WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.140 align:middle line:84% Thank you for being here because I don't, of course, 00:00:04.140 --> 00:00:07.710 align:middle line:90% know any of you personally. 00:00:07.710 --> 00:00:11.280 align:middle line:84% So I have to sort of get a gauge on your faces. 00:00:11.280 --> 00:00:13.380 align:middle line:90% My sister, Helen, is here. 00:00:13.380 --> 00:00:19.110 align:middle line:84% And that's always nice to see one beloved face out there. 00:00:19.110 --> 00:00:24.180 align:middle line:84% But last night I was just introducing three poets exactly 00:00:24.180 --> 00:00:27.300 align:middle line:84% as you just introduced me, giving 00:00:27.300 --> 00:00:30.600 align:middle line:84% thanks to the donors and the people in charge. 00:00:30.600 --> 00:00:38.340 align:middle line:84% And the three poets I introduced were very young and wonderful-- 00:00:38.340 --> 00:00:42.120 align:middle line:84% Sandra and Ben Doller and Srikanth Reddy, 00:00:42.120 --> 00:00:45.210 align:middle line:84% who's written a very good book called Voyager. 00:00:45.210 --> 00:00:50.670 align:middle line:84% And so we had earlier had a Q and A at Georgetown, 00:00:50.670 --> 00:00:56.460 align:middle line:84% too, where the conversation went somehow very quickly 00:00:56.460 --> 00:00:59.190 align:middle line:84% to the subject of form, which seems 00:00:59.190 --> 00:01:04.500 align:middle line:84% to be sort of a fretful subject right now. 00:01:04.500 --> 00:01:09.180 align:middle line:84% And Srikanth, who calls himself Chicu, 00:01:09.180 --> 00:01:13.980 align:middle line:84% was particularly articulate about the subject of form 00:01:13.980 --> 00:01:17.400 align:middle line:84% and how troubling and how paralyzing it 00:01:17.400 --> 00:01:23.110 align:middle line:84% is for him to find the shape for all the notes he takes. 00:01:23.110 --> 00:01:28.980 align:middle line:84% And so that made me think about just 00:01:28.980 --> 00:01:36.510 align:middle line:84% the post-millennium generation of poets following out 00:01:36.510 --> 00:01:39.210 align:middle line:84% of the language period and John Ashbery 00:01:39.210 --> 00:01:45.930 align:middle line:84% and what's going to happen now and how complicated 00:01:45.930 --> 00:01:49.780 align:middle line:90% that must be for young people. 00:01:49.780 --> 00:01:54.000 align:middle line:84% And so that was one thing I wondered if some of you 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:58.410 align:middle line:84% would want to talk to me about today 00:01:58.410 --> 00:02:06.700 align:middle line:84% or the book, The Winter Sun, which is semi-autobiographical, 00:02:06.700 --> 00:02:11.470 align:middle line:84% but it's an attempt to do a new kind of essay, 00:02:11.470 --> 00:02:17.020 align:middle line:84% which I'm getting more and more comfortable with. 00:02:17.020 --> 00:02:21.610 align:middle line:84% And someone like Anne Carson was the great pioneer of that. 00:02:21.610 --> 00:02:25.840 align:middle line:84% But I think all of us are wrestling with this form issue 00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:29.950 align:middle line:84% now, what comes between things, and how can we 00:02:29.950 --> 00:02:31.330 align:middle line:90% follow on things? 00:02:31.330 --> 00:02:36.520 align:middle line:84% And of course, I'm now in the end days. 00:02:36.520 --> 00:02:41.020 align:middle line:84% And so I have a different sort of look on it 00:02:41.020 --> 00:02:44.420 align:middle line:90% from someone of under 40. 00:02:44.420 --> 00:02:47.530 align:middle line:84% That's what I was calling these poets last night 00:02:47.530 --> 00:02:52.060 align:middle line:84% and remembering we used to say never trust anyone over 40. 00:02:52.060 --> 00:02:57.400 align:middle line:84% And so I was very moved by this conversation 00:02:57.400 --> 00:03:01.660 align:middle line:84% about how troubling that is, the whole formation. 00:03:01.660 --> 00:03:05.890 align:middle line:84% And I don't know whether there's a presiding kind of aesthetic 00:03:05.890 --> 00:03:09.650 align:middle line:90% in the poetry program here. 00:03:09.650 --> 00:03:11.200 align:middle line:90% We're very diverse. 00:03:11.200 --> 00:03:14.560 align:middle line:84% So that's what I wondered, because certain places are 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:16.840 align:middle line:84% very committed to experiment and others 00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:20.600 align:middle line:90% to much more formal poetry. 00:03:20.600 --> 00:03:24.280 align:middle line:84% And so I wasn't clear here what you would-- 00:03:24.280 --> 00:03:26.710 align:middle line:84% I might even ask you a question, what 00:03:26.710 --> 00:03:31.390 align:middle line:84% you would say as younger writers about that issue. 00:03:31.390 --> 00:03:37.390 align:middle line:84% I mean, it really interests me about whether it's one teacher 00:03:37.390 --> 00:03:42.130 align:middle line:84% or whether it's a poet from my generation 00:03:42.130 --> 00:03:45.550 align:middle line:84% or if you're influenced by the younger group of poets, 00:03:45.550 --> 00:03:51.490 align:middle line:84% like Peter Gizzi and people who are now maybe in their mid-40s 00:03:51.490 --> 00:03:53.260 align:middle line:90% to mid-50s. 00:03:53.260 --> 00:04:01.010 align:middle line:84% I'm just very concerned about the questions of the way poetry 00:04:01.010 --> 00:04:07.380 align:middle line:84% can be taught, which is to pluck pieces of other people's work 00:04:07.380 --> 00:04:12.060 align:middle line:84% out and insert it into your own poem to sort of elevate 00:04:12.060 --> 00:04:20.980 align:middle line:84% the language and whether that's ethically good for you to do, 00:04:20.980 --> 00:04:22.240 align:middle line:90% what it does to you. 00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:24.340 align:middle line:84% I don't care about the line of the poem 00:04:24.340 --> 00:04:27.670 align:middle line:84% but what it does to the person writing poetry 00:04:27.670 --> 00:04:30.340 align:middle line:84% to keep pulling and sticking things in 00:04:30.340 --> 00:04:36.440 align:middle line:84% and constructing poems out of other people's suffering, 00:04:36.440 --> 00:04:41.590 align:middle line:84% let's say, people's really hard worked poems. 00:04:41.590 --> 00:04:46.000 align:middle line:84% The only thing is then I heard these three poets last night 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:49.750 align:middle line:84% who all do that, and they all were fantastic. 00:04:49.750 --> 00:04:55.360 align:middle line:84% I mean, hearing the work was totally great and very 00:04:55.360 --> 00:04:57.590 align:middle line:84% different from reading it on the page. 00:04:57.590 --> 00:05:02.410 align:middle line:84% So that's another issue, too, is poetry 00:05:02.410 --> 00:05:08.320 align:middle line:84% as a score for music, the music of speaking it 00:05:08.320 --> 00:05:14.350 align:middle line:84% out loud in public or poetry as just a written, 00:05:14.350 --> 00:05:16.690 align:middle line:90% private relationship. 00:05:16.690 --> 00:05:20.170 align:middle line:84% So those were questions that are just 00:05:20.170 --> 00:05:25.150 align:middle line:84% really in my mind today because of yesterday and many times 00:05:25.150 --> 00:05:27.852 align:middle line:90% before. 00:05:27.852 --> 00:05:28.920 align:middle line:90% Why don't you start? 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:30.930 align:middle line:84% Which question do you want her to address? 00:05:30.930 --> 00:05:32.160 align:middle line:90% Yes? 00:05:32.160 --> 00:05:35.340 align:middle line:84% I'm interested in the essay form. 00:05:35.340 --> 00:05:40.650 align:middle line:84% There's a lot of lyric essays being written now-- 00:05:40.650 --> 00:05:41.460 align:middle line:90% lyric essays. 00:05:41.460 --> 00:05:44.610 align:middle line:90% 00:05:44.610 --> 00:05:46.980 align:middle line:84% And I'm thinking, there's Essay Press, 00:05:46.980 --> 00:05:49.530 align:middle line:84% which is also kind of messing around 00:05:49.530 --> 00:05:53.800 align:middle line:90% with how the essay is produced. 00:05:53.800 --> 00:05:55.650 align:middle line:84% So I guess, from your perspective-- 00:05:55.650 --> 00:05:58.380 align:middle line:84% and you said you were playing around with the essay form 00:05:58.380 --> 00:05:59.340 align:middle line:90% in Winter Sun. 00:05:59.340 --> 00:06:00.960 align:middle line:84% And so I'm interested in kind of-- 00:06:00.960 --> 00:06:03.690 align:middle line:84% I am interested in the perspective you have as far 00:06:03.690 --> 00:06:07.530 align:middle line:90% as where it's been coming from. 00:06:07.530 --> 00:06:11.820 align:middle line:84% Anne Carson, certainly that seems a good place to start. 00:06:11.820 --> 00:06:15.570 align:middle line:84% But there's the grand piano stuff, too, 00:06:15.570 --> 00:06:17.377 align:middle line:90% is also what I'm thinking of. 00:06:17.377 --> 00:06:18.210 align:middle line:90% So I mean, there's-- 00:06:18.210 --> 00:06:19.770 align:middle line:84% it seems like a lot of approaches. 00:06:19.770 --> 00:06:22.410 align:middle line:90% So I guess, what do you think? 00:06:22.410 --> 00:06:24.720 align:middle line:84% I think it's definitely something 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:27.660 align:middle line:84% that's in process now, generally speaking. 00:06:27.660 --> 00:06:30.150 align:middle line:90% And it's like so much right now. 00:06:30.150 --> 00:06:31.440 align:middle line:90% That's the problem. 00:06:31.440 --> 00:06:35.220 align:middle line:84% We're in this sort of information age, technology 00:06:35.220 --> 00:06:39.360 align:middle line:84% boom, and we really don't know where it's going to lead. 