WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.900 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.900 --> 00:00:03.020 align:middle line:84% I'm going to open it up for questions. 00:00:03.020 --> 00:00:07.470 align:middle line:84% But I want to actually ask an introductory question 00:00:07.470 --> 00:00:09.930 align:middle line:90% to break the ice. 00:00:09.930 --> 00:00:13.680 align:middle line:84% As I was listening to the three of you 00:00:13.680 --> 00:00:16.680 align:middle line:84% and I'm thinking in my mind why I brought the three of you 00:00:16.680 --> 00:00:20.610 align:middle line:84% together and thinking about the larger gesture of Latino poetry 00:00:20.610 --> 00:00:31.500 align:middle line:84% now, which is meant to take a snapshot in 2011, 2012, 2013, 00:00:31.500 --> 00:00:35.910 align:middle line:84% of younger contemporary Latino poetry. 00:00:35.910 --> 00:00:40.320 align:middle line:84% One of you or all of you to take a shot at, 00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:43.770 align:middle line:84% as you just experienced each other's work 00:00:43.770 --> 00:00:46.450 align:middle line:84% to situate yourselves as a group, 00:00:46.450 --> 00:00:52.072 align:middle line:84% as a trio within the constellation of Latino poetry. 00:00:52.072 --> 00:00:55.509 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:55.509 --> 00:01:01.900 align:middle line:90% 00:01:01.900 --> 00:01:04.239 align:middle line:84% Well, maybe the anecdote might be the place to begin, 00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:07.930 align:middle line:84% which is that how we met and that's meaningful. 00:01:07.930 --> 00:01:12.280 align:middle line:84% And so far as I think that the three of us here, 00:01:12.280 --> 00:01:15.130 align:middle line:84% our commitments have been long and continue 00:01:15.130 --> 00:01:17.260 align:middle line:84% to be associated with what might be called 00:01:17.260 --> 00:01:20.020 align:middle line:84% research-based or investigative poetrys, 00:01:20.020 --> 00:01:26.050 align:middle line:84% experimental poetrys and yet our concern for the culture concept 00:01:26.050 --> 00:01:28.720 align:middle line:84% in which many identities are able to be enacted 00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:32.530 align:middle line:84% in the kinds of poems that we're interested in producing 00:01:32.530 --> 00:01:38.200 align:middle line:84% had a very limited reception at a certain given moment 00:01:38.200 --> 00:01:40.250 align:middle line:90% in the very recent history. 00:01:40.250 --> 00:01:43.603 align:middle line:84% And so I think the reason I spoke of elected affinities, 00:01:43.603 --> 00:01:45.520 align:middle line:84% it soon became very clear that I was beginning 00:01:45.520 --> 00:01:48.820 align:middle line:84% to read poets who identified as Latino or Latina 00:01:48.820 --> 00:01:53.680 align:middle line:84% and who were asking the kinds of both formal and subject based 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:58.330 align:middle line:84% questions that to me were the compelling questions, 00:01:58.330 --> 00:02:01.060 align:middle line:84% the questions that I think poetry is a place of knowledge 00:02:01.060 --> 00:02:02.650 align:middle line:90% building should be asking. 00:02:02.650 --> 00:02:06.280 align:middle line:84% And to me it seems that what I think the three of us 00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:11.710 align:middle line:84% are interested is exploring the notion that there are scripts 00:02:11.710 --> 00:02:15.280 align:middle line:84% that we are asked to perform simply because 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:17.320 align:middle line:84% of our last names or our cultural background 00:02:17.320 --> 00:02:19.840 align:middle line:84% and that certain ways of enunciating 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:24.170 align:middle line:84% that identity of proper behavior. 00:02:24.170 --> 00:02:26.590 align:middle line:84% And so I think the kind of work that we tend to explore 00:02:26.590 --> 00:02:31.510 align:middle line:84% is one that would rather be unruly in accepting those given 00:02:31.510 --> 00:02:32.770 align:middle line:90% social scripts. 