WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.170 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.170 --> 00:00:06.150 align:middle line:84% So what we wanted to do now is ask each other some questions 00:00:06.150 --> 00:00:12.090 align:middle line:84% very briefly about the sort of connection 00:00:12.090 --> 00:00:15.473 align:middle line:84% to this question of ecology and art. 00:00:15.473 --> 00:00:16.890 align:middle line:84% And the question for me is simple. 00:00:16.890 --> 00:00:18.307 align:middle line:84% I sort of know the answer to this, 00:00:18.307 --> 00:00:20.790 align:middle line:84% but I thought it would be interesting for the audience 00:00:20.790 --> 00:00:25.600 align:middle line:84% to hear where this book emerged from, sort of the place, 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:27.600 align:middle line:84% right, because when we're talking about ecology, 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:29.142 align:middle line:84% we're not talking about the abstract. 00:00:29.142 --> 00:00:31.680 align:middle line:84% We're talking about concrete places, right? 00:00:31.680 --> 00:00:36.270 align:middle line:84% So the question to Lila is, were you 00:00:36.270 --> 00:00:39.420 align:middle line:84% thinking of a specific landscape or place when 00:00:39.420 --> 00:00:40.680 align:middle line:90% you wrote these poems? 00:00:40.680 --> 00:00:44.370 align:middle line:84% Do you know anything about the ecology of the place? 00:00:44.370 --> 00:00:47.100 align:middle line:84% So what is the connection between yourself 00:00:47.100 --> 00:00:51.420 align:middle line:84% and the place that is referenced in the poems? 00:00:51.420 --> 00:01:03.750 align:middle line:84% Well, the place, of course, is a specific place, not 00:01:03.750 --> 00:01:07.860 align:middle line:90% in the first poems, actually. 00:01:07.860 --> 00:01:10.800 align:middle line:84% In the first poems that we read, I 00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:20.100 align:middle line:84% think, I was more talking about the connection of the body, 00:01:20.100 --> 00:01:23.130 align:middle line:90% the body through-- 00:01:23.130 --> 00:01:27.510 align:middle line:84% a questioning about how the body connects 00:01:27.510 --> 00:01:30.600 align:middle line:84% with nature in a more abstract way 00:01:30.600 --> 00:01:33.480 align:middle line:84% because I never been to the jungle and I never 00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:36.960 align:middle line:90% seen the monkeys in the jungle. 00:01:36.960 --> 00:01:41.760 align:middle line:84% But it was trying to establish what 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:49.070 align:middle line:84% was that connection from outside and inside at the same time 00:01:49.070 --> 00:01:55.160 align:middle line:84% because I was trying to get a feeling out 00:01:55.160 --> 00:02:02.150 align:middle line:84% of what is inside the body and seeing the body as completely 00:02:02.150 --> 00:02:07.120 align:middle line:90% surrounded and inter-- 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:08.590 align:middle line:90% how do you say this word? 00:02:08.590 --> 00:02:13.550 align:middle line:84% Interconnected with what it is outside. 00:02:13.550 --> 00:02:18.130 align:middle line:84% But this connection with the cells 00:02:18.130 --> 00:02:24.850 align:middle line:84% of my body and the glandular theory 00:02:24.850 --> 00:02:29.110 align:middle line:90% that I kind of developed in-- 00:02:29.110 --> 00:02:31.870 align:middle line:84% what was the word that you use, that it was funny for me 00:02:31.870 --> 00:02:33.490 align:middle line:90% and it's true? 00:02:33.490 --> 00:02:35.920 align:middle line:90% Scientific. 