WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.850 align:middle line:90% Next up is Susan McConnell. 00:00:02.850 --> 00:00:06.259 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:06.259 --> 00:00:21.370 align:middle line:90% 00:00:21.370 --> 00:00:22.630 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:00:22.630 --> 00:00:26.110 align:middle line:84% First, I want to thank Gail and Cozi and Nancy 00:00:26.110 --> 00:00:29.770 align:middle line:84% for being so incredibly hospitable and warm to me. 00:00:29.770 --> 00:00:33.193 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:33.193 --> 00:00:35.640 align:middle line:90% 00:00:35.640 --> 00:00:38.430 align:middle line:84% I've written now because I didn't think I could speak out 00:00:38.430 --> 00:00:39.360 align:middle line:90% what I have to say. 00:00:39.360 --> 00:00:42.010 align:middle line:90% 00:00:42.010 --> 00:00:46.330 align:middle line:84% Steve was my closest friend at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. 00:00:46.330 --> 00:00:50.950 align:middle line:84% That's how I always explain to people who he is, 00:00:50.950 --> 00:00:52.540 align:middle line:90% to my friends. 00:00:52.540 --> 00:00:55.420 align:middle line:84% We lived in a place called Blacks Gaslight Village, which 00:00:55.420 --> 00:00:59.080 align:middle line:84% had four buildings and about 45 grad students. 00:00:59.080 --> 00:01:02.950 align:middle line:84% And Steve and I lived in what we call the L-shaped building 00:01:02.950 --> 00:01:04.750 align:middle line:90% and we shared a kitchen. 00:01:04.750 --> 00:01:07.060 align:middle line:90% Each person had a tiny room. 00:01:07.060 --> 00:01:09.790 align:middle line:90% It cost 50 bucks. 00:01:09.790 --> 00:01:12.580 align:middle line:84% When I last saw Steve a year and a half ago he 00:01:12.580 --> 00:01:16.870 align:middle line:84% blurted out in that way he had a suddenly saying something true. 00:01:16.870 --> 00:01:19.960 align:middle line:90% You were my first friend. 00:01:19.960 --> 00:01:21.940 align:middle line:90% He had a lot of friends then. 00:01:21.940 --> 00:01:26.260 align:middle line:84% But I know what he meant, a true reliable friend, a friend 00:01:26.260 --> 00:01:28.510 align:middle line:90% who could get you through. 00:01:28.510 --> 00:01:30.970 align:middle line:84% I had gone through major traumas just 00:01:30.970 --> 00:01:34.570 align:middle line:84% before then and Steve's friendship sustained me. 00:01:34.570 --> 00:01:38.750 align:middle line:84% I just didn't know he felt the same. 00:01:38.750 --> 00:01:41.530 align:middle line:84% We both waited tables and we would pick each other up 00:01:41.530 --> 00:01:45.100 align:middle line:84% after work and walk the cold mile home. 00:01:45.100 --> 00:01:48.220 align:middle line:84% I still cut up green olives in my tuna fish 00:01:48.220 --> 00:01:50.740 align:middle line:90% because Steve did then. 00:01:50.740 --> 00:01:53.650 align:middle line:84% He gave me the first joint I ever smoked. 00:01:53.650 --> 00:01:55.480 align:middle line:90% We hung out at Kenny's. 00:01:55.480 --> 00:02:00.400 align:middle line:84% I watched him play pinball with Chuck Hanzelczyk endlessly. 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:04.220 align:middle line:84% He read a poem, "The Orderly" two pages long, 00:02:04.220 --> 00:02:06.760 align:middle line:84% a counterpart to my 30-page story 00:02:06.760 --> 00:02:08.709 align:middle line:84% about working in a nursing home that 00:02:08.709 --> 00:02:10.580 align:middle line:90% had got me into the workshop. 00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:13.690 align:middle line:84% And I was amazed at a poem's conciseness, 00:02:13.690 --> 00:02:15.420 align:middle line:90% amazed at his poem. 00:02:15.420 --> 00:02:18.830 align:middle line:90% 00:02:18.830 --> 00:02:21.500 align:middle line:84% We had an odd friendship, attracted 00:02:21.500 --> 00:02:25.340 align:middle line:84% to each other but not quite girlfriend boyfriend lovers. 00:02:25.340 --> 00:02:29.750 align:middle line:84% Something unique I'd never had before needed badly then 00:02:29.750 --> 00:02:34.430 align:middle line:84% and haven't had since to that depth. 00:02:34.430 --> 00:02:37.010 align:middle line:90% I love Steve's voice. 00:02:37.010 --> 00:02:39.320 align:middle line:90% I love Steve's poems. 00:02:39.320 --> 00:02:42.230 align:middle line:84% I loved hearing him read his poems and the way 00:02:42.230 --> 00:02:44.810 align:middle line:84% he listened to poems, sometimes with his head bent 00:02:44.810 --> 00:02:46.850 align:middle line:90% and his eyes closed. 00:02:46.850 --> 00:02:48.710 align:middle line:90% I loved his impetuousness. 00:02:48.710 --> 00:02:51.290 align:middle line:84% Suddenly squatting down on a street corner 00:02:51.290 --> 00:02:53.840 align:middle line:84% on the way home for no good reason. 