WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.900 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.900 --> 00:00:03.010 align:middle line:84% I'm going to open it up for questions. 00:00:03.010 --> 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 --> 00:00:28.620 align:middle line:84% now which is meant to take a snapshot in 2011, 00:00:28.620 --> 00:00:35.700 align:middle line:84% 2012, 2013 of younger contemporary Latino poetry, 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:40.830 align:middle line:84% like one of you or all of you to take a shot at as you just 00:00:40.830 --> 00:00:46.450 align:middle line:84% experienced each other's work to situate yourselves as a group, 00:00:46.450 --> 00:00:50.760 align:middle line:84% as a trio within the constellation of Latino poetry. 00:00:50.760 --> 00:01:01.910 align:middle line:90% 00:01:01.910 --> 00:01:03.860 align:middle line:84% Well, maybe the anecdote might be the place 00:01:03.860 --> 00:01:05.930 align:middle line:84% to begin which is that how we met 00:01:05.930 --> 00:01:07.940 align:middle line:90% and that is-- that's meaningful. 00:01:07.940 --> 00:01:10.310 align:middle line:84% Insofar as I think that the three of us 00:01:10.310 --> 00:01:14.600 align:middle line:84% here our commitments have been long 00:01:14.600 --> 00:01:16.520 align:middle line:84% and continue to be associated with what 00:01:16.520 --> 00:01:20.000 align:middle line:84% might be called research based or investigative poetries, 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:24.650 align:middle line:84% experimental poetries, and yet our concern for the culture 00:01:24.650 --> 00:01:28.730 align:middle line:84% concept in which many identities are able to be enacted 00:01:28.730 --> 00:01:32.510 align:middle line:84% in the kinds of poems that we're interested in producing 00:01:32.510 --> 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 --> 00:01:43.810 align:middle line:84% And so I think the reason I spoke with elected affinities 00:01:43.810 --> 00:01:46.730 align:middle line:84% it soon became very clear that I was beginning to read poets who 00:01:46.730 --> 00:01:49.510 align:middle line:84% identified as Latino or Latina and who 00:01:49.510 --> 00:01:53.680 align:middle line:84% were asking the kinds of both formal and subject based 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:56.830 align:middle line:90% questions that I found-- 00:01:56.830 --> 00:01:58.330 align:middle line:84% to me were the compelling questions, 00:01:58.330 --> 00:02:00.190 align:middle line:84% the questions that I think poetry 00:02:00.190 --> 00:02:02.650 align:middle line:84% as a place of knowledge building should be asking. 00:02:02.650 --> 00:02:06.280 align:middle line:84% And so to me it seems that what I think the three of us 00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:10.120 align:middle line:84% are interested in is exploring the notion 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:13.330 align:middle line:84% that there are scripts that we are asked to be-- 00:02:13.330 --> 00:02:15.970 align:middle line:84% asked to perform simply because of our last names 00:02:15.970 --> 00:02:19.870 align:middle line:84% or our cultural background and certain ways of enunciating 00:02:19.870 --> 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 --> 00:02:37.420 align:middle line:90% 00:02:37.420 --> 00:02:39.100 align:middle line:84% One follow up and then I open it up. 00:02:39.100 --> 00:02:41.980 align:middle line:84% So when you think about your work within 00:02:41.980 --> 00:02:43.750 align:middle line:84% again the constellation of Latino 00:02:43.750 --> 00:02:48.400 align:middle line:84% would you say from the late '60s to now, do you see or have you 00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:51.090 align:middle line:84% either any of you identified or is 00:02:51.090 --> 00:02:54.460 align:middle line:84% any poets with whom you share affinities, 00:02:54.460 --> 00:02:56.245 align:middle line:90% some among our elders? 