WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.050 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.050 --> 00:00:03.435 align:middle line:84% Thank you Allie and thank you everyone here. 00:00:03.435 --> 00:00:11.700 align:middle line:90% 00:00:11.700 --> 00:00:15.390 align:middle line:90% So nice to see everybody. 00:00:15.390 --> 00:00:18.360 align:middle line:84% From so many different aspects of my life too 00:00:18.360 --> 00:00:19.830 align:middle line:84% it's amazing like how many people 00:00:19.830 --> 00:00:23.990 align:middle line:84% manage to be here in this place where I've never been before. 00:00:23.990 --> 00:00:27.510 align:middle line:84% I would seem to have lit like to live, I don't know. 00:00:27.510 --> 00:00:30.270 align:middle line:84% It's seems like I lived here all along and then just 00:00:30.270 --> 00:00:32.310 align:middle line:90% finally got here. 00:00:32.310 --> 00:00:35.910 align:middle line:90% 00:00:35.910 --> 00:00:40.230 align:middle line:84% I have so much gratitude for the opportunity 00:00:40.230 --> 00:00:41.970 align:middle line:90% to have this residency. 00:00:41.970 --> 00:00:47.130 align:middle line:84% It's been a huge gift, and so I have gratitude 00:00:47.130 --> 00:00:49.630 align:middle line:90% for so many specific people. 00:00:49.630 --> 00:00:55.050 align:middle line:84% And I just want to say first to the Poetry Center staff 00:00:55.050 --> 00:00:58.830 align:middle line:84% and to Ali in particular who has seen 00:00:58.830 --> 00:01:01.350 align:middle line:84% to so many different details and to the librarians 00:01:01.350 --> 00:01:06.420 align:middle line:84% and to everyone who just keeps this place open for people, 00:01:06.420 --> 00:01:08.880 align:middle line:90% it's just a huge gift. 00:01:08.880 --> 00:01:12.840 align:middle line:84% And to Gretchen Gibbs and Greg Hodgins 00:01:12.840 --> 00:01:18.780 align:middle line:84% who I met in San Francisco and who really sort of opened 00:01:18.780 --> 00:01:21.510 align:middle line:84% the door to coming here in some ways 00:01:21.510 --> 00:01:25.650 align:middle line:84% and just have been so warm and welcoming and helpful. 00:01:25.650 --> 00:01:30.840 align:middle line:84% And Greg Hodgins in the accelerator mass spectrometry 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:36.000 align:middle line:84% lab has just really just allowed me 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:39.930 align:middle line:84% to just roam around and just watch people 00:01:39.930 --> 00:01:42.570 align:middle line:84% do stuff and talk to people and ask him 00:01:42.570 --> 00:01:44.670 align:middle line:90% questions about carbon-14. 00:01:44.670 --> 00:01:49.350 align:middle line:84% And so I'll talk a little more about that in a minute. 00:01:49.350 --> 00:01:52.200 align:middle line:84% Also to Ander Monson, I don't think he's here tonight. 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:53.340 align:middle line:90% It's his anniversary. 00:01:53.340 --> 00:01:55.620 align:middle line:84% We can wish him happy anniversary. 00:01:55.620 --> 00:01:57.450 align:middle line:84% But he was the editor of my chapbook, 00:01:57.450 --> 00:02:01.440 align:middle line:84% and he just is such an incredible editor 00:02:01.440 --> 00:02:06.930 align:middle line:84% and so attentive to every little space that I was asking for 00:02:06.930 --> 00:02:09.400 align:middle line:84% and just really wonderful person. 00:02:09.400 --> 00:02:14.010 align:middle line:84% So it's great to actually get to meet him in person. 00:02:14.010 --> 00:02:17.400 align:middle line:84% And also it's great to read with Chris just 00:02:17.400 --> 00:02:21.960 align:middle line:84% to come into the space that your poems create, 00:02:21.960 --> 00:02:27.090 align:middle line:84% just this incredible like the richness of the quiet of them. 00:02:27.090 --> 00:02:30.570 align:middle line:84% I feel like I listen to your poems like this. 00:02:30.570 --> 00:02:35.520 align:middle line:84% I listen to them again like as I'm hearing the lines to let 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:41.190 align:middle line:84% them settle or something, and also to the jury 00:02:41.190 --> 00:02:44.860 align:middle line:84% for selecting my proposal because that 00:02:44.860 --> 00:02:48.510 align:middle line:84% is just-- so many people could be here 00:02:48.510 --> 00:02:52.540 align:middle line:84% and I just feel just massively fortunate to be here. 00:02:52.540 --> 00:02:54.540 align:middle line:84% And thank you to everyone for the various pieces 00:02:54.540 --> 00:02:57.960 align:middle line:90% of advice about the heat. 00:02:57.960 --> 00:03:00.780 align:middle line:84% So that I am actually alive here today to read 00:03:00.780 --> 00:03:02.880 align:middle line:90% these poems to you. 00:03:02.880 --> 00:03:07.155 align:middle line:84% So thank you to Ann for coming from Paradise Valley. 00:03:07.155 --> 00:03:12.810 align:middle line:90% 00:03:12.810 --> 00:03:16.290 align:middle line:84% When I wrote to apply to come here 00:03:16.290 --> 00:03:18.750 align:middle line:84% I said that I wanted to investigate time 00:03:18.750 --> 00:03:19.600 align:middle line:90% in different ways. 00:03:19.600 --> 00:03:24.690 align:middle line:84% And one of the ways it's through learning about carbon 00:03:24.690 --> 00:03:26.520 align:middle line:90% dating through Greg Hodgins. 00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:30.570 align:middle line:84% And so just even before getting to that, 00:03:30.570 --> 00:03:33.330 align:middle line:84% just to explore the sense of time as it 00:03:33.330 --> 00:03:34.740 align:middle line:90% relates to the feeling of home. 00:03:34.740 --> 00:03:38.250 align:middle line:90% 00:03:38.250 --> 00:03:39.900 align:middle line:84% Ever since I arrived here, I just 00:03:39.900 --> 00:03:42.900 align:middle line:84% felt such a sense of density of connection. 00:03:42.900 --> 00:03:45.278 align:middle line:84% And it is actually impossible for me 00:03:45.278 --> 00:03:47.070 align:middle line:84% to believe I've only been here three weeks. 00:03:47.070 --> 00:03:49.960 align:middle line:84% I don't even begin to understand how that works. 00:03:49.960 --> 00:03:52.860 align:middle line:84% So before I can even think about anything else related 00:03:52.860 --> 00:03:55.620 align:middle line:84% to time, just how that works on your attention 00:03:55.620 --> 00:03:59.340 align:middle line:84% is so rewarded and dilated that time 00:03:59.340 --> 00:04:00.690 align:middle line:90% itself just really changes. 00:04:00.690 --> 00:04:05.070 align:middle line:90% 00:04:05.070 --> 00:04:06.900 align:middle line:84% The first couple of poems I'm going to read 00:04:06.900 --> 00:04:11.610 align:middle line:84% address that sense of home and in relation to the poet 00:04:11.610 --> 00:04:14.172 align:middle line:84% Stanley Kunitz with whom I worked for six years. 00:04:14.172 --> 00:04:16.769 align:middle line:90% 00:04:16.769 --> 00:04:19.050 align:middle line:84% And somehow I'm reading about the Poetry Center. 00:04:19.050 --> 00:04:25.860 align:middle line:84% I hadn't quite come across Stanley in the various things. 00:04:25.860 --> 00:04:28.650 align:middle line:84% And then when I got here I opened the book of the stuff 00:04:28.650 --> 00:04:31.440 align:middle line:84% about the cottage and, of course, 00:04:31.440 --> 00:04:33.750 align:middle line:84% Stanley gave the first reading in the reading series. 00:04:33.750 --> 00:04:35.040 align:middle line:90% And I just had to laugh. 00:04:35.040 --> 00:04:39.330 align:middle line:84% And it was such a moment of deep affection 00:04:39.330 --> 00:04:42.660 align:middle line:84% because he just always managed to be places first. 00:04:42.660 --> 00:04:44.820 align:middle line:84% He was just like in the first group at Yaddo 00:04:44.820 --> 00:04:50.188 align:middle line:84% and I was with him at Chautauqua and the radio host was like, 00:04:50.188 --> 00:04:52.230 align:middle line:84% you need to put this standing mic in front of him 00:04:52.230 --> 00:04:54.440 align:middle line:84% and he said, do you know-- do you know how to use one 00:04:54.440 --> 00:04:54.940 align:middle line:90% of these? 00:04:54.940 --> 00:04:58.320 align:middle line:84% He's like, I was around when they were invented. 