WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.750 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.750 --> 00:00:07.080 align:middle line:84% Also, this afternoon in my meeting with students, 00:00:07.080 --> 00:00:11.820 align:middle line:84% we mentioned the Sestina, which is a form that I sometimes 00:00:11.820 --> 00:00:13.650 align:middle line:84% assign to students because I feel 00:00:13.650 --> 00:00:17.730 align:middle line:84% that it's constrictions actually have a liberating effect 00:00:17.730 --> 00:00:22.120 align:middle line:84% rather than what you might think. 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:25.980 align:middle line:84% And it's a form in which there are six stanzas each 00:00:25.980 --> 00:00:27.150 align:middle line:90% with six lines. 00:00:27.150 --> 00:00:31.140 align:middle line:84% And there are the word at the end of each of the six lines 00:00:31.140 --> 00:00:35.850 align:middle line:84% is repeated in a complicated fugro pattern 00:00:35.850 --> 00:00:38.700 align:middle line:84% until the end when you have a short three line 00:00:38.700 --> 00:00:42.570 align:middle line:84% stanza in which you fit both of them into two of them 00:00:42.570 --> 00:00:43.350 align:middle line:90% into one line. 00:00:43.350 --> 00:00:46.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:46.720 --> 00:00:48.840 align:middle line:90% And this one is about Popeye. 00:00:48.840 --> 00:00:52.800 align:middle line:84% And for those who would like to follow 00:00:52.800 --> 00:01:01.470 align:middle line:84% the fluctuations of the Sestina, the words that are repeated 00:01:01.470 --> 00:01:04.800 align:middle line:84% are thunder apartment country, pleasant, scratched, 00:01:04.800 --> 00:01:07.350 align:middle line:90% and spinach. 00:01:07.350 --> 00:01:10.740 align:middle line:84% The title Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape. 00:01:10.740 --> 00:01:13.430 align:middle line:90% 00:01:13.430 --> 00:01:17.170 align:middle line:84% The first of the undecoded messages read. 00:01:17.170 --> 00:01:19.960 align:middle line:84% Popeye sits in thunder unthought of. 00:01:19.960 --> 00:01:22.480 align:middle line:84% From that shoebox of an apartment, 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:28.850 align:middle line:84% from livid curtains hugh, a tan Grammy emerges, a country. 00:01:28.850 --> 00:01:32.560 align:middle line:84% Meanwhile, a sea hag was relaxing on a green couch. 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:35.605 align:middle line:84% How pleasant to spend one's vacation in La Casa de papy 00:01:35.605 --> 00:01:37.060 align:middle line:90% Popeye. 00:01:37.060 --> 00:01:41.800 align:middle line:84% She scratched her cliff chin solitary hair. 00:01:41.800 --> 00:01:44.410 align:middle line:84% She remembered spinach and was going to ask Wimpy 00:01:44.410 --> 00:01:47.000 align:middle line:90% if he had bought any spinach. 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:49.330 align:middle line:90% My love, he intercepted. 00:01:49.330 --> 00:01:51.530 align:middle line:84% The planes are decked out in thunder. today. 00:01:51.530 --> 00:01:53.290 align:middle line:90% And it should be as you wish. 00:01:53.290 --> 00:01:56.660 align:middle line:84% He scratched the part of his head under his hat. 00:01:56.660 --> 00:01:59.650 align:middle line:84% The apartment seemed to grow smaller. 00:01:59.650 --> 00:02:01.630 align:middle line:84% But what if no pleasant inspiration 00:02:01.630 --> 00:02:06.100 align:middle line:84% plunge us now to the stars for this is my country? 00:02:06.100 --> 00:02:09.280 align:middle line:84% Suddenly, they remembered how it was cheaper in the country. 00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:13.420 align:middle line:84% Wimpy was thoughtfully cutting open a no two can of spinach. 00:02:13.420 --> 00:02:16.540 align:middle line:84% When the door opened and Sweet Pea crept in. 00:02:16.540 --> 00:02:20.560 align:middle line:84% How pleasant, but Sweet Pea looked morose. 