WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.240 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:01.240 --> 00:00:02.610 align:middle line:90% We'll move to the Q&A now. 00:00:02.610 --> 00:00:05.310 align:middle line:90% And I'm open to it all. 00:00:05.310 --> 00:00:10.550 align:middle line:90% 00:00:10.550 --> 00:00:11.510 align:middle line:90% Up front? 00:00:11.510 --> 00:00:16.230 align:middle line:84% I'm just wondering, as far as the rhythm goes with the words, 00:00:16.230 --> 00:00:17.550 align:middle line:90% is that-- 00:00:17.550 --> 00:00:20.130 align:middle line:84% as far as the rhythm goes with the words, 00:00:20.130 --> 00:00:23.520 align:middle line:84% does that pattern fall into place as you're writing? 00:00:23.520 --> 00:00:26.340 align:middle line:84% Or is it just sort of the flow back and forth 00:00:26.340 --> 00:00:28.150 align:middle line:90% to find what's happening? 00:00:28.150 --> 00:00:29.800 align:middle line:90% I hope-- You guys heard that. 00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:33.900 align:middle line:84% I hope that it happens naturally, either way. 00:00:33.900 --> 00:00:36.780 align:middle line:84% I know that I believe in sculpture. 00:00:36.780 --> 00:00:41.250 align:middle line:84% So I'm sculpting a thing that has some shape, some container, 00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:43.530 align:middle line:84% when I making the poem, as writing is text. 00:00:43.530 --> 00:00:46.890 align:middle line:84% So I'm not free or liberated of that. 00:00:46.890 --> 00:00:49.890 align:middle line:84% I could never read any of those poems the same way twice. 00:00:49.890 --> 00:00:54.180 align:middle line:84% So it has to do with mood, time of day, what I ate, 00:00:54.180 --> 00:00:54.900 align:middle line:90% how I'm feeling. 00:00:54.900 --> 00:00:59.640 align:middle line:84% Do I feel Rocky Horror Picture Show or do I feel Soul Train? 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:02.490 align:middle line:90% Do I feel-- so I don't know. 00:01:02.490 --> 00:01:03.900 align:middle line:90% Not to be bored by it. 00:01:03.900 --> 00:01:05.759 align:middle line:84% Knowing that a reading experience 00:01:05.759 --> 00:01:07.890 align:middle line:84% is like having something passed through your body. 00:01:07.890 --> 00:01:11.010 align:middle line:84% So I don't want to know it that way. 00:01:11.010 --> 00:01:13.560 align:middle line:84% Am I probably revising when I'm reading? 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:17.250 align:middle line:84% I'm saying, [INAUDIBLE] I'm switching, I'm changing, 00:01:17.250 --> 00:01:19.950 align:middle line:84% so that it's slightly improvisational. 00:01:19.950 --> 00:01:22.410 align:middle line:90% I just can't read regular. 00:01:22.410 --> 00:01:23.760 align:middle line:90% I'm not a regular reader. 00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:25.740 align:middle line:84% If I were reading "It was the best of times, 00:01:25.740 --> 00:01:27.150 align:middle line:90% it was the worst of times." 00:01:27.150 --> 00:01:29.970 align:middle line:84% I go, or in my younger and more vulnerable years, you know, 00:01:29.970 --> 00:01:32.147 align:middle line:90% I would be that person. 00:01:32.147 --> 00:01:34.230 align:middle line:84% I hope that it doesn't matter that the [INAUDIBLE] 00:01:34.230 --> 00:01:36.180 align:middle line:84% of the poem is a thing that becomes 00:01:36.180 --> 00:01:40.387 align:middle line:84% your content, your rhythm, your digestive meal, 00:01:40.387 --> 00:01:42.720 align:middle line:84% and then leaves you in a different way it would leave me 00:01:42.720 --> 00:01:44.940 align:middle line:90% if we both ate it. 00:01:44.940 --> 00:01:47.880 align:middle line:84% But I don't I don't know that I privilege one or the other. 00:01:47.880 --> 00:01:51.180 align:middle line:84% But I know that a reading, a reading 00:01:51.180 --> 00:01:53.730 align:middle line:84% is a different thing from my writing. 00:01:53.730 --> 00:01:54.932 align:middle line:90% And maybe they shouldn't be. 00:01:54.932 --> 00:01:55.890 align:middle line:90% But right now they are. 00:01:55.890 --> 00:01:59.670 align:middle line:84% And the body plays a larger role. 00:01:59.670 --> 00:02:02.250 align:middle line:84% Most people write sitting down and I'm trying to resist that. 00:02:02.250 --> 00:02:04.750 align:middle line:84% I'm trying to write more moving around and standing up a lot 00:02:04.750 --> 00:02:05.430 align:middle line:90% these days. 00:02:05.430 --> 00:02:07.320 align:middle line:84% But I know that because of the body is here 00:02:07.320 --> 00:02:10.095 align:middle line:84% and it's worked up, breathing, what we talked about earlier. 00:02:10.095 --> 00:02:12.413 align:middle line:84% It may sound like I'm going for a rhythm. 00:02:12.413 --> 00:02:14.580 align:middle line:84% But I don't think there's no such like formlessness. 00:02:14.580 --> 00:02:17.130 align:middle line:84% I don't that anything is without rhythm. 00:02:17.130 --> 00:02:22.020 align:middle line:84% Echo, stutter, two trains passing in the night, shadow. 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:23.970 align:middle line:84% I don't think that it can be not rhythm. 00:02:23.970 --> 00:02:26.760 align:middle line:84% I think that we've been taught in the cerebral way, 00:02:26.760 --> 00:02:31.320 align:middle line:84% we've been taught to learn and read and receive information 00:02:31.320 --> 00:02:32.130 align:middle line:90% and ideas. 00:02:32.130 --> 00:02:34.050 align:middle line:84% We've been taught a certain stillness. 00:02:34.050 --> 00:02:36.270 align:middle line:84% And often a stillness comes across in the prose. 00:02:36.270 --> 00:02:39.000 align:middle line:84% And poetry doesn't have a poem's not a monopoly 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:41.350 align:middle line:90% on lyricism or movement. 00:02:41.350 --> 00:02:43.410 align:middle line:84% And I think that poems want to be 00:02:43.410 --> 00:02:45.840 align:middle line:84% akin to things that are like in a way 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:48.930 align:middle line:84% --that joke Annie hall makes about a relationship. 00:02:48.930 --> 00:02:49.680 align:middle line:90% It's like a shark. 00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:53.130 align:middle line:84% It has a constant motion or it dies. 00:02:53.130 --> 00:02:55.650 align:middle line:84% And I feel that way about the lyric impulse. 00:02:55.650 --> 00:02:58.170 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] So I don't know about rhythm. 