WEBVTT

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This next poem is
called "Failed Tribute

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to the Stonemason of Tor
House, Robinson Jeffers."

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I've been reading a lot of
Jeffers poetry in a Jeffers

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biography.

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And I was I think
pretty involved in it

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and him in his life
and in his works.

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And finally came
time to I thought

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go down and pay homage to
through the house he had built.

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It's in Carmel and
when he and his wife

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Una when they were
first married in Bath

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I don't know whatever
it was 1908 or 1909,

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they happened upon Carmel.

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They had some friends there.

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Carmel was a very small
artistic colony in those days.

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A few novelists and
painters and very small.

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And it was a terrifically
rugged landscape.

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And Jeffers who'd been a
very fancy free character.

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I mean, his father--
they'd lived

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a million different places.

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He'd been educated at many
different schools in Europe.

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And his father-- his
father was probably crazy.

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He was some kind of
religious fanatic.

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I don't remember what kind.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But they moved all the time.

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He was crazy besides
being a religious fanatic.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And they moved all the time.

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They were always
moving sending Jeffers

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to a different school each year.

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And anyway, Jeffers had never
been very attached to anything.

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But he was attached to
this woman that he married.

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And so he found this
landscape and it just

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changed him instantly.

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And he wanted to see new--
he wanted to settle there.

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So his wife sort of
designed the house.

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It was designed after some
castle she'd seen in England.

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And they hired a contractor.

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And to make sure that
they did the job right,

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she encouraged Jeffers to
get a job with the contractor

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as an apprentice
stonemason, which he did.

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And he worked with
them for however

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long, that three or four years.

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And then when they finished
the basic part of the house

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the contractor was released.

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And Jeffers went
on then for years

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building it himself,
building onto this house.

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So there are a lot
of other things

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I suppose I could
say but I don't

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know if they're necessary.

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Jeffers was sort of
known for many things.

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I love his poetry very much.

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But during his lifetime
and maybe even now

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I think things are
beginning to change.

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But during his lifetime he was
accused of a lot of things,

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mainly being a misanthrope.

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He realized at a very young
age that he wanted to write.

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He said that he wanted to write
only about permanent things.

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He didn't want to bother with
our little leading fancies

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and that he was interested
in the permanent things

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of this planet.

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And so he was accused
of being a misanthrope.

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That was one of the things.

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There were other problems.

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That's enough.

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I suppose about
half of you probably

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have been to Carmel so.

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We travel down to see your
house, Tor House, Hawk Tower

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in Carmel, California.

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It was not quite what
I thought it would be.

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I wanted it to be on
a hill with a view

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of the ocean unobstructed
by other dwellings.

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50 years ago, I know you had a
clean walk to the sea hopping

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from Boulder to Boulder,
the various sea fowl rightly

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impressed with your
lean stern face.

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But today with
our cameras cocked

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we had to sneak and crawl
through trimmed lawns

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to even verify the identity
of your strange carbuncular

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creation now rented to
trillionaire non-literary folk

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from Pasadena.

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Edged in on all sides by
Tri-level pasteboard phantasms,

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it took a pair of good
glasses to barely see

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some newlyweds feed
popcorn to an albatross.

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Man is a puny thing, divorced
whether he knows it or not.

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And pays his monthly
alimony, his child support.

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Year after year you stroll down
to this exceptionally violent

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shore and chose your boulder.

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The arms grew as the house
grew as the mine grew

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to exist outside of time, beyond
the dalliance of your fellows.

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Today, I hate Carmel.

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I seek libation in the Tiki bar.

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Naked native ladies are
painted in iridescent orange

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on Velvet cloth.

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The whole town loves art.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And I donate this Singapore
sling to the memory of it.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And join the stream of
idlers simmering outside.

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Much as hawks circled your
head when you cut stone

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all afternoon, kids with
funny hats on motor scooters

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keep circling the block.

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Jeffers.

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