00:02:32.770 --> 00:02:37.400 align:middle line:90% 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:39.080 align:middle line:84% One follow up and then I open it up. 00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:42.410 align:middle line:84% So when you think about your work within again 00:02:42.410 --> 00:02:43.940 align:middle line:84% the constellation of Latino poetry 00:02:43.940 --> 00:02:49.220 align:middle line:84% say from the late '60s till now, have any of you 00:02:49.220 --> 00:02:53.570 align:middle line:84% identified any poets with whom you share 00:02:53.570 --> 00:02:56.240 align:middle line:84% affinities, some among our elders? 00:02:56.240 --> 00:02:59.880 align:middle line:90% 00:02:59.880 --> 00:03:00.990 align:middle line:90% Sure. 00:03:00.990 --> 00:03:04.530 align:middle line:84% I mean the thing is it's like those aren't 00:03:04.530 --> 00:03:07.200 align:middle line:84% solitary in the sense of being an exclusive 00:03:07.200 --> 00:03:10.980 align:middle line:84% to certain cultural conceptions and cultural identities, 00:03:10.980 --> 00:03:13.635 align:middle line:84% but rather those share the same space with-- 00:03:13.635 --> 00:03:16.140 align:middle line:90% 00:03:16.140 --> 00:03:20.160 align:middle line:84% a story would be to explain how I was reading James Wright 00:03:20.160 --> 00:03:23.680 align:middle line:84% and then my professor was like, who else are you reading? 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:25.470 align:middle line:90% I'm like, reading Scalapino. 00:03:25.470 --> 00:03:27.940 align:middle line:84% I love them both, I'm reading that same week. 00:03:27.940 --> 00:03:31.440 align:middle line:84% But in so doing, reading Jimmy Santiago Baca, the same week 00:03:31.440 --> 00:03:34.290 align:middle line:84% that I'm reading Rosmarie Waldrop, 00:03:34.290 --> 00:03:37.290 align:middle line:84% I don't find different contrasts in aesthetics, 00:03:37.290 --> 00:03:43.200 align:middle line:84% but just as when I read a certain trajectory that's 00:03:43.200 --> 00:03:47.460 align:middle line:84% been produced to represent Latino/Latina writing, 00:03:47.460 --> 00:03:49.510 align:middle line:84% I understand it's a cultural production 00:03:49.510 --> 00:03:51.570 align:middle line:84% but there's still a lot of these writers that 00:03:51.570 --> 00:03:56.820 align:middle line:84% exist within that paradigm that are doing these really 00:03:56.820 --> 00:03:59.580 align:middle line:84% innovative questioning, pursuing, 00:03:59.580 --> 00:04:01.770 align:middle line:90% challenging these structures. 00:04:01.770 --> 00:04:07.440 align:middle line:84% We mentioned the Gronk earlier, ASCO, and a variety of even 00:04:07.440 --> 00:04:11.160 align:middle line:84% what I'm looking at, late 19th century work that's already 00:04:11.160 --> 00:04:16.320 align:middle line:84% pursuing this prior to the European 00:04:16.320 --> 00:04:20.310 align:middle line:84% based historical avant-garde, the US. 00:04:20.310 --> 00:04:24.930 align:middle line:84% So I think that to try to portray 00:04:24.930 --> 00:04:27.870 align:middle line:84% a particular historical perspective on what 00:04:27.870 --> 00:04:30.210 align:middle line:84% has come to be known as Latino/Latina writing 00:04:30.210 --> 00:04:34.350 align:middle line:84% can be disrupted and reorganized to demonstrate 00:04:34.350 --> 00:04:36.300 align:middle line:84% that these type of moments have been 00:04:36.300 --> 00:04:39.120 align:middle line:84% occurring throughout 20th century, 19th century 00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:39.630 align:middle line:90% et cetera. 00:04:39.630 --> 00:04:42.310 align:middle line:90% 00:04:42.310 --> 00:04:46.000 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think it's complicated to look back 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:48.070 align:middle line:90% and say, is it doing this. 00:04:48.070 --> 00:04:50.590 align:middle line:84% I don't know, I think Alurista and Juan Felipe Herrera 00:04:50.590 --> 00:04:51.965 align:middle line:90% are experimental writers. 00:04:51.965 --> 00:04:52.840 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:04:52.840 --> 00:04:54.820 align:middle line:84% They were groundbreaking and they did things 00:04:54.820 --> 00:04:59.080 align:middle line:84% that people hadn't done before and their work has 00:04:59.080 --> 00:05:02.890 align:middle line:84% this political charge that's really significant. 