WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.170 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.170 --> 00:00:02.027 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:00:02.027 --> 00:00:03.160 align:middle line:90% Do you live in the Bay? 00:00:03.160 --> 00:00:03.660 align:middle line:90% What? 00:00:03.660 --> 00:00:04.722 align:middle line:90% Do you live in the Bay? 00:00:04.722 --> 00:00:05.305 align:middle line:90% San Francisco. 00:00:05.305 --> 00:00:07.078 align:middle line:90% Do you live in the city? 00:00:07.078 --> 00:00:08.620 align:middle line:84% Well I'm living-- I live in the city. 00:00:08.620 --> 00:00:12.414 align:middle line:84% But I'm now contemplating moving into Santa Cruz. 00:00:12.414 --> 00:00:15.560 align:middle line:84% In fact, I'm trying to buy some land down there, 00:00:15.560 --> 00:00:17.270 align:middle line:90% and move out to the country. 00:00:17.270 --> 00:00:19.420 align:middle line:84% But I've been in the city for a long time. 00:00:19.420 --> 00:00:22.850 align:middle line:84% I did here-- I'm sort of guest voice at the University 00:00:22.850 --> 00:00:24.770 align:middle line:90% of California Santa Cruz. 00:00:24.770 --> 00:00:27.200 align:middle line:84% And I think I like it so much, I'm 00:00:27.200 --> 00:00:30.120 align:middle line:90% thinking of moving down there. 00:00:30.120 --> 00:00:30.780 align:middle line:90% Yes? 00:00:30.780 --> 00:00:33.910 align:middle line:84% If you were not a poet, what would you do? 00:00:33.910 --> 00:00:35.150 align:middle line:90% What would you desire to-- 00:00:35.150 --> 00:00:38.496 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:38.496 --> 00:00:40.410 align:middle line:90% 00:00:40.410 --> 00:00:41.400 align:middle line:90% Well, I don't know. 00:00:41.400 --> 00:00:43.665 align:middle line:84% I'm a sort of protean man of the art, that 00:00:43.665 --> 00:00:46.140 align:middle line:84% is, I'm very fond of the visual arts. 00:00:46.140 --> 00:00:47.640 align:middle line:90% And the fact that if-- 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:49.350 align:middle line:84% apart from the fact that I can't draw, 00:00:49.350 --> 00:00:52.530 align:middle line:84% and I have no acquired skills in it, I do a lot of prologue 00:00:52.530 --> 00:00:55.290 align:middle line:84% and a lot of graphic and design work. 00:00:55.290 --> 00:00:57.750 align:middle line:84% And I also worked in the theater for years. 00:00:57.750 --> 00:01:01.260 align:middle line:84% I worked professionally, as an actor, for many years. 00:01:01.260 --> 00:01:04.620 align:middle line:84% And but, I don't like the life of the theater, that's all. 00:01:04.620 --> 00:01:08.340 align:middle line:84% The fact that you have to keep moving, and go from one company 00:01:08.340 --> 00:01:08.930 align:middle line:90% to another. 00:01:08.930 --> 00:01:10.950 align:middle line:90% It's not stable. 00:01:10.950 --> 00:01:14.120 align:middle line:84% The employment conditions in the theater are not very good. 00:01:14.120 --> 00:01:15.780 align:middle line:84% Unless you're very much at the top. 00:01:15.780 --> 00:01:18.400 align:middle line:90% You can write your own things. 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:18.900 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:01:18.900 --> 00:01:21.150 align:middle line:84% If that's so, what are employment conditions 00:01:21.150 --> 00:01:22.265 align:middle line:90% as a poet? 00:01:22.265 --> 00:01:23.340 align:middle line:90% Well, they're better. 