00:02:56.245 --> 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 --> 00:03:04.110 align:middle line:84% I mean the thing is it's like those aren't-- 00:03:04.110 --> 00:03:05.850 align:middle line:84% those aren't solitary in the sense 00:03:05.850 --> 00:03:10.020 align:middle line:84% of being exclusive to certain cultural conceptions 00:03:10.020 --> 00:03:12.120 align:middle line:84% and cultural identities, but rather those 00:03:12.120 --> 00:03:13.635 align:middle line:90% shared 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 --> 00:03:26.410 align:middle line:90% I love them both. 00:03:26.410 --> 00:03:27.940 align:middle line:90% 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 Rosemary Waldrop, 00:03:34.290 --> 00:03:40.260 align:middle line:84% I don't find different contrasts in aesthetics, but I do-- 00:03:40.260 --> 00:03:43.200 align:middle line:84% 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 --> 00:03:55.050 align:middle line:84% exist within that paradigm that are doing 00:03:55.050 --> 00:03:59.580 align:middle line:84% these really innovative questioning, pursuing 00:03:59.580 --> 00:04:01.800 align:middle line:90% challenging structures. 00:04:01.800 --> 00:04:07.440 align:middle line:84% We mentioned 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 --> 00:04:20.279 align:middle line:84% based historical avant garde, the US. 00:04:20.279 --> 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 --> 00:04:38.520 align:middle line:84% occurring throughout 20th century, 00:04:38.520 --> 00:04:39.630 align:middle line:90% 19th century, et cetera. 00:04:39.630 --> 00:04:43.840 align:middle line:90% 00:04:43.840 --> 00:04:46.000 align:middle line:84% I think it's complicated to look back 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:49.410 align:middle line:84% and say, is it doing this like, I don't know, I think Alurista 00:04:49.410 --> 00:04:51.785 align:middle line:84% and Juan Felipe Herrera are kind of experimental writers. 00:04:51.785 --> 00:04:52.660 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:04:52.660 --> 00:04:54.820 align:middle line:84% Like they were groundbreaking and they did things 00:04:54.820 --> 00:04:57.100 align:middle line:84% that people hadn't done before and their work 00:04:57.100 --> 00:05:00.070 align:middle line:84% had this political-- their work has this political charge 00:05:00.070 --> 00:05:02.890 align:middle line:90% 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 writing Akrílika 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 --> 00:05:30.620 align:middle line:90% 00:05:30.620 --> 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 --> 00:05:40.990 align:middle line:84% Would you say a little more about that concept? 00:05:40.990 --> 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 --> 00:05:58.837 align:middle line:84% negate that poetry comes out of experience. 00:05:58.837 --> 00:06:01.170 align:middle line:84% We had a conversation with the great undergraduates this 00:06:01.170 --> 00:06:04.500 align:middle line:84% morning about how this one process experience, 00:06:04.500 --> 00:06:08.340 align:middle line:84% but it seems to me that poetry has a commitment as well 00:06:08.340 --> 00:06:12.450 align:middle line:84% because it is a legitimate inquiry into the world that it 00:06:12.450 --> 00:06:14.370 align:middle line:84% has the ability-- it's a powerful-- 00:06:14.370 --> 00:06:18.570 align:middle line:84% technology it's a powerful tool to ask questions about history, 00:06:18.570 --> 00:06:22.365 align:middle line:84% about the present, where does one-- 00:06:22.365 --> 00:06:24.240 align:middle line:84% where does that subject fit into the present, 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:28.500 align:middle line:84% how is one an historical actor, where is desire in that, 00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:32.250 align:middle line:84% how do spirit and fantasy play into subjectivity 00:06:32.250 --> 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 --> 00:06:58.790 align:middle line:84% I have a couple questions that I'll throw out there. 