WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.540 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.540 --> 00:00:02.160 align:middle line:90% Thank you, it's nice to be here. 00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:04.920 align:middle line:84% If I talk like this without the mic, is it OK? 00:00:04.920 --> 00:00:06.930 align:middle line:84% Can you hear me, if I talk about this level? 00:00:06.930 --> 00:00:09.480 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.480 --> 00:00:11.520 align:middle line:84% Like I said, it's nice to be here 00:00:11.520 --> 00:00:14.430 align:middle line:84% because I've heard about this program for so many years, 00:00:14.430 --> 00:00:17.490 align:middle line:84% and so many friends of mine have visited here, 00:00:17.490 --> 00:00:19.890 align:middle line:84% and I have lots of friends teaching here. 00:00:19.890 --> 00:00:21.540 align:middle line:84% So it's a real pleasure to be here. 00:00:21.540 --> 00:00:24.450 align:middle line:90% 00:00:24.450 --> 00:00:25.980 align:middle line:84% Lois and I were talking in the car 00:00:25.980 --> 00:00:28.530 align:middle line:84% from the airport about how nowadays 00:00:28.530 --> 00:00:32.220 align:middle line:84% most of the time when one gives a reading, 00:00:32.220 --> 00:00:34.290 align:middle line:84% you usually read with someone else. 00:00:34.290 --> 00:00:36.960 align:middle line:84% Since poetry readings, no matter how good they are, 00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:39.330 align:middle line:84% should never go for more than, say, 15 minutes, 00:00:39.330 --> 00:00:43.770 align:middle line:84% I usually only read for about 20 minutes, or 25 minutes. 00:00:43.770 --> 00:00:45.450 align:middle line:84% And I've always wanted to, and I have 00:00:45.450 --> 00:00:49.170 align:middle line:84% at times when I read alone, to spend some of the time reading 00:00:49.170 --> 00:00:52.740 align:middle line:84% other poets' poetry, and I decided to do that tonight. 00:00:52.740 --> 00:00:55.845 align:middle line:84% I want to read one poem by Hart Crane, who 00:00:55.845 --> 00:00:59.820 align:middle line:84% is a favorite poet of mine, a poem called "Voyages." 00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:04.650 align:middle line:84% I'll start with that, and then I'll read some of my own work. 00:01:04.650 --> 00:01:08.010 align:middle line:84% If you're not familiar with Hart Crane, and this poem 00:01:08.010 --> 00:01:10.920 align:middle line:84% in particular, it might be hard to pick up a lot 00:01:10.920 --> 00:01:12.510 align:middle line:84% or get a lot from this poem, so I'll 00:01:12.510 --> 00:01:16.120 align:middle line:84% give you a brief introduction of the poem. 00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:18.050 align:middle line:90% It's a love poem. 00:01:18.050 --> 00:01:20.530 align:middle line:90% It's also a sea poem. 00:01:20.530 --> 00:01:23.790 align:middle line:84% It intermingles, mixes the imagery 00:01:23.790 --> 00:01:25.210 align:middle line:90% of both of those things. 00:01:25.210 --> 00:01:27.480 align:middle line:84% And if you just look at the poem, 00:01:27.480 --> 00:01:35.160 align:middle line:84% or try to hear it as an ancient sort of romance story, 00:01:35.160 --> 00:01:37.020 align:middle line:90% boy meets girl-- 00:01:37.020 --> 00:01:39.750 align:middle line:84% in this case, boy meets boy with Hart Crane-- 00:01:39.750 --> 00:01:41.700 align:middle line:90% they fall in love. 00:01:41.700 --> 00:01:46.680 align:middle line:84% One lover decides that it's no good and they break up. 00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:51.270 align:middle line:84% The other lover, the poet, is crushed by this, very saddened, 00:01:51.270 --> 00:01:54.040 align:middle line:90% and destroyed, et cetera. 