00:01:23.340 --> 00:01:24.840 align:middle line:84% They're getting better all the time. 00:01:24.840 --> 00:01:27.473 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:27.473 --> 00:01:29.640 align:middle line:84% Obviously the poet doesn't make any money in America 00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:32.280 align:middle line:90% by selling poems. 00:01:32.280 --> 00:01:33.070 align:middle line:90% And that's a fact. 00:01:33.070 --> 00:01:35.460 align:middle line:84% But there is a good deal of interest 00:01:35.460 --> 00:01:37.437 align:middle line:84% here in the universities, for readings, 00:01:37.437 --> 00:01:39.520 align:middle line:84% and for guest lecture-ships, and things like that. 00:01:39.520 --> 00:01:40.970 align:middle line:90% So that you can scrape by. 00:01:40.970 --> 00:01:44.057 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:44.057 --> 00:01:45.140 align:middle line:90% I mean, this is very nice. 00:01:45.140 --> 00:01:47.300 align:middle line:84% As we say, it is a very nice gig, right here. 00:01:47.300 --> 00:01:48.264 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:48.264 --> 00:01:50.387 align:middle line:90% I've been here for three days. 00:01:50.387 --> 00:01:50.970 align:middle line:90% Very pleasant. 00:01:50.970 --> 00:01:51.928 align:middle line:90% They're paying me well. 00:01:51.928 --> 00:01:52.890 align:middle line:90% They take care of me. 00:01:52.890 --> 00:01:53.580 align:middle line:90% They feed me. 00:01:53.580 --> 00:01:54.610 align:middle line:90% They got me a car. 00:01:54.610 --> 00:01:59.785 align:middle line:84% And Friday I'm doing University of New Mexico, and Albuquerque, 00:01:59.785 --> 00:02:00.410 align:middle line:90% and read there. 00:02:00.410 --> 00:02:01.770 align:middle line:90% And I'm going home again. 00:02:01.770 --> 00:02:04.800 align:middle line:84% Actually, a lot of the folks who are fairly good readers, 00:02:04.800 --> 00:02:08.669 align:middle line:84% are now able to make a passable living giving 00:02:08.669 --> 00:02:11.937 align:middle line:90% readings or holding workshops. 00:02:11.937 --> 00:02:14.020 align:middle line:84% Two or three months out a year, around the country 00:02:14.020 --> 00:02:16.830 align:middle line:90% at universities. 00:02:16.830 --> 00:02:18.000 align:middle line:90% So, while it's not-- 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:20.160 align:middle line:90% you don't get rich at it. 00:02:20.160 --> 00:02:20.970 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:20.970 --> 00:02:23.500 align:middle line:90% It's not bad. 00:02:23.500 --> 00:02:24.360 align:middle line:90% Survival, anyway. 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:26.100 align:middle line:84% And that we get to talk to all you. 00:02:26.100 --> 00:02:27.842 align:middle line:90% You know, which is fun. 00:02:27.842 --> 00:02:28.342 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:02:28.342 --> 00:02:33.390 align:middle line:84% We have the impression that a great deal of activity 00:02:33.390 --> 00:02:38.850 align:middle line:84% has been for some time in Central Europe, and quite 00:02:38.850 --> 00:02:40.840 align:middle line:90% simply Russia. 00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:42.960 align:middle line:90% We can't get the chandelier. 00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:44.572 align:middle line:90% The architecture. 00:02:44.572 --> 00:02:49.850 align:middle line:84% How they had the football stadium. 00:02:49.850 --> 00:02:54.560 align:middle line:84% Now most of this has the political-- most 00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:57.740 align:middle line:84% of this poetry has a political influence. 00:02:57.740 --> 00:03:01.880 align:middle line:84% You see the activity that has come 00:03:01.880 --> 00:03:07.970 align:middle line:84% to the surface in the last, I don't know, in 1979. 