00:02:58.170 --> 00:03:00.930 align:middle line:84% Because in culture you know when you say to the Black man, 00:03:00.930 --> 00:03:02.940 align:middle line:84% you know, well, I hear that rhythm 00:03:02.940 --> 00:03:04.290 align:middle line:90% and does that-- you know. 00:03:04.290 --> 00:03:07.080 align:middle line:84% And that's not the whole truth of it. 00:03:07.080 --> 00:03:09.320 align:middle line:84% It's just like it's become such a thing. 00:03:09.320 --> 00:03:12.490 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] And I know that that's not the case. 00:03:12.490 --> 00:03:13.740 align:middle line:90% I just know that I read funny. 00:03:13.740 --> 00:03:16.020 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:03:16.020 --> 00:03:20.010 align:middle line:84% I could dance to Catcher in the Rye, probably. 00:03:20.010 --> 00:03:22.210 align:middle line:90% Hey, over the corner. 00:03:22.210 --> 00:03:26.190 align:middle line:84% Speaking of reading funny, you would stop to [INAUDIBLE] 00:03:26.190 --> 00:03:28.000 align:middle line:84% And I found that very interesting. 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:28.830 align:middle line:90% Gloss? 00:03:28.830 --> 00:03:29.363 align:middle line:90% To-- 00:03:29.363 --> 00:03:30.030 align:middle line:90% Put lipstick on? 00:03:30.030 --> 00:03:31.510 align:middle line:90% And by the way-- 00:03:31.510 --> 00:03:32.010 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:03:32.010 --> 00:03:33.480 align:middle line:90% To put lipstick on exactly. 00:03:33.480 --> 00:03:39.270 align:middle line:84% No do you find that writing so rhythmically 00:03:39.270 --> 00:03:42.720 align:middle line:84% limits the amount of information in some way, 00:03:42.720 --> 00:03:44.650 align:middle line:84% that then you have to sort of break rhythm-- 00:03:44.650 --> 00:03:45.150 align:middle line:90% Right. 00:03:45.150 --> 00:03:46.170 align:middle line:90% --to give that information? 00:03:46.170 --> 00:03:46.575 align:middle line:90% And-- 00:03:46.575 --> 00:03:47.158 align:middle line:90% Good question. 00:03:47.158 --> 00:03:50.220 align:middle line:84% --have you had the impulse to put notes in your poems? 00:03:50.220 --> 00:03:53.572 align:middle line:90% Two good questions. 00:03:53.572 --> 00:03:55.950 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE],, Léopold-- Senghor famous poet, 00:03:55.950 --> 00:04:00.950 align:middle line:84% says that all images must come wrapped in rhythm. 00:04:00.950 --> 00:04:02.730 align:middle line:84% Now I know it's an African notion. 00:04:02.730 --> 00:04:05.760 align:middle line:90% But it doesn't limit. 00:04:05.760 --> 00:04:09.630 align:middle line:84% The rhythm doesn't limit because, hmm. 00:04:09.630 --> 00:04:13.860 align:middle line:84% When I played a joke about T.S. Eliot or if I do Bishop-- 00:04:13.860 --> 00:04:16.329 align:middle line:84% the art of losing isn't hard to master. 00:04:16.329 --> 00:04:17.149 align:middle line:90% So many things. 00:04:17.149 --> 00:04:21.269 align:middle line:84% And you know it's a villanelle But there's rhythm all over it. 00:04:21.269 --> 00:04:24.692 align:middle line:84% Now obviously, that moment in literary history, 00:04:24.692 --> 00:04:26.400 align:middle line:84% for the most part tends to put the rhythm 00:04:26.400 --> 00:04:27.600 align:middle line:90% at the end of the line. 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:30.062 align:middle line:84% And then on occasion has an internal or slant line. 00:04:30.062 --> 00:04:31.770 align:middle line:84% In Bishop there's a few innovative things 00:04:31.770 --> 00:04:33.930 align:middle line:90% with that form. 00:04:33.930 --> 00:04:37.930 align:middle line:84% So I made the joke about costuming form. 00:04:37.930 --> 00:04:39.180 align:middle line:90% There's no such thing. 00:04:39.180 --> 00:04:41.340 align:middle line:90% It doesn't limit it. 00:04:41.340 --> 00:04:42.810 align:middle line:90% It makes it multiple. 00:04:42.810 --> 00:04:44.190 align:middle line:90% It makes it multiplicity. 00:04:44.190 --> 00:04:46.290 align:middle line:84% It means that my line breaks, if you 00:04:46.290 --> 00:04:49.380 align:middle line:84% want to look at it conceptually, my line breaks 00:04:49.380 --> 00:04:53.100 align:middle line:84% occur continuously throughout the line. 00:04:53.100 --> 00:04:56.130 align:middle line:84% And it's almost like we joke about Michael Jackson. 00:04:56.130 --> 00:04:59.850 align:middle line:84% Before Michael Jackson moonwalked, he had to what? 00:04:59.850 --> 00:05:01.382 align:middle line:90% Robot. 00:05:01.382 --> 00:05:03.090 align:middle line:84% And then there's a point after he wrote-- 00:05:03.090 --> 00:05:06.450 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] I can't give up on using Michael Jackson 00:05:06.450 --> 00:05:07.750 align:middle line:90% But maybe he died for this. 00:05:07.750 --> 00:05:09.750 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:05:09.750 --> 00:05:13.260 align:middle line:84% But then after he roboted and moonwalked. 00:05:13.260 --> 00:05:16.020 align:middle line:84% There's some MTV awards performance 00:05:16.020 --> 00:05:18.540 align:middle line:84% where he is doing them both at the same time. 00:05:18.540 --> 00:05:19.320 align:middle line:90% Like, damn. 00:05:19.320 --> 00:05:22.200 align:middle line:84% And that means he's taking the bones out of his body, 00:05:22.200 --> 00:05:25.110 align:middle line:84% put them back in, and it's so fluid. 00:05:25.110 --> 00:05:29.260 align:middle line:84% Now if T.S. Eliot can do that, and I don't mean in the room, 00:05:29.260 --> 00:05:31.020 align:middle line:84% they come and go, talking to Michelangelo. 00:05:31.020 --> 00:05:33.565 align:middle line:84% That's just a baby robot right there. 00:05:33.565 --> 00:05:35.190 align:middle line:84% That's not even a break dance movement. 00:05:35.190 --> 00:05:36.000 align:middle line:90% You know. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:39.630 align:middle line:84% And what I'm saying is when the rhythm becomes as complex. 00:05:39.630 --> 00:05:43.410 align:middle line:84% Like for those who listen to hip-hop, Outcast, 00:05:43.410 --> 00:05:45.750 align:middle line:84% that internal rhyme in an Outcast line, 00:05:45.750 --> 00:05:48.960 align:middle line:84% that line breaks many times before breaking a final time. 00:05:48.960 --> 00:05:52.230 align:middle line:84% And the internal becomes-- so that means that the idea gets 00:05:52.230 --> 00:05:53.900 align:middle line:90% to change more than once. 00:05:53.900 --> 00:05:55.650 align:middle line:84% If you're walking across campus, you stop. 00:05:55.650 --> 00:05:56.070 align:middle line:90% You switch. 00:05:56.070 --> 00:05:57.370 align:middle line:84% You go somewhere, you change your mind. 00:05:57.370 --> 00:05:58.787 align:middle line:84% And that means there's more things 00:05:58.787 --> 00:06:01.050 align:middle line:90% to consider in the possibility. 