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:42.430 align:middle line:84% So everything is in this transitional mode. 00:06:42.430 --> 00:06:46.860 align:middle line:84% And I think these formal questions definitely 00:06:46.860 --> 00:06:51.510 align:middle line:84% have to be conscious of that mystery of what's 00:06:51.510 --> 00:06:57.210 align:middle line:84% going to happen to words and how its expression going to take 00:06:57.210 --> 00:06:58.330 align:middle line:90% form. 00:06:58.330 --> 00:07:02.460 align:middle line:84% So for me, I'm really like a late Victorian writer. 00:07:02.460 --> 00:07:09.030 align:middle line:84% And so what my instinct is lyrical 00:07:09.030 --> 00:07:15.000 align:middle line:84% and from something that has an echo from my childhood, really. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:18.780 align:middle line:84% And I'm very-- I've been very sort of, oh, 00:07:18.780 --> 00:07:24.960 align:middle line:84% overly obsessed with World War II and the Cold War and history 00:07:24.960 --> 00:07:29.100 align:middle line:84% and that whole period and trying to shuck that-- 00:07:29.100 --> 00:07:31.140 align:middle line:84% I mean, literally, very deliberately 00:07:31.140 --> 00:07:35.290 align:middle line:84% trying to stop brooding over the 20th century. 00:07:35.290 --> 00:07:39.090 align:middle line:84% And so, for me, that kind of playing with pleasure, 00:07:39.090 --> 00:07:42.000 align:middle line:84% with the pleasure of writing, of moving everything around 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.000 align:middle line:84% and shaping it is like an attempt 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:48.150 align:middle line:84% to move out of something heavy for me, 00:07:48.150 --> 00:07:53.320 align:middle line:84% which was the 20th century, really, in a nutshell. 00:07:53.320 --> 00:07:56.440 align:middle line:84% So that form seems appropriate to it? 00:07:56.440 --> 00:08:01.820 align:middle line:84% It seems-- for me, it's got a lightness. 00:08:01.820 --> 00:08:07.250 align:middle line:84% It allows for me to change my mood in the middle and to-- 00:08:07.250 --> 00:08:11.570 align:middle line:84% but I had one central idea running 00:08:11.570 --> 00:08:12.770 align:middle line:90% through the whole thing. 00:08:12.770 --> 00:08:16.410 align:middle line:84% But, of course, I didn't know I had it until it was done. 00:08:16.410 --> 00:08:19.310 align:middle line:84% And so, for me, the real work was 00:08:19.310 --> 00:08:21.980 align:middle line:84% in the formation of those blocks and how 00:08:21.980 --> 00:08:24.830 align:middle line:84% they would balance together, just sort 00:08:24.830 --> 00:08:26.210 align:middle line:90% of looking at it that way. 00:08:26.210 --> 00:08:29.415 align:middle line:90% 00:08:29.415 --> 00:08:31.290 align:middle line:84% I wonder if you could say something about how 00:08:31.290 --> 00:08:33.680 align:middle line:90% your sense of vocation is a-- 00:08:33.680 --> 00:08:35.760 align:middle line:84% I wonder if you could say something 00:08:35.760 --> 00:08:38.700 align:middle line:84% about how your sense of vocation as a poet has changed 00:08:38.700 --> 00:08:41.210 align:middle line:84% or not changed through the years. 00:08:41.210 --> 00:08:44.970 align:middle line:90% Oh, I think-- ooh. 00:08:44.970 --> 00:08:51.040 align:middle line:84% It probably has changed along with everything else-- 00:08:51.040 --> 00:08:53.520 align:middle line:90% just self-knowledge. 00:08:53.520 --> 00:08:59.880 align:middle line:84% I used to do it with complete spontaneity, and I never-- 00:08:59.880 --> 00:09:05.220 align:middle line:84% I've been very lucky in that I don't ever think of an audience 00:09:05.220 --> 00:09:05.730 align:middle line:90% or anything. 00:09:05.730 --> 00:09:09.300 align:middle line:84% I just do what I want very willfully. 00:09:09.300 --> 00:09:11.080 align:middle line:90% And I still do that. 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:15.000 align:middle line:90% So it's all me and it. 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:18.600 align:middle line:84% And so that's always been sort of a liberating position 00:09:18.600 --> 00:09:19.590 align:middle line:90% to have. 00:09:19.590 --> 00:09:22.650 align:middle line:84% And that hasn't changed, but I think 00:09:22.650 --> 00:09:28.560 align:middle line:84% my sense of the kind of weight has changed, 00:09:28.560 --> 00:09:31.260 align:middle line:90% where the weights go now. 00:09:31.260 --> 00:09:33.465 align:middle line:84% I mean, it was much lighter once. 00:09:33.465 --> 00:09:38.220 align:middle line:90% 00:09:38.220 --> 00:09:39.690 align:middle line:90% I have a lot of questions. 00:09:39.690 --> 00:09:40.530 align:middle line:90% I have a feeling. 00:09:40.530 --> 00:09:42.630 align:middle line:90% Oh, you go. 00:09:42.630 --> 00:09:43.170 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:09:43.170 --> 00:09:45.060 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] every time she-- 00:09:45.060 --> 00:09:46.950 align:middle line:90% Uh-huh. 00:09:46.950 --> 00:09:49.500 align:middle line:84% I was wondering if you could speak 00:09:49.500 --> 00:09:52.770 align:middle line:84% about contemporary poetry, specifically 00:09:52.770 --> 00:09:56.070 align:middle line:84% conceptual poetry and this trend, 00:09:56.070 --> 00:10:03.390 align:middle line:84% now, of including other people's work, often 00:10:03.390 --> 00:10:08.200 align:middle line:84% without giving any credit, just making it part of the poem. 00:10:08.200 --> 00:10:12.250 align:middle line:84% Well, it's part of a general thing called sampling, 00:10:12.250 --> 00:10:14.820 align:middle line:84% which is part of the entire culture. 00:10:14.820 --> 00:10:17.070 align:middle line:90% It's not just poets doing that. 00:10:17.070 --> 00:10:22.350 align:middle line:84% It is a kind of ironic relationship to language 00:10:22.350 --> 00:10:24.660 align:middle line:84% and a distanced relationship to it. 00:10:24.660 --> 00:10:31.140 align:middle line:84% So it's used as material rather than personal expression. 00:10:31.140 --> 00:10:36.450 align:middle line:84% It's very much coming out of the sort of Marxist documents. 00:10:36.450 --> 00:10:40.740 align:middle line:84% Pages are just there, materials to be moved around. 00:10:40.740 --> 00:10:42.570 align:middle line:90% And so I can't-- 00:10:42.570 --> 00:10:43.590 align:middle line:90% I don't judge it. 00:10:43.590 --> 00:10:47.520 align:middle line:84% I mean, it, to me, is completely natural for this environment 00:10:47.520 --> 00:10:54.120 align:middle line:84% when everybody's archiving and studying and feeling skeptical. 00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:57.940 align:middle line:90% I can see why that would happen. 00:10:57.940 --> 00:10:59.710 align:middle line:84% But I think it's-- as I was just saying, 00:10:59.710 --> 00:11:02.160 align:middle line:84% I think it's very much a transitional thing. 00:11:02.160 --> 00:11:03.840 align:middle line:90% I don't think that's-- 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:07.650 align:middle line:84% I don't think it's formed something importantly new yet. 00:11:07.650 --> 00:11:11.590 align:middle line:84% I do think the language poets were really important. 00:11:11.590 --> 00:11:14.010 align:middle line:90% I would never not say that. 00:11:14.010 --> 00:11:19.800 align:middle line:84% They were really important to the sort of ennui 00:11:19.800 --> 00:11:23.010 align:middle line:84% that was in American poetry for a long time. 00:11:23.010 --> 00:11:28.020 align:middle line:84% And they broke that up so that everybody 00:11:28.020 --> 00:11:29.220 align:middle line:90% has to think about them. 00:11:29.220 --> 00:11:33.510 align:middle line:90% 00:11:33.510 --> 00:11:36.090 align:middle line:84% I'm going to go back to the weight, when you were talking 00:11:36.090 --> 00:11:38.670 align:middle line:84% about the weight and how that shifted for you, 00:11:38.670 --> 00:11:42.420 align:middle line:84% and that-- you mentioned that you shucked the 20th century 00:11:42.420 --> 00:11:45.690 align:middle line:84% or you're attempting to shuck a lot of the baggage 00:11:45.690 --> 00:11:48.300 align:middle line:84% or the weight of the 20th century. 00:11:48.300 --> 00:11:52.170 align:middle line:84% But yet your weight is going in different areas now. 00:11:52.170 --> 00:11:55.320 align:middle line:90% And so I wondered, where? 00:11:55.320 --> 00:11:56.550 align:middle line:90% Where is it going? 00:11:56.550 --> 00:11:57.840 align:middle line:90% Where is the weight going? 00:11:57.840 --> 00:11:59.610 align:middle line:90% Is it going into content? 00:11:59.610 --> 00:12:00.930 align:middle line:90% Is it going into-- 00:12:00.930 --> 00:12:03.570 align:middle line:84% because you can use so many forms-- 00:12:03.570 --> 00:12:07.260 align:middle line:90% essay, poetry, writing. 00:12:07.260 --> 00:12:10.590 align:middle line:84% How is it, in your own mind, distributing now? 00:12:10.590 --> 00:12:14.650 align:middle line:90% Well, now it is more in the-- 00:12:14.650 --> 00:12:21.340 align:middle line:84% I read more philosophy now than I would read ever before. 00:12:21.340 --> 00:12:26.280 align:middle line:84% And so I'm more thoughtful, I guess, in that sense, 00:12:26.280 --> 00:12:27.105 align:middle line:90% and not so-- 00:12:27.105 --> 00:12:30.210 align:middle line:90% 00:12:30.210 --> 00:12:33.780 align:middle line:84% I guess, in the beginning, your body and your poems 00:12:33.780 --> 00:12:34.890 align:middle line:90% are the same thing. 00:12:34.890 --> 00:12:39.450 align:middle line:84% Now I'm much more in my mind, and that's probably 00:12:39.450 --> 00:12:42.270 align:middle line:90% a natural aging thing. 00:12:42.270 --> 00:12:44.910 align:middle line:84% In relation to what you just said about philosophically, 00:12:44.910 --> 00:12:49.050 align:middle line:84% I have long admired and been intrigued by your treatment 00:12:49.050 --> 00:12:50.760 align:middle line:90% and your theories of time. 00:12:50.760 --> 00:12:54.000 align:middle line:84% Would you mind talking about that just a little bit? 