WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.840 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.840 --> 00:00:05.510 align:middle line:84% Now I'd like to read a poem about a different kind 00:00:05.510 --> 00:00:06.010 align:middle line:90% of baptism. 00:00:06.010 --> 00:00:09.700 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.700 --> 00:00:12.390 align:middle line:90% The baptism with Earth. 00:00:12.390 --> 00:00:14.880 align:middle line:84% I've said or tried to say something 00:00:14.880 --> 00:00:22.380 align:middle line:84% about the pain that is felt and the love and vision that 00:00:22.380 --> 00:00:25.440 align:middle line:84% is felt in realizing that one is part 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:30.240 align:middle line:90% of the universal flow of things. 00:00:30.240 --> 00:00:35.340 align:middle line:84% But there's a contrary business, people can separate themselves 00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:38.040 align:middle line:84% from this flow, can separate themselves 00:00:38.040 --> 00:00:42.450 align:middle line:84% from the soil and the nature of life. 00:00:42.450 --> 00:00:47.460 align:middle line:84% They can be too whites, they can keep themselves too clean, 00:00:47.460 --> 00:00:53.100 align:middle line:84% can become too virginal, too uninvolved. 00:00:53.100 --> 00:00:57.090 align:middle line:84% In this poem, there is a person performing 00:00:57.090 --> 00:01:02.490 align:middle line:84% a rights of their psyche in which they are affirming 00:01:02.490 --> 00:01:07.380 align:middle line:84% that they will no longer remain separate from things 00:01:07.380 --> 00:01:08.490 align:middle line:90% as they are. 00:01:08.490 --> 00:01:11.910 align:middle line:90% I say it is a baptism of Earth. 00:01:11.910 --> 00:01:14.490 align:middle line:84% It's a baptism of water and Earth. 00:01:14.490 --> 00:01:17.520 align:middle line:90% It is a baptism of mud. 00:01:17.520 --> 00:01:21.600 align:middle line:84% I've got the poem the title of the-- 00:01:21.600 --> 00:01:24.630 align:middle line:84% I call it the idea of entropy at Maenporth beach. 00:01:24.630 --> 00:01:30.180 align:middle line:84% This is a complex and perhaps finicky title. 00:01:30.180 --> 00:01:35.910 align:middle line:84% Entropy, of course, is the word for disorder in physics. 00:01:35.910 --> 00:01:40.290 align:middle line:84% Maenporth beach is somewhere in Cornwall. 00:01:40.290 --> 00:01:42.630 align:middle line:84% The title echoes Wallace Stevens' poem. 00:01:42.630 --> 00:01:47.280 align:middle line:84% The idea of order at Key West in which a woman organizes 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:50.730 align:middle line:84% the world and gives the only meaning to the meaningless sea, 00:01:50.730 --> 00:01:55.350 align:middle line:84% the flux of existence by walking beside it and singing. 00:01:55.350 --> 00:01:57.540 align:middle line:90% And this is the only meaning. 00:01:57.540 --> 00:02:01.800 align:middle line:84% In my poem, I say that the disorder and the flux 00:02:01.800 --> 00:02:07.530 align:middle line:84% has meaning for the people who can take it. 00:02:07.530 --> 00:02:09.810 align:middle line:84% I give it an epigraph from Baudelaire, who knew all 00:02:09.810 --> 00:02:11.130 align:middle line:90% about this kind of thing. 00:02:11.130 --> 00:02:12.630 align:middle line:90% "C'est elle! 00:02:12.630 --> 00:02:14.010 align:middle line:90% Noire et pourtant lumineuse." 00:02:14.010 --> 00:02:16.860 align:middle line:84% it is she, black and shining with it. 00:02:16.860 --> 00:02:22.540 align:middle line:90% 00:02:22.540 --> 00:02:28.780 align:middle line:84% A buggy would as full of springs as trees slowly 00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:32.440 align:middle line:90% she slipped into the muck. 00:02:32.440 --> 00:02:38.620 align:middle line:84% It was a white dress, she said and that was not right. 00:02:38.620 --> 00:02:44.380 align:middle line:84% Leathery polished mud that stank as it split. 00:02:44.380 --> 00:02:50.600 align:middle line:84% It is a smooth white body, she said and that is not right. 00:02:50.600 --> 00:02:52.930 align:middle line:90% Not quite right. 00:02:52.930 --> 00:02:57.070 align:middle line:84% I'll have a smoother slicker body 00:02:57.070 --> 00:03:03.370 align:middle line:84% and my golden hair will sprinkle rich goodness everywhere. 00:03:03.370 --> 00:03:09.100 align:middle line:84% So slowly she backed into the mud. 00:03:09.100 --> 00:03:14.500 align:middle line:84% If it were a white dress, she said with some little black, 00:03:14.500 --> 00:03:20.350 align:middle line:84% dressed with a little flaw a smart some swart twinge 00:03:20.350 --> 00:03:22.510 align:middle line:90% of ancestry. 