00:06:01.050 --> 00:06:01.590 align:middle line:90% Right? 00:06:01.590 --> 00:06:03.237 align:middle line:84% The linearity is now no longer linear. 00:06:03.237 --> 00:06:05.070 align:middle line:84% That means you're not being told where to go 00:06:05.070 --> 00:06:08.130 align:middle line:84% and the focus of that is widescreen, as opposed 00:06:08.130 --> 00:06:10.740 align:middle line:90% to the 16 millimeter square. 00:06:10.740 --> 00:06:11.310 align:middle line:90% Whoop! 00:06:11.310 --> 00:06:13.852 align:middle line:84% There's more to see, which is why the director's get mad when 00:06:13.852 --> 00:06:15.630 align:middle line:90% they chop it up put it on TV. 00:06:15.630 --> 00:06:18.120 align:middle line:84% Now I'm trying to answer that question conceptually. 00:06:18.120 --> 00:06:19.620 align:middle line:90% I don't think it needs notes. 00:06:19.620 --> 00:06:23.100 align:middle line:84% It may need something where we slow down 00:06:23.100 --> 00:06:24.090 align:middle line:90% and pay more attention. 00:06:24.090 --> 00:06:26.820 align:middle line:84% And you're gonna lose something because no one's 00:06:26.820 --> 00:06:29.280 align:middle line:84% the great communicator for everyone. 00:06:29.280 --> 00:06:32.760 align:middle line:84% Except, say, Willy Shakespeare Not all of us 00:06:32.760 --> 00:06:34.780 align:middle line:90% is the sum of our age. 00:06:34.780 --> 00:06:37.500 align:middle line:84% Everyone's not living together, not listening to each other-- 00:06:37.500 --> 00:06:39.780 align:middle line:84% a lot are being free in a way that we just 00:06:39.780 --> 00:06:43.140 align:middle line:84% ain't free right now. it takes time to get to, that given 00:06:43.140 --> 00:06:44.700 align:middle line:84% how we compartmentalize everything. 00:06:44.700 --> 00:06:46.088 align:middle line:90% So I think I don't need notes. 00:06:46.088 --> 00:06:47.880 align:middle line:84% And I think if I do need notes, wouldn't it 00:06:47.880 --> 00:06:49.500 align:middle line:84% be great if I write the book, you write the notes, 00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:50.020 align:middle line:90% you write the book. 00:06:50.020 --> 00:06:52.312 align:middle line:84% And I write a notes so it becomes this community, thing 00:06:52.312 --> 00:06:53.400 align:middle line:90% like the reading is? 00:06:53.400 --> 00:06:56.858 align:middle line:84% I don't have an answer, but it can't be that it's limiting. 00:06:56.858 --> 00:06:58.650 align:middle line:84% It could just be I'm not a good writer yet. 00:06:58.650 --> 00:06:59.880 align:middle line:90% And I will accept that! 00:06:59.880 --> 00:07:01.410 align:middle line:90% Because, no. 00:07:01.410 --> 00:07:04.426 align:middle line:84% Growth, I hope there's lots of room for growth. 00:07:04.426 --> 00:07:05.800 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:07:05.800 --> 00:07:06.450 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:07:06.450 --> 00:07:08.950 align:middle line:84% I wanted to know how much you're poetry, when you originally 00:07:08.950 --> 00:07:11.740 align:middle line:84% write it is meant to aloud, and how much-- 00:07:11.740 --> 00:07:13.820 align:middle line:90% Same question. 00:07:13.820 --> 00:07:14.320 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:07:14.320 --> 00:07:15.550 align:middle line:90% What's the [INAUDIBLE] page? 00:07:15.550 --> 00:07:17.665 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:07:17.665 --> 00:07:19.165 align:middle line:84% I think it's all going to be smoked. 00:07:19.165 --> 00:07:22.060 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:07:22.060 --> 00:07:23.710 align:middle line:90% It's like, roll that sucker up. 00:07:23.710 --> 00:07:26.230 align:middle line:84% And don't read it or write [INAUDIBLE].. 00:07:26.230 --> 00:07:27.700 align:middle line:90% Because I don't know. 00:07:27.700 --> 00:07:28.780 align:middle line:90% I don't have any hints. 00:07:28.780 --> 00:07:31.270 align:middle line:84% I'm making a joke about intentions. 00:07:31.270 --> 00:07:33.280 align:middle line:84% I'm just trying to make a good door. 00:07:33.280 --> 00:07:34.810 align:middle line:84% I'm trying to put the hinges on it. 00:07:34.810 --> 00:07:36.178 align:middle line:90% I want the door to open. 00:07:36.178 --> 00:07:36.970 align:middle line:90% I want it to close. 00:07:36.970 --> 00:07:39.345 align:middle line:84% And if the cops come, I want the door to not do anything. 00:07:39.345 --> 00:07:40.470 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:07:40.470 --> 00:07:44.670 align:middle line:84% I'm just trying to make a functioning, like [INAUDIBLE].. 00:07:44.670 --> 00:07:46.560 align:middle line:84% I'm trying to make something that works 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:48.150 align:middle line:90% in the world that's useful. 00:07:48.150 --> 00:07:51.180 align:middle line:84% All the extra, the thing I enjoy about writing 00:07:51.180 --> 00:07:53.010 align:middle line:84% is when I'm doing the writing, I'm 00:07:53.010 --> 00:07:56.560 align:middle line:84% flying through the past and the present and the unknown. 00:07:56.560 --> 00:07:58.200 align:middle line:90% That's the best part. 00:07:58.200 --> 00:07:59.430 align:middle line:90% Like up here now. 00:07:59.430 --> 00:08:01.600 align:middle line:90% We have some fun and get a book. 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:02.100 align:middle line:90% Yay! 00:08:02.100 --> 00:08:03.130 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:08:03.130 --> 00:08:06.120 align:middle line:84% But that feeling when I'm sitting there like at 3:00 00:08:06.120 --> 00:08:08.670 align:middle line:84% in the morning, and I'm like, I told the class today 00:08:08.670 --> 00:08:10.072 align:middle line:90% that I've never been high. 00:08:10.072 --> 00:08:11.280 align:middle line:90% I haven't smoked a joint yet. 00:08:11.280 --> 00:08:13.560 align:middle line:84% I'm saving it for like some big day. 00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:14.130 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:08:14.130 --> 00:08:16.463 align:middle line:84% One day if I win a Pulitzer, I'm going to smoke a joint. 00:08:16.463 --> 00:08:17.760 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:08:17.760 --> 00:08:20.490 align:middle line:84% Well, I may not win a Pulitzer And I may not smoke. 00:08:20.490 --> 00:08:23.790 align:middle line:84% But when I'm making a poem, I'm high. 00:08:23.790 --> 00:08:24.390 align:middle line:90% Or I'm low. 00:08:24.390 --> 00:08:25.290 align:middle line:90% Or I'm something. 