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:54.900 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:12:54.900 --> 00:13:01.440 align:middle line:84% It mostly came out of actual experience, 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:06.780 align:middle line:84% physical experience, almost like being struck, 00:13:06.780 --> 00:13:10.650 align:middle line:90% seized by a sense of-- 00:13:10.650 --> 00:13:14.070 align:middle line:84% and I'm sure it's partly because of Einstein's theory 00:13:14.070 --> 00:13:20.910 align:middle line:84% of relativity and the slow way that we process information 00:13:20.910 --> 00:13:22.170 align:middle line:90% from the sciences. 00:13:22.170 --> 00:13:25.620 align:middle line:84% It takes forever for you to actually really understand. 00:13:25.620 --> 00:13:27.390 align:middle line:90% And then, one day, it does. 00:13:27.390 --> 00:13:28.990 align:middle line:90% And that was sort of it. 00:13:28.990 --> 00:13:32.110 align:middle line:84% I was walking along a river with my dog, 00:13:32.110 --> 00:13:36.180 align:middle line:84% and I suddenly realized I was walking on the past. 00:13:36.180 --> 00:13:40.020 align:middle line:84% I was walking, in other words, permanently in space 00:13:40.020 --> 00:13:42.360 align:middle line:90% and there was no past or future. 00:13:42.360 --> 00:13:48.070 align:middle line:84% And it was sort of terrifying, actually, for that moment. 00:13:48.070 --> 00:13:52.020 align:middle line:84% But then I tried to make sense of it, 00:13:52.020 --> 00:13:59.070 align:middle line:84% and that sort of became a kind of triggering moment for-- 00:13:59.070 --> 00:14:06.120 align:middle line:84% the way I also began to write lines and put words on paper 00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:09.845 align:middle line:84% was in that kind of suspended state. 00:14:09.845 --> 00:14:13.740 align:middle line:84% but it's very hard to reproduce, probably impossible. 00:14:13.740 --> 00:14:15.630 align:middle line:90% I think Leslie Scalapino-- 00:14:15.630 --> 00:14:17.700 align:middle line:84% I don't know if any of you know her work. 00:14:17.700 --> 00:14:19.620 align:middle line:84% But I would say she was permanently 00:14:19.620 --> 00:14:24.330 align:middle line:84% in that state of mind, trying to find 00:14:24.330 --> 00:14:28.050 align:middle line:84% a permanent present by bracketing and doing 00:14:28.050 --> 00:14:29.130 align:middle line:90% all the things she did. 00:14:29.130 --> 00:14:35.670 align:middle line:90% 00:14:35.670 --> 00:14:38.540 align:middle line:84% Can you talk a little bit about the difference in process 00:14:38.540 --> 00:14:41.435 align:middle line:84% between writing essays and writing poems? 00:14:41.435 --> 00:14:44.270 align:middle line:90% 00:14:44.270 --> 00:14:47.840 align:middle line:84% Well, I wrote loads of novels when-- 00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:49.430 align:middle line:84% and they're all-- five of them are 00:14:49.430 --> 00:14:54.440 align:middle line:84% in a collection called Radical Love, five of my novels 00:14:54.440 --> 00:14:56.810 align:middle line:90% that I ended writing in 2000. 00:14:56.810 --> 00:15:01.160 align:middle line:84% But they were becoming more and more sort of essayistic. 00:15:01.160 --> 00:15:05.010 align:middle line:84% I'd suddenly start having a monologue in the middle. 00:15:05.010 --> 00:15:09.200 align:middle line:84% And so I sort of naturally moved from fiction more than 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:13.070 align:middle line:84% from poetry into writing these essays. 00:15:13.070 --> 00:15:17.560 align:middle line:84% And then, because I write poems sort of all the time-- 00:15:17.560 --> 00:15:20.690 align:middle line:84% I'm just jotting them down and listening to sounds 00:15:20.690 --> 00:15:21.800 align:middle line:90% all the time-- 00:15:21.800 --> 00:15:25.670 align:middle line:84% it just inevitably became almost like they're 00:15:25.670 --> 00:15:27.410 align:middle line:90% the same thing to me now-- 00:15:27.410 --> 00:15:30.620 align:middle line:84% writing prose and writing a poem. 00:15:30.620 --> 00:15:35.570 align:middle line:90% 00:15:35.570 --> 00:15:36.070 align:middle line:90% Yes? 00:15:36.070 --> 00:15:40.381 align:middle line:90% 00:15:40.381 --> 00:15:41.820 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:15:41.820 --> 00:15:48.360 align:middle line:84% So you mentioned your obsession with World War II, 00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:51.540 align:middle line:84% and I was also thinking of your latest book 00:15:51.540 --> 00:15:54.570 align:middle line:84% and how you begin it with a quote by Celan. 00:15:54.570 --> 00:16:00.540 align:middle line:84% And I'm wondering what your relationship is to his work 00:16:00.540 --> 00:16:03.870 align:middle line:84% or how he influenced your work and maybe what that quote-- 00:16:03.870 --> 00:16:07.252 align:middle line:90% 00:16:07.252 --> 00:16:09.430 align:middle line:84% what was the relationship you intended, maybe, 00:16:09.430 --> 00:16:11.950 align:middle line:84% between that quote and that book? 00:16:11.950 --> 00:16:21.550 align:middle line:84% Well, he-- I think he's so broken, 00:16:21.550 --> 00:16:24.400 align:middle line:84% and then he makes the best of being broken. 00:16:24.400 --> 00:16:26.530 align:middle line:90% And so that was-- 00:16:26.530 --> 00:16:28.780 align:middle line:84% he's sort of a model for some things 00:16:28.780 --> 00:16:33.040 align:middle line:84% I've been saying already of taking-- 00:16:33.040 --> 00:16:36.220 align:middle line:84% trying to get beyond, using language 00:16:36.220 --> 00:16:39.700 align:middle line:84% to try to heal and get beyond whatever the original trauma 00:16:39.700 --> 00:16:42.790 align:middle line:84% was, and then not succeeding at it. 00:16:42.790 --> 00:16:48.080 align:middle line:84% So I'm sort of interested in failure and looking at failure. 00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:51.220 align:middle line:84% And I think he's a really great example of failure-- 00:16:51.220 --> 00:16:52.390 align:middle line:90% of the beauty of failure. 00:16:52.390 --> 00:16:59.140 align:middle line:90% 00:16:59.140 --> 00:17:03.230 align:middle line:84% I have a question kind of stemming from that. 00:17:03.230 --> 00:17:06.349 align:middle line:84% You talk in "Come and See," the essay "Come and See," 00:17:06.349 --> 00:17:08.089 align:middle line:90% about how poetry-- 00:17:08.089 --> 00:17:11.810 align:middle line:84% you discuss how poetry itself is survival itself, 00:17:11.810 --> 00:17:16.040 align:middle line:84% and you just mentioned finding that sort of-- 00:17:16.040 --> 00:17:18.349 align:middle line:84% the beauty and failure through language. 00:17:18.349 --> 00:17:21.140 align:middle line:84% I just was interested in what your relationship to language 00:17:21.140 --> 00:17:23.690 align:middle line:84% is at this point after writing that essay. 00:17:23.690 --> 00:17:26.420 align:middle line:90% Oh, after writing that. 00:17:26.420 --> 00:17:27.950 align:middle line:90% It changed a lot. 00:17:27.950 --> 00:17:31.940 align:middle line:90% 00:17:31.940 --> 00:17:35.780 align:middle line:84% Really what changed, it was from 2000 to 2007. 00:17:35.780 --> 00:17:40.310 align:middle line:84% I was involved in translating some poems from the woman I 00:17:40.310 --> 00:17:43.940 align:middle line:84% mentioned in that essay, Ilona Karmel and her sister, 00:17:43.940 --> 00:17:46.940 align:middle line:84% who were in labor camps and ended up in Buchenwald, 00:17:46.940 --> 00:17:48.350 align:middle line:90% but they both survived. 00:17:48.350 --> 00:17:53.420 align:middle line:84% Anyway, I spent seven years adapting 00:17:53.420 --> 00:17:57.260 align:middle line:84% the poems they wrote in the labor camps in Polish 00:17:57.260 --> 00:17:59.690 align:middle line:84% with the help of Polish translators. 00:17:59.690 --> 00:18:03.590 align:middle line:84% But somehow that process of translation 00:18:03.590 --> 00:18:12.980 align:middle line:84% was much more of a real experience than I had ant-- 00:18:12.980 --> 00:18:15.590 align:middle line:84% I thought I was just going to do that, sort of say 00:18:15.590 --> 00:18:16.700 align:middle line:90% this looks like this. 00:18:16.700 --> 00:18:20.780 align:middle line:90% But it turned into grueling-- 00:18:20.780 --> 00:18:22.760 align:middle line:90% really like digging a garden. 00:18:22.760 --> 00:18:24.380 align:middle line:84% I'm digging and digging and digging 00:18:24.380 --> 00:18:28.160 align:middle line:90% until there's nothing there. 00:18:28.160 --> 00:18:32.640 align:middle line:84% So it was-- I think translation can really change a writer. 00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:34.520 align:middle line:84% And it's a great thing to do, but it 00:18:34.520 --> 00:18:37.070 align:middle line:90% can be harrowing depending-- 00:18:37.070 --> 00:18:40.370 align:middle line:84% it can be really harrowing because you often 00:18:40.370 --> 00:18:42.380 align:middle line:90% can't find the person. 00:18:42.380 --> 00:18:51.600 align:middle line:90% 00:18:51.600 --> 00:18:52.770 align:middle line:90% Is there a person there? 00:18:52.770 --> 00:18:53.270 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:18:53.270 --> 00:18:57.520 align:middle line:90% 00:18:57.520 --> 00:19:02.530 align:middle line:84% Online, I heard a interview between you 00:19:02.530 --> 00:19:06.810 align:middle line:90% and fellow named [INAUDIBLE]. 00:19:06.810 --> 00:19:08.080 align:middle line:90% Oh my god, years ago. 00:19:08.080 --> 00:19:08.580 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:19:08.580 --> 00:19:09.705 align:middle line:90% Was it just many years ago? 00:19:09.705 --> 00:19:10.440 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:19:10.440 --> 00:19:14.100 align:middle line:84% Well, I hope this is not too late to ask this question. 