00:02:35.920 --> 00:02:36.730 align:middle line:90% No? 00:02:36.730 --> 00:02:37.960 align:middle line:90% Scientific and sensual. 00:02:37.960 --> 00:02:39.400 align:middle line:90% No, scientific and sensual. 00:02:39.400 --> 00:02:41.230 align:middle line:90% No. 00:02:41.230 --> 00:02:43.765 align:middle line:84% Prepotente, like something like that. 00:02:43.765 --> 00:02:44.500 align:middle line:90% Mm-hmm. 00:02:44.500 --> 00:02:45.800 align:middle line:90% Pedantic? 00:02:45.800 --> 00:02:46.300 align:middle line:90% Eh? 00:02:46.300 --> 00:02:47.200 align:middle line:90% Pedantic? 00:02:47.200 --> 00:02:49.090 align:middle line:90% Oh, because it was-- 00:02:49.090 --> 00:02:49.660 align:middle line:90% Solemn? 00:02:49.660 --> 00:02:51.150 align:middle line:90% No, it was not solemn, but-- 00:02:51.150 --> 00:02:51.760 align:middle line:90% Soporific? 00:02:51.760 --> 00:02:53.320 align:middle line:90% Soporific? 00:02:53.320 --> 00:02:55.510 align:middle line:90% No, before that word. 00:02:55.510 --> 00:02:57.910 align:middle line:84% Because it's soporific, but you said something else. 00:02:57.910 --> 00:02:58.960 align:middle line:90% I won't remember. 00:02:58.960 --> 00:02:59.980 align:middle line:90% Like when-- 00:02:59.980 --> 00:03:00.610 align:middle line:90% Pedantic. 00:03:00.610 --> 00:03:02.630 align:middle line:90% Pedantic, that's the word. 00:03:02.630 --> 00:03:03.130 align:middle line:90% Pedantic. 00:03:03.130 --> 00:03:09.310 align:middle line:90% 00:03:09.310 --> 00:03:12.400 align:middle line:84% In the first part of the book, I was trying to-- 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:14.740 align:middle line:84% in that pedantic way, I was trying 00:03:14.740 --> 00:03:19.570 align:middle line:84% to establish a theory of perception 00:03:19.570 --> 00:03:25.120 align:middle line:84% through glands, that and how bodies connect with each other 00:03:25.120 --> 00:03:30.430 align:middle line:84% but not through the mind but through something, 00:03:30.430 --> 00:03:33.550 align:middle line:84% this kind of energy that is between us. 00:03:33.550 --> 00:03:39.640 align:middle line:84% And I kind of was trying to put into words what that energy was 00:03:39.640 --> 00:03:41.590 align:middle line:90% in between people. 00:03:41.590 --> 00:03:44.950 align:middle line:90% But then-- and inside the body. 00:03:44.950 --> 00:03:48.850 align:middle line:84% But then I got immersed in this landscape 00:03:48.850 --> 00:03:51.040 align:middle line:84% that you are mentioning, which is 00:03:51.040 --> 00:03:58.660 align:middle line:84% Shelter Island in Long Island in New York, where I go a lot. 00:03:58.660 --> 00:04:03.250 align:middle line:84% And I spend the whole my summers over there, and I swim a lot. 00:04:03.250 --> 00:04:08.620 align:middle line:84% I swim every day as I walk every day because I'm a person that 00:04:08.620 --> 00:04:12.010 align:middle line:90% cannot be without-- 00:04:12.010 --> 00:04:14.750 align:middle line:84% I cannot be without contact with nature. 00:04:14.750 --> 00:04:18.880 align:middle line:84% So when I was swimming during the summer, 00:04:18.880 --> 00:04:20.769 align:middle line:90% I was thinking on this point. 00:04:20.769 --> 00:04:23.350 align:middle line:84% I was not thinking, but I was feeling all this kind 00:04:23.350 --> 00:04:25.270 align:middle line:90% of writing that I was doing. 00:04:25.270 --> 00:04:27.010 align:middle line:90% And I was obsessed completely. 