WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.650 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.650 --> 00:00:06.150 align:middle line:84% And reading with someone whose work one likes-- 00:00:06.150 --> 00:00:08.760 align:middle line:90% as I very much like Aleida's-- 00:00:08.760 --> 00:00:11.550 align:middle line:84% is something, always something of a conversation. 00:00:11.550 --> 00:00:17.760 align:middle line:90% 00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:21.710 align:middle line:84% So this is a poem called "Feeling and Form," which 00:00:21.710 --> 00:00:24.080 align:middle line:90% is about a poet and a painter. 00:00:24.080 --> 00:00:28.670 align:middle line:84% And is dedicated to a painter named Sandy Moore 00:00:28.670 --> 00:00:31.010 align:middle line:84% and to the philosopher Susanne K. Langer, who 00:00:31.010 --> 00:00:34.220 align:middle line:90% wrote about all the arts. 00:00:34.220 --> 00:00:37.280 align:middle line:84% And some of you may who may know that the title of the poem, 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:39.756 align:middle line:84% "Feeling and Form" is also the title of one 00:00:39.756 --> 00:00:43.360 align:middle line:90% of her books on aesthetics. 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:46.420 align:middle line:84% And like many poems, this is-- of mine anyway-- 00:00:46.420 --> 00:00:49.780 align:middle line:84% this is in the form of a kind of letter. 00:00:49.780 --> 00:00:53.470 align:middle line:84% "Dear San-- Everybody doesn't write poetry. 00:00:53.470 --> 00:00:57.640 align:middle line:84% A lot of people doodle profiles, write something they think 00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:00.190 align:middle line:84% approximates poetry because nobody 00:01:00.190 --> 00:01:03.010 align:middle line:90% taught them to read poetry. 00:01:03.010 --> 00:01:06.490 align:middle line:84% Rhyming or trailing gerunds, clumps of words 00:01:06.490 --> 00:01:09.670 align:middle line:90% straggle a page, unjustified. 00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:10.720 align:middle line:90% Poetry? 00:01:10.720 --> 00:01:14.380 align:middle line:84% It's not like talking, so it must be poetry. 00:01:14.380 --> 00:01:18.340 align:middle line:84% Before they write, all children draw pictures grown-ups 00:01:18.340 --> 00:01:20.800 align:middle line:90% teach them how not to draw. 00:01:20.800 --> 00:01:25.270 align:middle line:84% Anyone learns/unlearns the craft of poetry too. 00:01:25.270 --> 00:01:28.690 align:middle line:84% The fourth grader, who gets a neat likeness of Mom 00:01:28.690 --> 00:01:31.420 align:middle line:84% in crayon's not unlike the woman who 00:01:31.420 --> 00:01:35.920 align:middle line:84% sent you her Tone Poem, who'd like her admiration praised. 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:39.790 align:middle line:84% That isn't poetry, unless she did the work that makes it 00:01:39.790 --> 00:01:42.640 align:middle line:84% like this, any, work, in outrage, 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:46.510 align:middle line:84% love, or liking an apple's October texture. 00:01:46.510 --> 00:01:49.430 align:middle line:84% Write about anything-- I wish I could. 00:01:49.430 --> 00:01:51.970 align:middle line:84% It's like the still lives you love-- 00:01:51.970 --> 00:01:55.420 align:middle line:84% you don't have to like apples to like Cezanne. 00:01:55.420 --> 00:01:59.740 align:middle line:84% I do like words, which is why I make things out of words 00:01:59.740 --> 00:02:03.220 align:middle line:84% and listen to their hints, resounding like skipping stones 00:02:03.220 --> 00:02:07.210 align:middle line:84% radiating circles, drawing context from text, 00:02:07.210 --> 00:02:10.660 align:middle line:84% the way I've watched you draw a pepper shaker on a table, 00:02:10.660 --> 00:02:14.410 align:middle line:84% draw it again, once more, until it isn't like anything 00:02:14.410 --> 00:02:18.010 align:middle line:84% but your idea of a drawing, like an idea of movement, 00:02:18.010 --> 00:02:20.860 align:middle line:90% drawing its shape from sequence. 