00:04:58.320 --> 00:05:01.230 align:middle line:84% So just that sense like, of course, Stanley 00:05:01.230 --> 00:05:05.490 align:middle line:84% was here and just that sense of continuity that that provided 00:05:05.490 --> 00:05:07.200 align:middle line:90% and the feeling of home. 00:05:07.200 --> 00:05:09.120 align:middle line:84% And I was thinking that one definition of home 00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:11.790 align:middle line:84% for me is like a feeling of resetting, 00:05:11.790 --> 00:05:17.370 align:middle line:84% like where you get reset and you come back to connection 00:05:17.370 --> 00:05:21.570 align:middle line:84% with your deepest intentions and your ability to 00:05:21.570 --> 00:05:25.810 align:middle line:84% or at least your remote ability to access them. 00:05:25.810 --> 00:05:31.140 align:middle line:84% So maybe in the sense of agency, kind of uncanny agency 00:05:31.140 --> 00:05:34.440 align:middle line:84% comes with a feeling of home I think. 00:05:34.440 --> 00:05:39.750 align:middle line:84% So I'm going to read a couple of poems that are dedicated 00:05:39.750 --> 00:05:42.840 align:middle line:84% to Stanley and then just looking ahead, I'm 00:05:42.840 --> 00:05:45.990 align:middle line:84% going to read from these projects that 00:05:45.990 --> 00:05:47.490 align:middle line:90% are all linked in a way. 00:05:47.490 --> 00:05:49.650 align:middle line:84% One of them deals with the feathered dinosaur, 00:05:49.650 --> 00:05:53.905 align:middle line:84% one deals with carbon dating and one deals with drawing-- 00:05:53.905 --> 00:05:56.280 align:middle line:84% going to figure drawing groups and writing from the model 00:05:56.280 --> 00:05:58.170 align:middle line:90% instead of drawing. 00:05:58.170 --> 00:06:03.510 align:middle line:84% And so that's what we have ahead of us. 00:06:03.510 --> 00:06:09.240 align:middle line:84% I want to read the first a passage from the Wild Braid. 00:06:09.240 --> 00:06:12.330 align:middle line:84% So this is a book that Stanley and I wrote together 00:06:12.330 --> 00:06:14.640 align:middle line:90% over a couple of years. 00:06:14.640 --> 00:06:16.710 align:middle line:84% Came out of conversations we had and it also 00:06:16.710 --> 00:06:25.200 align:middle line:84% includes some of his very most loved poems. 00:06:25.200 --> 00:06:29.430 align:middle line:84% This one I'll read this last paragraph 00:06:29.430 --> 00:06:31.620 align:middle line:84% just because it deals with gratitude and the sense 00:06:31.620 --> 00:06:34.883 align:middle line:90% of connection with poetry. 00:06:34.883 --> 00:06:37.050 align:middle line:84% And this is coming from someone who's 100 years old. 00:06:37.050 --> 00:06:41.010 align:middle line:84% So he has some say in talking about what you do when 00:06:41.010 --> 00:06:42.790 align:middle line:90% you look back on a lifetime. 00:06:42.790 --> 00:06:44.970 align:middle line:84% So when you look back on a lifetime 00:06:44.970 --> 00:06:47.190 align:middle line:84% and think of what has been given to the world 00:06:47.190 --> 00:06:50.250 align:middle line:84% by your presence, your fugitive presence, 00:06:50.250 --> 00:06:52.260 align:middle line:84% inevitably you think of your art, 00:06:52.260 --> 00:06:55.110 align:middle line:84% whatever it may be as the gift you have made 00:06:55.110 --> 00:06:57.390 align:middle line:84% to the world in acknowledgment of the gift you 00:06:57.390 --> 00:07:01.180 align:middle line:84% have been given, which is the life itself. 00:07:01.180 --> 00:07:02.910 align:middle line:84% And I think the world tends to forget 00:07:02.910 --> 00:07:05.910 align:middle line:84% that this is the ultimate significance, the body of work 00:07:05.910 --> 00:07:08.040 align:middle line:90% each artist produces. 00:07:08.040 --> 00:07:10.950 align:middle line:84% That work is not an expression of the desire for praise 00:07:10.950 --> 00:07:14.790 align:middle line:84% or recognition or prizes, but the deepest manifestation 00:07:14.790 --> 00:07:18.350 align:middle line:84% of your gratitude for the gift of life. 00:07:18.350 --> 00:07:24.090 align:middle line:84% So this one is open with that because I'm so 00:07:24.090 --> 00:07:26.990 align:middle line:84% filled with the gratitude of this moment.