00:03:22.510 --> 00:03:31.030 align:middle line:84% Or if it were all black since I am white, but it's my mistake. 00:03:31.030 --> 00:03:38.500 align:middle line:84% So slowly she slung all pleated into the muck. 00:03:38.500 --> 00:03:43.420 align:middle line:84% The mud spatters with rich seed and ranging pollens. 00:03:43.420 --> 00:03:45.670 align:middle line:90% Black darts up the pleats. 00:03:45.670 --> 00:03:50.080 align:middle line:84% Black pleats lance along the white ones 00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:56.110 align:middle line:84% and she stops swaying cut in half. 00:03:56.110 --> 00:03:57.220 align:middle line:90% Is it right? 00:03:57.220 --> 00:04:04.660 align:middle line:84% She sobs as the fat, juicy incredibly tart muck rises 00:04:04.660 --> 00:04:09.520 align:middle line:84% round her throat and dims the diamond there. 00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:12.060 align:middle line:90% It is right. 00:04:12.060 --> 00:04:15.750 align:middle line:84% So she stretches her white neck back 00:04:15.750 --> 00:04:22.620 align:middle line:84% and takes a deep breath once and a one step back. 00:04:22.620 --> 00:04:28.950 align:middle line:84% Some golden strands of floats pull after her. 00:04:28.950 --> 00:04:36.090 align:middle line:84% The mud recoils, lies heavy, queasy, swart. 00:04:36.090 --> 00:04:40.530 align:middle line:84% But then this soft blubber stirs and quickly she 00:04:40.530 --> 00:04:44.970 align:middle line:84% comes up dressed like a mound of licorice Earth, 00:04:44.970 --> 00:04:49.620 align:middle line:84% swiftly ascending in a streaming pet that grows tall, 00:04:49.620 --> 00:04:55.920 align:middle line:84% smooth, brimming hips and steps out on flowing pillars darkly 00:04:55.920 --> 00:04:57.120 align:middle line:90% draped. 00:04:57.120 --> 00:05:01.410 align:middle line:84% And then the blackness breaks open with blue eyes 00:05:01.410 --> 00:05:05.790 align:middle line:84% of this black Venus rising helmeted in night, 00:05:05.790 --> 00:05:10.890 align:middle line:84% who as she glides grins brilliantly and drops 00:05:10.890 --> 00:05:15.960 align:middle line:84% swatches superb as molasses on her path. 00:05:15.960 --> 00:05:18.750 align:middle line:84% Who is that Negress running on the beach, 00:05:18.750 --> 00:05:24.060 align:middle line:84% laughing excitedly with teeth as white as the white waves 00:05:24.060 --> 00:05:27.900 align:middle line:90% kneeling dazzled to the sands? 00:05:27.900 --> 00:05:32.190 align:middle line:84% Clapping excitedly the black rocks rise, 00:05:32.190 --> 00:05:35.940 align:middle line:84% running delightedly in slapping rags, 00:05:35.940 --> 00:05:41.910 align:middle line:84% she sprinkles substance and the small life flies. 00:05:41.910 --> 00:05:47.940 align:middle line:84% She laughs aloud and bares her teeth again and cries. 00:05:47.940 --> 00:05:53.100 align:middle line:84% Now that I am all black and running in my richness 00:05:53.100 --> 00:05:56.940 align:middle line:84% and knowing it a little, I have learned 00:05:56.940 --> 00:06:03.570 align:middle line:84% it is quite wrong to be all white always. 00:06:03.570 --> 00:06:08.130 align:middle line:84% And knowing it a little I shall take great care 00:06:08.130 --> 00:06:13.320 align:middle line:84% to keep a little black about me somewhere. 00:06:13.320 --> 00:06:18.330 align:middle line:84% A snotty nostril, a morning nail will do. 00:06:18.330 --> 00:06:24.390 align:middle line:84% Mud is a good dress, but not the best. 00:06:24.390 --> 00:06:28.170 align:middle line:84% Watch she runs into the sea, she walks 00:06:28.170 --> 00:06:31.830 align:middle line:84% in streaky white on dazzling sands 00:06:31.830 --> 00:06:39.450 align:middle line:84% that stretch like the whole world's Percy mud quite purged. 00:06:39.450 --> 00:06:42.840 align:middle line:90% The black rooks who like dove's. 00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:48.630 align:middle line:84% New suns beam from every droplet of the shattering waves 00:06:48.630 --> 00:06:53.070 align:middle line:84% from every crystal of the shattered rock. 00:06:53.070 --> 00:06:59.400 align:middle line:84% Drenched in the mud, pure white rejoiced from this collision 00:06:59.400 --> 00:07:02.010 align:middle line:90% where new colors born. 00:07:02.010 --> 00:07:07.590 align:middle line:84% And in their slithering passage to the sea the shrugged up 00:07:07.590 --> 00:07:11.130 align:middle line:90% riches of deep darkness sang. 00:07:11.130 --> 00:07:14.430 align:middle line:90% 00:07:14.430 --> 00:07:17.780 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:07:17.780 --> 00:07:42.000 align:middle line:90%