00:04:27.010 --> 00:04:34.870 align:middle line:84% So I don't know like scientifically the landscape. 00:04:34.870 --> 00:04:38.510 align:middle line:84% But it's-- like I have an experience of the landscape. 00:04:38.510 --> 00:04:40.870 align:middle line:84% And I think all my writing comes more 00:04:40.870 --> 00:04:46.150 align:middle line:84% from this connection with what surrounds me 00:04:46.150 --> 00:04:53.530 align:middle line:84% than with knowledge of what maybe pedantic knowledge that I 00:04:53.530 --> 00:04:56.530 align:middle line:90% don't have that is invented. 00:04:56.530 --> 00:04:58.630 align:middle line:84% I like that word because-- you know why? 00:04:58.630 --> 00:05:01.330 align:middle line:90% Because I wrote my dissertation. 00:05:01.330 --> 00:05:02.890 align:middle line:84% And when you write your dissertation, 00:05:02.890 --> 00:05:04.660 align:middle line:84% you have to develop a kind of language 00:05:04.660 --> 00:05:07.700 align:middle line:84% that is you're from here writing from there. 00:05:07.700 --> 00:05:11.410 align:middle line:84% So I was writing from inside, but also from the top 00:05:11.410 --> 00:05:13.040 align:middle line:90% there in that way. 00:05:13.040 --> 00:05:16.090 align:middle line:84% So it was good that you mentioned it. 00:05:16.090 --> 00:05:22.870 align:middle line:84% So I wanted to ask Rosa also concerning her work. 00:05:22.870 --> 00:05:29.800 align:middle line:84% Rosa writes a lot about the relationship between also 00:05:29.800 --> 00:05:37.880 align:middle line:84% bodies and the places that people work and labor. 00:05:37.880 --> 00:05:44.020 align:middle line:84% And she has a poem that is called "Factory," for example. 00:05:44.020 --> 00:05:50.065 align:middle line:84% And she writes about the conditions of bodies during-- 00:05:50.065 --> 00:05:52.810 align:middle line:90% 00:05:52.810 --> 00:05:57.220 align:middle line:84% the conditions of people working in environments 00:05:57.220 --> 00:06:02.200 align:middle line:84% that they are not so, maybe, healthy, I would say. 00:06:02.200 --> 00:06:06.437 align:middle line:84% So what would you like to say about that? 00:06:06.437 --> 00:06:08.770 align:middle line:84% Well, I mean, one of the things I've been thinking about 00:06:08.770 --> 00:06:12.940 align:middle line:84% is, how is my work connected to this question of ecology 00:06:12.940 --> 00:06:13.570 align:middle line:90% or nature? 00:06:13.570 --> 00:06:15.970 align:middle line:84% And my first response to Lila was, 00:06:15.970 --> 00:06:19.175 align:middle line:84% there's no nature of my poems, meaning that I grew up 00:06:19.175 --> 00:06:20.800 align:middle line:84% in this very urban landscape, and there 00:06:20.800 --> 00:06:24.940 align:middle line:84% was-- the places where the people I knew worked 00:06:24.940 --> 00:06:27.050 align:middle line:84% were very cut off from this idea of nature. 00:06:27.050 --> 00:06:30.760 align:middle line:84% I mean, this is sort of post-industrial revolution 00:06:30.760 --> 00:06:33.530 align:middle line:84% or even post-industrial landscapes. 00:06:33.530 --> 00:06:37.070 align:middle line:84% So there are a lot of images of dye houses, 00:06:37.070 --> 00:06:40.900 align:middle line:84% but also sort of pink collar places like offices 00:06:40.900 --> 00:06:44.650 align:middle line:84% working as temps, and this kind of way 00:06:44.650 --> 00:06:51.310 align:middle line:84% where the body gets cut off from the landscape, right, 00:06:51.310 --> 00:06:54.680 align:middle line:84% becomes sort of put in cubicles, for example, 00:06:54.680 --> 00:06:56.830 align:middle line:84% or has to tend to a machine, and it's 00:06:56.830 --> 00:06:59.650 align:middle line:90% kind of like this rote motion. 