00:05:02.890 --> 00:05:07.510 align:middle line:84% But again, I think it's who's making the decisions about how 00:05:07.510 --> 00:05:10.120 align:middle line:90% a work gets contextualized. 00:05:10.120 --> 00:05:13.355 align:middle line:84% I think of Juan Felipe Herrera than writing Akrílica just 00:05:13.355 --> 00:05:15.730 align:middle line:84% as the language poets are coming up and I'm wondering why 00:05:15.730 --> 00:05:18.020 align:middle line:84% isn't there a conversation there. 00:05:18.020 --> 00:05:21.100 align:middle line:90% So I think there's lots there. 00:05:21.100 --> 00:05:31.110 align:middle line:90% 00:05:31.110 --> 00:05:33.130 align:middle line:84% Roberto, I was really taken by the phrase 00:05:33.130 --> 00:05:38.290 align:middle line:84% you just used about poetry as a place for knowledge building. 00:05:38.290 --> 00:05:41.005 align:middle line:84% Would you say a little more about that concept? 00:05:41.005 --> 00:05:44.040 align:middle line:90% 00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:50.130 align:middle line:84% To be brief I would just say that there 00:05:50.130 --> 00:05:52.530 align:middle line:84% is an understanding of art making that it comes out 00:05:52.530 --> 00:05:54.930 align:middle line:90% of what might be experienced. 00:05:54.930 --> 00:05:56.790 align:middle line:84% And what I'm about to say does not 00:05:56.790 --> 00:05:58.865 align:middle line:84% negate that poetry comes out of experience. 00:05:58.865 --> 00:06:00.990 align:middle line:84% We had a conversation with the great undergraduates 00:06:00.990 --> 00:06:04.470 align:middle line:84% this morning about how does one process experience. 00:06:04.470 --> 00:06:07.470 align:middle line:84% But it seems to me that poetry has a commitment 00:06:07.470 --> 00:06:10.590 align:middle line:84% as well because it is a legitimate inquiry 00:06:10.590 --> 00:06:13.110 align:middle line:84% into the world, that it has the ability. 00:06:13.110 --> 00:06:16.290 align:middle line:84% It's a powerful technology, it's a powerful tool 00:06:16.290 --> 00:06:21.990 align:middle line:84% to ask questions about history, about the present, 00:06:21.990 --> 00:06:24.240 align:middle line:84% where does that subject fit into the present, 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:28.470 align:middle line:84% how is one an historical actor, where is desire in that, 00:06:28.470 --> 00:06:32.240 align:middle line:84% have a spirit and fantasy play into subjectivity 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:36.220 align:middle line:84% in the realm of social disaster for example. 00:06:36.220 --> 00:06:44.460 align:middle line:84% So it seems to me that I like to see the ambition of poetry 00:06:44.460 --> 00:06:48.540 align:middle line:84% taking on more than just what might be called lyric 00:06:48.540 --> 00:06:50.130 align:middle line:90% experience of just the self. 00:06:50.130 --> 00:06:55.800 align:middle line:90% 00:06:55.800 --> 00:06:58.780 align:middle line:84% I have a couple questions that I'll throw out there 00:06:58.780 --> 00:07:01.680 align:middle line:84% and it could be for any of you and then 00:07:01.680 --> 00:07:04.360 align:middle line:84% and you can do what you want with them. 00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:08.350 align:middle line:84% One is that you all have do work editing as well too. 00:07:08.350 --> 00:07:10.950 align:middle line:84% And I'm curious the relationship between how you conceive 00:07:10.950 --> 00:07:14.850 align:middle line:84% editing versus how that informs your creative work and vise 00:07:14.850 --> 00:07:15.600 align:middle line:90% versa. 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:18.780 align:middle line:84% And second is that, one of the things that I noticed 00:07:18.780 --> 00:07:22.860 align:middle line:84% between all of your work is biology and bodies and organs 00:07:22.860 --> 00:07:24.460 align:middle line:90% and organisms coming up. 00:07:24.460 --> 00:07:28.770 align:middle line:84% I'm curious if you think that a poem is an organism itself 00:07:28.770 --> 00:07:32.220 align:middle line:84% and then more in sort of a conceptual frame 00:07:32.220 --> 00:07:36.210 align:middle line:84% like how you consider biology and poetry in relation 00:07:36.210 --> 00:07:36.960 align:middle line:90% to each other. 