00:03:07.970 --> 00:03:10.770 align:middle line:84% Do you see this as being political? 00:03:10.770 --> 00:03:12.120 align:middle line:90% Part of it is. 00:03:12.120 --> 00:03:17.460 align:middle line:84% I would say, for example, that a large share of the following 00:03:17.460 --> 00:03:22.380 align:middle line:84% that Lawrence Ferlinghetti, has that Allen has, 00:03:22.380 --> 00:03:25.080 align:middle line:84% Ginsberg, that Gary Snyder has, in fact they get 00:03:25.080 --> 00:03:29.670 align:middle line:84% tremendous crowds out, that a very good sized share of that, 00:03:29.670 --> 00:03:32.850 align:middle line:84% it doesn't have very much to do with poetry, so much as it does 00:03:32.850 --> 00:03:35.050 align:middle line:84% with their public stands on the issues. 00:03:35.050 --> 00:03:37.830 align:middle line:84% That where they've taken a very leading position. 00:03:37.830 --> 00:03:40.990 align:middle line:84% Gary Snyder on the whole question of ecology. 00:03:40.990 --> 00:03:42.840 align:middle line:84% Allen Ginsberg on a whole number of issues. 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:43.340 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:43.340 --> 00:03:45.600 align:middle line:90% Homosexuality. 00:03:45.600 --> 00:03:46.165 align:middle line:90% Gulf War. 00:03:46.165 --> 00:03:46.665 align:middle line:90% Everything. 00:03:46.665 --> 00:03:47.490 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:47.490 --> 00:03:50.700 align:middle line:84% And Ferlinghetti overtly political 00:03:50.700 --> 00:03:53.350 align:middle line:90% from an anarchist point of view. 00:03:53.350 --> 00:03:57.960 align:middle line:84% And I do think that there's been a lot of identification 00:03:57.960 --> 00:04:01.050 align:middle line:84% between the poets of this generation, 00:04:01.050 --> 00:04:04.110 align:middle line:84% or my generation, who are reading, 00:04:04.110 --> 00:04:06.600 align:middle line:90% with the new student movement. 00:04:06.600 --> 00:04:08.550 align:middle line:84% Although we don't necessarily subscribe 00:04:08.550 --> 00:04:11.970 align:middle line:84% to any particular point of view still, we're part of it. 00:04:11.970 --> 00:04:12.720 align:middle line:90% In that sense. 00:04:12.720 --> 00:04:14.250 align:middle line:90% So I do think there has been-- 00:04:14.250 --> 00:04:17.675 align:middle line:84% that's part of the audience, which has been coming up. 00:04:17.675 --> 00:04:19.800 align:middle line:84% Because we've been close relationships between most 00:04:19.800 --> 00:04:22.530 align:middle line:84% of the poets, and at least the anti-war struggle, 00:04:22.530 --> 00:04:24.730 align:middle line:84% and the libertarian struggle, and things like that. 00:04:24.730 --> 00:04:27.540 align:middle line:90% 00:04:27.540 --> 00:04:28.570 align:middle line:90% What are your own views? 00:04:28.570 --> 00:04:29.320 align:middle line:90% I'm just-- 00:04:29.320 --> 00:04:30.340 align:middle line:90% Well, I'm curious. 00:04:30.340 --> 00:04:32.560 align:middle line:90% Do you think that-- 00:04:32.560 --> 00:04:34.090 align:middle line:90% about the role of public-- 00:04:34.090 --> 00:04:36.085 align:middle line:90% politics-- 00:04:36.085 --> 00:04:38.590 align:middle line:84% Well, the person to ask that is Robert Bly. 00:04:38.590 --> 00:04:41.830 align:middle line:84% You know, he's really been combining them both. 00:04:41.830 --> 00:04:43.370 align:middle line:84% Tremendously much more than I do. 00:04:43.370 --> 00:04:45.040 align:middle line:90% I mean I'm not-- 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:48.070 align:middle line:84% I can't write political poetry to order in the sense. 