00:19:14.100 --> 00:19:16.710 align:middle line:84% It's too late for me to remember, I'm sure. 00:19:16.710 --> 00:19:18.900 align:middle line:84% Well, one of the things he mentioned-- 00:19:18.900 --> 00:19:25.380 align:middle line:84% you both were talking about this French mystic, Simone Weil. 00:19:25.380 --> 00:19:31.320 align:middle line:84% And I looked into her philosophy and some of the things 00:19:31.320 --> 00:19:32.440 align:middle line:90% that she said. 00:19:32.440 --> 00:19:34.800 align:middle line:84% And I was just wondering if you could 00:19:34.800 --> 00:19:38.190 align:middle line:84% talk a little bit about how she inspired you, 00:19:38.190 --> 00:19:40.320 align:middle line:90% or what was it about her? 00:19:40.320 --> 00:19:43.680 align:middle line:84% Some of the things she said were so radical and so 00:19:43.680 --> 00:19:48.840 align:middle line:84% difficult to achieve, and she herself fell victim-- 00:19:48.840 --> 00:19:50.880 align:middle line:84% I guess you could say that-- and that she 00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:55.530 align:middle line:90% died sick and starving. 00:19:55.530 --> 00:19:57.870 align:middle line:84% I wonder if you could address that. 00:19:57.870 --> 00:19:58.470 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:19:58.470 --> 00:20:01.710 align:middle line:84% Well, she was like the major person-- 00:20:01.710 --> 00:20:02.940 align:middle line:90% thinker for me. 00:20:02.940 --> 00:20:06.420 align:middle line:84% And all she really did was write a lot of notebooks. 00:20:06.420 --> 00:20:11.010 align:middle line:84% And I love Camus' notebooks, and I love her notebooks. 00:20:11.010 --> 00:20:12.390 align:middle line:90% They're in the same period-- 00:20:12.390 --> 00:20:15.510 align:middle line:90% again, back in that '40s. 00:20:15.510 --> 00:20:19.440 align:middle line:84% But she was afflicted with genius. 00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:23.100 align:middle line:84% I mean, she had terrible headaches, 00:20:23.100 --> 00:20:26.910 align:middle line:84% and she couldn't adjust socially to anything. 00:20:26.910 --> 00:20:29.970 align:middle line:90% And she wrote these-- 00:20:29.970 --> 00:20:34.710 align:middle line:84% she was trying to break through to have belief. 00:20:34.710 --> 00:20:37.500 align:middle line:90% And she was too, ultimately-- 00:20:37.500 --> 00:20:39.810 align:middle line:84% she was too skeptical, too profoundly 00:20:39.810 --> 00:20:44.520 align:middle line:84% skeptical to have the belief she wanted to have-- longed for. 00:20:44.520 --> 00:20:49.530 align:middle line:84% But she explored that problem better than anyone else 00:20:49.530 --> 00:20:52.740 align:middle line:90% of how you can't force it. 00:20:52.740 --> 00:20:57.750 align:middle line:84% You either-- it's a gift, I guess, to have faith. 00:20:57.750 --> 00:20:59.760 align:middle line:90% And she, to me-- 00:20:59.760 --> 00:21:02.610 align:middle line:84% that was sort of, in a nutshell, what's 00:21:02.610 --> 00:21:05.910 align:middle line:84% fascinating about her journals is 00:21:05.910 --> 00:21:08.610 align:middle line:90% how deeply she explores that. 00:21:08.610 --> 00:21:11.640 align:middle line:84% One of the things that was quoted that she said 00:21:11.640 --> 00:21:17.520 align:middle line:84% was, in order to have understanding and faith, 00:21:17.520 --> 00:21:21.540 align:middle line:84% you have to hit your head against the wall 00:21:21.540 --> 00:21:24.480 align:middle line:84% so hard that you fall unconscious. 00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:28.500 align:middle line:84% And when you recover, you resume hitting your head 00:21:28.500 --> 00:21:29.880 align:middle line:90% against the wall. 00:21:29.880 --> 00:21:34.080 align:middle line:84% And then she said, perhaps, ultimately, you'll 00:21:34.080 --> 00:21:36.810 align:middle line:84% find yourself on the other side of the wall. 00:21:36.810 --> 00:21:39.360 align:middle line:84% And I thought that was beautifully said 00:21:39.360 --> 00:21:40.890 align:middle line:90% but painful to read. 00:21:40.890 --> 00:21:41.760 align:middle line:90% That's it. 00:21:41.760 --> 00:21:45.450 align:middle line:84% It's a perfect example of what I would say-- a perfect example. 00:21:45.450 --> 00:21:48.530 align:middle line:90% 00:21:48.530 --> 00:21:51.154 align:middle line:90% So why did I love her? 00:21:51.154 --> 00:21:51.654 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:21:51.654 --> 00:21:53.025 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:21:53.025 --> 00:21:55.770 align:middle line:90% Why did you love her? 00:21:55.770 --> 00:22:01.680 align:middle line:90% I think there's something so-- 00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:03.940 align:middle line:90% first of all, as a writer. 00:22:03.940 --> 00:22:05.640 align:middle line:90% She writes like Camus. 00:22:05.640 --> 00:22:07.380 align:middle line:90% She has that beautiful mid-- 00:22:07.380 --> 00:22:11.970 align:middle line:84% that French, mid-20th century style, which is just 00:22:11.970 --> 00:22:15.420 align:middle line:90% perfect and easy to translate. 00:22:15.420 --> 00:22:18.030 align:middle line:84% So it's just wonderful to read her-- 00:22:18.030 --> 00:22:24.280 align:middle line:84% but also because of the intense seriousness of her occupation. 00:22:24.280 --> 00:22:28.745 align:middle line:84% So that was-- and it was rare to find a woman like that. 00:22:28.745 --> 00:22:37.700 align:middle line:90% 00:22:37.700 --> 00:22:42.982 align:middle line:84% Maybe you can explain this to me from your earlier remarks. 00:22:42.982 --> 00:22:45.440 align:middle line:84% I don't know whether you're familiar with the rock lyricist 00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:49.940 align:middle line:84% Ray Davies, but one of his songs is, "I'm a 20th century man, 00:22:49.940 --> 00:22:51.590 align:middle line:90% but I don't want to die here." 00:22:51.590 --> 00:22:57.440 align:middle line:90% 00:22:57.440 --> 00:23:01.760 align:middle line:84% I think that the 20th century will probably 00:23:01.760 --> 00:23:04.520 align:middle line:90% require endless processing. 00:23:04.520 --> 00:23:11.540 align:middle line:84% It certainly was an incredible period of time. 00:23:11.540 --> 00:23:16.220 align:middle line:84% I wonder why you feel an urgency or a necessity 00:23:16.220 --> 00:23:22.010 align:middle line:84% to move out of that contemplative practice 00:23:22.010 --> 00:23:25.760 align:middle line:90% into something post-millennial. 00:23:25.760 --> 00:23:31.130 align:middle line:84% Because I think it's gotten to be too heavy 00:23:31.130 --> 00:23:34.820 align:middle line:84% and that it's also affecting the way-- 00:23:34.820 --> 00:23:37.310 align:middle line:84% people who are-- like me-- who are too 00:23:37.310 --> 00:23:43.670 align:middle line:84% turned in that direction write that it isn't good for writing. 00:23:43.670 --> 00:23:48.710 align:middle line:84% And I believe that in poetry is something 00:23:48.710 --> 00:23:54.080 align:middle line:84% that is continually trying to be expressed in a million ways. 00:23:54.080 --> 00:23:58.880 align:middle line:84% And I don't think it's good to be too nostalgic and too angry 00:23:58.880 --> 00:24:00.590 align:middle line:90% for poetry. 00:24:00.590 --> 00:24:03.380 align:middle line:84% But-- I mean, I think it was just so 00:24:03.380 --> 00:24:06.890 align:middle line:90% perfected by Walter Benjamin. 00:24:06.890 --> 00:24:09.200 align:middle line:84% He said everything there was to say. 00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:13.850 align:middle line:84% So now it's up to us to go along after that. 00:24:13.850 --> 00:24:15.890 align:middle line:84% There's got to be something after that. 00:24:15.890 --> 00:24:23.225 align:middle line:90% 00:24:23.225 --> 00:24:28.130 align:middle line:84% Can we go back to the notion of form for a moment? 00:24:28.130 --> 00:24:34.320 align:middle line:84% I wonder if you could talk maybe first about some of the reasons 00:24:34.320 --> 00:24:40.320 align:middle line:84% why you think that's occurring now and if it's being mirrored, 00:24:40.320 --> 00:24:44.070 align:middle line:84% or is it mirroring an earlier time in literature 00:24:44.070 --> 00:24:47.270 align:middle line:90% when that happened? 00:24:47.270 --> 00:24:52.300 align:middle line:84% I doubt that it ever happened before. 00:24:52.300 --> 00:24:57.150 align:middle line:84% I think it has to do with excess information and abundance 00:24:57.150 --> 00:25:01.440 align:middle line:90% of people trying out things. 00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:05.590 align:middle line:84% I mean, I just think it's a mass phenomenon. 00:25:05.590 --> 00:25:09.550 align:middle line:84% We have a new kind of population in the world. 00:25:09.550 --> 00:25:12.480 align:middle line:84% So I can't imagine it could have ever happened before. 00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:15.030 align:middle line:90% 00:25:15.030 --> 00:25:19.450 align:middle line:84% Maybe can we then be a bit more specific about the that? 00:25:19.450 --> 00:25:20.860 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:25:20.860 --> 00:25:23.440 align:middle line:84% Because I guess I'm thinking that some of the sampling, some 00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:25.660 align:middle line:84% of the collaging, maybe, some of these things 00:25:25.660 --> 00:25:29.080 align:middle line:84% have happened before in modern poetry. 00:25:29.080 --> 00:25:32.638 align:middle line:84% And I'm trying to discern the differences between some 00:25:32.638 --> 00:25:34.180 align:middle line:84% of these things that happened earlier 00:25:34.180 --> 00:25:37.360 align:middle line:84% and what's specific about what's happening now 00:25:37.360 --> 00:25:41.030 align:middle line:84% that's different, not necessarily new or anything. 