00:07:36.960 --> 00:07:41.393 align:middle line:90% 00:07:41.393 --> 00:07:42.810 align:middle line:84% What was the first question again? 00:07:42.810 --> 00:07:46.230 align:middle line:84% I had an answer then it went got intense. 00:07:46.230 --> 00:07:49.680 align:middle line:84% Relationship between editing and writing. 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:54.940 align:middle line:84% Honestly, for me reading is 60% of my writing. 00:07:54.940 --> 00:07:58.770 align:middle line:84% So I read a lot more than I do write. 00:07:58.770 --> 00:08:01.410 align:middle line:84% And I think editing goes into that. 00:08:01.410 --> 00:08:04.980 align:middle line:84% As like when I read this other work, 00:08:04.980 --> 00:08:09.930 align:middle line:84% I'm encountering my process and experience and digestion 00:08:09.930 --> 00:08:14.160 align:middle line:84% of language and then that totally helps me 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:16.380 align:middle line:84% in what I end up doing, as I want to push it 00:08:16.380 --> 00:08:18.032 align:middle line:84% because I see these other writers doing 00:08:18.032 --> 00:08:18.990 align:middle line:90% these type of moments-- 00:08:18.990 --> 00:08:21.750 align:middle line:90% 00:08:21.750 --> 00:08:23.400 align:middle line:84% I mean, what I would consider, like, 00:08:23.400 --> 00:08:27.090 align:middle line:84% their epistemological approach to kind of just world 00:08:27.090 --> 00:08:28.570 align:middle line:90% experience. 00:08:28.570 --> 00:08:32.100 align:middle line:84% And when I put on that guys, how does that manifest? 00:08:32.100 --> 00:08:35.370 align:middle line:84% Because most of my work are exercises 00:08:35.370 --> 00:08:38.610 align:middle line:84% that I base off of other writers because I 00:08:38.610 --> 00:08:41.880 align:middle line:84% want to kind of inhabit how they make knowledge, 00:08:41.880 --> 00:08:43.679 align:middle line:90% how they make the world. 00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:46.680 align:middle line:84% And I don't think this knowledge-based pursuit 00:08:46.680 --> 00:08:48.130 align:middle line:90% is a new thing. 00:08:48.130 --> 00:08:54.120 align:middle line:84% I mean, you can go back to Shelley, to the Greeks, where-- 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:55.680 align:middle line:84% exactly-- this is something that's 00:08:55.680 --> 00:08:59.730 align:middle line:84% quite classical in the sense of how conceptions of the world 00:08:59.730 --> 00:09:04.960 align:middle line:84% are created vis-a-vis language and aesthetic. 00:09:04.960 --> 00:09:06.540 align:middle line:84% And as far as the body, we talked 00:09:06.540 --> 00:09:09.740 align:middle line:84% about this earlier, this question in the classroom 00:09:09.740 --> 00:09:10.830 align:middle line:90% I went to this morning. 00:09:10.830 --> 00:09:15.150 align:middle line:84% For me, the body is so central concerning my own biology 00:09:15.150 --> 00:09:21.210 align:middle line:84% and that I cannot abstract my body, whether it be racially, 00:09:21.210 --> 00:09:23.550 align:middle line:84% the various genetic things that I have, 00:09:23.550 --> 00:09:27.135 align:middle line:84% based off my father and Agent Orange. 00:09:27.135 --> 00:09:30.420 align:middle line:90% 00:09:30.420 --> 00:09:33.810 align:middle line:84% Like my body is quite literally a symbol of imperialism 00:09:33.810 --> 00:09:36.430 align:middle line:90% put it off genetic disorders. 00:09:36.430 --> 00:09:40.470 align:middle line:84% So to me, I can't escape that experience 00:09:40.470 --> 00:09:44.220 align:middle line:84% as it's always present and always siphoned through it 00:09:44.220 --> 00:09:45.450 align:middle line:90% and the body is pretty sexy. 00:09:45.450 --> 00:09:47.800 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:47.800 --> 00:09:49.680 align:middle line:90% 00:09:49.680 --> 00:09:51.670 align:middle line:90% I like editing a lot. 00:09:51.670 --> 00:09:53.590 align:middle line:84% It's one of my favorite things to do 00:09:53.590 --> 00:09:57.750 align:middle line:84% and I'm very good at very few things, but one of them 00:09:57.750 --> 00:10:00.630 align:middle line:84% is helping people imagine how a book can be 00:10:00.630 --> 00:10:04.020 align:middle line:84% and what a book can be and what it means and refining it. 00:10:04.020 --> 00:10:07.350 align:middle line:84% And I like the collaborative practice of editing. 