WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.140 align:middle line:84% He asked if you have any ideas or imagery that we wanted 00:00:04.140 --> 00:00:07.230 align:middle line:84% to turn into poetry, but we just couldn't find the words for it? 00:00:07.230 --> 00:00:08.797 align:middle line:84% I mean that's the struggle, I mean 00:00:08.797 --> 00:00:10.380 align:middle line:84% that's the daily struggle as a writer. 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:13.020 align:middle line:84% Everything that I do, that's kind of how it starts. 00:00:13.020 --> 00:00:15.090 align:middle line:84% You mean, I see the poems in the book 00:00:15.090 --> 00:00:18.480 align:middle line:84% and I still remember first writing the first drafts 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:20.500 align:middle line:84% thinking, ah, this is what I want to do. 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:25.050 align:middle line:84% And the final poem never achieves that vision, you know. 00:00:25.050 --> 00:00:26.580 align:middle line:84% That's I mean, that's a struggle. 00:00:26.580 --> 00:00:28.410 align:middle line:84% And that's a positive because it makes 00:00:28.410 --> 00:00:31.590 align:middle line:84% you keep struggling to maybe one day I'll get it right. 00:00:31.590 --> 00:00:33.790 align:middle line:84% Maybe one day I'll get the right words, 00:00:33.790 --> 00:00:35.430 align:middle line:90% the right order like that. 00:00:35.430 --> 00:00:36.660 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:36.660 --> 00:00:39.720 align:middle line:84% And for me, one of the hardest things to write about 00:00:39.720 --> 00:00:41.190 align:middle line:90% was my brother. 00:00:41.190 --> 00:00:43.420 align:middle line:84% And because I was so close to it. 00:00:43.420 --> 00:00:45.068 align:middle line:84% And every time I sat down and I thought 00:00:45.068 --> 00:00:46.860 align:middle line:84% I'm going to write a poem about my brother, 00:00:46.860 --> 00:00:49.360 align:middle line:84% I'm going to write a poem about what happened or how I feel, 00:00:49.360 --> 00:00:51.690 align:middle line:90% I could never write that poem. 00:00:51.690 --> 00:00:55.500 align:middle line:84% So what I finally did was I quit focusing on that thing 00:00:55.500 --> 00:00:58.470 align:middle line:84% I had to tell and I looked at an image 00:00:58.470 --> 00:01:02.670 align:middle line:84% or I looked at a time of night or I looked at a phrase 00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:04.890 align:middle line:84% my mother had said to me about my brother. 00:01:04.890 --> 00:01:07.860 align:middle line:84% And the very first poem I ever wrote about my brother 00:01:07.860 --> 00:01:10.410 align:middle line:84% is the title poem of my book, When My Brother was An Aztec. 00:01:10.410 --> 00:01:11.790 align:middle line:90% And I was reading-- 00:01:11.790 --> 00:01:13.260 align:middle line:90% I quit thinking about that. 00:01:13.260 --> 00:01:17.415 align:middle line:84% I was reading about an Aztec story 00:01:17.415 --> 00:01:18.540 align:middle line:90% that a friend had given me. 00:01:18.540 --> 00:01:21.510 align:middle line:84% And that's, I just somehow made that connection. 00:01:21.510 --> 00:01:23.820 align:middle line:84% So, I think it's OK that you sit down 00:01:23.820 --> 00:01:27.030 align:middle line:84% to write about something in particular nothing comes out. 00:01:27.030 --> 00:01:29.640 align:middle line:84% Because any poem that happens I think 00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:31.680 align:middle line:90% happens and it surprises you. 00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:33.840 align:middle line:84% So often the thing you set out to write 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:37.200 align:middle line:84% is not going to be the real poem, you know. 00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:40.210 align:middle line:84% And you'll find your way back to those things. 00:01:40.210 --> 00:01:42.390 align:middle line:84% So, I mean I think it already sounds 00:01:42.390 --> 00:01:44.400 align:middle line:84% like you're a poet because you said, 00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:45.960 align:middle line:84% how do you write about these things? 00:01:45.960 --> 00:01:47.940 align:middle line:84% Because that's, I think, how every poem starts. 00:01:47.940 --> 00:01:49.530 align:middle line:84% You don't know how you're going to do it. 00:01:49.530 --> 00:01:50.070 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah. 00:01:50.070 --> 00:01:51.930 align:middle line:84% Often the image the phrase and memory 00:01:51.930 --> 00:01:55.110 align:middle line:84% that triggers the impulse, the desire to write something down, 00:01:55.110 --> 00:01:56.940 align:middle line:90% it's just the first step. 00:01:56.940 --> 00:01:58.170 align:middle line:90% It'll lead you somewhere. 00:01:58.170 --> 00:01:59.670 align:middle line:84% And hopefully somewhere the process, 00:01:59.670 --> 00:02:01.410 align:middle line:84% you'll make a discovery, a surprise. 00:02:01.410 --> 00:02:05.525 align:middle line:84% And that's where the poem wants to be, where it should be. 00:02:05.525 --> 00:02:06.900 align:middle line:84% You're thinking you want to write 00:02:06.900 --> 00:02:08.823 align:middle line:84% a poem about your father crossing the desert, 00:02:08.823 --> 00:02:09.990 align:middle line:90% so you're writing that poem. 00:02:09.990 --> 00:02:10.770 align:middle line:90% You start writing that poem. 00:02:10.770 --> 00:02:13.253 align:middle line:84% But then really the poem that wants to exist in the world 00:02:13.253 --> 00:02:15.420 align:middle line:84% is not really about your father crossing the desert, 00:02:15.420 --> 00:02:20.040 align:middle line:84% it's about the saguaro losing a branch in a monsoon storm. 00:02:20.040 --> 00:02:20.850 align:middle line:90% So you never know. 00:02:20.850 --> 00:02:23.610 align:middle line:84% But you have to start investigating, drafting, 00:02:23.610 --> 00:02:25.770 align:middle line:84% thinking about language, dwelling with language 00:02:25.770 --> 00:02:26.910 align:middle line:90% and just go for it. 00:02:26.910 --> 00:02:29.450 align:middle line:90% And see where you wind up.