00:06:58.790 --> 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 --> 00:07:24.480 align:middle line:90% and organisms coming up. 00:07:24.480 --> 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 --> 00:07:36.990 align:middle line:90% to each other. 00:07:36.990 --> 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 --> 00:07:45.750 align:middle line:84% I had an answer then it got intense. 00:07:45.750 --> 00:07:49.680 align:middle line:84% The 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 --> 00:08:01.210 align:middle line:84% And I think editing goes into that. 00:08:01.210 --> 00:08:04.980 align:middle line:84% I was like when I read this other work, 00:08:04.980 --> 00:08:08.460 align:middle line:84% I'm encountering my process and experience 00:08:08.460 --> 00:08:10.950 align:middle line:90% and digestion of language. 00:08:10.950 --> 00:08:14.970 align:middle line:84% And then that totally helps me in what I end up 00:08:14.970 --> 00:08:16.770 align:middle line:84% doing because I want to push it because I 00:08:16.770 --> 00:08:18.990 align:middle line:84% see these other writers doing these type of moments. 00:08:18.990 --> 00:08:21.930 align:middle line:90% 00:08:21.930 --> 00:08:24.600 align:middle line:84% What I would consider like they are epistemological 00:08:24.600 --> 00:08:28.540 align:middle line:84% approach to just world experience. 00:08:28.540 --> 00:08:30.570 align:middle line:84% And when I put on that guys, how does 00:08:30.570 --> 00:08:34.530 align:middle line:84% that manifest because most of my work are 00:08:34.530 --> 00:08:38.610 align:middle line:84% exercises that I base off of other writers because I 00:08:38.610 --> 00:08:41.880 align:middle line:84% want to 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 --> 00:08:48.300 align:middle line:84% And I don't think this knowledge based pursuit is a new thing. 00:08:48.300 --> 00:08:53.040 align:middle line:84% You can go back to Shelley, to the Greeks 00:08:53.040 --> 00:08:55.680 align:middle line:84% where 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 --> 00:09:04.962 align:middle line:84% are created vis-a-vis language and aesthetic. 00:09:04.962 --> 00:09:07.170 align:middle line:84% And as far as the body, we talked about this earlier. 00:09:07.170 --> 00:09:10.830 align:middle line:84% This question in the classroom 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 --> 00:09:18.700 align:middle line:84% And it's that I cannot abstract my body, 00:09:18.700 --> 00:09:22.740 align:middle line:84% whether it be racially, the various genetic things that I 00:09:22.740 --> 00:09:29.490 align:middle line:84% have based off my father and agent orange, 00:09:29.490 --> 00:09:32.010 align:middle line:84% the fact that they-- like my body is quite literally 00:09:32.010 --> 00:09:38.100 align:middle line:84% a symbol of imperialism put it off a genetic disorders. 00:09:38.100 --> 00:09:40.470 align:middle line:84% 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 --> 00:09:45.420 align:middle line:90% And the body is pretty sexy. 00:09:45.420 --> 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 --> 00:09:55.020 align:middle line:84% It's one of my favorite things to do. 00:09:55.020 --> 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 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 --> 00:10:13.210 align:middle line:90% And so I don't know. 00:10:13.210 --> 00:10:18.420 align:middle line:84% To me, I guess being a writer is also 00:10:18.420 --> 00:10:21.100 align:middle line:84% 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 --> 00:10:42.775 align:middle line:84% Even publishing your own books is one thing, 00:10:42.775 --> 00:10:44.400 align:middle line:84% 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 --> 00:10:50.140 align:middle line:90% So I think that's part of it. 00:10:50.140 --> 00:10:55.080 align:middle line:84% Similarly to J. Michael, I don't know if-- 00:10:55.080 --> 00:10:56.638 align:middle line:90% 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 --> 00:11:00.090 align:middle line:90% It's a side of violence. 