00:04:48.070 --> 00:04:48.970 align:middle line:90% It doesn't work. 00:04:48.970 --> 00:04:52.120 align:middle line:84% Once in a while I write political poems. 00:04:52.120 --> 00:04:53.410 align:middle line:90% Just not usually. 00:04:53.410 --> 00:04:56.770 align:middle line:84% But Robert has done an immense amount 00:04:56.770 --> 00:05:02.140 align:middle line:84% of political propagandizing and poetry writing of a new type. 00:05:02.140 --> 00:05:05.020 align:middle line:84% That frequently works very well in the last 10 years. 00:05:05.020 --> 00:05:10.120 align:middle line:90% 00:05:10.120 --> 00:05:12.080 align:middle line:84% It was not a satisfactory answer, but I'm not 00:05:12.080 --> 00:05:17.040 align:middle line:84% the person really ask because all I can give is my own-- 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:18.600 align:middle line:84% You don't view it as-- you're not-- 00:05:18.600 --> 00:05:20.190 align:middle line:90% you don't feel uneasy about-- 00:05:20.190 --> 00:05:23.030 align:middle line:90% 00:05:23.030 --> 00:05:23.960 align:middle line:90% Well I don't feel-- 00:05:23.960 --> 00:05:26.000 align:middle line:84% no, I think that every poet, every artist, 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:29.270 align:middle line:84% has to take a stand in some way on the issues of the day. 00:05:29.270 --> 00:05:31.280 align:middle line:84% I don't feel at all uneasy about it. 00:05:31.280 --> 00:05:34.430 align:middle line:84% As long as we don't breed the type of mentality 00:05:34.430 --> 00:05:36.590 align:middle line:84% that some people want, whereas everything's 00:05:36.590 --> 00:05:38.750 align:middle line:84% got to be written to prescription. 00:05:38.750 --> 00:05:40.160 align:middle line:90% I think it's quite natural. 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:41.720 align:middle line:90% And to be expected. 00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:45.590 align:middle line:84% That we should write a certain amount of political poetry. 00:05:45.590 --> 00:05:46.100 align:middle line:90% Why not? 00:05:46.100 --> 00:05:48.560 align:middle line:90% It's part of American life. 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:52.790 align:middle line:84% If we start writing it according to propagandistic scriptures 00:05:52.790 --> 00:05:55.070 align:middle line:84% or formula, then that's different. 00:05:55.070 --> 00:05:57.500 align:middle line:90% Usually just appears as poetry. 00:05:57.500 --> 00:05:59.302 align:middle line:84% But if we write about American life, 00:05:59.302 --> 00:06:01.010 align:middle line:84% obviously we're going to write about some 00:06:01.010 --> 00:06:03.290 align:middle line:84% of the major political problems that we face. 00:06:03.290 --> 00:06:05.330 align:middle line:84% Certainly the question of the war. 00:06:05.330 --> 00:06:08.345 align:middle line:90% How can we escape it? 00:06:08.345 --> 00:06:09.970 align:middle line:84% And I don't feel upset about it at all. 00:06:09.970 --> 00:06:10.470 align:middle line:90% Believe me. 00:06:10.470 --> 00:06:12.287 align:middle line:84% I'm quite happy to write political poetry 00:06:12.287 --> 00:06:13.120 align:middle line:90% when it comes to me. 00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:15.670 align:middle line:84% Doesn't come to me very often because the quality 00:06:15.670 --> 00:06:18.520 align:middle line:84% of my particular imagination doesn't really 00:06:18.520 --> 00:06:19.780 align:middle line:90% lie in that direction. 00:06:19.780 --> 00:06:21.640 align:middle line:90% But I do once in a while. 