WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.610 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.610 --> 00:00:06.060 align:middle line:84%
I wanted to read a prose poem
to you called, "On Meeting

00:00:06.060 --> 00:00:07.470 align:middle line:90%
Robert Desnos in My Sleep."

00:00:07.470 --> 00:00:11.490 align:middle line:90%


00:00:11.490 --> 00:00:18.210 align:middle line:84%
Robert Desnos is a kind of
mysterious force for me.

00:00:18.210 --> 00:00:20.940 align:middle line:84%
In the early '70s, when
I was very influenced

00:00:20.940 --> 00:00:26.340 align:middle line:84%
by surrealist writing, his
poems were very important to me.

00:00:26.340 --> 00:00:29.040 align:middle line:84%
He was one of the original
French Surrealists

00:00:29.040 --> 00:00:32.877 align:middle line:90%
with Andre Breton, Paul Eluard.

00:00:32.877 --> 00:00:34.710 align:middle line:84%
He was thrown out of
the Surrealist movement

00:00:34.710 --> 00:00:38.730 align:middle line:84%
because, as Breton said,
he had too much talent.

00:00:38.730 --> 00:00:40.230 align:middle line:84%
And if you're writing
unconsciously,

00:00:40.230 --> 00:00:42.840 align:middle line:84%
you're not supposed
to have talent.

00:00:42.840 --> 00:00:45.000 align:middle line:84%
But he was an
incredibly forceful man.

00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.070 align:middle line:90%
He held seances.

00:00:47.070 --> 00:00:49.260 align:middle line:90%
He defied the Nazis openly.

00:00:49.260 --> 00:00:51.960 align:middle line:84%
And, ultimately, he died
in a concentration camp

00:00:51.960 --> 00:00:56.850 align:middle line:90%
in 1945 of leukemia.

00:00:56.850 --> 00:01:02.730 align:middle line:84%
He was a body mystic, a kind
of Swedenborgian tradition.

00:01:02.730 --> 00:01:05.550 align:middle line:84%
And some of his poems
are very forceful to me.

00:01:05.550 --> 00:01:07.380 align:middle line:84%
And this is the
only time, really,

00:01:07.380 --> 00:01:11.880 align:middle line:84%
that I was able to use a dream
as source material for a poem.

00:01:11.880 --> 00:01:15.840 align:middle line:90%


00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:18.030 align:middle line:84%
"On Meeting Robert
Desnos in my Sleep."

00:01:18.030 --> 00:01:23.540 align:middle line:90%


00:01:23.540 --> 00:01:27.380 align:middle line:90%
We meet in a concentration camp.

00:01:27.380 --> 00:01:33.140 align:middle line:84%
It is late 1944, and
the war is almost over.

00:01:33.140 --> 00:01:38.480 align:middle line:84%
He takes me by the hand, and
reads the future in my palm.

00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:42.560 align:middle line:84%
He says, "I will
never live to see 48.

00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:45.860 align:middle line:84%
That I have no will
left in my thumb

00:01:45.860 --> 00:01:49.490 align:middle line:90%
that my fame line is very faint.

00:01:49.490 --> 00:01:53.450 align:middle line:84%
He does not believe my wife
has been faithful to me,

00:01:53.450 --> 00:01:57.260 align:middle line:84%
but he says, it does
not really matter.

00:01:57.260 --> 00:02:02.960 align:middle line:84%
When he speaks, his voice is
so low it is almost inaudible.

00:02:02.960 --> 00:02:06.860 align:middle line:84%
It is almost as though there
were someone else speaking

00:02:06.860 --> 00:02:12.170 align:middle line:84%
to me, someone else who
is locked inside his body.

00:02:12.170 --> 00:02:15.170 align:middle line:84%
When he speaks to
me, the concentration

00:02:15.170 --> 00:02:20.060 align:middle line:84%
camp, our fellow prisoners,
even the sky which surrounds us,

00:02:20.060 --> 00:02:23.210 align:middle line:90%
all seem to disappear.

00:02:23.210 --> 00:02:29.690 align:middle line:84%
The pupils of his eyes are like
bowls which can contain me.

00:02:29.690 --> 00:02:34.260 align:middle line:84%
They frighten me more than
all the Germans I have seen.

00:02:34.260 --> 00:02:40.010 align:middle line:84%
So I close my eyes and
manage to awaken myself.

00:02:40.010 --> 00:02:44.630 align:middle line:84%
For a brief moment, I am
awake, looking straight

00:02:44.630 --> 00:02:47.540 align:middle line:84%
up at the ceiling,
which at first glance

00:02:47.540 --> 00:02:50.690 align:middle line:90%
looks like a wall on its side.

00:02:50.690 --> 00:02:53.750 align:middle line:90%
But Desnos will not let me go.

00:02:53.750 --> 00:02:57.410 align:middle line:84%
He grabs me back into
sleep by the throat.

00:02:57.410 --> 00:03:02.030 align:middle line:84%
I feel the sensation
of suffocation.

00:03:02.030 --> 00:03:05.780 align:middle line:84%
"It is not easy to
leave me," he says,

00:03:05.780 --> 00:03:08.900 align:middle line:84%
"although we always try
to return to the world

00:03:08.900 --> 00:03:10.820 align:middle line:90%
that we know.

00:03:10.820 --> 00:03:12.320 align:middle line:90%
But me?

00:03:12.320 --> 00:03:15.620 align:middle line:84%
I am more at home in this
world than you are when you

00:03:15.620 --> 00:03:18.380 align:middle line:90%
walk into your local grocery.