00:25:41.030 --> 00:25:43.360 align:middle line:84% I'm just trying to, for myself, discern it. 00:25:43.360 --> 00:25:45.490 align:middle line:84% Well, I think it's different because it's 00:25:45.490 --> 00:25:52.420 align:middle line:84% all part of a new culture, which is music and poetry and movies. 00:25:52.420 --> 00:25:55.480 align:middle line:84% I mean, they're all like one phenomenon now. 00:25:55.480 --> 00:25:58.000 align:middle line:84% And they weren't when TS Eliot was-- 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:02.920 align:middle line:84% or Marianne Moore were using references. 00:26:02.920 --> 00:26:07.450 align:middle line:84% Music is really the great art form, now, and so is film. 00:26:07.450 --> 00:26:10.794 align:middle line:84% But they're poetry, too, as far as-- 00:26:10.794 --> 00:26:12.490 align:middle line:90% So it's related to sources? 00:26:12.490 --> 00:26:13.000 align:middle line:90% It is. 00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:16.600 align:middle line:84% It's related-- yeah-- and to the whole environment. 00:26:16.600 --> 00:26:17.110 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:26:17.110 --> 00:26:17.610 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:26:17.610 --> 00:26:21.280 align:middle line:90% 00:26:21.280 --> 00:26:22.981 align:middle line:90% Yes? 00:26:22.981 --> 00:26:25.510 align:middle line:84% Just to warn you, this is not [INAUDIBLE].. 00:26:25.510 --> 00:26:26.860 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:26:26.860 --> 00:26:28.600 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:26:28.600 --> 00:26:31.000 align:middle line:84% So I'm thinking about how you just introduced 00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:33.490 align:middle line:90% those three younger poets. 00:26:33.490 --> 00:26:37.630 align:middle line:84% And I feel like I've read a lot of books recently that were 00:26:37.630 --> 00:26:39.310 align:middle line:84% contest winners that you selected, 00:26:39.310 --> 00:26:42.940 align:middle line:84% and I feel like you have a very active role in the engagement 00:26:42.940 --> 00:26:45.067 align:middle line:84% in the furthering of young poets'-- 00:26:45.067 --> 00:26:46.900 align:middle line:84% I don't want to say "careers" because that's 00:26:46.900 --> 00:26:50.770 align:middle line:84% an awful word-- but in our knowledge of who's writing now 00:26:50.770 --> 00:26:51.920 align:middle line:90% and what they're doing. 00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:55.930 align:middle line:84% And so my question is, what in the newer generation of poets 00:26:55.930 --> 00:26:58.420 align:middle line:84% do you see as the most exciting thing that's happening 00:26:58.420 --> 00:26:59.945 align:middle line:90% or the most-- 00:26:59.945 --> 00:27:01.820 align:middle line:84% maybe the newest-- and I think that's related 00:27:01.820 --> 00:27:02.695 align:middle line:90% to the last question. 00:27:02.695 --> 00:27:04.970 align:middle line:84% What's the new thing that you're so excited about? 00:27:04.970 --> 00:27:10.130 align:middle line:84% Well, I suppose the cross-genre thing 00:27:10.130 --> 00:27:14.490 align:middle line:84% where people are bringing narrative back into poetry. 00:27:14.490 --> 00:27:16.970 align:middle line:84% So I think that's really exciting. 00:27:16.970 --> 00:27:23.660 align:middle line:84% And also I like the way languages 00:27:23.660 --> 00:27:27.110 align:middle line:84% from other cultures who have become Americans 00:27:27.110 --> 00:27:31.760 align:middle line:90% are influencing the sounds. 00:27:31.760 --> 00:27:33.530 align:middle line:90% And so, I mean, I've just read-- 00:27:33.530 --> 00:27:38.090 align:middle line:84% I don't remember his name, but a young Indian poet who 00:27:38.090 --> 00:27:42.080 align:middle line:84% was using all the beautiful names from India 00:27:42.080 --> 00:27:45.890 align:middle line:84% in his sentences which were otherwise completely American. 00:27:45.890 --> 00:27:48.350 align:middle line:90% And so it just-- 00:27:48.350 --> 00:27:49.220 align:middle line:90% it was fusion. 00:27:49.220 --> 00:27:52.900 align:middle line:84% It was-- and I guess that's what I am interested in now 00:27:52.900 --> 00:27:54.455 align:middle line:90% is how that's being done. 00:27:54.455 --> 00:28:01.130 align:middle line:90% 00:28:01.130 --> 00:28:02.920 align:middle line:84% You mentioned the word "narrative," 00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:05.760 align:middle line:84% which I was thinking about as you were talking. 00:28:05.760 --> 00:28:07.080 align:middle line:90% And I wonder if you could-- 00:28:07.080 --> 00:28:09.660 align:middle line:90% is there a new narrative? 00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:14.370 align:middle line:84% Is our society so disjunct that there is no narrative? 00:28:14.370 --> 00:28:18.000 align:middle line:84% And I'm speaking of narrative here in the terms of story. 00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:21.450 align:middle line:84% And I was just curious your thoughts about a new narrative 00:28:21.450 --> 00:28:24.870 align:middle line:84% or a disjunct narrative or no narrative at all. 00:28:24.870 --> 00:28:29.880 align:middle line:84% Well, I think all the great narratives are on HBO and AMC. 00:28:29.880 --> 00:28:33.150 align:middle line:84% I mean, those are the ones we all care about what's 00:28:33.150 --> 00:28:34.900 align:middle line:90% happening. 00:28:34.900 --> 00:28:37.020 align:middle line:84% And so they're alive and well, but they've just 00:28:37.020 --> 00:28:38.700 align:middle line:90% taken another shape. 00:28:38.700 --> 00:28:43.170 align:middle line:84% I just don't know if people have the mental-- 00:28:43.170 --> 00:28:45.570 align:middle line:84% the time to sit and read novels anymore. 00:28:45.570 --> 00:28:49.120 align:middle line:90% But-- HBO. 00:28:49.120 --> 00:28:49.800 align:middle line:90% In poetry. 00:28:49.800 --> 00:28:52.770 align:middle line:90% Oh, in poetry. 00:28:52.770 --> 00:28:56.760 align:middle line:84% Well, that's what's emerging now is these sort 00:28:56.760 --> 00:29:00.120 align:middle line:90% of fragmented narratives. 00:29:00.120 --> 00:29:02.730 align:middle line:84% Dawn Lundy Martin-- does anybody know-- 00:29:02.730 --> 00:29:05.100 align:middle line:90% she's a wonderful writer. 00:29:05.100 --> 00:29:08.520 align:middle line:84% Oh, she's just great, and her book Discipline is great. 00:29:08.520 --> 00:29:12.690 align:middle line:84% And that's a kind of narrative that's fragmented, 00:29:12.690 --> 00:29:15.610 align:middle line:84% but you get the whole picture, believe me, by the end. 00:29:15.610 --> 00:29:20.910 align:middle line:84% So that's what I think is really exciting. 00:29:20.910 --> 00:29:22.860 align:middle line:90% And partly because it's short. 00:29:22.860 --> 00:29:25.360 align:middle line:90% It is influenced by film. 00:29:25.360 --> 00:29:27.900 align:middle line:90% So there are short scenes. 00:29:27.900 --> 00:29:32.670 align:middle line:84% And the responsibility now of young fiction writers is to be 00:29:32.670 --> 00:29:39.030 align:middle line:84% very, very painterly, very specific about what objects 00:29:39.030 --> 00:29:41.760 align:middle line:84% they put-- like the old fairy tales used to be, 00:29:41.760 --> 00:29:45.510 align:middle line:84% that there were four things that keep recurring-- 00:29:45.510 --> 00:29:49.560 align:middle line:84% and that we have to sort of go back to that but in a new way. 00:29:49.560 --> 00:29:54.690 align:middle line:90% 00:29:54.690 --> 00:29:56.490 align:middle line:84% Could you talk a little bit about how 00:29:56.490 --> 00:30:00.390 align:middle line:84% narrative informs the new essays that you've been writing? 00:30:00.390 --> 00:30:02.370 align:middle line:90% Well, who am I talking to? 00:30:02.370 --> 00:30:03.210 align:middle line:90% Did you say? 00:30:03.210 --> 00:30:04.110 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:30:04.110 --> 00:30:06.930 align:middle line:84% It was-- I think it's because I just 00:30:06.930 --> 00:30:11.010 align:middle line:84% have that impulse from writing all those novels for children 00:30:11.010 --> 00:30:11.640 align:middle line:90% and everything. 00:30:11.640 --> 00:30:14.430 align:middle line:84% I wrote a lot of young adult novels. 00:30:14.430 --> 00:30:19.260 align:middle line:90% And so I just feel that impulse. 00:30:19.260 --> 00:30:23.280 align:middle line:90% It's part of my psyche. 00:30:23.280 --> 00:30:27.210 align:middle line:84% But does-- how does the, like-- you know you're talking about 00:30:27.210 --> 00:30:28.680 align:middle line:90% how HBO-- 00:30:28.680 --> 00:30:33.780 align:middle line:84% and those are the narratives that we like nowadays. 00:30:33.780 --> 00:30:37.140 align:middle line:84% How do you deal with that in writing? 00:30:37.140 --> 00:30:39.670 align:middle line:84% Or how do you try to live up to that? 00:30:39.670 --> 00:30:40.170 align:middle line:90% Or do you? 00:30:40.170 --> 00:30:40.860 align:middle line:90% I don't. 00:30:40.860 --> 00:30:41.910 align:middle line:90% I don't. 00:30:41.910 --> 00:30:45.600 align:middle line:84% But I do-- I like movies better than anything in the world. 00:30:45.600 --> 00:30:51.510 align:middle line:84% And I do find I am influenced by the way scenes are framed, 00:30:51.510 --> 00:30:54.910 align:middle line:84% but probably in a more abstract way. 00:30:54.910 --> 00:30:55.410 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:30:55.410 --> 00:31:01.980 align:middle line:90% 00:31:01.980 --> 00:31:09.870 align:middle line:84% I-- you talked about shucking the 20th century and World War 00:31:09.870 --> 00:31:11.790 align:middle line:90% II in particular because-- 00:31:11.790 --> 00:31:13.600 align:middle line:90% shucking-- 00:31:13.600 --> 00:31:14.100 align:middle line:90% Well-- 00:31:14.100 --> 00:31:16.290 align:middle line:90% No, no, I'm not laughing. 