00:06:21.640 --> 00:06:23.320 align:middle line:84% And I really respect those people 00:06:23.320 --> 00:06:25.630 align:middle line:84% who can do it well, like Robert Bly. 00:06:25.630 --> 00:06:27.400 align:middle line:90% I think he does very well. 00:06:27.400 --> 00:06:28.090 align:middle line:90% By and large. 00:06:28.090 --> 00:06:30.710 align:middle line:90% 00:06:30.710 --> 00:06:35.500 align:middle line:84% And I think Allen Ginsberg does it very well, too, frequently. 00:06:35.500 --> 00:06:36.000 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:42.120 align:middle line:84% Do you think that Pablo Neruda's later more or less 00:06:42.120 --> 00:06:44.830 align:middle line:84% political poetry is imaginatively more 00:06:44.830 --> 00:06:47.320 align:middle line:84% powerful than his earlier non-political poetry? 00:06:47.320 --> 00:06:47.850 align:middle line:90% No. 00:06:47.850 --> 00:06:50.160 align:middle line:84% No, I think Pablo Neruda's early poetry was better. 00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:51.240 align:middle line:90% There's no doubt. 00:06:51.240 --> 00:06:55.230 align:middle line:84% But then, I think that a great deal of Neruda's middle period 00:06:55.230 --> 00:06:58.110 align:middle line:84% poetry, I think maybe getting out of a little now, 00:06:58.110 --> 00:07:00.660 align:middle line:84% was written according to political formula. 00:07:00.660 --> 00:07:03.900 align:middle line:84% And that he tended to suppress his earlier poetry, 00:07:03.900 --> 00:07:06.900 align:middle line:84% simply because the Communist Party of Chile, 00:07:06.900 --> 00:07:10.420 align:middle line:84% or his friends in the USSR, didn't approve of it. 00:07:10.420 --> 00:07:13.110 align:middle line:84% And I think that's a great mistake. 00:07:13.110 --> 00:07:15.100 align:middle line:84% And I think that, in the Neruda's case, 00:07:15.100 --> 00:07:18.720 align:middle line:84% it led to a lot of poetry, which was where the politics came 00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:20.230 align:middle line:90% first, the imagination second. 00:07:20.230 --> 00:07:21.480 align:middle line:90% And I think that was not good. 00:07:21.480 --> 00:07:23.340 align:middle line:90% I'm not in favor of that. 00:07:23.340 --> 00:07:27.150 align:middle line:84% But that Neruda should be a communist or a radical in Latin 00:07:27.150 --> 00:07:30.760 align:middle line:84% America seems the most natural thing in the world to me. 00:07:30.760 --> 00:07:32.700 align:middle line:84% If I were in Latin America, I'd probably 00:07:32.700 --> 00:07:34.920 align:middle line:84% be spending more time in politics 00:07:34.920 --> 00:07:37.786 align:middle line:90% than I would be employed. 00:07:37.786 --> 00:07:39.970 align:middle line:90% Who knows? 00:07:39.970 --> 00:07:42.150 align:middle line:84% Your position is different than Robert Bly's, 00:07:42.150 --> 00:07:45.360 align:middle line:84% who believes that as the Neruda began 00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:48.410 align:middle line:84% to write political poetry, that he got stronger and stronger. 00:07:48.410 --> 00:07:49.320 align:middle line:90% Wow, yeah. 00:07:49.320 --> 00:07:51.930 align:middle line:84% If that's Robert's position, I never heard him talk on it, 00:07:51.930 --> 00:07:54.550 align:middle line:84% but if that's his position, then my position is different. 00:07:54.550 --> 00:07:55.750 align:middle line:90% And then the Neruda edition. 00:07:55.750 --> 00:07:57.750 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I think the earlier Neruda is much better. 