00:08:25.290 --> 00:08:26.680 align:middle line:90% That's like, Woo! 00:08:26.680 --> 00:08:27.300 align:middle line:90% Who am I? 00:08:27.300 --> 00:08:28.680 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:08:28.680 --> 00:08:30.510 align:middle line:84% So I don't know about the meant to be that. 00:08:30.510 --> 00:08:32.010 align:middle line:84% It's whatever you do what it wants-- 00:08:32.010 --> 00:08:33.997 align:middle line:90% You know, it's not mine anymore. 00:08:33.997 --> 00:08:35.039 align:middle line:90% You know what I'm saying? 00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:35.940 align:middle line:90% Come here with it. 00:08:35.940 --> 00:08:36.610 align:middle line:90% You know. 00:08:36.610 --> 00:08:37.110 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:08:37.110 --> 00:08:38.482 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:08:38.482 --> 00:08:39.809 align:middle line:90% This side of the room's turnt. 00:08:39.809 --> 00:08:44.489 align:middle line:90% 00:08:44.489 --> 00:08:45.770 align:middle line:90% These are the expensive seats. 00:08:45.770 --> 00:08:47.030 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:08:47.030 --> 00:08:47.800 align:middle line:90% Hey lady. 00:08:47.800 --> 00:08:48.300 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:08:48.300 --> 00:08:48.842 align:middle line:90% Do you like-- 00:08:48.842 --> 00:08:49.494 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry. 00:08:49.494 --> 00:08:50.402 align:middle line:90% Do like-- 00:08:50.402 --> 00:08:52.220 align:middle line:90% Go ahead. 00:08:52.220 --> 00:08:56.050 align:middle line:84% Do you like poems that rhyme rather than don't rhyme? 00:08:56.050 --> 00:08:58.570 align:middle line:84% Or do you like poems that don't rhyme? 00:08:58.570 --> 00:09:01.540 align:middle line:84% I like everything. but you mean, rhyme in a traditional way. 00:09:01.540 --> 00:09:02.980 align:middle line:90% Like [INAUDIBLE]. 00:09:02.980 --> 00:09:06.370 align:middle line:84% You mean, "I think that I shall never see 00:09:06.370 --> 00:09:07.940 align:middle line:90% a poem as lovely as a tree." 00:09:07.940 --> 00:09:08.440 align:middle line:90% A tree. 00:09:08.440 --> 00:09:09.960 align:middle line:90% You mean that. 00:09:09.960 --> 00:09:12.880 align:middle line:84% You mean, "Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away." 00:09:12.880 --> 00:09:16.210 align:middle line:84% When I was in college, grad school, 00:09:16.210 --> 00:09:18.333 align:middle line:90% I got bored with my workshop. 00:09:18.333 --> 00:09:19.000 align:middle line:90% I was that kind. 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:21.145 align:middle line:84% So I went across town to another workshop 00:09:21.145 --> 00:09:22.997 align:middle line:90% and it was Derek Walcott. 00:09:22.997 --> 00:09:23.830 align:middle line:90% And he was teaching. 00:09:23.830 --> 00:09:24.662 align:middle line:90% I begged him. 00:09:24.662 --> 00:09:25.870 align:middle line:90% And he didn't even answer me. 00:09:25.870 --> 00:09:27.220 align:middle line:84% I asked if I could be in the workshop. 00:09:27.220 --> 00:09:28.150 align:middle line:90% He didn't answer me 00:09:28.150 --> 00:09:30.608 align:middle line:84% But I knew that I just went to the class and lied and said, 00:09:30.608 --> 00:09:32.800 align:middle line:84% you said I could be in it, he wouldn't embarrass me. 00:09:32.800 --> 00:09:35.150 align:middle line:84% I was like, remember you said I could be in this class. 00:09:35.150 --> 00:09:36.045 align:middle line:90% Come on. 00:09:36.045 --> 00:09:37.420 align:middle line:84% So I went to class and then I got 00:09:37.420 --> 00:09:38.490 align:middle line:90% in [INAUDIBLE] disappointed. 00:09:38.490 --> 00:09:39.550 align:middle line:90% He said, listen to this. 00:09:39.550 --> 00:09:42.420 align:middle line:84% He says, next week we're having a special guest. 00:09:42.420 --> 00:09:44.500 align:middle line:84% He's going to give a lecture on the ballad form. 00:09:44.500 --> 00:09:47.728 align:middle line:84% I was like, John Cougar Mellencamp 00:09:47.728 --> 00:09:48.770 align:middle line:90% is coming into our class? 00:09:48.770 --> 00:09:50.510 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:09:50.510 --> 00:09:52.532 align:middle line:84% Diddy, diddy, Jack and Diane, kids growing up 00:09:52.532 --> 00:09:53.240 align:middle line:90% in the heartland? 00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:53.740 align:middle line:90% Ugh! 00:09:53.740 --> 00:09:55.700 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:09:55.700 --> 00:09:57.500 align:middle line:84% I'm trying to find a way to play hooky. 00:09:57.500 --> 00:09:58.460 align:middle line:90% And it rained. 00:09:58.460 --> 00:09:59.698 align:middle line:90% And I had nowhere to go. 00:09:59.698 --> 00:10:00.740 align:middle line:90% I'm going to go to class. 00:10:00.740 --> 00:10:02.907 align:middle line:84% So I go to class and I think, the guest is not here. 00:10:02.907 --> 00:10:04.040 align:middle line:90% There was no guest. 00:10:04.040 --> 00:10:06.140 align:middle line:84% And Derek goes, the guest is in the bathroom. 00:10:06.140 --> 00:10:07.580 align:middle line:90% He'll be out [INAUDIBLE]. 00:10:07.580 --> 00:10:10.520 align:middle line:84% And this little short man comes out of the bathroom and says, 00:10:10.520 --> 00:10:11.420 align:middle line:90% Hi, I'm Paul Simon. 00:10:11.420 --> 00:10:13.610 align:middle line:84% I'm here to talk to you about the ballad form. 00:10:13.610 --> 00:10:15.140 align:middle line:90% Paul Simon goes to our class. 00:10:15.140 --> 00:10:15.860 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:10:15.860 --> 00:10:18.575 align:middle line:84% He talks about "The Sound of Silence" for two hours. 00:10:18.575 --> 00:10:20.030 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:10:20.030 --> 00:10:22.730 align:middle line:84% He had an anthology with him and it was in it 00:10:22.730 --> 00:10:24.140 align:middle line:90% in the ballad section. 00:10:24.140 --> 00:10:29.400 align:middle line:84% And I was like, Paul Simon's [INAUDIBLE].. 00:10:29.400 --> 00:10:31.288 align:middle line:84% And so, "Hello, darkness, my old friend. 00:10:31.288 --> 00:10:32.705 align:middle line:84% I've come to talk with you again." 00:10:32.705 --> 00:10:33.660 align:middle line:90% Da, da. 00:10:33.660 --> 00:10:35.310 align:middle line:90% Now, I like that. 00:10:35.310 --> 00:10:38.570 align:middle line:84% But in the history, in the technology of the syntax, 00:10:38.570 --> 00:10:40.190 align:middle line:84% in the way that language is a machine 00:10:40.190 --> 00:10:43.760 align:middle line:84% and inventive and organic, well, that's a little old now. 00:10:43.760 --> 00:10:46.920 align:middle line:84% Some people are wearing their jeans way down here now. 00:10:46.920 --> 00:10:48.890 align:middle line:84% Some people are finding their sexualities 00:10:48.890 --> 00:10:50.640 align:middle line:90% and voting for Black presidents. 