00:11:00.090 --> 00:11:04.180 align:middle line:84% It's the first side 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 --> 00:11:24.630 align:middle line:84% I'll talk about amoebas which is one of my favorite writers 00:11:24.630 --> 00:11:29.670 align:middle line:84% Roger Caillois wrote about amoebas as exemplary 00:11:29.670 --> 00:11:34.110 align:middle line:84% of an important surrealist motif which 00:11:34.110 --> 00:11:36.780 align:middle line:84% is that the degree to which my body becomes 00:11:36.780 --> 00:11:39.360 align:middle line:84% more 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 --> 00:11:54.510 align:middle line:84% these models for thinking about the social organism 00:11:54.510 --> 00:11:56.272 align:middle line:90% of human activity. 00:11:56.272 --> 00:12:00.048 align:middle line:90% 00:12:00.048 --> 00:12:04.410 align:middle line:84% Roberto and maybe the other panelists, 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 --> 00:12:10.080 align:middle line:84% So can you talk a little bit about that mambo 00:12:10.080 --> 00:12:14.070 align:middle line:84% between being a poet and an art historian and then the just 00:12:14.070 --> 00:12:15.120 align:middle line:90% for the other-- 00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:17.040 align:middle line:84% the importance of visual culture, 00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:18.240 align:middle line:90% obviously you wrote about. 00:12:18.240 --> 00:12:18.990 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:12:18.990 --> 00:12:22.215 align:middle line:84% And so what is that and how does that get into your poetics? 00:12:22.215 --> 00:12:25.020 align:middle line:90% 00:12:25.020 --> 00:12:28.500 align:middle line:84% I'm very excited about Carmen's writing on Ana Mendieta 00:12:28.500 --> 00:12:31.440 align:middle line:84% because actually, I'm supposed to be writing right 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:35.040 align:middle line:84% now a piece on Ana Mendieta her early-- just her filmworks 00:12:35.040 --> 00:12:37.470 align:middle line:84% which will be in exhibition sometime 00:12:37.470 --> 00:12:39.810 align:middle line:84% in the next year or the year after. 00:12:39.810 --> 00:12:40.770 align:middle line:90% Mambo is a great word. 00:12:40.770 --> 00:12:42.570 align:middle line:90% It's a dance. 00:12:42.570 --> 00:12:46.710 align:middle line:90% In other words, I don't-- 00:12:46.710 --> 00:12:49.650 align:middle line:84% I don't separate the two identities. 00:12:49.650 --> 00:12:52.350 align:middle line:84% And increasingly I separate them less and less 00:12:52.350 --> 00:12:56.310 align:middle line:84% in my professional environments, but that is the-- 00:12:56.310 --> 00:12:58.500 align:middle line:84% it seems to me that much of my poetry 00:12:58.500 --> 00:13:03.360 align:middle line:84% is about looking and observation and how looking at things 00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:06.330 align:middle line:84% is a way of activating fantasies and fears 00:13:06.330 --> 00:13:08.370 align:middle line:90% and desires about them. 00:13:08.370 --> 00:13:13.327 align:middle line:90% 00:13:13.327 --> 00:13:14.910 align:middle line:84% One way of establishing the difference 00:13:14.910 --> 00:13:18.630 align:middle line:84% between self and others is through the vision 00:13:18.630 --> 00:13:20.460 align:middle line:90% and perception. 00:13:20.460 --> 00:13:24.330 align:middle line:84% And so I would say that it's very likely that something 00:13:24.330 --> 00:13:26.340 align:middle line:84% begins as what might be a poetic project 00:13:26.340 --> 00:13:29.310 align:middle line:84% and ends up being art history and vise versa. 00:13:29.310 --> 00:13:31.830 align:middle line:90% 00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:33.910 align:middle line:90% They're almost inseparable. 