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:23.500 align:middle line:90% A note was pinned to his bib. 00:02:23.500 --> 00:02:26.380 align:middle line:84% Thunder and tears are unavailing, it read. 00:02:26.380 --> 00:02:28.780 align:middle line:84% Henceforth, show Popeye's apartment 00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:32.260 align:middle line:84% be, but remembered space toxic or salubrious whole 00:02:32.260 --> 00:02:35.110 align:middle line:90% or scratched. 00:02:35.110 --> 00:02:37.300 align:middle line:84% Olive came hurtling through the window. 00:02:37.300 --> 00:02:40.960 align:middle line:84% Its geraniums scratched her long thigh. 00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:42.700 align:middle line:90% I have news she gasped. 00:02:42.700 --> 00:02:45.670 align:middle line:84% Popeye Faust as to flee the country one 00:02:45.670 --> 00:02:48.160 align:middle line:84% must see gusty evening by the screams 00:02:48.160 --> 00:02:50.290 align:middle line:90% of his wizened duplicate father. 00:02:50.290 --> 00:02:53.980 align:middle line:84% Jealous of the apartment and all that it contains myself 00:02:53.980 --> 00:02:55.990 align:middle line:90% and spinach in particular. 00:02:55.990 --> 00:02:58.240 align:middle line:84% Heaves bolts of loving thunder at his own 00:02:58.240 --> 00:03:01.540 align:middle line:84% astonished becoming rupturing the pleasant arpeggio 00:03:01.540 --> 00:03:02.920 align:middle line:90% of our years. 00:03:02.920 --> 00:03:05.020 align:middle line:84% No more show pleasant rays of the sun 00:03:05.020 --> 00:03:07.120 align:middle line:84% refresh your sense of growing old. 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:09.370 align:middle line:84% Now, the scratched tree trunks and mossy 00:03:09.370 --> 00:03:13.870 align:middle line:84% foliage only immaculate darkness and thunder. 00:03:13.870 --> 00:03:15.370 align:middle line:90% She grabbed Sweet Pea. 00:03:15.370 --> 00:03:18.190 align:middle line:84% I'm taking the Brat to the country. 00:03:18.190 --> 00:03:19.840 align:middle line:84% But you can't do that he hasn't even 00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:23.650 align:middle line:84% finished his spinach urged the sea hag looking fearfully 00:03:23.650 --> 00:03:26.020 align:middle line:90% around the apartment. 00:03:26.020 --> 00:03:29.170 align:middle line:84% But olive was already out of earshot. 00:03:29.170 --> 00:03:33.130 align:middle line:84% Now, the apartment succumbed to a strange new hush. 00:03:33.130 --> 00:03:36.940 align:middle line:84% Actually, it's quite pleasant here thought to see hag. 00:03:36.940 --> 00:03:39.280 align:middle line:84% If this is all we need fear from spinach, 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:41.170 align:middle line:90% then I don't mind so much. 00:03:41.170 --> 00:03:44.410 align:middle line:84% Perhaps, we could invite Alice the goon over. 00:03:44.410 --> 00:03:47.170 align:middle line:84% She scratched one Doug pensively. 00:03:47.170 --> 00:03:50.170 align:middle line:84% But Wimpy is such a country bumpkin always burping 00:03:50.170 --> 00:03:51.890 align:middle line:90% like that. 00:03:51.890 --> 00:03:53.470 align:middle line:84% I knew it at first, the thunder's 00:03:53.470 --> 00:03:55.450 align:middle line:90% soon filled the apartment. 00:03:55.450 --> 00:03:59.290 align:middle line:84% It was domestic thunder, the color of spinach. 00:03:59.290 --> 00:04:01.930 align:middle line:84% Popeye chuckled and scratched his balls. 00:04:01.930 --> 00:04:04.465 align:middle line:84% It sure was pleasant to spend the day in the country. 00:04:04.465 --> 00:04:21.200 align:middle line:90% 00:04:21.200 --> 00:04:23.350 align:middle line:84% I think the influence on that poem 00:04:23.350 --> 00:04:26.890 align:middle line:84% was a play I read in French class 00:04:26.890 --> 00:04:30.850 align:middle line:84% in high school are lazy in, which I often study, 00:04:30.850 --> 00:04:34.210 align:middle line:84% which is about a woman who's the main character in this play. 00:04:34.210 --> 00:04:36.520 align:middle line:90% But who never appears in it. 00:04:36.520 --> 00:04:41.920 align:middle line:84% Everybody acts in function to her. 00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:46.360 align:middle line:90% But she like Popeye proposes. 00:04:46.360 --> 00:04:50.730 align:middle line:84% And man does the other way around. 00:04:50.730 --> 00:04:54.087 align:middle line:90%