00:01:54.040 --> 00:01:56.790 align:middle line:84% And then at the end of the poem, even though the love 00:01:56.790 --> 00:01:59.640 align:middle line:84% is dead between these two living human beings, 00:01:59.640 --> 00:02:03.090 align:middle line:84% the poet still believes in Love, with a capital "L." 00:02:03.090 --> 00:02:07.300 align:middle line:84% That's basically what goes on in the poem. 00:02:07.300 --> 00:02:10.389 align:middle line:90% It's in six sections. 00:02:10.389 --> 00:02:12.570 align:middle line:84% There's lots of strange words in here, 00:02:12.570 --> 00:02:15.870 align:middle line:84% et cetera, that I still have to look up after looking them 00:02:15.870 --> 00:02:17.910 align:middle line:90% up about 10 times. 00:02:17.910 --> 00:02:21.790 align:middle line:84% But if you just try to hear the texture or the density, 00:02:21.790 --> 00:02:25.050 align:middle line:84% the richness of the language, I think you'll get a lot out 00:02:25.050 --> 00:02:27.090 align:middle line:90% of the poem or something. 00:02:27.090 --> 00:02:30.630 align:middle line:84% And then you can read the poem, if you like it, on the page. 00:02:30.630 --> 00:02:31.230 align:middle line:90% "Voyages." 00:02:31.230 --> 00:02:33.420 align:middle line:90% One. 00:02:33.420 --> 00:02:36.540 align:middle line:84% "Above the fresh ruffles of the surf, 00:02:36.540 --> 00:02:41.850 align:middle line:84% bright striped urchins flay each other with sand. 00:02:41.850 --> 00:02:45.990 align:middle line:84% They have contrived a conquest for shell shucks, 00:02:45.990 --> 00:02:49.830 align:middle line:84% and their fingers crumble fragments of baked weed, 00:02:49.830 --> 00:02:52.800 align:middle line:90% gaily digging and scattering. 00:02:52.800 --> 00:02:56.670 align:middle line:84% And in answer to their treble interjections, 00:02:56.670 --> 00:03:00.000 align:middle line:84% the sun beats lightning on the waves, 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:03.270 align:middle line:84% the waves fold thunder on the sand. 00:03:03.270 --> 00:03:08.670 align:middle line:84% And could they hear me I would tell them, O, brilliant kids, 00:03:08.670 --> 00:03:10.890 align:middle line:90% frisk with your dog. 00:03:10.890 --> 00:03:14.190 align:middle line:84% Fondle your shells and sticks, bleached 00:03:14.190 --> 00:03:16.680 align:middle line:90% by time and the elements. 00:03:16.680 --> 00:03:21.960 align:middle line:84% But there is a line you must not cross, nor ever 00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:23.470 align:middle line:90% trust beyond it. 00:03:23.470 --> 00:03:27.600 align:middle line:84% Spry cordage of your bodies to caresses, 00:03:27.600 --> 00:03:33.060 align:middle line:84% too lichen-faithful to two wide a breast. 00:03:33.060 --> 00:03:35.685 align:middle line:90% The bottom of the sea is cruel." 00:03:35.685 --> 00:03:39.189 align:middle line:90% 00:03:39.189 --> 00:03:41.800 align:middle line:84% Now, he's talking about the sea in this poem 00:03:41.800 --> 00:03:44.390 align:middle line:90% in the second section. 