00:10:50.640 --> 00:10:52.710 align:middle line:90% I'm not saying we shouldn't. 00:10:52.710 --> 00:10:55.120 align:middle line:84% I'm just saying, Gertrude Stein said it best. 00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:57.620 align:middle line:84% Someone asked Gertrude Stein, what's the role of the writer? 00:10:57.620 --> 00:10:59.955 align:middle line:84% The role of the writer is to continue language. 00:10:59.955 --> 00:11:01.580 align:middle line:84% Now I'm not saying you shouldn't rhyme. 00:11:01.580 --> 00:11:02.413 align:middle line:90% Or anyone shouldn't. 00:11:02.413 --> 00:11:05.270 align:middle line:84% I'm saying that my learning, my contribution 00:11:05.270 --> 00:11:08.270 align:middle line:84% is for me to have heard it, to grab what I can of it, 00:11:08.270 --> 00:11:11.270 align:middle line:84% and to attempt in my way to continue it or add to it, 00:11:11.270 --> 00:11:14.370 align:middle line:84% not necessarily to inherit and keep it there. 00:11:14.370 --> 00:11:17.300 align:middle line:84% And there are a lot of great poems that do ABABA. 00:11:17.300 --> 00:11:19.170 align:middle line:84% I'm moving it around a little more. 00:11:19.170 --> 00:11:20.612 align:middle line:84% I'm like a a little guy in space. 00:11:20.612 --> 00:11:22.070 align:middle line:84% Like you move it around and around. 00:11:22.070 --> 00:11:24.800 align:middle line:84% Like my pattern is all, it's like, you know what I'm saying? 00:11:24.800 --> 00:11:26.720 align:middle line:84% It's like, great, it's all over that. 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:29.398 align:middle line:84% I'm like, I wanted to be a football player. 00:11:29.398 --> 00:11:30.440 align:middle line:90% I didn't want to be this. 00:11:30.440 --> 00:11:30.740 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:11:30.740 --> 00:11:32.323 align:middle line:84% I wanted to be like, my middle name is 00:11:32.323 --> 00:11:35.120 align:middle line:84% Sayers because of Gale Sayers, the Chicago Bear runner. 00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:36.620 align:middle line:90% And he was like this. 00:11:36.620 --> 00:11:37.530 align:middle line:90% He could stop, go. 00:11:37.530 --> 00:11:39.110 align:middle line:90% Now that's how I write. 00:11:39.110 --> 00:11:41.870 align:middle line:84% My prosody right, my verse reverses. 00:11:41.870 --> 00:11:43.850 align:middle line:84% I'm like, I'm getting to the tacklers. 00:11:43.850 --> 00:11:45.662 align:middle line:90% I'm Heisman I'm flipping. 00:11:45.662 --> 00:11:47.120 align:middle line:84% I stop before I go in the end zone. 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:49.340 align:middle line:90% Look back. 00:11:49.340 --> 00:11:50.990 align:middle line:90% And that's me in literature. 00:11:50.990 --> 00:11:53.000 align:middle line:84% Now I don't know if that's going to last. 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:54.890 align:middle line:90% But I have a good time with it. 00:11:54.890 --> 00:11:57.110 align:middle line:90% Some rhyming is so good thing. 00:11:57.110 --> 00:11:59.703 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:11:59.703 --> 00:12:00.995 align:middle line:90% There are tools in the toolbox. 00:12:00.995 --> 00:12:01.745 align:middle line:90% Got lots of tools. 00:12:01.745 --> 00:12:04.340 align:middle line:84% And the body has to start making its own. 00:12:04.340 --> 00:12:07.520 align:middle line:84% According to who you are, how you breathe, right? 00:12:07.520 --> 00:12:08.960 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:12:08.960 --> 00:12:11.450 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:12:11.450 --> 00:12:14.030 align:middle line:84% How is your orientation towards race changes 00:12:14.030 --> 00:12:17.140 align:middle line:84% as a result of being a part of the community like Cave Canem 00:12:17.140 --> 00:12:21.090 align:middle line:84% versus like it was an individual before Cave Canem. 00:12:21.090 --> 00:12:22.800 align:middle line:90% It's a difficult question. 00:12:22.800 --> 00:12:28.960 align:middle line:84% I always thought, before Cave Canem like Yeats has this poem. 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:31.320 align:middle line:84% I think it's Yeats' poem where he says, 00:12:31.320 --> 00:12:34.170 align:middle line:90% Mad Ireland hurt me into poetry. 00:12:34.170 --> 00:12:37.600 align:middle line:84% And when I was sending my first book around I say names. 00:12:37.600 --> 00:12:39.420 align:middle line:84% One of the big presses asked for my book 00:12:39.420 --> 00:12:41.100 align:middle line:84% because I was in like, Best American or something. 00:12:41.100 --> 00:12:42.240 align:middle line:90% Like, we want to see your poems. 00:12:42.240 --> 00:12:42.960 align:middle line:90% We want your book. 00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:44.127 align:middle line:90% And then held it for a year. 00:12:44.127 --> 00:12:45.660 align:middle line:90% And they sent me a note back. 00:12:45.660 --> 00:12:46.213 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:12:46.213 --> 00:12:47.880 align:middle line:84% They sent me a note back and said, well, 00:12:47.880 --> 00:12:50.220 align:middle line:84% we like these five poems, we decided. 00:12:50.220 --> 00:12:52.710 align:middle line:84% But we just feel like we'd like to see 00:12:52.710 --> 00:12:56.175 align:middle line:84% a book from someone more hurt, a poet more hurt in the world. 00:12:56.175 --> 00:12:56.910 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:12:56.910 --> 00:12:58.986 align:middle line:90% I was like, wow. 00:12:58.986 --> 00:12:59.592 align:middle line:90% You know? 00:12:59.592 --> 00:13:01.300 align:middle line:84% And I was thinking of hurt in literature. 00:13:01.300 --> 00:13:03.465 align:middle line:84% And I know Yeats said that mad Ireland hurt me 00:13:03.465 --> 00:13:04.590 align:middle line:90% in the poetry or something. 00:13:04.590 --> 00:13:07.780 align:middle line:84% Or someone says about Yates, Mad Ireland hurt him. 00:13:07.780 --> 00:13:09.870 align:middle line:84% And I'm thinking, I don't remember. 00:13:09.870 --> 00:13:10.800 align:middle line:90% But anyway. 00:13:10.800 --> 00:13:12.780 align:middle line:90% I'm not hurt into the poetry. 00:13:12.780 --> 00:13:16.097 align:middle line:84% Way before, like Cave Canem this historical moment, 00:13:16.097 --> 00:13:17.430 align:middle line:90% Black president, all that stuff. 00:13:17.430 --> 00:13:20.970 align:middle line:84% I always felt like (SINGING) "We are the world. 00:13:20.970 --> 00:13:22.860 align:middle line:84% We are the ones that make a brighter day." 00:13:22.860 --> 00:13:24.250 align:middle line:90% I felt that before the song. 00:13:24.250 --> 00:13:25.104 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:13:25.104 --> 00:13:27.240 align:middle line:84% I feel like, why did they kill Kennedy? 