00:06:59.650 --> 00:07:05.500 align:middle line:84% And some of my early poems really talked about the-- 00:07:05.500 --> 00:07:09.520 align:middle line:84% romanticized this landscape that my parents 00:07:09.520 --> 00:07:13.190 align:middle line:84% came from which-- my father was a field hand, his family was. 00:07:13.190 --> 00:07:16.300 align:middle line:84% And this is-- it's not an idealized landscape 00:07:16.300 --> 00:07:19.390 align:middle line:84% because it's very hard to live off the land 00:07:19.390 --> 00:07:21.520 align:middle line:90% and to work as a field hand. 00:07:21.520 --> 00:07:27.610 align:middle line:84% But within a generation, these people who moved from the South 00:07:27.610 --> 00:07:31.600 align:middle line:84% to the North of Spain to work in factories, 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:35.560 align:middle line:84% any kind of knowledge of nature, even if it was fraught, 00:07:35.560 --> 00:07:39.010 align:middle line:84% because you couldn't make a living off of the land, 00:07:39.010 --> 00:07:40.550 align:middle line:90% was completely lost. 00:07:40.550 --> 00:07:43.870 align:middle line:84% So with me, I'm very anxious around nature 00:07:43.870 --> 00:07:46.120 align:middle line:90% because part of it is-- 00:07:46.120 --> 00:07:49.520 align:middle line:84% well, it's difficult to make a living off of there. 00:07:49.520 --> 00:07:52.910 align:middle line:84% I mean, I sort of sensed that from my family. 00:07:52.910 --> 00:07:55.105 align:middle line:90% But also it's-- 00:07:55.105 --> 00:07:58.060 align:middle line:84% I not only feel like I'm losing the language in some way, 00:07:58.060 --> 00:08:01.960 align:middle line:84% losing Spanish, even though I speak it, 00:08:01.960 --> 00:08:03.580 align:middle line:90% but maybe my daughter won't. 00:08:03.580 --> 00:08:04.345 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:08:04.345 --> 00:08:06.530 align:middle line:84% That's sort of one of my anxieties. 00:08:06.530 --> 00:08:10.270 align:middle line:84% But also losing, how do you plant something? 00:08:10.270 --> 00:08:11.380 align:middle line:90% How do you grow something? 00:08:11.380 --> 00:08:12.670 align:middle line:90% How do you live off the land? 00:08:12.670 --> 00:08:14.740 align:middle line:90% Now, you're in a factory. 00:08:14.740 --> 00:08:16.930 align:middle line:84% So this feeling of kind of moving away 00:08:16.930 --> 00:08:20.050 align:middle line:84% from it and the anxiety that goes with it, though, 00:08:20.050 --> 00:08:23.500 align:middle line:84% it's probably all of our anxiety of having to deal with, 00:08:23.500 --> 00:08:25.133 align:middle line:90% how does work change? 00:08:25.133 --> 00:08:26.050 align:middle line:90% How does labor change? 00:08:26.050 --> 00:08:27.280 align:middle line:90% And how do we adapt to it? 00:08:27.280 --> 00:08:31.540 align:middle line:84% And how do we adapt to this world that changes constantly 00:08:31.540 --> 00:08:34.700 align:middle line:84% that now everything's technological, for example? 00:08:34.700 --> 00:08:37.929 align:middle line:84% So that's kind of a rambling answer to the question. 00:08:37.929 --> 00:08:41.220 align:middle line:90% 00:08:41.220 --> 00:08:43.460 align:middle line:90% So should we be reading-- 00:08:43.460 --> 00:08:44.059 align:middle line:90% Sure. 00:08:44.059 --> 00:08:45.030 align:middle line:90% --some of the work? 00:08:45.030 --> 00:08:46.280 align:middle line:90% Absolutely