02.430 align:middle line:90% without pretense. 00:07:02.430 --> 00:07:07.200 align:middle line:84% Nothing or used this phrase, this constituent, this color 00:07:07.200 --> 00:07:09.600 align:middle line:90% Lily I've never seen before. 00:07:09.600 --> 00:07:12.410 align:middle line:90% A calculated blue. 00:07:12.410 --> 00:07:14.450 align:middle line:90% I was considered a last resort. 00:07:14.450 --> 00:07:18.860 align:middle line:84% I was considering going there over by the lost boys, 00:07:18.860 --> 00:07:21.830 align:middle line:84% but I didn't know how to speak of a genocide that 00:07:21.830 --> 00:07:23.420 align:middle line:90% wears my face. 00:07:23.420 --> 00:07:27.680 align:middle line:84% A calm and then, temple, anyone, please. 00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:30.770 align:middle line:84% We used to pray like desperados, then 00:07:30.770 --> 00:07:33.380 align:middle line:90% silence as charade to lay upon. 00:07:33.380 --> 00:07:35.840 align:middle line:84% Beautiful girls, boys, beautiful. 00:07:35.840 --> 00:07:39.320 align:middle line:84% I'm extending to you, I'm extending to you this, oh. 00:07:39.320 --> 00:07:44.150 align:middle line:84% I am extending to you this oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. 00:07:44.150 --> 00:07:46.910 align:middle line:90% Angels can you spare just one? 00:07:46.910 --> 00:07:48.890 align:middle line:90% Can you spare just one? 00:07:48.890 --> 00:07:50.840 align:middle line:90% Can you spare just one? 00:07:50.840 --> 00:07:54.050 align:middle line:84% Keeping time with angel's, beautiful boys, 00:07:54.050 --> 00:07:55.220 align:middle line:90% girls beautiful. 00:07:55.220 --> 00:07:58.400 align:middle line:84% All around me, keeping time all around me. 00:07:58.400 --> 00:08:00.260 align:middle line:90% My sweet one, who's that? 00:08:00.260 --> 00:08:01.310 align:middle line:90% Who's that? 00:08:01.310 --> 00:08:05.420 align:middle line:84% My sweet one, my sweet one, always eyes. 00:08:05.420 --> 00:08:07.130 align:middle line:90% Not one, both. 00:08:07.130 --> 00:08:12.080 align:middle line:84% I have bathed your feet and hair in the fifth chamber, see you. 00:08:12.080 --> 00:08:15.320 align:middle line:84% Walking in spirit all the way up there, 00:08:15.320 --> 00:08:21.140 align:middle line:84% I have baptized your testes and stomach with eucalyptus kisses. 00:08:21.140 --> 00:08:23.480 align:middle line:84% Beautiful boys, girls, beautiful. 00:08:23.480 --> 00:08:27.260 align:middle line:84% Beautiful boys, girls, beautiful. 00:08:27.260 --> 00:08:29.570 align:middle line:90% I disrupt my imaginary. 00:08:29.570 --> 00:08:33.980 align:middle line:84% My marketable language receives you, tattered one. 00:08:33.980 --> 00:08:36.110 align:middle line:90% Is this ending good? 00:08:36.110 --> 00:08:43.070 align:middle line:84% To be good, to be unknown, to be broken, to be sentry? 00:08:43.070 --> 00:08:48.230 align:middle line:90% To be just here, be good earth? 00:08:48.230 --> 00:08:51.560 align:middle line:90% I've been back, back many times. 00:08:51.560 --> 00:08:55.990 align:middle line:90% I've been back, back many times. 00:08:55.990 --> 00:08:59.840 align:middle line:84% What is the primary duty of repair? 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:01.820 align:middle line:90% Where is your embodiment? 00:09:01.820 --> 00:09:06.800 align:middle line:84% This small obsession of becoming and collapse. 00:09:06.800 --> 00:09:12.290 align:middle line:84% Or the desire to be in the world as image, or as voice. 00:09:12.290 --> 00:09:18.320 align:middle line:84% Or a knowing or known clatter prostration, the world. 00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:20.780 align:middle line:90% In Madrid we made a mistake. 00:09:20.780 --> 00:09:23.360 align:middle line:84% Unable to be big about and admit, 00:09:23.360 --> 00:09:25.520 align:middle line:90% we claim holy connection. 00:09:25.520 --> 00:09:28.550 align:middle line:84% Drunk all the time, closer to thee, 00:09:28.550 --> 00:09:32.000 align:middle line:84% leaning towards Madagascar dust mites. 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:34.910 align:middle line:90% And I meant so many times too. 00:09:34.910 --> 00:09:37.850 align:middle line:84% A laceration and drain, just yesterday. 00:09:37.850 --> 00:09:40.940 align:middle line:84% Then by morning again, suspicious 00:09:40.940 --> 00:09:43.790 align:middle line:90% and not reflecting a shine. 