00:07:57.750 --> 00:08:00.090 align:middle line:90% 00:08:00.090 --> 00:08:02.500 align:middle line:84% Well, I think the only one of those political poets who 00:08:02.500 --> 00:08:05.890 align:middle line:84% really solved the question of the imagination in politics 00:08:05.890 --> 00:08:07.720 align:middle line:90% very well, is César Vallejo. 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:10.090 align:middle line:84% And that's the point is that most of the politicians 00:08:10.090 --> 00:08:12.340 align:middle line:84% can't understand what Vallejo is writing about anyway. 00:08:12.340 --> 00:08:16.000 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:18.670 align:middle line:84% Even though he was a member of the Peruvian Communist Party, 00:08:18.670 --> 00:08:21.430 align:middle line:84% and died in Paris as a great supporter 00:08:21.430 --> 00:08:23.740 align:middle line:90% of the Spanish Republican army. 00:08:23.740 --> 00:08:26.910 align:middle line:90% 00:08:26.910 --> 00:08:27.990 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:08:27.990 --> 00:08:30.990 align:middle line:84% Who do you think are the most promising new young poets 00:08:30.990 --> 00:08:32.622 align:middle line:90% for today? 00:08:32.622 --> 00:08:34.080 align:middle line:84% Well, obviously the ones I coached. 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:37.080 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:41.640 align:middle line:84% So, oh, I don't know there a lot of them. 00:08:41.640 --> 00:08:42.940 align:middle line:90% It's hard to say. 00:08:42.940 --> 00:08:45.592 align:middle line:84% I mean, look at the Kayak, you see the ones that I think. 00:08:45.592 --> 00:08:48.924 align:middle line:90% 00:08:48.924 --> 00:08:54.100 align:middle line:84% I think Dick Shelton here is a very promising young poet. 00:08:54.100 --> 00:08:55.935 align:middle line:84% I hear he became acquainted with poetry 00:08:55.935 --> 00:08:57.330 align:middle line:90% of Michael Kennedy over there. 00:08:57.330 --> 00:08:58.710 align:middle line:90% I think is extremely good. 00:08:58.710 --> 00:09:01.930 align:middle line:90% 00:09:01.930 --> 00:09:03.753 align:middle line:84% And there's poets all over the country 00:09:03.753 --> 00:09:05.670 align:middle line:84% you know like Bill Knott and people like that. 00:09:05.670 --> 00:09:08.300 align:middle line:90% 00:09:08.300 --> 00:09:10.770 align:middle line:90% We're extremely promising. 00:09:10.770 --> 00:09:11.353 align:middle line:90% Anybody else? 00:09:11.353 --> 00:09:14.407 align:middle line:90% 00:09:14.407 --> 00:09:15.824 align:middle line:84% You were connected to the theater. 00:09:15.824 --> 00:09:17.330 align:middle line:90% Have you ever written any plays? 00:09:17.330 --> 00:09:17.600 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:18.933 align:middle line:90% I've written six or seven plays. 00:09:18.933 --> 00:09:22.100 align:middle line:84% I've had a lot of plays produced. 00:09:22.100 --> 00:09:23.832 align:middle line:84% One time, that was all I was writing. 00:09:23.832 --> 00:09:25.190 align:middle line:90% Are any available? 00:09:25.190 --> 00:09:26.380 align:middle line:90% Well they're in print. 00:09:26.380 --> 00:09:30.290 align:middle line:84% In things like First Stage, because the scripts of-- 00:09:30.290 --> 00:09:34.650 align:middle line:84% the various magazines, not in book form. 00:09:34.650 --> 00:09:37.860 align:middle line:84% I would very seriously write plays for a long time. 00:09:37.860 --> 00:09:40.140 align:middle line:84% Mostly for production of the San Francisco Theater. 00:09:40.140 --> 00:09:42.950 align:middle line:84% I had several of them go to the active workshop, 00:09:42.950 --> 00:09:45.440 align:middle line:90% the workshop in San Francisco. 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:48.520 align:middle line:84% And then they've been done in a lot of university theaters. 