00:10:07.350 --> 00:10:09.790 align:middle line:90% I learn a lot from it. 00:10:09.790 --> 00:10:17.100 align:middle line:84% And so to me, I guess, being a writer 00:10:17.100 --> 00:10:21.100 align:middle line:84% is also about being a citizen in this community. 00:10:21.100 --> 00:10:22.770 align:middle line:84% And so whatever resources you have 00:10:22.770 --> 00:10:24.270 align:middle line:84% that you can offer to the community, 00:10:24.270 --> 00:10:25.187 align:middle line:90% you should offer them. 00:10:25.187 --> 00:10:28.950 align:middle line:84% And so that's part of the reason that I like to do it. 00:10:28.950 --> 00:10:31.650 align:middle line:84% But I think it's exciting to help someone bring out a book 00:10:31.650 --> 00:10:37.440 align:middle line:84% and put it in the world and help them get an audience. 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:40.200 align:middle line:84% There's just nothing that's better than that, I think. 00:10:40.200 --> 00:10:42.358 align:middle line:84% Even publishing your own books is 00:10:42.358 --> 00:10:44.400 align:middle line:84% one thing but helping someone else publish a book 00:10:44.400 --> 00:10:46.050 align:middle line:90% is fantastic as you know. 00:10:46.050 --> 00:10:50.130 align:middle line:90% So I think that's part of it. 00:10:50.130 --> 00:10:56.638 align:middle line:84% Similarly to J. Michael, a woman is a body first, 00:10:56.638 --> 00:10:57.930 align:middle line:90% that's one of the first things. 00:10:57.930 --> 00:11:00.930 align:middle line:84% It's a site of violence, it's the first side 00:11:00.930 --> 00:11:04.180 align:middle line:84% of violence in many cases, in many contexts. 00:11:04.180 --> 00:11:07.830 align:middle line:84% And so it's hard for me not to think of myself as a body 00:11:07.830 --> 00:11:10.830 align:middle line:90% and it's sexy too, I agree. 00:11:10.830 --> 00:11:18.300 align:middle line:90% 00:11:18.300 --> 00:11:23.700 align:middle line:84% I'll talk about amoebas which is that one 00:11:23.700 --> 00:11:25.740 align:middle line:84% of my favorite writers, Roger Caillois, 00:11:25.740 --> 00:11:33.420 align:middle line:84% wrote about amoebas as exemplary of an important surrealist 00:11:33.420 --> 00:11:36.960 align:middle line:84% motif which is that the degree to which my body becomes more 00:11:36.960 --> 00:11:39.360 align:middle line:84% specific, my surroundings become less specific 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:41.580 align:middle line:84% and the more specific my surroundings become, 00:11:41.580 --> 00:11:44.430 align:middle line:90% the less specific is the body. 00:11:44.430 --> 00:11:47.490 align:middle line:84% He writes about camouflage and praying mantis. 00:11:47.490 --> 00:11:49.740 align:middle line:84% So it seems to me that in biology are 00:11:49.740 --> 00:11:54.180 align:middle line:84% these models for thinking about the social organism 00:11:54.180 --> 00:11:56.300 align:middle line:90% of human activity. 00:11:56.300 --> 00:12:00.060 align:middle line:90% 00:12:00.060 --> 00:12:04.410 align:middle line:84% Roberto, and maybe the other panelists here, 00:12:04.410 --> 00:12:07.360 align:middle line:84% I know you as an art historian as well. 00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:11.010 align:middle line:84% So can you talk a little bit about that mambo between being 00:12:11.010 --> 00:12:12.660 align:middle line:90% a poet and an art historian. 00:12:12.660 --> 00:12:17.040 align:middle line:84% And then just for the other, the importance of visual culture, 00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:18.990 align:middle line:84% obviously you wrote about Ana Mendieta. 00:12:18.990 --> 00:12:22.205 align:middle line:84% And so what is that and how does that get into your poetics? 00:12:22.205 --> 00:12:25.030 align:middle line:90% 00:12:25.030 --> 00:12:27.520 align:middle line:84% I'm very excited about Carmen's writing 00:12:27.520 --> 00:12:30.550 align:middle line:84% on Ana Mendieta because actually, I'm 00:12:30.550 --> 00:12:34.005 align:middle line:84% supposed to be writing right now a piece on Ana Mendieta early, 00:12:34.005 --> 00:12:35.380 align:middle line:84% just her film works which will be 00:12:35.380 --> 00:12:39.820 align:middle line:84% in exhibition sometime in the next year or the year after. 