00:09:43.790 --> 00:09:48.380 align:middle line:84% You send those comrade poems coupled, crumbled. 00:09:48.380 --> 00:09:52.190 align:middle line:84% And I should be but I'm not saying, "Just 00:09:52.190 --> 00:09:55.760 align:middle line:84% tell me what happened at that night of the full moon." 00:09:55.760 --> 00:09:58.190 align:middle line:84% As if amnesiac and unable to sort. 00:09:58.190 --> 00:10:01.700 align:middle line:84% Alternately then, how nice it is to sleep 00:10:01.700 --> 00:10:04.010 align:middle line:90% doing a shared darkness? 00:10:04.010 --> 00:10:10.430 align:middle line:84% Or spruce is a street to go down to look for, so impossible. 00:10:10.430 --> 00:10:13.430 align:middle line:84% And sends a quotation in the midst of words 00:10:13.430 --> 00:10:17.690 align:middle line:84% I wanted in the impossible break of a single line, 00:10:17.690 --> 00:10:19.910 align:middle line:90% had beautiful teeth. 00:10:19.910 --> 00:10:24.380 align:middle line:84% I break while inventing Kentucky bluegrass and alcoholism. 00:10:24.380 --> 00:10:27.950 align:middle line:84% Who knew what a best seller either of those would be? 00:10:27.950 --> 00:10:31.670 align:middle line:84% I'm laughing all the way to the bank, as they say. 00:10:31.670 --> 00:10:33.170 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:10:33.170 --> 00:10:36.380 align:middle line:84% How come you want to treat my baby so bad? 00:10:36.380 --> 00:10:39.630 align:middle line:84% How come you want to treat me so bad, baby? 00:10:39.630 --> 00:10:44.720 align:middle line:84% Good to you have I been, when we were practicing human. 00:10:44.720 --> 00:10:48.290 align:middle line:84% My father told me so many stories with place names, 00:10:48.290 --> 00:10:51.530 align:middle line:90% Michigan Lake, given names. 00:10:51.530 --> 00:10:54.860 align:middle line:84% All laid out with punch lines, or morality moments 00:10:54.860 --> 00:10:56.930 align:middle line:84% and I don't remember any of them. 00:10:56.930 --> 00:11:00.680 align:middle line:84% Only Lake Michigan, where I could never imagine him 00:11:00.680 --> 00:11:02.540 align:middle line:90% rowing with a picnic basket. 00:11:02.540 --> 00:11:04.760 align:middle line:90% My mother, a calm. 00:11:04.760 --> 00:11:07.550 align:middle line:90% How much time is enough time? 00:11:07.550 --> 00:11:11.150 align:middle line:84% All I think I feel I've stolen from someone who's already 00:11:11.150 --> 00:11:14.700 align:middle line:84% said it before, as if the mind were a doubt. 00:11:14.700 --> 00:11:18.140 align:middle line:84% This is the thing, I'm trying to understand 00:11:18.140 --> 00:11:20.840 align:middle line:84% how much I loved him, her, them, they, 00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:23.600 align:middle line:90% and how badly I expressed me. 00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:26.150 align:middle line:90% Then something would be solved. 00:11:26.150 --> 00:11:27.320 align:middle line:90% Silly. 00:11:27.320 --> 00:11:30.680 align:middle line:90% California, vomiters' paradise. 00:11:30.680 --> 00:11:34.160 align:middle line:84% To sleep, I must resolve to kick someone's ass. 00:11:34.160 --> 00:11:37.850 align:middle line:84% In the dream, all this terrain is familiar to me. 00:11:37.850 --> 00:11:42.920 align:middle line:84% Not sane, doused in incorrect light, suspended. 00:11:42.920 --> 00:11:45.680 align:middle line:84% I don't know what I did before 1:00, o'clock, 00:11:45.680 --> 00:11:47.780 align:middle line:90% heartless bastards. 00:11:47.780 --> 00:11:52.400 align:middle line:84% Up here airless but tight, flying not like a bird, 00:11:52.400 --> 00:11:55.250 align:middle line:90% rather entrapment airborne. 00:11:55.250 --> 00:12:00.170 align:middle line:84% Ulterior contradictions, the air below clouded, cushioned. 00:12:00.170 --> 00:12:04.460 align:middle line:84% A scenery that has seen itself, but likes to reminisce. 00:12:04.460 --> 00:12:09.200 align:middle line:84% Irritated at signs of time streaking over brokerages, 00:12:09.200 --> 00:12:12.710 align:middle line:84% It's Boston., bellows the clouded mirage. 00:12:12.710 --> 00:12:15.980 align:middle line:90% I have no emotion no comment. 00:12:15.980 --> 00:12:21.500 align:middle line:84% Departure conditional to love, and to a result of--" 00:12:21.500 --> 00:12:22.000 align:middle line:90%