00:09:48.520 --> 00:09:52.070 align:middle line:84% I had a real good play in seven or eight theaters. 00:09:52.070 --> 00:09:53.550 align:middle line:90% Yes? 00:09:53.550 --> 00:09:57.990 align:middle line:84% So they are-- so badly I wanted to photograph this story, 00:09:57.990 --> 00:10:00.020 align:middle line:90% if I can. 00:10:00.020 --> 00:10:00.750 align:middle line:90% One of them is. 00:10:00.750 --> 00:10:05.000 align:middle line:84% But most of them are satirical comedy. 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:06.877 align:middle line:84% I wrote Faust and things like that. 00:10:06.877 --> 00:10:11.080 align:middle line:90% 00:10:11.080 --> 00:10:11.620 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:10:11.620 --> 00:10:13.850 align:middle line:84% What do you think the dramatic backdrop, 00:10:13.850 --> 00:10:15.490 align:middle line:84% thank you for calling, I know it's-- 00:10:15.490 --> 00:10:16.290 align:middle line:90% A lot, obviously. 00:10:16.290 --> 00:10:18.740 align:middle line:90% I can sense it in your reading. 00:10:18.740 --> 00:10:20.240 align:middle line:90% I think in the poetry too. 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:24.650 align:middle line:84% I think two things that I know, my dramatic background 00:10:24.650 --> 00:10:28.490 align:middle line:84% and the impact of certain types of cinema unquestionably have-- 00:10:28.490 --> 00:10:31.280 align:middle line:84% I mean I find myself very, very simpatico or very 00:10:31.280 --> 00:10:36.412 align:middle line:90% close to a lot of modern cinema. 00:10:36.412 --> 00:10:38.870 align:middle line:84% But I think all of us have been affected by-- all of us are 00:10:38.870 --> 00:10:42.300 align:middle line:84% right, I don't see how, for example you can go through 00:10:42.300 --> 00:10:43.138 align:middle line:90% very-- 00:10:43.138 --> 00:10:47.050 align:middle line:84% I don't need to go through a single poem, maybe-- 00:10:47.050 --> 00:10:50.230 align:middle line:84% or anyone half a dozen, and people 00:10:50.230 --> 00:10:52.460 align:middle line:84% like that without being affected by it. 00:10:52.460 --> 00:10:55.000 align:middle line:84% There's been a great interplay between various forms 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:57.130 align:middle line:84% of the art with the cinematic technique. 00:10:57.130 --> 00:10:59.288 align:middle line:84% And I really think, of course, I would probably 00:10:59.288 --> 00:11:01.080 align:middle line:84% prefer to be a filmmaker than anything else 00:11:01.080 --> 00:11:04.051 align:middle line:84% if I had the money and the background. 00:11:04.051 --> 00:11:07.280 align:middle line:84% I Think it's the distinctive art form of this particular-- 00:11:07.280 --> 00:11:08.280 align:middle line:90% [AUDIENCE MEMBER COUGHS] 00:11:08.280 --> 00:11:08.780 align:middle line:90% --method. 00:11:08.780 --> 00:11:11.046 align:middle line:90% 00:11:11.046 --> 00:11:13.790 align:middle line:84% It's where a lot of the frontier is off. 00:11:13.790 --> 00:11:15.890 align:middle line:84% But it takes a lot of money, it takes technique, 00:11:15.890 --> 00:11:17.473 align:middle line:84% it takes cameras and things like that. 00:11:17.473 --> 00:11:20.643 align:middle line:90% It's not for me. 00:11:20.643 --> 00:11:22.310 align:middle line:84% But I'm unquestionably influenced by it. 00:11:22.310 --> 00:11:24.730 align:middle line:84% Just as I've been influenced by Cocteau 00:11:24.730 --> 00:11:26.415 align:middle line:90% and the political world. 00:11:26.415 --> 00:11:27.790 align:middle line:84% And a lot of people in the field. 