00:13:27.240 --> 00:13:28.080 align:middle line:90% Like I was that kid. 00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:29.040 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:13:29.040 --> 00:13:29.640 align:middle line:90% You know? 00:13:29.640 --> 00:13:30.887 align:middle line:90% I was a sensitive kid. 00:13:30.887 --> 00:13:32.970 align:middle line:84% I read comic books and cried about assassinations. 00:13:32.970 --> 00:13:34.300 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:13:34.300 --> 00:13:34.800 align:middle line:90% You know? 00:13:34.800 --> 00:13:37.800 align:middle line:84% So I always felt like, there's something rotten in Denmark. 00:13:37.800 --> 00:13:38.340 align:middle line:90% And why? 00:13:38.340 --> 00:13:40.090 align:middle line:84% And I knew that the color thing was bad. 00:13:40.090 --> 00:13:42.340 align:middle line:84% But I knew that people had to come to a place of work. 00:13:42.340 --> 00:13:45.210 align:middle line:84% And I also knew this was a small historical moment 00:13:45.210 --> 00:13:48.580 align:middle line:84% in the life of a planet that isn't even that old either. 00:13:48.580 --> 00:13:53.940 align:middle line:84% And so in that way, I could taste, don't tase me bro. 00:13:53.940 --> 00:13:55.740 align:middle line:84% Some cell phones are so big when they ring, 00:13:55.740 --> 00:13:56.698 align:middle line:90% they actually tase you. 00:13:56.698 --> 00:13:59.869 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:13:59.869 --> 00:14:01.240 align:middle line:90% 00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:06.840 align:middle line:84% So nothing's changed, in that Cave Canem is doing 00:14:06.840 --> 00:14:08.460 align:middle line:90% is providing community. 00:14:08.460 --> 00:14:11.055 align:middle line:84% It makes elbow space in the literary scene, 00:14:11.055 --> 00:14:14.730 align:middle line:84% a literary environment that's usually all white. 00:14:14.730 --> 00:14:20.250 align:middle line:84% And in that moment, that small big work, small big work. 00:14:20.250 --> 00:14:22.440 align:middle line:90% It's a big work that's small. 00:14:22.440 --> 00:14:26.080 align:middle line:84% In that way, that's a good thing. 00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:28.080 align:middle line:90% But that's a repair kit. 00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:33.720 align:middle line:84% And it would fix, trying to fix something, that perhaps maybe, 00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:36.720 align:middle line:84% I didn't know who you are, I'm not right, I'm not the judge, 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:38.110 align:middle line:90% is wrong or shouldn't be. 00:14:38.110 --> 00:14:43.350 align:middle line:84% So I always feel like there's room for, I would say, 00:14:43.350 --> 00:14:47.260 align:middle line:84% there's as many canons as there are people writing. 00:14:47.260 --> 00:14:49.280 align:middle line:84% And I really feel that way about care. 00:14:49.280 --> 00:14:51.663 align:middle line:84% Care in the craft, and passion of the craft. 00:14:51.663 --> 00:14:54.330 align:middle line:84% And I'm not going to simply, why everybody should be judged or-- 00:14:54.330 --> 00:14:54.840 align:middle line:90% I know that. 00:14:54.840 --> 00:14:57.390 align:middle line:84% Like this year I judged the National Book Award. 00:14:57.390 --> 00:14:59.520 align:middle line:84% I judged the poetry category and we just 00:14:59.520 --> 00:15:01.320 align:middle line:90% turned in the five finalists. 00:15:01.320 --> 00:15:03.630 align:middle line:84% And I am shocked by who the five finalists are. 00:15:03.630 --> 00:15:05.118 align:middle line:90% And I'm one of the judges. 00:15:05.118 --> 00:15:07.410 align:middle line:84% And if I wasn't one of the judges, and I saw that list, 00:15:07.410 --> 00:15:09.360 align:middle line:90% I'd be like, sellouts. 00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:11.340 align:middle line:84% And I'd be smacking myself across the head. 00:15:11.340 --> 00:15:12.252 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:15:12.252 --> 00:15:14.460 align:middle line:84% But then having been a part of that, I'm like , Why-- 00:15:14.460 --> 00:15:15.750 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:15:15.750 --> 00:15:17.520 align:middle line:90% Am I surprised? 00:15:17.520 --> 00:15:21.900 align:middle line:84% And so it's difficult. It's complex. 00:15:21.900 --> 00:15:24.120 align:middle line:84% Because it's just like, I don't know. 00:15:24.120 --> 00:15:25.410 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:15:25.410 --> 00:15:27.780 align:middle line:84% There's just a lot of work to do. 00:15:27.780 --> 00:15:29.530 align:middle line:90% And there's room for everything. 00:15:29.530 --> 00:15:31.050 align:middle line:90% And so we keep going. 00:15:31.050 --> 00:15:31.890 align:middle line:90% We keep going. 00:15:31.890 --> 00:15:34.510 align:middle line:84% Seamus Heaney said, keep the level high. 00:15:34.510 --> 00:15:35.820 align:middle line:90% Keep the spirit level high. 00:15:35.820 --> 00:15:39.040 align:middle line:90% 00:15:39.040 --> 00:15:39.550 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:15:39.550 --> 00:15:40.050 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:15:40.050 --> 00:15:44.230 align:middle line:84% Can you discuss a little bit about your editing? 00:15:44.230 --> 00:15:46.370 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:15:46.370 --> 00:15:46.870 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:15:46.870 --> 00:15:47.935 align:middle line:90% Before I answer your question-- 00:15:47.935 --> 00:15:48.400 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:15:48.400 --> 00:15:48.690 align:middle line:90% --great. 00:15:48.690 --> 00:15:51.232 align:middle line:84% Before I answer your question, do you think I need an editor? 00:15:51.232 --> 00:15:51.910 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:15:51.910 --> 00:15:53.190 align:middle line:90% No, that wasn't the question. 00:15:53.190 --> 00:15:53.710 align:middle line:90% I know. 00:15:53.710 --> 00:15:53.980 align:middle line:90% I know. 00:15:53.980 --> 00:15:54.190 align:middle line:90% I know. 00:15:54.190 --> 00:15:55.360 align:middle line:90% This is my question for me. 00:15:55.360 --> 00:15:56.440 align:middle line:90% You're helping me. 00:15:56.440 --> 00:15:59.092 align:middle line:84% Having listened to me and the wonderful green colors, 00:15:59.092 --> 00:16:00.550 align:middle line:84% do you think that I need an editor? 00:16:00.550 --> 00:16:01.962 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:16:01.962 --> 00:16:03.670 align:middle line:84% And I sometimes think the Michael Jackson 00:16:03.670 --> 00:16:05.140 align:middle line:90% poem is excessive. 