WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.450 align:middle line:90% 00:00:05.450 --> 00:00:08.570 align:middle line:84% Let me read just a few more poems. 00:00:08.570 --> 00:00:17.480 align:middle line:84% I'd like to read a poem I wrote last summer that I 00:00:17.480 --> 00:00:20.840 align:middle line:84% sent to a friend of mine who was sort of in a bad way. 00:00:20.840 --> 00:00:28.130 align:middle line:84% And it seemed to do something for him. 00:00:28.130 --> 00:00:33.200 align:middle line:84% It warmed his heart or something, and he felt revived. 00:00:33.200 --> 00:00:35.990 align:middle line:90% And his name is Bruce. 00:00:35.990 --> 00:00:39.290 align:middle line:84% He's a very dear friend of a woman in the audience. 00:00:39.290 --> 00:00:43.340 align:middle line:90% 00:00:43.340 --> 00:00:44.460 align:middle line:90% It's got a strange title. 00:00:44.460 --> 00:00:46.730 align:middle line:84% It's called "The Poem Circling Hamtramck, Michigan, 00:00:46.730 --> 00:00:50.060 align:middle line:90% All Night in Search of You." 00:00:50.060 --> 00:00:52.160 align:middle line:90% Hamtramck is a little-- 00:00:52.160 --> 00:00:54.590 align:middle line:84% not so little-- it's a community inside Detroit. 00:00:54.590 --> 00:00:57.560 align:middle line:90% 00:00:57.560 --> 00:01:01.910 align:middle line:90% It's a city all of its own. 00:01:01.910 --> 00:01:07.280 align:middle line:84% When I was young man, it was mainly inhabited by Poles. 00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:09.260 align:middle line:84% But now, it's about half Black and half Pole. 00:01:09.260 --> 00:01:11.733 align:middle line:90% 00:01:11.733 --> 00:01:13.400 align:middle line:84% And there were a lot of factories there. 00:01:13.400 --> 00:01:15.285 align:middle line:84% It was a very ugly place, and I worked there. 00:01:15.285 --> 00:01:16.910 align:middle line:84% The New Yorker took this poem, and they 00:01:16.910 --> 00:01:18.470 align:middle line:90% asked me to change the title. 00:01:18.470 --> 00:01:20.990 align:middle line:90% They said it was too mannered. 00:01:20.990 --> 00:01:22.940 align:middle line:84% I thought they ought to know, being the most 00:01:22.940 --> 00:01:25.840 align:middle line:90% mannered magazine in the world. 00:01:25.840 --> 00:01:29.370 align:middle line:84% I couldn't understand why they would object to that. 00:01:29.370 --> 00:01:34.018 align:middle line:84% I dropped "Michigan", and they said, all right. 00:01:34.018 --> 00:01:36.290 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:36.290 --> 00:01:39.770 align:middle line:84% It's a poem, the title meant a lot to me. 00:01:39.770 --> 00:01:44.390 align:middle line:84% Because when I was a young guy, 18 to 20 or so, 00:01:44.390 --> 00:01:49.790 align:middle line:84% I used to go out almost every night and circle Hamtramck 00:01:49.790 --> 00:01:51.290 align:middle line:90% in search of something. 00:01:51.290 --> 00:01:54.285 align:middle line:84% I don't know what it was, and I never found it. 00:01:54.285 --> 00:01:55.160 align:middle line:90% And then I got older. 00:01:55.160 --> 00:01:55.820 align:middle line:90% And I got tired. 00:01:55.820 --> 00:01:56.903 align:middle line:90% And I didn't go searching. 00:01:56.903 --> 00:02:00.680 align:middle line:84% I think it was some person or some part of myself 00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:04.550 align:middle line:84% that poets go chasing after or any person goes chasing after. 00:02:04.550 --> 00:02:08.330 align:middle line:90% Because anybody can be a poet. 00:02:08.330 --> 00:02:12.800 align:middle line:84% Poets just probably remember it more exquisitely, and use it. 00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:15.700 align:middle line:90% 00:02:15.700 --> 00:02:18.850 align:middle line:90% And I wasn't going out anymore. 00:02:18.850 --> 00:02:20.215 align:middle line:90% So I sent the poem out instead. 00:02:20.215 --> 00:02:23.690 align:middle line:90% 00:02:23.690 --> 00:02:26.360 align:middle line:90% It's about lovers. 00:02:26.360 --> 00:02:29.690 align:middle line:90% He hasn't gone to work. 00:02:29.690 --> 00:02:33.470 align:middle line:90% He'll never go back to work. 00:02:33.470 --> 00:02:38.780 align:middle line:84% The wife has gone home mad, with the baby on one arm. 00:02:38.780 --> 00:02:42.620 align:middle line:84% Swaying on his good leg, he calls out 00:02:42.620 --> 00:02:48.830 align:middle line:84% to the bare bulb a name, and opens his arms. 00:02:48.830 --> 00:02:52.850 align:middle line:84% The old woman, the beer gone from her glass, 00:02:52.850 --> 00:02:54.080 align:middle line:90% turns back to the bar. 00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:56.600 align:middle line:90% 00:02:56.600 --> 00:03:02.390 align:middle line:84% She's seen them before with hard, knotted bellies, 00:03:02.390 --> 00:03:05.580 align:middle line:84% with the bare, white breasts of boys. 00:03:05.580 --> 00:03:09.680 align:middle line:84% How many times has she stared into those eyes glistening 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:13.970 align:middle line:84% with love or pain and seen nothing but love or pain? 00:03:13.970 --> 00:03:16.580 align:middle line:90% 00:03:16.580 --> 00:03:21.320 align:middle line:84% Deep at night when she was coldest, 00:03:21.320 --> 00:03:25.490 align:middle line:84% he would always rise and dress so as not 00:03:25.490 --> 00:03:29.750 align:middle line:84% to miss the first streetcar burning homeward. 00:03:29.750 --> 00:03:33.215 align:middle line:84% And she would rock alone toward dawn. 00:03:33.215 --> 00:03:36.450 align:middle line:90% 00:03:36.450 --> 00:03:42.060 align:middle line:84% If someone would enter now and take these lovers, for they 00:03:42.060 --> 00:03:47.250 align:middle line:84% are lovers, in his arms and rock them together 00:03:47.250 --> 00:03:51.120 align:middle line:84% like a mother with a child in each arm, this man with so 00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:56.100 align:middle line:84% much desire, this woman with none, 00:03:56.100 --> 00:03:59.010 align:middle line:90% then it would not be Hamtramck. 00:03:59.010 --> 00:04:02.850 align:middle line:90% It would not be this night. 00:04:02.850 --> 00:04:07.140 align:middle line:90% They know it and wait. 00:04:07.140 --> 00:04:14.175 align:middle line:84% He, staring into the light, she, into the empty glass. 00:04:14.175 --> 00:04:16.910 align:middle line:90% 00:04:16.910 --> 00:04:20.029 align:middle line:84% In the darkness of this world, men 00:04:20.029 --> 00:04:26.150 align:middle line:84% pull on heavy canvas gloves, dip into rubber coats, 00:04:26.150 --> 00:04:29.600 align:middle line:90% and enter the fires. 00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:34.880 align:middle line:84% The rats, frozen under the conveyors, 00:04:34.880 --> 00:04:39.950 align:middle line:84% turn to let their eyes fill with dawn. 00:04:39.950 --> 00:04:46.450 align:middle line:84% A strange star is born one more time. 00:04:46.450 --> 00:04:48.079 align:middle line:90%