WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.060 align:middle line:84% And contrary to what the newspaper article said today, 00:00:03.060 --> 00:00:05.110 align:middle line:90% I don't write a lot in forms. 00:00:05.110 --> 00:00:07.052 align:middle line:84% This is one of the first attempts in form. 00:00:07.052 --> 00:00:08.760 align:middle line:84% I also wrote a terrible villanelle, which 00:00:08.760 --> 00:00:09.900 align:middle line:90% I might read for you later. 00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:10.545 align:middle line:90% Really bad. 00:00:10.545 --> 00:00:14.010 align:middle line:90% 00:00:14.010 --> 00:00:15.750 align:middle line:90% I was never interested in form. 00:00:15.750 --> 00:00:17.400 align:middle line:84% And suddenly, in the last few years, 00:00:17.400 --> 00:00:18.900 align:middle line:90% I've gotten really interested. 00:00:18.900 --> 00:00:26.200 align:middle line:90% 00:00:26.200 --> 00:00:28.898 align:middle line:84% One of the things I've been doing lately, 00:00:28.898 --> 00:00:30.690 align:middle line:84% which I realized I've been doing all along, 00:00:30.690 --> 00:00:34.440 align:middle line:84% is writing poems about miniatures, tiny things. 00:00:34.440 --> 00:00:36.030 align:middle line:90% And it's something that-- 00:00:36.030 --> 00:00:37.740 align:middle line:84% I don't understand why I do this, 00:00:37.740 --> 00:00:40.830 align:middle line:84% but it's something that I keep coming back to again and again. 00:00:40.830 --> 00:00:44.012 align:middle line:84% And one of the poems I wrote is about a Persian miniature, 00:00:44.012 --> 00:00:45.720 align:middle line:84% those little paintings that were painted, 00:00:45.720 --> 00:00:49.650 align:middle line:84% I don't know, 16th, 17th century, very small, 00:00:49.650 --> 00:00:54.990 align:middle line:84% maybe six to eight inches large, the whole size of it. 00:00:54.990 --> 00:00:58.110 align:middle line:84% And the wonderful thing about these miniatures, 00:00:58.110 --> 00:01:01.695 align:middle line:84% these paintings, is that you can't look 00:01:01.695 --> 00:01:02.820 align:middle line:90% at the whole thing at once. 00:01:02.820 --> 00:01:04.209 align:middle line:90% You have to wander through it. 00:01:04.209 --> 00:01:06.645 align:middle line:84% You can't look at the whole thing and say, oh, I get this. 00:01:06.645 --> 00:01:08.520 align:middle line:84% Your eye has to wander through as though it's 00:01:08.520 --> 00:01:10.380 align:middle line:90% in some kind of garden. 00:01:10.380 --> 00:01:12.120 align:middle line:90% And this is "Persian Miniature." 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:14.880 align:middle line:90% 00:01:14.880 --> 00:01:17.970 align:middle line:84% The one thing about these poems, when I'm describing miniatures, 00:01:17.970 --> 00:01:21.540 align:middle line:84% is that if it was just description, 00:01:21.540 --> 00:01:23.430 align:middle line:84% I think the poems would be really boring. 00:01:23.430 --> 00:01:24.805 align:middle line:84% They'd be boring for me to write, 00:01:24.805 --> 00:01:27.840 align:middle line:84% because it's just reeling off an image after an image. 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:29.585 align:middle line:84% But I try to start with the image, 00:01:29.585 --> 00:01:31.210 align:middle line:84% and then I see what happens after that, 00:01:31.210 --> 00:01:33.930 align:middle line:84% if there's some kind of story that those images are telling 00:01:33.930 --> 00:01:34.530 align:middle line:90% me. 00:01:34.530 --> 00:01:37.647 align:middle line:90% And here's one. 00:01:37.647 --> 00:01:39.480 align:middle line:84% Oh, the thing that got me to write this poem 00:01:39.480 --> 00:01:42.930 align:middle line:84% was that the paintbrush that these miniatures used 00:01:42.930 --> 00:01:45.720 align:middle line:84% were made of two hairs plucked from the chest of a baby 00:01:45.720 --> 00:01:48.190 align:middle line:90% squirrel. 