00:11:27.790 --> 00:11:31.950 align:middle line:90% 00:11:31.950 --> 00:11:32.450 align:middle line:90% Yes? 00:11:32.450 --> 00:11:35.870 align:middle line:84% Could you be specific about the film that 00:11:35.870 --> 00:11:38.497 align:middle line:90% struck you as extraordinary. 00:11:38.497 --> 00:11:40.493 align:middle line:90% Or a couple. 00:11:40.493 --> 00:11:43.900 align:middle line:90% You mentioned Bergman. 00:11:43.900 --> 00:11:45.700 align:middle line:90% Well, I mentioned Bergman. 00:11:45.700 --> 00:11:49.780 align:middle line:84% I'm pretty Catholic in the films that I really liked, 00:11:49.780 --> 00:11:51.310 align:middle line:90% but that inspire me politically. 00:11:51.310 --> 00:11:55.210 align:middle line:84% I certainly think for years, of Orpheus 00:11:55.210 --> 00:11:57.730 align:middle line:84% and the Blood of the Poet by Cocteau. 00:11:57.730 --> 00:12:01.420 align:middle line:84% I certainly think of films like 8 1/2 of Fellini's. 00:12:01.420 --> 00:12:05.290 align:middle line:90% And Luis Buñuel, the Viridiana. 00:12:05.290 --> 00:12:06.698 align:middle line:90% Not this Belle Du Jour, so much. 00:12:06.698 --> 00:12:07.990 align:middle line:90% But some of the earlier things. 00:12:07.990 --> 00:12:13.750 align:middle line:84% And the surrealist ones he did about the Dog of Andalusia. 00:12:13.750 --> 00:12:18.100 align:middle line:84% And the whole experimental film movement 00:12:18.100 --> 00:12:21.460 align:middle line:84% which we're in contact with and we see a lot of them, 00:12:21.460 --> 00:12:23.950 align:middle line:90% perhaps more than they do here. 00:12:23.950 --> 00:12:30.670 align:middle line:84% And things like the last year of Maureen died. 00:12:30.670 --> 00:12:37.780 align:middle line:84% Films of this type which where the impact of the French 00:12:37.780 --> 00:12:41.620 align:middle line:84% and Spanish surrealism is really displayed visually. 00:12:41.620 --> 00:12:44.800 align:middle line:84% The language is almost inescapable. 00:12:44.800 --> 00:12:48.160 align:middle line:84% I don't say that they had a conscious effect on me, 00:12:48.160 --> 00:12:50.770 align:middle line:84% because when I sit down to create a poem, 00:12:50.770 --> 00:12:52.582 align:middle line:84% I'm not thinking about them at all. 00:12:52.582 --> 00:12:54.040 align:middle line:84% I'm just saying they have certainly 00:12:54.040 --> 00:12:56.890 align:middle line:84% gone into the shaping of my own culture, 00:12:56.890 --> 00:12:59.067 align:middle line:90% and my own views a great deal. 00:12:59.067 --> 00:13:01.150 align:middle line:84% I feel very much at home, not only in the theater, 00:13:01.150 --> 00:13:03.790 align:middle line:84% but particularly in the theater of the miraculous. 00:13:03.790 --> 00:13:07.870 align:middle line:90% The theater of magic. 00:13:07.870 --> 00:13:09.190 align:middle line:90% The theater of poetry. 00:13:09.190 --> 00:13:12.700 align:middle line:84% Rather than the theater of Arthur Miller's realism. 00:13:12.700 --> 00:13:14.420 align:middle line:90% What have you. 00:13:14.420 --> 00:13:17.780 align:middle line:84% That's the theatrical tradition of which I come. 00:13:17.780 --> 00:13:20.370 align:middle line:84% And which, I'm sure, big impact on my poetry 00:13:20.370 --> 00:13:21.320 align:middle line:90% and all my writing. 00:13:21.320 --> 00:13:26.380 align:middle line:90% 00:13:26.380 --> 00:13:27.050 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:13:27.050 --> 00:13:27.550 align:middle line:90% Good night. 00:13:27.550 --> 00:13:36.496 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:13:36.496 --> 00:13:40.728 align:middle line:90% [AUDIENCE CHATTERING] 00:13:40.728 --> 00:15:28.000 align:middle line:90%