00:12:39.820 --> 00:12:40.750 align:middle line:90% Mambo is a great word. 00:12:40.750 --> 00:12:48.190 align:middle line:84% It's a dance, In other words, I don't separate the two 00:12:48.190 --> 00:12:52.360 align:middle line:84% identities and increasingly I separate them less and less 00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:57.040 align:middle line:84% in my professional environments but it seems to me 00:12:57.040 --> 00:13:00.550 align:middle line:84% that much of my poetry is about looking and observation 00:13:00.550 --> 00:13:05.170 align:middle line:84% and how looking at things is a way of activating 00:13:05.170 --> 00:13:10.660 align:middle line:84% fantasies and fears and desires about them. 00:13:10.660 --> 00:13:14.590 align:middle line:84% And it's only by way of looking that one way of establishing 00:13:14.590 --> 00:13:17.980 align:middle line:84% the difference between self and others 00:13:17.980 --> 00:13:20.440 align:middle line:84% is through vision and perception. 00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:24.310 align:middle line:84% And so I would say that it's very likely that something 00:13:24.310 --> 00:13:26.350 align:middle line:84% begins as what might be a poetic project 00:13:26.350 --> 00:13:29.320 align:middle line:84% and ends up being art history and vice versa. 00:13:29.320 --> 00:13:31.840 align:middle line:90% 00:13:31.840 --> 00:13:33.910 align:middle line:90% They're almost inseparable. 00:13:33.910 --> 00:13:38.800 align:middle line:84% Naturally, the end result, they do end up 00:13:38.800 --> 00:13:40.300 align:middle line:84% in being different kinds of results. 00:13:40.300 --> 00:13:43.540 align:middle line:84% But actually the book I'm writing right now wants to-- 00:13:43.540 --> 00:13:45.197 align:middle line:84% If there's one contribution I think 00:13:45.197 --> 00:13:46.780 align:middle line:84% that I can make as an art historian is 00:13:46.780 --> 00:13:51.040 align:middle line:84% to bring the idea that the developmental account is not 00:13:51.040 --> 00:13:56.500 align:middle line:84% the only account and that poets and other creative writers 00:13:56.500 --> 00:13:59.620 align:middle line:84% can find techniques to activate histories that 00:13:59.620 --> 00:14:02.890 align:middle line:84% don't necessarily point to an inevitability. 00:14:02.890 --> 00:14:04.360 align:middle line:84% But some versions of history would 00:14:04.360 --> 00:14:07.990 align:middle line:84% like to write it such that it fits nicely with the end result 00:14:07.990 --> 00:14:10.540 align:middle line:84% that we were hoping to find hence we find it. 00:14:10.540 --> 00:14:13.860 align:middle line:90% 00:14:13.860 --> 00:14:19.580 align:middle line:84% I love visual art so much and one of the reasons 00:14:19.580 --> 00:14:22.910 align:middle line:84% that it plays a major part in my work is that-- 00:14:22.910 --> 00:14:24.180 align:middle line:90% for two reasons. 00:14:24.180 --> 00:14:27.950 align:middle line:84% One of them is that I think you can look at art 00:14:27.950 --> 00:14:30.740 align:middle line:84% and then understand the historical period from where 00:14:30.740 --> 00:14:34.980 align:middle line:84% it comes from in this way that's amazing and important. 00:14:34.980 --> 00:14:37.680 align:middle line:84% And so I like to look at it in that context. 00:14:37.680 --> 00:14:41.090 align:middle line:84% But I also think that when I look at art, 00:14:41.090 --> 00:14:43.160 align:middle line:84% sometimes visual artists are doing 00:14:43.160 --> 00:14:45.440 align:middle line:84% what I want to do as a poet and so I 00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:50.060 align:middle line:84% try to understand that those impulses and try to translate 00:14:50.060 --> 00:14:52.850 align:middle line:84% them into language because I can't even draw a stick figure. 00:14:52.850 --> 00:14:53.630 align:middle line:90% I wish I could. 00:14:53.630 --> 00:14:55.460 align:middle line:90% If I could, maybe I would. 00:14:55.460 --> 00:15:01.130 align:middle line:84% But I can't, I think about what different visual artists are 00:15:01.130 --> 00:15:03.500 align:middle line:84% doing and then say, how can I make that? 00:15:03.500 --> 00:15:05.120 align:middle line:84% How could I enact that in a poem? 00:15:05.120 --> 00:15:08.540 align:middle line:84% And that back and forth is ongoing. 