00:01:48.190 --> 00:01:48.690 align:middle line:90% That did it. 00:01:48.690 --> 00:01:51.600 align:middle line:90% 00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:54.870 align:middle line:84% "With two hairs plucked from the chest of a baby squirrel 00:01:54.870 --> 00:01:58.740 align:middle line:84% and no lapses of attention, the brush of the miniaturist 00:01:58.740 --> 00:02:01.710 align:middle line:90% freezes an entire population. 00:02:01.710 --> 00:02:05.580 align:middle line:84% Within each quarter inch surveyed and magnified, 00:02:05.580 --> 00:02:08.910 align:middle line:84% a dozen flowers puncture the spongy ground. 00:02:08.910 --> 00:02:10.740 align:middle line:84% And even the holes where tent poles 00:02:10.740 --> 00:02:13.830 align:middle line:90% stuck bare ornamental weeds. 00:02:13.830 --> 00:02:17.460 align:middle line:84% Upon a wooden balance beam, this picture's equator, 00:02:17.460 --> 00:02:19.830 align:middle line:90% a cat is prancing. 00:02:19.830 --> 00:02:22.890 align:middle line:84% All the other animals are eating or being milked, 00:02:22.890 --> 00:02:26.640 align:middle line:84% three spotted goats, a beige suede camel, 00:02:26.640 --> 00:02:31.140 align:middle line:84% half a donkey's face lost in an embroidered feed bag. 00:02:31.140 --> 00:02:35.010 align:middle line:84% Under an enormous canopy, seven elders in pajamas 00:02:35.010 --> 00:02:38.400 align:middle line:84% radiate like spokes around the bridegroom. 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:42.060 align:middle line:84% The whitest beards frost the elders chins. 00:02:42.060 --> 00:02:45.090 align:middle line:84% Outside, a fat iron cauldron squats 00:02:45.090 --> 00:02:50.130 align:middle line:84% upon a fire, whose flames spike up little golden minarets. 00:02:50.130 --> 00:02:53.190 align:middle line:84% A kneeling boy pours coffee, his pitcher 00:02:53.190 --> 00:02:56.070 align:middle line:84% handles the size of a human eyelash 00:02:56.070 --> 00:02:59.700 align:middle line:84% but larger than the bridegroom's mustache. 00:02:59.700 --> 00:03:01.260 align:middle line:90% It's a wedding. 00:03:01.260 --> 00:03:03.990 align:middle line:90% Is the bride asleep somewhere? 00:03:03.990 --> 00:03:07.890 align:middle line:84% The bride's attendants hover in tiers like angels and heavens 00:03:07.890 --> 00:03:09.300 align:middle line:90% scaffolding. 00:03:09.300 --> 00:03:12.330 align:middle line:84% But heaven here is the Hanging Gardens. 00:03:12.330 --> 00:03:16.320 align:middle line:84% Or maybe the tent poles hold the heavens up. 00:03:16.320 --> 00:03:19.050 align:middle line:84% Lappets of a tent fold back on a woman 00:03:19.050 --> 00:03:23.820 align:middle line:84% holding her soft, triangular breast to an infant's mouth, 00:03:23.820 --> 00:03:26.280 align:middle line:84% the rug she sits on flapped straight up 00:03:26.280 --> 00:03:29.520 align:middle line:90% behind her like wallpaper. 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:32.100 align:middle line:84% One sixteenth of an inch away, a ram 00:03:32.100 --> 00:03:34.260 align:middle line:84% is tethered to the picture frame. 00:03:34.260 --> 00:03:37.200 align:middle line:84% But where's the bride going to fit? 00:03:37.200 --> 00:03:39.420 align:middle line:84% In the left hand corner of the painting, 00:03:39.420 --> 00:03:42.210 align:middle line:84% across what little of the sky remains, 00:03:42.210 --> 00:03:45.600 align:middle line:84% two geese fly in tandem, pulling two wheels, 00:03:45.600 --> 00:03:48.300 align:middle line:90% two mechanical knotted clouds. 00:03:48.300 --> 00:03:51.480 align:middle line:84% Maybe they're pulling a storm behind them. 00:03:51.480 --> 00:03:56.010 align:middle line:84% Crouched, swirling above the human event, if the storm fits, 00:03:56.010 --> 00:04:00.420 align:middle line:84% it could ruin everything, smash up the whole abbreviated acre, 00:04:00.420 --> 00:04:04.830 align:middle line:84% flush the bride from sleep, while the bridegroom sweeps it 00:04:04.830 --> 00:04:08.460 align:middle line:84% all away, entering her innocent tent like thunder, 00:04:08.460 --> 00:04:12.500 align:middle line:84% and shatters the distance he's had to keep." 00:04:12.500 --> 00:04:13.000 align:middle line:90%