00:31:16.290 --> 00:31:16.880 align:middle line:90% Chucking? 00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:17.400 align:middle line:90% Shucking? 00:31:17.400 --> 00:31:23.250 align:middle line:84% No, no-- because it had gotten too heavy. 00:31:23.250 --> 00:31:28.830 align:middle line:84% And I guess this addresses more you as a political figure. 00:31:28.830 --> 00:31:33.660 align:middle line:84% I'm wondering if the post millennium are 21st century 00:31:33.660 --> 00:31:34.330 align:middle line:90% wars-- 00:31:34.330 --> 00:31:37.950 align:middle line:84% Iraq and Sudan and all the uprisings 00:31:37.950 --> 00:31:42.360 align:middle line:84% that are going on in that area, but other places-- 00:31:42.360 --> 00:31:45.060 align:middle line:84% if that is coming into your work at all. 00:31:45.060 --> 00:31:45.810 align:middle line:90% It does. 00:31:45.810 --> 00:31:49.050 align:middle line:84% It way over infiltrates them, I think. 00:31:49.050 --> 00:31:50.980 align:middle line:90% But it does, definitely. 00:31:50.980 --> 00:31:52.090 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:31:52.090 --> 00:31:52.590 align:middle line:90% So you-- 00:31:52.590 --> 00:31:57.060 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's impossible not to have that in your body 00:31:57.060 --> 00:31:58.930 align:middle line:84% after you've read the Huffington Post. 00:31:58.930 --> 00:32:01.020 align:middle line:90% It went, you know-- 00:32:01.020 --> 00:32:01.800 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:32:01.800 --> 00:32:02.830 align:middle line:90% It's all there. 00:32:02.830 --> 00:32:03.330 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:32:03.330 --> 00:32:11.370 align:middle line:84% So do you see that as a substitute for the World War II 00:32:11.370 --> 00:32:12.640 align:middle line:90% angst? 00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:13.140 align:middle line:90% I think-- 00:32:13.140 --> 00:32:14.070 align:middle line:90% Or all the same? 00:32:14.070 --> 00:32:18.090 align:middle line:90% Oh, that's a good question. 00:32:18.090 --> 00:32:20.960 align:middle line:84% Well, it wouldn't be something I would want to have. 00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:24.680 align:middle line:84% So I don't think it would be a substitute. 00:32:24.680 --> 00:32:27.170 align:middle line:84% I think it's just an inevitable influence is 00:32:27.170 --> 00:32:32.810 align:middle line:84% that presence that we all feel of violence, 00:32:32.810 --> 00:32:34.970 align:middle line:90% unnecessary violence. 00:32:34.970 --> 00:32:38.690 align:middle line:84% Then how is it different from the relationship with the World 00:32:38.690 --> 00:32:45.140 align:middle line:84% War II, and isn't it also equally heavy and-- 00:32:45.140 --> 00:32:46.970 align:middle line:90% It's equally heavy. 00:32:46.970 --> 00:32:52.190 align:middle line:84% But the difference is that was the invention 00:32:52.190 --> 00:32:58.760 align:middle line:84% of large-scale war from World War I, right up to Hiroshima. 00:32:58.760 --> 00:33:02.270 align:middle line:84% It was all mass technology working 00:33:02.270 --> 00:33:05.070 align:middle line:90% in a violent, horrifying way. 00:33:05.070 --> 00:33:08.900 align:middle line:84% So that was the first time to ever see it like that. 00:33:08.900 --> 00:33:10.710 align:middle line:90% Now it's just appalling. 00:33:10.710 --> 00:33:12.060 align:middle line:90% It's the drones, all of it. 00:33:12.060 --> 00:33:13.850 align:middle line:90% It's just beyond-- 00:33:13.850 --> 00:33:19.820 align:middle line:84% It's-- I mean, the Hutus and Tutsis and how they used 00:33:19.820 --> 00:33:21.720 align:middle line:90% mallets or-- 00:33:21.720 --> 00:33:22.220 align:middle line:90% Machetes. 00:33:22.220 --> 00:33:24.140 align:middle line:90% --machettes, machetes. 00:33:24.140 --> 00:33:26.570 align:middle line:84% And that was interesting going back 00:33:26.570 --> 00:33:31.540 align:middle line:90% to a very, very basic weapon. 00:33:31.540 --> 00:33:33.064 align:middle line:90% But look at Sarajevo. 00:33:33.064 --> 00:33:35.990 align:middle line:90% 00:33:35.990 --> 00:33:37.730 align:middle line:90% So it's everywhere. 00:33:37.730 --> 00:33:38.840 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:33:38.840 --> 00:33:41.210 align:middle line:90% The basic. 00:33:41.210 --> 00:33:42.890 align:middle line:90% Sort of going back to basics-- 00:33:42.890 --> 00:33:43.620 align:middle line:90% Yeah, right. 00:33:43.620 --> 00:33:44.120 align:middle line:90% --in war. 00:33:44.120 --> 00:33:52.610 align:middle line:90% 00:33:52.610 --> 00:33:56.560 align:middle line:84% So in light of all the heavy awareness 00:33:56.560 --> 00:33:59.320 align:middle line:84% that the writer sits down with when she's at her desk, 00:33:59.320 --> 00:34:01.600 align:middle line:84% what do you think is the function of the poet 00:34:01.600 --> 00:34:04.740 align:middle line:90% in the world? 00:34:04.740 --> 00:34:08.520 align:middle line:84% I think the great thing is it has no function at all. 00:34:08.520 --> 00:34:11.219 align:middle line:90% I think that's the beauty of it. 00:34:11.219 --> 00:34:13.980 align:middle line:90% It's absolutely useless. 00:34:13.980 --> 00:34:20.679 align:middle line:84% And it's-- but I really believe that poetry is everywhere. 00:34:20.679 --> 00:34:22.320 align:middle line:90% It's in the room now with us. 00:34:22.320 --> 00:34:24.270 align:middle line:84% It's walking down the street out there. 00:34:24.270 --> 00:34:28.980 align:middle line:84% I believe in poetry as a phenomenon underlying-- 00:34:28.980 --> 00:34:31.650 align:middle line:84% structurally underlying everything we do. 00:34:31.650 --> 00:34:34.139 align:middle line:84% So it's bound to want to get out. 00:34:34.139 --> 00:34:37.449 align:middle line:84% And that's the only way I think of it. 00:34:37.449 --> 00:34:41.250 align:middle line:84% I don't think it has any function otherwise, except-- 00:34:41.250 --> 00:34:43.770 align:middle line:90% Not even subliminally? 00:34:43.770 --> 00:34:46.500 align:middle line:90% I don't know, really. 00:34:46.500 --> 00:34:49.170 align:middle line:84% After all this, I wouldn't be sure. 00:34:49.170 --> 00:34:50.820 align:middle line:84% After all the work that you've put in 00:34:50.820 --> 00:34:53.130 align:middle line:84% and the years and the books and the teaching 00:34:53.130 --> 00:34:55.860 align:middle line:84% and the lectures and the conversations, 00:34:55.860 --> 00:35:01.320 align:middle line:84% isn't it the case that the moral fiber of your being 00:35:01.320 --> 00:35:08.880 align:middle line:84% is expressing itself to some moral vibration among us? 00:35:08.880 --> 00:35:10.120 align:middle line:90% Am I just a fool hoping-- 00:35:10.120 --> 00:35:10.620 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:35:10.620 --> 00:35:11.120 align:middle line:90% No, no. 00:35:11.120 --> 00:35:13.200 align:middle line:84% I think-- no, as I say, I believe 00:35:13.200 --> 00:35:16.870 align:middle line:84% there is a poetic structure everywhere. 00:35:16.870 --> 00:35:20.310 align:middle line:84% And so to become conscious of that 00:35:20.310 --> 00:35:25.360 align:middle line:84% and to teach how to become conscious of that is important, 00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:27.570 align:middle line:90% but not in a functional sense. 00:35:27.570 --> 00:35:31.902 align:middle line:90% It's more to be happy. 00:35:31.902 --> 00:35:34.372 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:35:34.372 --> 00:35:42.290 align:middle line:90% 00:35:42.290 --> 00:35:45.500 align:middle line:84% Are there poets that you started with that 00:35:45.500 --> 00:35:47.420 align:middle line:84% were influential to you when you first 00:35:47.420 --> 00:35:49.730 align:middle line:84% started writing that you've never left, 00:35:49.730 --> 00:35:52.670 align:middle line:84% that you've always returned to, and that you still return 00:35:52.670 --> 00:35:54.960 align:middle line:90% to who remain important to you? 00:35:54.960 --> 00:35:55.460 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:35:55.460 --> 00:35:57.612 align:middle line:90% Thomas Hardy is one. 00:35:57.612 --> 00:35:58.112 align:middle line:90% And-- 00:35:58.112 --> 00:35:59.096 align:middle line:90% Good choice. 00:35:59.096 --> 00:36:05.870 align:middle line:84% And then I loved early Celtic and Chinese poetry. 00:36:05.870 --> 00:36:10.920 align:middle line:84% And for some reason, I've always liked poetry in translation. 00:36:10.920 --> 00:36:16.460 align:middle line:84% So I like that strange tone of the translator, even when it's 00:36:16.460 --> 00:36:19.190 align:middle line:84% bad, when it's too much or something. 00:36:19.190 --> 00:36:22.130 align:middle line:84% I think it's seductive and interesting. 00:36:22.130 --> 00:36:23.840 align:middle line:90% So I've read Baudelaire. 00:36:23.840 --> 00:36:27.050 align:middle line:84% I keep going back to the French surrealists. 00:36:27.050 --> 00:36:32.933 align:middle line:84% And, yeah, I love that period very much-- and Frank O'Hara. 00:36:32.933 --> 00:36:35.831 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:36:35.831 --> 00:36:43.090 align:middle line:90% 00:36:43.090 --> 00:36:45.790 align:middle line:90% What do you think-- 00:36:45.790 --> 00:36:48.510 align:middle line:90% so I'm curious what the job-- 00:36:48.510 --> 00:36:50.950 align:middle line:84% what you think the job is or the responsibility 00:36:50.950 --> 00:36:53.650 align:middle line:90% of the young poet is. 00:36:53.650 --> 00:36:57.100 align:middle line:84% What do the young poets need to attend to? 00:36:57.100 --> 00:37:00.040 align:middle line:90% Is it violence, or is it-- 00:37:00.040 --> 00:37:00.840 align:middle line:90% Oh. 00:37:00.840 --> 00:37:01.840 align:middle line:90% Oh, I see what you mean. 00:37:01.840 --> 00:37:03.775 align:middle line:84% You mean-- well, you should probably notice-- 00:37:03.775 --> 00:37:05.920 align:middle line:84% Or should we-- do you think there's-- 00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:11.500 align:middle line:84% I think it's your job to notice that injustice 00:37:11.500 --> 00:37:12.940 align:middle line:90% and to remark on it. 00:37:12.940 --> 00:37:16.510 align:middle line:90% You've got to include that. 00:37:16.510 --> 00:37:20.860 align:middle line:84% So that's as much everywhere as the spirit of poetry 00:37:20.860 --> 00:37:21.730 align:middle line:90% I'm talking about. 