WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.260 align:middle line:90% Why don't you? 00:00:01.260 --> 00:00:02.820 align:middle line:90% You want me to start? 00:00:02.820 --> 00:00:07.470 align:middle line:84% OK, so I'll read some of these labor poems. 00:00:07.470 --> 00:00:11.100 align:middle line:84% So this is a manuscript called "Undocumentaries." 00:00:11.100 --> 00:00:13.920 align:middle line:84% The excerpt from this is called "Undocumentary," 00:00:13.920 --> 00:00:16.740 align:middle line:84% and it was published by Dos Press. 00:00:16.740 --> 00:00:19.630 align:middle line:84% And it's for sale here, somewhere. 00:00:19.630 --> 00:00:20.520 align:middle line:90% It's a chapbook. 00:00:20.520 --> 00:00:22.530 align:middle line:84% And then, "Undocumentaries" is being 00:00:22.530 --> 00:00:25.600 align:middle line:84% published by Shearsman Books in the spring. 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:29.400 align:middle line:84% So if you're interested, it'll be somewhere. 00:00:29.400 --> 00:00:32.369 align:middle line:84% I'm sure it'll be sold on Amazon like everything else is. 00:00:32.369 --> 00:00:41.630 align:middle line:90% 00:00:41.630 --> 00:00:46.577 align:middle line:84% So this isn't really a labor problem, but maybe it is. 00:00:46.577 --> 00:00:48.410 align:middle line:84% It's a very sort of working-class reference, 00:00:48.410 --> 00:00:49.993 align:middle line:84% because nobody hangs their clothes out 00:00:49.993 --> 00:00:51.372 align:middle line:90% to dry anymore, right? 00:00:51.372 --> 00:00:52.520 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:53.300 align:middle line:90% Oh, they do? 00:00:53.300 --> 00:00:55.460 align:middle line:90% Oh, that's good, that's good. 00:00:55.460 --> 00:00:58.130 align:middle line:84% So this is called "Confessional Poem," 00:00:58.130 --> 00:00:59.630 align:middle line:90% and this was a response to-- 00:00:59.630 --> 00:01:01.220 align:middle line:84% I think it was a poem or something 00:01:01.220 --> 00:01:05.780 align:middle line:84% I read, where this woman invokes her mother, 00:01:05.780 --> 00:01:09.500 align:middle line:84% saying that you can always tell the kind of private life 00:01:09.500 --> 00:01:11.300 align:middle line:84% of a woman by what kind of underwear 00:01:11.300 --> 00:01:13.140 align:middle line:90% she hangs on the line. 00:01:13.140 --> 00:01:15.500 align:middle line:90% And I thought, well, why? 00:01:15.500 --> 00:01:18.260 align:middle line:84% So she has big bloomers-- she may have a great sex life, 00:01:18.260 --> 00:01:19.820 align:middle line:90% you don't know. 00:01:19.820 --> 00:01:21.290 align:middle line:90% How can you tell? 00:01:21.290 --> 00:01:24.395 align:middle line:84% And so I started thinking that in poetic terms. 00:01:24.395 --> 00:01:26.270 align:middle line:84% You read something in a poem and you're like, 00:01:26.270 --> 00:01:27.740 align:middle line:90% oh, I know that person. 00:01:27.740 --> 00:01:29.540 align:middle line:90% Well, you don't, really. 00:01:29.540 --> 00:01:31.250 align:middle line:90% You know the poem. 00:01:31.250 --> 00:01:35.280 align:middle line:84% So this is about manufacturing the truth in a poem. 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:37.940 align:middle line:90% It's called "Confessional Poem." 00:01:37.940 --> 00:01:42.530 align:middle line:84% The girl next door had something to teach me about what to air. 00:01:42.530 --> 00:01:47.420 align:middle line:84% On the line, somebody's business gets told, then recounted. 00:01:47.420 --> 00:01:50.630 align:middle line:84% It's best to thread a tale for the neighbors, 00:01:50.630 --> 00:01:53.150 align:middle line:90% an orchestration of sorts. 00:01:53.150 --> 00:01:57.470 align:middle line:84% But I am far from modest in my telling of lies. 00:01:57.470 --> 00:02:00.680 align:middle line:84% There are three references I put forward, 00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:05.480 align:middle line:84% each a past lover who liked a different kind of underling 00:02:05.480 --> 00:02:07.310 align:middle line:90% to his genius. 00:02:07.310 --> 00:02:11.000 align:middle line:84% You wouldn't know it from the delicates I roll into the yard. 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:16.010 align:middle line:84% It's all the same peekaboo lace and stunted imagination. 00:02:16.010 --> 00:02:20.000 align:middle line:84% Of course, all of this is scanty truth. 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:23.330 align:middle line:84% Who hangs anything out to dry, when 00:02:23.330 --> 00:02:26.710 align:middle line:90% invention has halved the work? 00:02:26.710 --> 00:02:32.160 align:middle line:90%