00:03:44.390 --> 00:03:48.640 align:middle line:84% "And yet, this great wink of eternity, 00:03:48.640 --> 00:03:53.170 align:middle line:84% of rimless floods, unfettered leewardings, 00:03:53.170 --> 00:03:59.980 align:middle line:84% samite sheeted and processioned where her undinal vast belly 00:03:59.980 --> 00:04:06.040 align:middle line:84% moonward bends, laughing the wrapt inflections of our love. 00:04:06.040 --> 00:04:09.370 align:middle line:84% Take this Sea, whose diapason knells 00:04:09.370 --> 00:04:15.610 align:middle line:84% on scrolls of silver snowy sentences, the sceptred terror 00:04:15.610 --> 00:04:21.550 align:middle line:84% of whose sessions rends as her demeanors motion well or ill, 00:04:21.550 --> 00:04:25.720 align:middle line:84% all but the pieties of lovers' hands. 00:04:25.720 --> 00:04:29.860 align:middle line:84% And onward, as bells off San Salvador 00:04:29.860 --> 00:04:34.270 align:middle line:84% salute the crocus lustres of the stars, 00:04:34.270 --> 00:04:40.990 align:middle line:84% in these poinsettia meadows of her tides, adagios of islands, 00:04:40.990 --> 00:04:48.280 align:middle line:84% O my Prodigal, complete the dark confessions her veins spell. 00:04:48.280 --> 00:04:52.510 align:middle line:84% Mark how her turning shoulders wind the hours, 00:04:52.510 --> 00:04:57.520 align:middle line:84% and hasten while her penniless rich palms 00:04:57.520 --> 00:05:02.260 align:middle line:84% pass superscription on bent foam and wave. 00:05:02.260 --> 00:05:04.660 align:middle line:90% Hasten, while they are true-- 00:05:04.660 --> 00:05:08.980 align:middle line:84% sleep, death, desire, close round 00:05:08.980 --> 00:05:13.420 align:middle line:84% one instant in one floating flower. 00:05:13.420 --> 00:05:18.760 align:middle line:84% Bind us in time, O Seasons clear, and awe. 00:05:18.760 --> 00:05:22.210 align:middle line:84% O minstrel galleons of Carib fire, 00:05:22.210 --> 00:05:27.760 align:middle line:84% bequeath us to no earthly shore until is answered 00:05:27.760 --> 00:05:34.780 align:middle line:84% in the vortex of our grave the seal's wide spindrift gaze 00:05:34.780 --> 00:05:38.980 align:middle line:90% towards paradise." 00:05:38.980 --> 00:05:41.650 align:middle line:90% Three. 00:05:41.650 --> 00:05:45.760 align:middle line:84% "Infinite consanguinity it bears, 00:05:45.760 --> 00:05:51.700 align:middle line:84% this tendered theme of you that light retrieves from sea plains 00:05:51.700 --> 00:05:57.820 align:middle line:84% where the sky resigns a breast that every wave enthrones. 00:05:57.820 --> 00:06:01.450 align:middle line:84% While ribboned water lanes I wind 00:06:01.450 --> 00:06:05.230 align:middle line:84% are laved and scattered with no stroke 00:06:05.230 --> 00:06:09.430 align:middle line:84% wide from your side, whereto this hour 00:06:09.430 --> 00:06:14.380 align:middle line:84% the sea lifts, also, reliquary hands. 00:06:14.380 --> 00:06:18.280 align:middle line:84% And so, admitted through black swollen gates 00:06:18.280 --> 00:06:23.800 align:middle line:84% that must arrest all distance otherwise, past whirling 00:06:23.800 --> 00:06:28.000 align:middle line:84% pillars and lithe pediments, light wrestling 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:30.460 align:middle line:90% there incessantly with light. 00:06:30.460 --> 00:06:37.570 align:middle line:84% Star kissing star through wave on wave onto your body rocking! 00:06:37.570 --> 00:06:41.050 align:middle line:84% And where death, if shed, presumes 00:06:41.050 --> 00:06:45.400 align:middle line:84% no carnage but this single change, 00:06:45.400 --> 00:06:48.760 align:middle line:84% upon the steep floor flung from dawn 00:06:48.760 --> 00:06:55.540 align:middle line:84% to dawn the silken skilled transmemberment of song. 00:06:55.540 --> 00:07:01.710 align:middle line:84% Permit me voyage, love, into your hands." 