00:15:08.540 --> 00:15:12.650 align:middle line:84% It's I think going to be a constant source for me 00:15:12.650 --> 00:15:13.280 align:middle line:90% in my work. 00:15:13.280 --> 00:15:18.220 align:middle line:90% 00:15:18.220 --> 00:15:23.410 align:middle line:84% I mean, when I think of whether it be criticism or poetry, 00:15:23.410 --> 00:15:27.760 align:middle line:84% I think poetry is a term that operates like the term 00:15:27.760 --> 00:15:32.290 align:middle line:84% subjectivity, like the term white, like the term Latino, 00:15:32.290 --> 00:15:34.090 align:middle line:84% these kind of broad strokes that attempt 00:15:34.090 --> 00:15:37.270 align:middle line:84% to encapsulate and generalize about a certain activity 00:15:37.270 --> 00:15:41.740 align:middle line:84% that when one looks at it quite particularly, 00:15:41.740 --> 00:15:45.400 align:middle line:84% that general term is vacated from any essentialism. 00:15:45.400 --> 00:15:52.520 align:middle line:84% And so when I think of these academic categories of study, 00:15:52.520 --> 00:15:56.437 align:middle line:84% I really don't believe in poetry versus visual art 00:15:56.437 --> 00:15:58.270 align:middle line:84% or because they're both manners of thinking. 00:15:58.270 --> 00:16:01.660 align:middle line:84% And poetry doesn't necessarily end up with a poem. 00:16:01.660 --> 00:16:05.380 align:middle line:84% You end up in a variety of different aesthetic creations 00:16:05.380 --> 00:16:08.530 align:middle line:84% in the act of inhabiting a poetic consciousness. 00:16:08.530 --> 00:16:15.280 align:middle line:90% 00:16:15.280 --> 00:16:18.580 align:middle line:90% What is a poetic consciousness? 00:16:18.580 --> 00:16:19.330 align:middle line:90% I'm looking at it. 00:16:19.330 --> 00:16:22.810 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:16:22.810 --> 00:16:23.710 align:middle line:90% That was my escape. 00:16:23.710 --> 00:16:29.950 align:middle line:90% 00:16:29.950 --> 00:16:31.540 align:middle line:84% A really great quote that I read today 00:16:31.540 --> 00:16:36.190 align:middle line:84% was this interview with Jean-Luc Nancy. 00:16:36.190 --> 00:16:38.920 align:middle line:84% Yesterday I was on the flight over and again, 00:16:38.920 --> 00:16:42.790 align:middle line:84% he was doing an interview and he referred to Hegel's definition 00:16:42.790 --> 00:16:47.080 align:middle line:84% of a subject simply that which can 00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:49.990 align:middle line:90% inhabit in self contradiction. 00:16:49.990 --> 00:16:51.970 align:middle line:84% And there's obviously like this kind of reach 00:16:51.970 --> 00:16:57.430 align:middle line:84% to Keats in that moment to dwell in mystery. 00:16:57.430 --> 00:17:04.900 align:middle line:84% And I think in some ways that's inhabiting that liminal space 00:17:04.900 --> 00:17:08.800 align:middle line:84% where self contradiction can be both present 00:17:08.800 --> 00:17:13.720 align:middle line:84% and allow a vacating and an openness. 00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:16.599 align:middle line:90% 00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:20.169 align:middle line:84% I mean, that's my haphazard way of negotiating that concept. 00:17:20.169 --> 00:17:28.060 align:middle line:90% 00:17:28.060 --> 00:17:29.250 align:middle line:90% Any other questions? 00:17:29.250 --> 00:17:36.640 align:middle line:90% 00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:38.370 align:middle line:84% Thank you all so much for coming. 00:17:38.370 --> 00:17:41.779 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:17:41.779 --> 00:17:49.620 align:middle line:90% 00:17:49.620 --> 00:17:51.870 align:middle line:84% Thanks to the boards for sharing your work, Francisco. 00:17:51.870 --> 00:17:54.150 align:middle line:84% Thank you so much for bringing this event here. 00:17:54.150 --> 00:17:58.950 align:middle line:84% Everyone please buy some books and get them signed over there. 00:17:58.950 --> 00:17:59.550 align:middle line:90% Bye guys. 00:17:59.550 --> 00:18:02.500 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:18:02.500 --> 00:18:03.000 align:middle line:90%