00:02:20.860 --> 00:02:22.700 align:middle line:90% You write poetry. 00:02:22.700 --> 00:02:25.780 align:middle line:84% I was a clever child who liked to draw, and did well, 00:02:25.780 --> 00:02:30.040 align:middle line:84% but when I watch you draw, you rubber-face like I do when I 00:02:30.040 --> 00:02:30.580 align:middle line:90% write-- 00:02:30.580 --> 00:02:33.775 align:middle line:84% chewed lip, cat-tongue, smiles, scowls 00:02:33.775 --> 00:02:37.240 align:middle line:84% that go with right choices, perplexed, deliberate, 00:02:37.240 --> 00:02:40.750 align:middle line:84% withdrawn, and worked play, conscious of the spaces 00:02:40.750 --> 00:02:44.770 align:middle line:84% words or lines make as you make them, without words 00:02:44.770 --> 00:02:47.290 align:middle line:90% for instant exegesis. 00:02:47.290 --> 00:02:50.560 align:middle line:84% Molding words around the shape's analogous to drawing 00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:53.770 align:middle line:84% these coffee cups in settings words describe, 00:02:53.770 --> 00:02:57.190 align:middle line:84% but whose significance leaves words unsaid, because it's 00:02:57.190 --> 00:03:02.170 align:middle line:84% drawn, because it's like not my blue mug, but inked lines. 00:03:02.170 --> 00:03:06.130 align:middle line:84% Chosen words-- I couldn't write 'your white mug'-- 00:03:06.130 --> 00:03:10.750 align:middle line:84% collect words they're meant, or drawn to, make mental space. 00:03:10.750 --> 00:03:13.990 align:middle line:90% Poetry extends beyond the page. 00:03:13.990 --> 00:03:19.030 align:middle line:84% If you thought poetry was merely nicely ordered private words 00:03:19.030 --> 00:03:22.690 align:middle line:84% for two eyes only, why would you say, 'Write me a letter, 00:03:22.690 --> 00:03:23.650 align:middle line:90% damn it!' 00:03:23.650 --> 00:03:25.960 align:middle line:90% This is a letter, right? 00:03:25.960 --> 00:03:27.010 align:middle line:90% Wrong. 00:03:27.010 --> 00:03:29.440 align:middle line:90% Form intimates fiction. 00:03:29.440 --> 00:03:33.520 align:middle line:84% I could write 'me' as a mathematician, weaving words 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:38.440 align:middle line:84% implying 'you' a man, 16, a right-handed abstract 00:03:38.440 --> 00:03:39.670 align:middle line:90% expressionist. 00:03:39.670 --> 00:03:42.820 align:middle line:84% I'd write untruths, from which some other 00:03:42.820 --> 00:03:45.880 align:middle line:90% 'you' could draw odd inferences. 00:03:45.880 --> 00:03:49.720 align:middle line:84% Though I don't, I write 'you,' and you're the Donor 00:03:49.720 --> 00:03:53.440 align:middle line:84% on the right-hand panel, kneeling in sable kirtle. 00:03:53.440 --> 00:03:56.140 align:middle line:84% Likely I'm the lady left of you, who'd 00:03:56.140 --> 00:03:59.050 align:middle line:84% like to peer into your missal, where the writing-- 00:03:59.050 --> 00:04:04.540 align:middle line:84% legible Gothic-- lauds in Latin poetry, the Lady at the center. 00:04:04.540 --> 00:04:09.490 align:middle line:84% Call her poetry, virtual space, or Bona Dea. 00:04:09.490 --> 00:04:12.130 align:middle line:90% Poetry dovetails contradictions. 00:04:12.130 --> 00:04:16.269 align:middle line:84% If I write a private 'you' a public discourse, 00:04:16.269 --> 00:04:20.709 align:middle line:84% words tempered and stroked will draw you where you draw these 00:04:20.709 --> 00:04:25.450 align:middle line:84% lines, and yours, convergent, made, unlike-- 00:04:25.450 --> 00:04:29.880 align:middle line:84% that likelihood draws words I write to poetry."