00:07:01.710 --> 00:07:04.050 align:middle line:90% Four. 00:07:04.050 --> 00:07:08.040 align:middle line:84% "Whose counted smile of hours and days, 00:07:08.040 --> 00:07:12.930 align:middle line:84% suppose I know as spectrum of the sea and pledge vastly now 00:07:12.930 --> 00:07:17.460 align:middle line:84% parting gulf and gulf of wings, whose circles bridge, 00:07:17.460 --> 00:07:22.920 align:middle line:84% I know, from the palms to the severe chilled albatross's 00:07:22.920 --> 00:07:25.230 align:middle line:90% white immutability. 00:07:25.230 --> 00:07:29.580 align:middle line:84% No stream of greater love advancing now than, 00:07:29.580 --> 00:07:33.450 align:middle line:84% singing, this mortality alone through clay 00:07:33.450 --> 00:07:37.380 align:middle line:90% aflow immortally to you. 00:07:37.380 --> 00:07:44.310 align:middle line:84% All fragrance irrefragably, and claim madly 00:07:44.310 --> 00:07:48.480 align:middle line:84% meeting logically in this hour and region that 00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:51.420 align:middle line:90% is ours to wreathe again. 00:07:51.420 --> 00:07:54.660 align:middle line:84% Portending eyes and lips, and making 00:07:54.660 --> 00:08:00.360 align:middle line:84% told the chancel port and portion of our June. 00:08:00.360 --> 00:08:03.390 align:middle line:84% Shall they not stem and close in our steps 00:08:03.390 --> 00:08:06.660 align:middle line:84% bright staves of flowers and quills 00:08:06.660 --> 00:08:13.260 align:middle line:84% today as I must first be lost in fatal tides to tell? 00:08:13.260 --> 00:08:16.410 align:middle line:84% In signature of the incarnate word, 00:08:16.410 --> 00:08:21.990 align:middle line:84% the harbor shoulders to resign in mingling mutual blood, 00:08:21.990 --> 00:08:25.890 align:middle line:84% transpiring as foreknown and widening 00:08:25.890 --> 00:08:29.310 align:middle line:84% noon within your breast for gathering 00:08:29.310 --> 00:08:34.500 align:middle line:84% all bright insinuations that my years have caught. 00:08:34.500 --> 00:08:40.260 align:middle line:84% For islands where must lead inviolably blue latitudes 00:08:40.260 --> 00:08:43.470 align:middle line:90% and levels of your eyes. 00:08:43.470 --> 00:08:50.460 align:middle line:84% In this still, expectant calm, receive the secret oar 00:08:50.460 --> 00:08:55.520 align:middle line:90% and petals of all love." 00:08:55.520 --> 00:08:57.260 align:middle line:90% Five. 00:08:57.260 --> 00:09:05.090 align:middle line:84% "Meticulous, past midnight in clear rime, 00:09:05.090 --> 00:09:10.580 align:middle line:84% infrangible and lonely, smooth as though cast together 00:09:10.580 --> 00:09:15.980 align:middle line:84% in one merciless white blade, the bay 00:09:15.980 --> 00:09:22.070 align:middle line:84% estuaries fleck the hard sky limits as if too brittle or too 00:09:22.070 --> 00:09:24.110 align:middle line:90% clear to touch! 00:09:24.110 --> 00:09:28.010 align:middle line:84% The cables of our sleep, so swiftly filed, 00:09:28.010 --> 00:09:33.470 align:middle line:84% already hang, shred ends from remembered stars. 00:09:33.470 --> 00:09:38.060 align:middle line:90% One frozen trackless smile-- 00:09:38.060 --> 00:09:43.400 align:middle line:84% what words can strangle this deaf moonlight? 00:09:43.400 --> 00:09:46.370 align:middle line:90% For we are overtaken. 00:09:46.370 --> 00:09:51.980 align:middle line:84% Now no cry, no sword can deflect this tidal wedge. 00:09:51.980 --> 00:09:58.820 align:middle line:84% Slow tyranny of moonlight, moonlight loved and changed. 