00:37:21.730 --> 00:37:26.260 align:middle line:84% There is-- the big, giant things are all being acted out every 00:37:26.260 --> 00:37:29.800 align:middle line:84% minute everywhere, on buses and on-- 00:37:29.800 --> 00:37:33.970 align:middle line:84% anywhere you go, you can see the imbalances 00:37:33.970 --> 00:37:35.740 align:middle line:90% and how unfair things are. 00:37:35.740 --> 00:37:40.240 align:middle line:84% So I think that has to be always in the context 00:37:40.240 --> 00:37:42.220 align:middle line:90% of your consciousness, really. 00:37:42.220 --> 00:37:46.510 align:middle line:84% You can't just leave it behind, or it would just be a fantasy. 00:37:46.510 --> 00:37:54.930 align:middle line:90% 00:37:54.930 --> 00:37:58.020 align:middle line:84% Now we've run out of steam here, I think. 00:37:58.020 --> 00:38:04.140 align:middle line:90% 00:38:04.140 --> 00:38:08.640 align:middle line:84% Hypothetical-- what would life be like for you 00:38:08.640 --> 00:38:12.870 align:middle line:84% if you unplugged your television set? 00:38:12.870 --> 00:38:14.520 align:middle line:90% It would be desolate. 00:38:14.520 --> 00:38:16.965 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:38:16.965 --> 00:38:30.660 align:middle line:90% 00:38:30.660 --> 00:38:33.990 align:middle line:84% I find interesting when you're talking about the narratives 00:38:33.990 --> 00:38:37.330 align:middle line:90% and these narratives. 00:38:37.330 --> 00:38:40.730 align:middle line:84% And yet, in your poetry, narrative 00:38:40.730 --> 00:38:44.390 align:middle line:84% is something that I would think of in terms 00:38:44.390 --> 00:38:49.130 align:middle line:84% more of the contemporary, as far as the fragmentation, 00:38:49.130 --> 00:38:51.590 align:middle line:84% the sort of more postmodern rather than 00:38:51.590 --> 00:38:54.770 align:middle line:84% late Victorian group of narrative. 00:38:54.770 --> 00:38:58.730 align:middle line:84% So, I mean, how do you reconcile, I guess, that, 00:38:58.730 --> 00:38:59.600 align:middle line:90% or is it just fine? 00:38:59.600 --> 00:39:02.660 align:middle line:84% Like, this is a place not for narrative, or it's OK, 00:39:02.660 --> 00:39:04.950 align:middle line:84% or whenever it comes in, that kind of thing. 00:39:04.950 --> 00:39:10.490 align:middle line:84% I don't even think I know that I'm being postmodern or-- 00:39:10.490 --> 00:39:14.750 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think I really just am listening all the time 00:39:14.750 --> 00:39:16.610 align:middle line:90% to the way people talk. 00:39:16.610 --> 00:39:20.990 align:middle line:84% And things drift off in completion in words. 00:39:20.990 --> 00:39:25.460 align:middle line:84% I mean, I really do love the way people talk to each other. 00:39:25.460 --> 00:39:30.140 align:middle line:84% That interests me a lot, just to be alert. 00:39:30.140 --> 00:39:32.840 align:middle line:84% So I'm sort of recording, but I don't ever 00:39:32.840 --> 00:39:38.760 align:middle line:84% think I'm part of some movement at all. 00:39:38.760 --> 00:39:42.230 align:middle line:90% I wish I did, but I don't. 00:39:42.230 --> 00:39:45.620 align:middle line:84% I guess, in narrative is something 00:39:45.620 --> 00:39:48.410 align:middle line:84% that would be structured and thought about and created 00:39:48.410 --> 00:39:53.750 align:middle line:84% in, say, a novel' or through the essay or something like that. 00:39:53.750 --> 00:39:58.040 align:middle line:84% But in poetry, that's just sort of a contemporary vibe, right? 00:39:58.040 --> 00:39:59.420 align:middle line:90% You can kind of meander. 00:39:59.420 --> 00:40:02.600 align:middle line:84% You don't have to structure in the same way you would 00:40:02.600 --> 00:40:05.630 align:middle line:84% a fictional narrative or a non-fictional narrative, 00:40:05.630 --> 00:40:07.790 align:middle line:90% something like that. 00:40:07.790 --> 00:40:12.560 align:middle line:84% But, I mean-- so those are very different modes, I guess. 00:40:12.560 --> 00:40:13.280 align:middle line:90% They are. 00:40:13.280 --> 00:40:17.420 align:middle line:84% But even in my fiction, I was very strange. 00:40:17.420 --> 00:40:24.300 align:middle line:90% So I think structure-- 00:40:24.300 --> 00:40:27.270 align:middle line:84% cramming things into a structure has never 00:40:27.270 --> 00:40:32.430 align:middle line:90% been the way I worked anyway. 00:40:32.430 --> 00:40:34.510 align:middle line:90% And I never had a-- 00:40:34.510 --> 00:40:37.050 align:middle line:84% I only have a high school degree, and I don't have-- 00:40:37.050 --> 00:40:40.350 align:middle line:84% I never had workshops or anything. 00:40:40.350 --> 00:40:45.270 align:middle line:84% So it's just a wild thing, just is write. 00:40:45.270 --> 00:40:46.590 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:40:46.590 --> 00:40:53.520 align:middle line:90% 00:40:53.520 --> 00:40:56.070 align:middle line:84% I imagine you've been through many Q&As. 00:40:56.070 --> 00:40:59.190 align:middle line:84% Is there a question you long to be asked that nobody's ever 00:40:59.190 --> 00:41:01.282 align:middle line:90% come up with? 00:41:01.282 --> 00:41:02.115 align:middle line:90% Do you want a drink? 00:41:02.115 --> 00:41:03.864 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:41:03.864 --> 00:41:07.280 align:middle line:90% 00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:10.220 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:41:10.220 --> 00:41:11.630 align:middle line:90% That's my question. 00:41:11.630 --> 00:41:14.160 align:middle line:90% 00:41:14.160 --> 00:41:15.180 align:middle line:90% Do you want a drink? 00:41:15.180 --> 00:41:16.102 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:41:16.102 --> 00:41:16.602 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:41:16.602 --> 00:41:19.920 align:middle line:90% 00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:21.840 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:41:21.840 --> 00:41:25.170 align:middle line:84% I had the privilege of hearing you read at UC Berkeley, 00:41:25.170 --> 00:41:27.570 align:middle line:84% I think, maybe like six years ago now. 00:41:27.570 --> 00:41:28.300 align:middle line:90% Right. 00:41:28.300 --> 00:41:30.130 align:middle line:90% Lyn Hejinian introduced me. 00:41:30.130 --> 00:41:30.630 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:41:30.630 --> 00:41:32.490 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:41:32.490 --> 00:41:35.007 align:middle line:84% And I asked you then if you thought there was a-- 00:41:35.007 --> 00:41:36.840 align:middle line:84% if you would talk about it or if you thought 00:41:36.840 --> 00:41:41.880 align:middle line:84% there was a correlation between certitude and evil. 00:41:41.880 --> 00:41:44.220 align:middle line:90% And you said, yes, there is. 00:41:44.220 --> 00:41:46.380 align:middle line:90% I think one makes the other. 00:41:46.380 --> 00:41:49.390 align:middle line:90% 00:41:49.390 --> 00:41:52.020 align:middle line:84% So to sort of piggyback on that, I've 00:41:52.020 --> 00:41:56.970 align:middle line:84% been thinking a lot lately about Keats' notion 00:41:56.970 --> 00:42:03.150 align:middle line:84% of negative capability and not irritably grasping 00:42:03.150 --> 00:42:06.150 align:middle line:84% after fact and reason and maybe that it's 00:42:06.150 --> 00:42:10.318 align:middle line:90% reaching for certitude and-- 00:42:10.318 --> 00:42:11.860 align:middle line:84% I guess I don't have a real question. 00:42:11.860 --> 00:42:13.900 align:middle line:84% But I wonder if you have anything 00:42:13.900 --> 00:42:15.410 align:middle line:90% to say about any of that. 00:42:15.410 --> 00:42:18.460 align:middle line:84% I think I still believe the same thing, 00:42:18.460 --> 00:42:20.680 align:middle line:84% that the dangerous people are the ones who 00:42:20.680 --> 00:42:21.970 align:middle line:90% are full of certainty. 00:42:21.970 --> 00:42:26.260 align:middle line:84% But I'm sure a million people have said that too. 00:42:26.260 --> 00:42:30.830 align:middle line:84% And the Keats thing reminds me a little bit of the way 00:42:30.830 --> 00:42:33.080 align:middle line:90% I'm thinking now about failure. 00:42:33.080 --> 00:42:36.530 align:middle line:84% And so now there's a negative thing, not as 00:42:36.530 --> 00:42:40.730 align:middle line:84% a negative part of the world but as 00:42:40.730 --> 00:42:45.080 align:middle line:84% something very real and kind of has its own honor. 00:42:45.080 --> 00:42:49.250 align:middle line:84% Beckett has a favorite quote of mine about failure. 00:42:49.250 --> 00:42:50.270 align:middle line:90% "Try again. 00:42:50.270 --> 00:42:51.380 align:middle line:90% Fail again. 00:42:51.380 --> 00:42:52.580 align:middle line:90% Fail better." 00:42:52.580 --> 00:42:53.990 align:middle line:90% Yeah, there we are. 00:42:53.990 --> 00:42:55.958 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:42:55.958 --> 00:43:00.880 align:middle line:90% 00:43:00.880 --> 00:43:03.730 align:middle line:84% So since this idea of failure is coming back up again 00:43:03.730 --> 00:43:07.450 align:middle line:84% and the concept of the beauty of failure-- 00:43:07.450 --> 00:43:10.630 align:middle line:84% and I'm sitting here thinking about how long you 00:43:10.630 --> 00:43:13.180 align:middle line:84% have written, all you have written, 00:43:13.180 --> 00:43:16.250 align:middle line:84% and with the idea of beauty of failure. 