00:16:05.140 --> 00:16:06.790 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:16:06.790 --> 00:16:10.270 align:middle line:84% And I think I really needed an editor with that. 00:16:10.270 --> 00:16:11.650 align:middle line:90% My editing process? 00:16:11.650 --> 00:16:12.880 align:middle line:90% I go away from it. 00:16:12.880 --> 00:16:15.430 align:middle line:84% I try to forget, wrestle myself away from it. 00:16:15.430 --> 00:16:19.420 align:middle line:84% Forget that I knew it, it knows me, and I come back. 00:16:19.420 --> 00:16:20.620 align:middle line:90% I look at the line. 00:16:20.620 --> 00:16:24.100 align:middle line:84% I'm really interested in making a line that you can pluck 00:16:24.100 --> 00:16:26.263 align:middle line:84% and that sort of reverberates, like Wallace Stevens 00:16:26.263 --> 00:16:28.180 align:middle line:84% talks about in "The Man with the Blue Guitar." 00:16:28.180 --> 00:16:30.100 align:middle line:84% He's riffing on a Picasso painting. 00:16:30.100 --> 00:16:32.680 align:middle line:84% I'm interested in that kind of thing. 00:16:32.680 --> 00:16:35.050 align:middle line:84% I would love to be as someone who's solely 00:16:35.050 --> 00:16:41.000 align:middle line:84% and purely does not need prose, as of pure nuance. 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:42.380 align:middle line:90% Nuanced energy. 00:16:42.380 --> 00:16:45.290 align:middle line:84% That's a difficult thing to do in my best not my best poems. 00:16:45.290 --> 00:16:49.010 align:middle line:84% In the poems that follow me around the world, 00:16:49.010 --> 00:16:50.640 align:middle line:84% like when I can hear them long after I 00:16:50.640 --> 00:16:51.723 align:middle line:90% read them or written them. 00:16:51.723 --> 00:16:54.830 align:middle line:90% 00:16:54.830 --> 00:17:00.470 align:middle line:84% I've abandoned all of the sort of prose and referential hinges 00:17:00.470 --> 00:17:03.230 align:middle line:90% and it's just floating there. 00:17:03.230 --> 00:17:07.375 align:middle line:84% Which means it also is in defiance of known meaning. 00:17:07.375 --> 00:17:10.940 align:middle line:84% It wants to have meaning and personal Helicon It looks 00:17:10.940 --> 00:17:12.780 align:middle line:84% into the well and the sound of the rock 00:17:12.780 --> 00:17:14.853 align:middle line:84% comes splashing up through the reflection. 00:17:14.853 --> 00:17:16.520 align:middle line:84% Something with a clear, new music in it. 00:17:16.520 --> 00:17:19.220 align:middle line:84% And I don't mean music in a rhythm sense. 00:17:19.220 --> 00:17:25.130 align:middle line:84% I'm mean music in the meaning that is hadn't 00:17:25.130 --> 00:17:26.569 align:middle line:90% been discovered yet since. 00:17:26.569 --> 00:17:31.400 align:middle line:84% So I do think that I walk away, I forget, I come back. 00:17:31.400 --> 00:17:35.360 align:middle line:84% My favorite poem is almost always a poem I'm working on. 00:17:35.360 --> 00:17:39.183 align:middle line:84% I try to be different or have something happen to me before I 00:17:39.183 --> 00:17:40.100 align:middle line:90% come back to the poem. 00:17:40.100 --> 00:17:41.000 align:middle line:84% I don't know, it could be someting emotionional, 00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:42.170 align:middle line:90% it could, be something. 00:17:42.170 --> 00:17:43.690 align:middle line:90% It's a book, can be something. 00:17:43.690 --> 00:17:47.840 align:middle line:84% Just as long that I forgot what my other intentions were so 00:17:47.840 --> 00:17:51.283 align:middle line:84% the poem has an outcome that I didn't 00:17:51.283 --> 00:17:52.450 align:middle line:90% know what's going to happen. 00:17:52.450 --> 00:17:57.190 align:middle line:84% Or I've allowed something of the poem to be in charge of me. 00:17:57.190 --> 00:17:59.690 align:middle line:84% Like I have to go, I forgot what I was working on with this. 00:17:59.690 --> 00:18:01.660 align:middle line:84% So now I'm back and it's in charge of me. 00:18:01.660 --> 00:18:02.980 align:middle line:90% I have to go with it. 00:18:02.980 --> 00:18:05.710 align:middle line:84% And that way, I discover something. 00:18:05.710 --> 00:18:07.570 align:middle line:84% That, oh, I didn't know I was going here. 00:18:07.570 --> 00:18:10.970 align:middle line:84% And that means I was a bit of a different beast. 00:18:10.970 --> 00:18:12.580 align:middle line:90% Or I laid it in a way. 00:18:12.580 --> 00:18:14.090 align:middle line:90% And then I just hope. 00:18:14.090 --> 00:18:14.590 align:middle line:90% You know? 00:18:14.590 --> 00:18:16.668 align:middle line:84% And then I abandon or I lay it down. 00:18:16.668 --> 00:18:18.460 align:middle line:84% And I think it's much different from making 00:18:18.460 --> 00:18:24.420 align:middle line:84% a piece of music or sculpture or sinking 00:18:24.420 --> 00:18:26.108 align:middle line:90% a cue ball in the corner. 00:18:26.108 --> 00:18:28.400 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:18:28.400 --> 00:18:29.270 align:middle line:90% Last one? 00:18:29.270 --> 00:18:30.350 align:middle line:90% Second to last one. 00:18:30.350 --> 00:18:31.864 align:middle line:90% Next, a second. 00:18:31.864 --> 00:18:32.720 align:middle line:90% Go 00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:33.240 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry. 00:18:33.240 --> 00:18:35.840 align:middle line:90% Two more people. 00:18:35.840 --> 00:18:42.810 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:18:42.810 --> 00:18:44.206 align:middle line:90% Be more intuitive? 00:18:44.206 --> 00:18:45.910 align:middle line:90% Well, [INAUDIBLE] 00:18:45.910 --> 00:18:46.410 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:18:46.410 --> 00:18:49.320 align:middle line:90% I know Senghor said that. 00:18:49.320 --> 00:18:52.290 align:middle line:84% I don't know that there's anyone, any type of writer 00:18:52.290 --> 00:18:55.080 align:middle line:90% has a monopoly on intuition. 00:18:55.080 --> 00:18:55.698 align:middle line:90% I know that-- 00:18:55.698 --> 00:18:56.198 align:middle line:90% Jazz? 00:18:56.198 --> 00:18:59.630 align:middle line:90% 00:18:59.630 --> 00:19:01.890 align:middle line:84% In the scale of jazz, jazz is more, 00:19:01.890 --> 00:19:03.780 align:middle line:84% I don't know that jazz is necessarily more 00:19:03.780 --> 00:19:06.510 align:middle line:84% intuitive than playing Mozart's "Jupiter 00:19:06.510 --> 00:19:08.110 align:middle line:90% Symphony," second movement. 00:19:08.110 --> 00:19:11.100 align:middle line:90% So the context is important. 