00:09:58.820 --> 00:10:03.650 align:middle line:84% "There's nothing like this in the world," you say, 00:10:03.650 --> 00:10:07.640 align:middle line:84% knowing I cannot touch your hand and look, too, 00:10:07.640 --> 00:10:13.040 align:middle line:84% into that godless cleft of sky where nothing turns but dead 00:10:13.040 --> 00:10:16.100 align:middle line:90% sands flashing. 00:10:16.100 --> 00:10:20.090 align:middle line:90% "And never to quite understand!" 00:10:20.090 --> 00:10:24.470 align:middle line:84% No, in all the argosy of your bright hair, 00:10:24.470 --> 00:10:30.410 align:middle line:84% I dream nothing so flagless as this piracy. 00:10:30.410 --> 00:10:36.710 align:middle line:84% But now, draw in your head, alone and too tall here. 00:10:36.710 --> 00:10:41.060 align:middle line:84% Your eyes already in the slant of drifting foam. 00:10:41.060 --> 00:10:45.760 align:middle line:84% Your breath sealed by the ghosts I do not know. 00:10:45.760 --> 00:10:52.070 align:middle line:84% Draw in your head and sleep the long way home." 00:10:52.070 --> 00:10:55.340 align:middle line:90% And the last section. 00:10:55.340 --> 00:10:59.570 align:middle line:84% "Where icy and bright dungeons lift of swimmers 00:10:59.570 --> 00:11:04.800 align:middle line:84% their lost morning eyes, and ocean rivers, churning, 00:11:04.800 --> 00:11:08.900 align:middle line:84% shift green borders under stranger skies. 00:11:08.900 --> 00:11:15.050 align:middle line:84% Steadily as a shell secretes its beating leagues of monotone, 00:11:15.050 --> 00:11:20.440 align:middle line:84% or as many waters trough the sun's red kelson 00:11:20.440 --> 00:11:23.660 align:middle line:90% past the cape's wet stone. 00:11:23.660 --> 00:11:28.520 align:middle line:84% O rivers mingling toward the sky and harbor 00:11:28.520 --> 00:11:30.530 align:middle line:90% of the phoenix' breast. 00:11:30.530 --> 00:11:36.470 align:middle line:84% My eyes pressed black against the prow, thy derelict 00:11:36.470 --> 00:11:38.270 align:middle line:90% and blinded guest. 00:11:38.270 --> 00:11:44.570 align:middle line:84% Waiting, afire, what name, unspoke, I cannot claim. 00:11:44.570 --> 00:11:49.860 align:middle line:84% Let thy waves rear more savage than the death of kings, 00:11:49.860 --> 00:11:54.020 align:middle line:84% some splintered garland for the seer. 00:11:54.020 --> 00:11:59.960 align:middle line:84% Beyond siroccos harvesting the solstice thunders, crept away, 00:11:59.960 --> 00:12:07.340 align:middle line:84% like a cliff swinging or a sail flung into April's inmost day. 00:12:07.340 --> 00:12:10.850 align:middle line:84% Creation's blithe and petalled word 00:12:10.850 --> 00:12:16.250 align:middle line:84% to the lounged goddess when she rose, conceding dialogue 00:12:16.250 --> 00:12:20.930 align:middle line:84% with eyes that smile unsearchable repose. 00:12:20.930 --> 00:12:25.460 align:middle line:84% Still fervid covenant, Belle Isle, 00:12:25.460 --> 00:12:28.700 align:middle line:84% unfolded floating dais before, which 00:12:28.700 --> 00:12:32.870 align:middle line:90% rainbows twine continual hair. 00:12:32.870 --> 00:12:38.240 align:middle line:84% Belle Isle, white echo of the oar! 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:44.390 align:middle line:84% The imaged Word, it is, that holds hushed willows anchored 00:12:44.390 --> 00:12:46.070 align:middle line:90% in its glow. 00:12:46.070 --> 00:12:51.770 align:middle line:84% It is the unbetrayable reply whose accent 00:12:51.770 --> 00:12:54.530 align:middle line:90% no farewell can know." 00:12:54.530 --> 00:12:57.560 align:middle line:90% 00:12:57.560 --> 00:12:59.380 align:middle line:90% Hart Crane.