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:56.870 align:middle line:84% Asking something impertinent or blurting something 00:02:56.870 --> 00:02:58.910 align:middle line:90% honest at his heart. 00:02:58.910 --> 00:03:04.850 align:middle line:84% I liked his jaw, his chin, I love his shakey hands. 00:03:04.850 --> 00:03:06.650 align:middle line:84% But what underscored our friendship 00:03:06.650 --> 00:03:09.200 align:middle line:90% was a communal tragedy. 00:03:09.200 --> 00:03:13.040 align:middle line:84% In the spring of '66 just before leaving we 00:03:13.040 --> 00:03:15.350 align:middle line:84% at Blacks, including, Jonathan Penner 00:03:15.350 --> 00:03:19.850 align:middle line:84% who I haven't seen since then planned to pig roast. 00:03:19.850 --> 00:03:22.400 align:middle line:90% It was an Iowa thing to do. 00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:25.910 align:middle line:84% Steve and I picked up the live pig, cute, 00:03:25.910 --> 00:03:29.570 align:middle line:84% reddish brown I never forgot that pig. 00:03:29.570 --> 00:03:33.080 align:middle line:84% But that Saturday morning we were to begin the roast. 00:03:33.080 --> 00:03:37.370 align:middle line:84% We woke to the news that two people from Blacks were dead. 00:03:37.370 --> 00:03:40.280 align:middle line:84% One had hanged himself in the basement apartment 00:03:40.280 --> 00:03:44.780 align:middle line:84% just below my room, and another Francoise a French girl 00:03:44.780 --> 00:03:49.820 align:middle line:84% I'd taken home a few weeks before was hit by a semi-truck. 00:03:49.820 --> 00:03:52.640 align:middle line:90% We postponed the pig roast. 00:03:52.640 --> 00:03:54.650 align:middle line:90% The next weekend we had it. 00:03:54.650 --> 00:03:58.430 align:middle line:84% And during it, that evening a beautiful Black girl 00:03:58.430 --> 00:04:02.150 align:middle line:84% from Georgia who had just had a story accepted in the Atlantic 00:04:02.150 --> 00:04:06.530 align:middle line:84% Monthly rode off to take her for a spin on someone's motorcycle 00:04:06.530 --> 00:04:09.020 align:middle line:90% was hit and died. 00:04:09.020 --> 00:04:10.865 align:middle line:84% Three in one week where we lived. 00:04:10.865 --> 00:04:13.490 align:middle line:90% 00:04:13.490 --> 00:04:17.570 align:middle line:84% In the fall, the next fall Steve and I 00:04:17.570 --> 00:04:22.390 align:middle line:84% were incredibly glad to see each other again alive. 00:04:22.390 --> 00:04:25.180 align:middle line:84% Although we did not often mention it, this tragic week 00:04:25.180 --> 00:04:31.150 align:middle line:84% resided in some way between us for all of our friendship. 00:04:31.150 --> 00:04:35.900 align:middle line:84% On September 11, 2001 I saw the Second World Trade tower slide 00:04:35.900 --> 00:04:39.610 align:middle line:84% down onto itself in a split second. 00:04:39.610 --> 00:04:42.010 align:middle line:84% In the stunt aftermath weeks of it 00:04:42.010 --> 00:04:45.490 align:middle line:84% I thought a lot about that week and Steve. 00:04:45.490 --> 00:04:48.910 align:middle line:84% Having gone through that earlier helped me. 00:04:48.910 --> 00:04:51.190 align:middle line:84% Steve and I carried this memory together, 00:04:51.190 --> 00:04:53.170 align:middle line:84% and now I don't have a dear, dear 00:04:53.170 --> 00:04:58.990 align:middle line:84% friend who shares it with me or those transformative years. 00:04:58.990 --> 00:05:02.500 align:middle line:84% Whenever Steve called me even after huge gaps of time, 00:05:02.500 --> 00:05:04.870 align:middle line:84% he never said, hello, it's Steve Orlen. 00:05:04.870 --> 00:05:07.150 align:middle line:90% He'd say, hi, Suze. 00:05:07.150 --> 00:05:10.330 align:middle line:84% He loved knowing that I'd know who it was. 00:05:10.330 --> 00:05:15.610 align:middle line:84% And I loved and have loved knowing who he was. 00:05:15.610 --> 00:05:19.420 align:middle line:84% I want to end with a found poem from Steve, which 00:05:19.420 --> 00:05:22.330 align:middle line:90% I think it comes from Steve. 00:05:22.330 --> 00:05:28.480 align:middle line:84% Yesterday Gail, Cozi, Eric, and I went to Steve's office. 00:05:28.480 --> 00:05:33.100 align:middle line:84% And there on his desk was this letter undated. 00:05:33.100 --> 00:05:36.130 align:middle line:84% Dear Steve Orlen, thanks for sending poems 00:05:36.130 --> 00:05:38.950 align:middle line:90% to us at New Ohio Review. 00:05:38.950 --> 00:05:44.170 align:middle line:84% We are very struck by the poem, "Where Do We Go After We Die?" 00:05:44.170 --> 00:05:48.040 align:middle line:84% I think it is terrific yet confusing in a couple of spots. 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:50.260 align:middle line:90% Can you ask about it? 00:05:50.260 --> 00:05:51.850 align:middle line:90% Can I ask you about it? 00:05:51.850 --> 00:05:55.660 align:middle line:90% Can I ask you about it? 00:05:55.660 --> 00:05:59.010 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]