00:19:11.100 --> 00:19:14.760 align:middle line:84% Jazz is improvisation, though I grew up in a very percussive 00:19:14.760 --> 00:19:17.310 align:middle line:84% music scene , playing the drums and the congos in Washington, 00:19:17.310 --> 00:19:18.550 align:middle line:90% DC. 00:19:18.550 --> 00:19:22.610 align:middle line:84% Go-Go needs to be continuous, to keep going percussively, 00:19:22.610 --> 00:19:23.610 align:middle line:90% to talk over the music. 00:19:23.610 --> 00:19:25.660 align:middle line:90% That rhyme. 00:19:25.660 --> 00:19:28.020 align:middle line:84% I find myself being guttural, being 00:19:28.020 --> 00:19:30.910 align:middle line:84% percussive when I hit things up against each other. 00:19:30.910 --> 00:19:32.820 align:middle line:84% I don't know think I'm wise enough 00:19:32.820 --> 00:19:35.430 align:middle line:90% to be considered intuitive. 00:19:35.430 --> 00:19:37.860 align:middle line:84% I don't know that I have any of that in me. 00:19:37.860 --> 00:19:40.620 align:middle line:84% What I do have in me is that I'm a nit picker. 00:19:40.620 --> 00:19:43.917 align:middle line:84% I will I use the term worry and worriation a few times tonight. 00:19:43.917 --> 00:19:45.750 align:middle line:84% Langston Hughes talks about that in an essay 00:19:45.750 --> 00:19:50.370 align:middle line:84% when he says that, sometimes it's best to worry the subject 00:19:50.370 --> 00:19:53.587 align:middle line:84% or worry the line, as opposed to be like so on subject. 00:19:53.587 --> 00:19:55.920 align:middle line:84% And I think that's some of what Richard Hugo was talking 00:19:55.920 --> 00:19:56.940 align:middle line:84% about in The Triggering Town we he's 00:19:56.940 --> 00:19:58.357 align:middle line:84% talking about writing off subject. 00:19:58.357 --> 00:19:59.670 align:middle line:90% So I'm a gatherer. 00:19:59.670 --> 00:20:01.290 align:middle line:84% I tend to throw a lot of things that 00:20:01.290 --> 00:20:03.300 align:middle line:84% are seemingly unrelated in a pot, 00:20:03.300 --> 00:20:06.540 align:middle line:84% and look to find the sameness and difference in them. 00:20:06.540 --> 00:20:08.640 align:middle line:84% Be it shape, be it sound, be whatever. 00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:10.650 align:middle line:84% And then I go, oh, look how this is connected. 00:20:10.650 --> 00:20:13.290 align:middle line:90% And I make my thing. 00:20:13.290 --> 00:20:18.088 align:middle line:84% I wait for the intuitive thing to happen in my life. 00:20:18.088 --> 00:20:18.630 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:20:18.630 --> 00:20:19.172 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:20:19.172 --> 00:20:21.810 align:middle line:90% 00:20:21.810 --> 00:20:24.810 align:middle line:84% He said that one of your poems is entitled, 00:20:24.810 --> 00:20:25.840 align:middle line:90% "Godzilla's Avocado." 00:20:25.840 --> 00:20:26.340 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:20:26.340 --> 00:20:27.450 align:middle line:90% Is that right? 00:20:27.450 --> 00:20:29.110 align:middle line:90% Why Godzilla's? 00:20:29.110 --> 00:20:29.610 align:middle line:90% Right. 00:20:29.610 --> 00:20:31.380 align:middle line:90% At the end-- thank you. 00:20:31.380 --> 00:20:33.938 align:middle line:84% Why Godzilla for the "Godzilla's Avocado." 00:20:33.938 --> 00:20:35.730 align:middle line:84% Well, know, Godzilla's got some funny skin. 00:20:35.730 --> 00:20:36.900 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:20:36.900 --> 00:20:38.298 align:middle line:90% I don't know what that is. 00:20:38.298 --> 00:20:40.290 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:20:40.290 --> 00:20:42.120 align:middle line:84% But I know that Godzilla was a response 00:20:42.120 --> 00:20:47.130 align:middle line:84% to the whole nuclear atomic, the thing, science gone mad. 00:20:47.130 --> 00:20:48.600 align:middle line:90% Here comes to creature. 00:20:48.600 --> 00:20:49.740 align:middle line:90% Look what you did. 00:20:49.740 --> 00:20:54.560 align:middle line:84% And now it's-- [GODZILLA ROAR] Godzilla wasn't just some, oh, 00:20:54.560 --> 00:20:55.880 align:middle line:90% look a monster. 00:20:55.880 --> 00:20:57.550 align:middle line:90% Godzilla was a response. 00:20:57.550 --> 00:20:59.320 align:middle line:90% I forget. 00:20:59.320 --> 00:21:00.470 align:middle line:90% Gojira was the original. 00:21:00.470 --> 00:21:02.553 align:middle line:84% Gojira, or whatever it was, came out of the ocean. 00:21:02.553 --> 00:21:05.822 align:middle line:84% It was like, as a result of testing and dropping the bomb. 00:21:05.822 --> 00:21:07.280 align:middle line:84% But when I was a kid, I just always 00:21:07.280 --> 00:21:09.017 align:middle line:84% thought avocados look like something that 00:21:09.017 --> 00:21:10.225 align:middle line:90% would come out of a Godzilla. 00:21:10.225 --> 00:21:11.838 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:21:11.838 --> 00:21:12.380 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:21:12.380 --> 00:21:14.490 align:middle line:90% They just seemed like, mm. 00:21:14.490 --> 00:21:14.990 align:middle line:90% But then-- 00:21:14.990 --> 00:21:16.270 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:21:16.270 --> 00:21:18.710 align:middle line:84% But I know the whole thing with pesticides 00:21:18.710 --> 00:21:22.560 align:middle line:84% and how we think with food and all that stuff that's going on, 00:21:22.560 --> 00:21:23.957 align:middle line:90% it's happening. 00:21:23.957 --> 00:21:25.040 align:middle line:90% And I wondered about that. 00:21:25.040 --> 00:21:27.640 align:middle line:84% In the poem I played with the idea of pesticides and bees 00:21:27.640 --> 00:21:30.210 align:middle line:84% and what's happening right now with colony collapse and all 00:21:30.210 --> 00:21:30.710 align:middle line:90% that. 00:21:30.710 --> 00:21:33.290 align:middle line:84% And what we do with food and how we hurry to food. 00:21:33.290 --> 00:21:35.120 align:middle line:90% We hurry to everything else. 00:21:35.120 --> 00:21:36.590 align:middle line:84% In our hurry to all these things, 00:21:36.590 --> 00:21:39.020 align:middle line:84% I rush to it, we we're changing and missing 00:21:39.020 --> 00:21:40.104 align:middle line:90% and [GODZILLA ROAR]. 00:21:40.104 --> 00:21:40.920 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:21:40.920 --> 00:21:43.765 align:middle line:84% Then our kids go off and whatever. 00:21:43.765 --> 00:21:48.620 align:middle line:90% 00:21:48.620 --> 00:21:49.120 align:middle line:90% Yay? 00:21:49.120 --> 00:21:50.410 align:middle line:90% Yippee? 00:21:50.410 --> 00:21:50.960 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:21:50.960 --> 00:21:51.585 align:middle line:90% Thank you guys. 00:21:51.585 --> 00:21:54.880 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:58.000 align:middle line:90%