00:03:18.380 --> 00:03:22.400 align:middle line:84%
Only sometimes, when you
let your mind wander there,

00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:27.380 align:middle line:84%
say, when you pick up a piece of
fruit, and you let it become--

00:03:27.380 --> 00:03:29.930 align:middle line:90%
or rather, it itself becomes--

00:03:29.930 --> 00:03:33.110 align:middle line:90%
the skull of a small animal.

00:03:33.110 --> 00:03:36.140 align:middle line:90%
But I am this way all the time.

00:03:36.140 --> 00:03:43.370 align:middle line:84%
For me, the tomato is always
inside the skull of a fox.

00:03:43.370 --> 00:03:46.250 align:middle line:84%
What is so strange
about Desnos is

00:03:46.250 --> 00:03:50.270 align:middle line:84%
that he says he is not afraid
of going crazy, of dying,

00:03:50.270 --> 00:03:54.170 align:middle line:84%
or even of the Nazis who
are always watching him.

00:03:54.170 --> 00:03:58.760 align:middle line:84%
"The Nazis are so easy
to understand," he says.

00:03:58.760 --> 00:04:00.890 align:middle line:90%
"They have no inner life.

00:04:00.890 --> 00:04:03.800 align:middle line:84%
When you look into their
eyes, or into the barrels

00:04:03.800 --> 00:04:08.180 align:middle line:84%
of their Lugers, it is always,
at bottom, the same thing.

00:04:08.180 --> 00:04:11.630 align:middle line:84%
Sometimes, the German
believes his gun is only

00:04:11.630 --> 00:04:13.910 align:middle line:90%
an extension of his hand.

00:04:13.910 --> 00:04:17.870 align:middle line:84%
The barrel, his longest,
most hollow finger,

00:04:17.870 --> 00:04:23.720 align:middle line:84%
which he may point at anyone
to escape from himself."

00:04:23.720 --> 00:04:27.480 align:middle line:84%
Desnos holds
seances in his cell.

00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:29.630 align:middle line:84%
He makes the table
rise, the bed,

00:04:29.630 --> 00:04:31.850 align:middle line:84%
even the hands of
the cellmates, who

00:04:31.850 --> 00:04:35.640 align:middle line:84%
will not speak to him because
they believe he is crazy.

00:04:35.640 --> 00:04:38.870 align:middle line:84%
Desnos believes he can
communicate with the dead,

00:04:38.870 --> 00:04:43.610 align:middle line:84%
though he says he does not
need to hear from them.

00:04:43.610 --> 00:04:45.800 align:middle line:84%
What seems to
frighten most of us

00:04:45.800 --> 00:04:48.890 align:middle line:90%
is his ability to disappear--

00:04:48.890 --> 00:04:53.030 align:middle line:84%
or make us disappear--
from his consciousness.

00:04:53.030 --> 00:04:56.120 align:middle line:84%
One moment, someone may
be speaking with him,

00:04:56.120 --> 00:04:59.000 align:middle line:84%
and the next moment,
he is in a trance.

00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:02.300 align:middle line:84%
No one knows what he is
thinking, where he is going.

00:05:02.300 --> 00:05:05.330 align:middle line:84%
We only know we
cannot reach him.

00:05:05.330 --> 00:05:09.110 align:middle line:84%
It is this realization
that makes him disappear.

00:05:09.110 --> 00:05:13.010 align:middle line:84%
I am frightened, and I am no
longer able to wake myself,

00:05:13.010 --> 00:05:15.950 align:middle line:84%
and I am no longer
in a cell with him.

00:05:15.950 --> 00:05:18.740 align:middle line:84%
But in the middle of the
night, I'm in an open field

00:05:18.740 --> 00:05:20.660 align:middle line:90%
just outside the camp.

00:05:20.660 --> 00:05:22.730 align:middle line:90%
A light shines on me.

00:05:22.730 --> 00:05:25.940 align:middle line:84%
And, suddenly, I'm
surrounded by Nazis again.

00:05:25.940 --> 00:05:30.590 align:middle line:84%
In broken French, a guard asks
me, "what am I doing here?"

00:05:30.590 --> 00:05:33.560 align:middle line:90%
I tell him, "I do not know.

00:05:33.560 --> 00:05:37.250 align:middle line:84%
I only know I do
not belong here."

00:05:37.250 --> 00:05:40.670 align:middle line:84%
"Ce n'est pas assez
bon," he says.

00:05:40.670 --> 00:05:42.980 align:middle line:90%
"It is not good enough."

00:05:42.980 --> 00:05:47.210 align:middle line:84%
He raises his hand to strike
me with the butt of his gun.

00:05:47.210 --> 00:05:49.280 align:middle line:84%
And the moment
before he strikes me,

00:05:49.280 --> 00:05:51.620 align:middle line:90%
I can see inside the barrel.

00:05:51.620 --> 00:05:54.150 align:middle line:84%
It is not quite a
tunnel or an abyss,

00:05:54.150 --> 00:05:57.470 align:middle line:84%
but it is almost as though
I could see him hiding along

00:05:57.470 --> 00:05:59.910 align:middle line:90%
the edges of that barrel.

00:05:59.910 --> 00:06:03.530 align:middle line:84%
And when the gun goes
off, accidentally, I

00:06:03.530 --> 00:06:06.980 align:middle line:84%
see arms floating
in front of my face,

00:06:06.980 --> 00:06:10.190 align:middle line:84%
a pair of eyes moving
off toward the stars,

00:06:10.190 --> 00:06:15.420 align:middle line:84%
and a large hand reaching
for the back of my neck.

00:06:15.420 --> 00:06:19.480 align:middle line:90%
I know I will never sleep again.

00:06:19.480 --> 00:06:31.000 align:middle line:90%