WEBVTT

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So this poem comes out of
an experience with Stanley

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And the two poems I'm
going to read actually

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are related to these
poems I'm thinking

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about as carbon-14 sonnets.

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So when I first got here, I--

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this library is
amazing and just so

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full of just-- you could
never exhaust it, of course.

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But one of the things I wanted
to read about when I got here,

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read and read about, is the
sonnet because they're--

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It's kind of a joke, but
I actually will claim it.

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There's a Sicilian poet
named Giacomo da Lentini.

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And Phillis Levin,
who edited The Penguin

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Book of the Sonnet, when
I met her she was like,

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are you related to
Giacomo da Lentini?

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And I was like, who is he?

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And she said, well, he might
be the inventor of the sonnet.

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And I was like,
sure, I'll take--

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[LAUGHTER]

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He's my uncle, yeah.

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I don't know why I actually
thought of him as my uncle

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and not my great, to
the 20th, grandfather.

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But somehow.

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I always had him
one off to the side.

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It feels more
credible or something.

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I don't know.

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So ever since then,
I really had it

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in mind to think about
sonnets and write some,

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other than the one I
wrote in high school.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And so when I got here, that was
one of the first things I did.

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I've been reading this book
by Stephen Burt and David

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Mikics, which is a book I
really recommend to you.

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It's incredible.

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And so I'm thinking, in
one drawer of my mind,

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about sonnets.

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And then, part of the
time, I'm going over

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to the atmospheric
sciences building

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and talking to Greg Hodgins
about carbon 14 and over there,

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thinking about this stuff.

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And then it took me
two weeks, [LAUGHS]

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actually, to notice the 14ness
of both of those things.

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[LAUGHTER] And I was
just like, oh, my God,

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I have to write some
carbon-14 sonnets.

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And that came when I was talking
to Rich in the downstairs lab,

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and he was like, carbon 14 has
six protons and eight neutrons.

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And I was like, it's
like the sonnet.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So anyway, so I've just
been thinking about that.

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And I want to write a crown
of sonnets that, in some way,

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engages with carbon 14.

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And then playing with
some existing work

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and rethinking them.

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And so these are two
sonnets that are now--

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they're now sonnets.

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[CLEARS THROAT]

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Not in the body.

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Maybe coming up off it.

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Vapor lightly hanging.

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Who was it I watched
that night at the podium,

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while the body at home, the
first body, in its damp cloak

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coughed.

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Tubercular, loose, wet cough.

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But there was no catch in
the second body's throat.

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The second body
spoke, clear-voiced.

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It's true, it almost
tipped over once, leaning.

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But still, for 20 minutes,
it stayed upright,

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while the other body lay
between night-sweat sheets.

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The other body had, in
fact, even died once,

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already, almost.

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But a projection
still shown from it.

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When I held her animal
head, it kept its heat

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for I don't know how
long, minutes or hours.

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And it was lighter.

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And I wanted to feel
what weight was left,

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until all the warmth was gone.

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As even now, I will still
unzip my mother's makeup bag

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and breathe in the coalescence
of scent unmistakably hers.

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And now she is almost
gone from there.

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