00:43:16.250 --> 00:43:18.610 align:middle line:84% But then I got to think of, now, what will she 00:43:18.610 --> 00:43:22.720 align:middle line:84% be writing next and in the future, and the beauty-- 00:43:22.720 --> 00:43:25.300 align:middle line:84% the idea of the concept of the beauty of failure 00:43:25.300 --> 00:43:27.010 align:middle line:90% to what you will be writing. 00:43:27.010 --> 00:43:29.230 align:middle line:84% And then I got back to the present, 00:43:29.230 --> 00:43:32.800 align:middle line:84% since you mentioned that, and this whole idea of the beauty 00:43:32.800 --> 00:43:36.850 align:middle line:84% of failure in your writing and how 00:43:36.850 --> 00:43:38.530 align:middle line:84% you deal with that, what you think 00:43:38.530 --> 00:43:44.080 align:middle line:84% about your own writing in those terms, the beauty of failure, 00:43:44.080 --> 00:43:48.520 align:middle line:84% the beauty of it, the failure of it, how they go together-- 00:43:48.520 --> 00:43:52.280 align:middle line:90% just some thoughts on that. 00:43:52.280 --> 00:43:54.340 align:middle line:84% Well, partly because I've just begun 00:43:54.340 --> 00:43:58.160 align:middle line:84% to think about this kind of failure 00:43:58.160 --> 00:44:02.230 align:middle line:84% as a real interesting phenomenon, 00:44:02.230 --> 00:44:03.610 align:middle line:90% not being a loser but-- 00:44:03.610 --> 00:44:04.210 align:middle line:90% No, no. 00:44:04.210 --> 00:44:09.740 align:middle line:84% No-- something else, sort of like entropy. 00:44:09.740 --> 00:44:12.260 align:middle line:90% I mean, it's built-in failure. 00:44:12.260 --> 00:44:13.630 align:middle line:90% And so I do-- 00:44:13.630 --> 00:44:15.550 align:middle line:84% I guess partly because of aging-- 00:44:15.550 --> 00:44:19.400 align:middle line:84% and let's just face it, you do begin to fail. 00:44:19.400 --> 00:44:22.000 align:middle line:90% And so I'm seeing it now more. 00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:26.230 align:middle line:84% I'm more aware of it in gestures and in what 00:44:26.230 --> 00:44:28.150 align:middle line:84% happens around me and politically 00:44:28.150 --> 00:44:32.960 align:middle line:84% and everywhere, that there is this phenomenon of failure, 00:44:32.960 --> 00:44:38.890 align:middle line:84% which is good when-- it often is very good to see it happen, 00:44:38.890 --> 00:44:43.360 align:middle line:84% because, in a way, if nothing works, then what a relief. 00:44:43.360 --> 00:44:44.470 align:middle line:90% Nothing works. 00:44:44.470 --> 00:44:46.190 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:44:46.190 --> 00:44:48.460 align:middle line:90% So when we write-- 00:44:48.460 --> 00:44:50.230 align:middle line:84% I'll just put it in the "we" now. 00:44:50.230 --> 00:44:53.080 align:middle line:84% When we write and when we fail, there can still 00:44:53.080 --> 00:44:55.870 align:middle line:84% be a beauty in that, I think, and I'm 00:44:55.870 --> 00:44:58.360 align:middle line:84% thinking that that's kind of what you're referring to. 00:44:58.360 --> 00:45:00.310 align:middle line:84% But I'm also knowing that you're referring 00:45:00.310 --> 00:45:05.560 align:middle line:84% to the old traumas, the things that have happened previously. 00:45:05.560 --> 00:45:09.670 align:middle line:84% And I heard you say that we can never quite get over that, 00:45:09.670 --> 00:45:11.230 align:middle line:90% and I agree. 00:45:11.230 --> 00:45:12.310 align:middle line:90% But we try. 00:45:12.310 --> 00:45:14.560 align:middle line:90% We try so hard. 00:45:14.560 --> 00:45:17.050 align:middle line:84% But there is beauty in that failure 00:45:17.050 --> 00:45:19.360 align:middle line:84% of not being able to get over that 00:45:19.360 --> 00:45:23.800 align:middle line:84% or not being able to write what we would love to write 00:45:23.800 --> 00:45:26.380 align:middle line:84% or what we think would be wonderful to write 00:45:26.380 --> 00:45:28.990 align:middle line:84% or what would really make us happy to write. 00:45:28.990 --> 00:45:31.150 align:middle line:90% But there's happiness in this. 00:45:31.150 --> 00:45:32.410 align:middle line:90% I heard you say that. 00:45:32.410 --> 00:45:34.306 align:middle line:90% Yeah, no, there is. 00:45:34.306 --> 00:45:34.806 align:middle line:90% There is. 00:45:34.806 --> 00:45:38.620 align:middle line:84% There's happiness just, first of all, being alive at all. 00:45:38.620 --> 00:45:47.450 align:middle line:84% But then I think the trauma thing is very interesting 00:45:47.450 --> 00:45:51.080 align:middle line:84% because most people have one central thing that 00:45:51.080 --> 00:45:53.330 align:middle line:84% happens in their life, and everything after that 00:45:53.330 --> 00:45:55.170 align:middle line:90% is swirling around it. 00:45:55.170 --> 00:45:59.960 align:middle line:84% And it's very-- you can't ever resolve that, whatever it was, 00:45:59.960 --> 00:46:01.130 align:middle line:90% that event. 00:46:01.130 --> 00:46:05.360 align:middle line:84% And so you're like in a tide pool forever, 00:46:05.360 --> 00:46:09.030 align:middle line:84% knocking up against the same things over and over again. 00:46:09.030 --> 00:46:14.240 align:middle line:84% But then it begins to form its own order around that, 00:46:14.240 --> 00:46:18.110 align:middle line:84% and that's sort of powerful to realize 00:46:18.110 --> 00:46:19.700 align:middle line:90% that that's what's happened. 00:46:19.700 --> 00:46:25.820 align:middle line:84% So then that hole or that space there becomes-- 00:46:25.820 --> 00:46:28.730 align:middle line:84% has its own mystery and force us. 00:46:28.730 --> 00:46:34.700 align:middle line:84% And rather than trying to solve it endlessly, just let it be. 00:46:34.700 --> 00:46:37.610 align:middle line:84% Let everything take shape around it. 00:46:37.610 --> 00:46:40.250 align:middle line:90% 00:46:40.250 --> 00:46:42.885 align:middle line:84% I think we have time for just one more question. 00:46:42.885 --> 00:46:43.760 align:middle line:90% Who's it going to be? 00:46:43.760 --> 00:46:49.070 align:middle line:90% 00:46:49.070 --> 00:46:52.640 align:middle line:84% I have a question about the book cover on your latest book, 00:46:52.640 --> 00:46:55.280 align:middle line:84% Come and See, because I know you had control over that. 00:46:55.280 --> 00:47:00.020 align:middle line:84% Can you kind of just talk about that process 00:47:00.020 --> 00:47:02.570 align:middle line:84% and how you came up with this concept? 00:47:02.570 --> 00:47:07.640 align:middle line:84% And I'm just really interested in the way that you shaped it, 00:47:07.640 --> 00:47:10.490 align:middle line:84% and it's really beautiful and perfect, I think. 00:47:10.490 --> 00:47:12.320 align:middle line:90% It's an incredible picture. 00:47:12.320 --> 00:47:16.910 align:middle line:84% Well, I was at a place in Italy, a retreat for artists, 00:47:16.910 --> 00:47:21.200 align:middle line:84% and this young woman was there who 00:47:21.200 --> 00:47:24.530 align:middle line:84% does video installation and all kinds of installations 00:47:24.530 --> 00:47:27.200 align:middle line:90% all over South East Asia. 00:47:27.200 --> 00:47:28.970 align:middle line:90% And she's very well known there. 00:47:28.970 --> 00:47:34.610 align:middle line:84% And she showed us on a video, and I saw this, and I said, 00:47:34.610 --> 00:47:37.740 align:middle line:90% it just says it all for me. 00:47:37.740 --> 00:47:41.690 align:middle line:84% And so I asked her if I could have it for the cover. 00:47:41.690 --> 00:47:47.630 align:middle line:84% And then it became so prominent as an image of-- 00:47:47.630 --> 00:47:52.220 align:middle line:84% well, each of those little dangling things 00:47:52.220 --> 00:47:55.670 align:middle line:84% are pieces of glass with blood in them 00:47:55.670 --> 00:47:58.880 align:middle line:84% from the people she was staying with in Cuba. 00:47:58.880 --> 00:48:02.160 align:middle line:84% It's a very-- got deep political message in it. 00:48:02.160 --> 00:48:07.760 align:middle line:84% But for me, it also is kind of beautiful 00:48:07.760 --> 00:48:11.420 align:middle line:84% because it's the bad suspended like that. 00:48:11.420 --> 00:48:16.220 align:middle line:90% It's so weird and surreal. 00:48:16.220 --> 00:48:21.140 align:middle line:84% So I was hoping to hit that note in the book. 00:48:21.140 --> 00:48:23.810 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:48:23.810 --> 00:48:26.020 align:middle line:84% Fanny, thank you so much for talking with us tonight. 00:48:26.020 --> 00:48:26.520 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:48:26.520 --> 00:48:27.220 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:48:27.220 --> 00:48:28.690 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:48:28.690 --> 00:48:31.600 align:middle line:90% Great questions. 00:48:31.600 --> 00:48:32.560 align:middle line:90% And thank you. 00:48:32.560 --> 00:48:33.880 align:middle line:90% Thank you, all, for your-- 00:48:33.880 --> 00:48:37.190 align:middle line:90% 00:48:37.190 --> 00:48:39.560 align:middle line:84% each of you had really, really great questions. 00:48:39.560 --> 00:48:41.520 align:middle line:84% You were a fabulous audience tonight. 00:48:41.520 --> 00:48:45.410 align:middle line:84% And please, come back tomorrow, 7 o'clock, and hear Fanny read. 00:48:45.410 --> 00:48:47.390 align:middle line:90% And buy a book tonight. 00:48:47.390 --> 00:48:48.470 align:middle line:90% She'll be happy to sign. 00:48:48.470 --> 00:48:50.500 align:middle line:90% OK, see you soon. 00:48:50.500 --> 00:48:51.000 align:middle line:90%