So this poem comes out of an experience with Stanley
And the two poems I'm going to read actually
are related to these poems I'm thinking
about as carbon-14 sonnets.
So when I first got here, I--
this library is amazing and just so
full of just-- you could never exhaust it, of course.
But one of the things I wanted to read about when I got here,
read and read about, is the sonnet because they're--
It's kind of a joke, but I actually will claim it.
There's a Sicilian poet named Giacomo da Lentini.
And Phillis Levin, who edited The Penguin
Book of the Sonnet, when I met her she was like,
are you related to Giacomo da Lentini?
And I was like, who is he?
And she said, well, he might be the inventor of the sonnet.
And I was like, sure, I'll take--
[LAUGHTER]
He's my uncle, yeah.
I don't know why I actually thought of him as my uncle
and not my great, to the 20th, grandfather.
But somehow.
I always had him one off to the side.
It feels more credible or something.
I don't know.
So ever since then, I really had it
in mind to think about sonnets and write some,
other than the one I wrote in high school.
[LAUGHTER]
And so when I got here, that was one of the first things I did.
I've been reading this book by Stephen Burt and David
Mikics, which is a book I really recommend to you.
It's incredible.
And so I'm thinking, in one drawer of my mind,
about sonnets.
And then, part of the time, I'm going over
to the atmospheric sciences building
and talking to Greg Hodgins about carbon 14 and over there,
thinking about this stuff.
And then it took me two weeks, [LAUGHS]
actually, to notice the 14ness of both of those things.
[LAUGHTER] And I was just like, oh, my God,
I have to write some carbon-14 sonnets.
And that came when I was talking to Rich in the downstairs lab,
and he was like, carbon 14 has six protons and eight neutrons.
And I was like, it's like the sonnet.
[LAUGHTER]
So anyway, so I've just been thinking about that.
And I want to write a crown of sonnets that, in some way,
engages with carbon 14.
And then playing with some existing work
and rethinking them.
And so these are two sonnets that are now--
they're now sonnets.
[CLEARS THROAT]
Not in the body.
Maybe coming up off it.
Vapor lightly hanging.
Who was it I watched that night at the podium,
while the body at home, the first body, in its damp cloak
coughed.
Tubercular, loose, wet cough.
But there was no catch in the second body's throat.
The second body spoke, clear-voiced.
It's true, it almost tipped over once, leaning.
But still, for 20 minutes, it stayed upright,
while the other body lay between night-sweat sheets.
The other body had, in fact, even died once,
already, almost.
But a projection still shown from it.
When I held her animal head, it kept its heat
for I don't know how long, minutes or hours.
And it was lighter.
And I wanted to feel what weight was left,
until all the warmth was gone.
As even now, I will still unzip my mother's makeup bag
and breathe in the coalescence of scent unmistakably hers.
And now she is almost gone from there.