WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.790 align:middle line:84% She wants to know if there are certain topics that we 00:00:02.790 --> 00:00:05.760 align:middle line:84% like to write about or that keep coming up. 00:00:05.760 --> 00:00:07.920 align:middle line:84% I tend at, least right now because I'm still 00:00:07.920 --> 00:00:11.490 align:middle line:84% a pretty young poet, I tend to write about again 00:00:11.490 --> 00:00:12.760 align:middle line:90% the things I wonder about. 00:00:12.760 --> 00:00:15.860 align:middle line:84% So it is a lot about my reservation community. 00:00:15.860 --> 00:00:16.470 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:16.470 --> 00:00:18.810 align:middle line:84% It is a lot about language, because I do language work. 00:00:18.810 --> 00:00:20.268 align:middle line:84% There's only three people who speak 00:00:20.268 --> 00:00:22.870 align:middle line:90% my language left in the world. 00:00:22.870 --> 00:00:25.170 align:middle line:84% And so, that's what I do for my daily job. 00:00:25.170 --> 00:00:29.580 align:middle line:84% So, language and words are-- which I'm lucky, 00:00:29.580 --> 00:00:31.990 align:middle line:84% you know, because I can run back and forth between that. 00:00:31.990 --> 00:00:35.340 align:middle line:84% But it is just whatever happens to pop up, you know. 00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:38.040 align:middle line:84% And that's what happens when you give yourself time. 00:00:38.040 --> 00:00:41.733 align:middle line:84% And time each day or a couple of times a week, 00:00:41.733 --> 00:00:43.650 align:middle line:84% you'll start writing about all of these things 00:00:43.650 --> 00:00:45.360 align:middle line:84% because you're connected to all of them, you know. 00:00:45.360 --> 00:00:47.700 align:middle line:84% Even if right now you don't realize it and you think 00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:50.250 align:middle line:84% this might not matter to me, but you'll 00:00:50.250 --> 00:00:51.750 align:middle line:84% start to really find out what you're 00:00:51.750 --> 00:00:54.960 align:middle line:84% thinking underneath all the surface of Snooki 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:56.620 align:middle line:90% and all of those things. 00:00:56.620 --> 00:00:57.810 align:middle line:90% So. 00:00:57.810 --> 00:00:59.160 align:middle line:90% Snooki can be a poem. 00:00:59.160 --> 00:01:03.055 align:middle line:84% In the right hands, in the right hands, Snooki can be a poem. 00:01:03.055 --> 00:01:04.680 align:middle line:84% One of the biggest breakthroughs for me 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:07.320 align:middle line:84% as a poet after graduate school was I 00:01:07.320 --> 00:01:10.140 align:middle line:84% really just stopped thinking about what the poems should be 00:01:10.140 --> 00:01:11.170 align:middle line:90% or should be about. 00:01:11.170 --> 00:01:13.050 align:middle line:84% So, I stopped thinking about subject matter. 00:01:13.050 --> 00:01:15.210 align:middle line:84% And I made language king and queen. 00:01:15.210 --> 00:01:20.230 align:middle line:84% So, anything that interested in, a phrase, a word, an image, 00:01:20.230 --> 00:01:22.890 align:middle line:84% if that made me perplex, confuse me, 00:01:22.890 --> 00:01:26.070 align:middle line:84% it made me perk up on the page, that's what I followed. 00:01:26.070 --> 00:01:28.710 align:middle line:90% And that showed me-- 00:01:28.710 --> 00:01:30.990 align:middle line:84% once I started following language, 00:01:30.990 --> 00:01:33.160 align:middle line:90% I found my subject matter. 00:01:33.160 --> 00:01:37.310 align:middle line:84% And so, for me, language is everything.