00:13:33.910 --> 00:13:38.130 align:middle line:90% Naturally, the end result-- 00:13:38.130 --> 00:13:40.290 align:middle line:84% they do end up in being different kinds of results, 00:13:40.290 --> 00:13:43.530 align:middle line:84% but actually the book I'm writing right now wants to-- 00:13:43.530 --> 00:13:45.202 align:middle line:84% if there's one contribution I think 00:13:45.202 --> 00:13:47.160 align:middle line:84% that I can make as an art historian is to bring 00:13:47.160 --> 00:13:48.930 align:middle line:90% the idea that there are-- 00:13:48.930 --> 00:13:52.410 align:middle line:84% the developmental account is not the only account 00:13:52.410 --> 00:13:56.490 align:middle line:84% and that poets and other creative writers 00:13:56.490 --> 00:13:59.610 align:middle line:84% can find techniques to activate histories that 00:13:59.610 --> 00:14:02.880 align:middle line:84% don't necessarily point to an inevitability, 00:14:02.880 --> 00:14:04.350 align:middle line:84% but some versions of history would 00:14:04.350 --> 00:14:07.980 align:middle line:84% like to write in such that it fits nicely with the end result 00:14:07.980 --> 00:14:10.530 align:middle line:84% that we were hoping to find, hence we find it. 00:14:10.530 --> 00:14:14.080 align:middle line:90% 00:14:14.080 --> 00:14:17.370 align:middle line:90% I love our visual arts so much. 00:14:17.370 --> 00:14:21.710 align:middle line:84% And one of the reasons that it plays a major part in my work 00:14:21.710 --> 00:14:24.180 align:middle line:90% is that 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 --> 00:14:45.290 align:middle line:84% what I want to do as a poet, and so 00:14:45.290 --> 00:14:49.070 align:middle line:84% I try to understand that, those impulses 00:14:49.070 --> 00:14:52.130 align:middle line:84% and try to translate them into language because I can't even 00:14:52.130 --> 00:14:53.630 align:middle line:84% draw a stick figure, I wish I could. 00:14:53.630 --> 00:14:56.660 align:middle line:84% If I could maybe I would, but I can't. 00:14:56.660 --> 00:14:58.100 align:middle line:90% So I try to use-- 00:14:58.100 --> 00:14:59.805 align:middle line:84% I think about what they're doing, 00:14:59.805 --> 00:15:01.430 align:middle line:84% what different visual artists are doing 00:15:01.430 --> 00:15:03.500 align:middle line:84% 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 --> 00:15:08.570 align:middle line:84% and-- and that back and forth is ongoing. 00:15:08.570 --> 00:15:12.650 align:middle line:84% It's I think it's 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 --> 00:15:18.550 align:middle line:90% 00:15:18.550 --> 00:15:23.410 align:middle line:84% 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 --> 00:15:41.410 align:middle line:84% that when one looks at it quite particularly 00:15:41.410 --> 00:15:45.400 align:middle line:84% like 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 --> 00:15:56.650 align:middle line:84% I really don't believe in poetry versus visual art 00:15:56.650 --> 00:15:59.080 align:middle line:84% or because they're both manners of thinking and poetry 00:15:59.080 --> 00:16:01.630 align:middle line:84% doesn't necessarily end up with a poem. 00:16:01.630 --> 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% 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 --> 00:16:36.520 align:middle line:84% was this interview with Jean-Luc Nancy yesterday I 00:16:36.520 --> 00:16:39.730 align:middle line:84% was on the flight over and again he was doing an interview 00:16:39.730 --> 00:16:44.050 align:middle line:84% and he referred to kind of Hegel's definition of a subject 00:16:44.050 --> 00:16:49.990 align:middle line:84% simply that which kind of can inhabit in self contradiction 00:16:49.990 --> 00:16:51.970 align:middle line:84% and there's obviously 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 --> 00:17:16.599 align:middle line:84% and allow a vacating and an openness about it. 00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:19.627 align:middle line:84% I mean that's my kind of haphazard way of negotiating 00:17:19.627 --> 00:17:20.169 align:middle line:90% 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 --> 00:17:36.040 align:middle line:90% 00:17:36.040 --> 00:17:38.340 align:middle line:84% OK, thank you all so much for coming. 00:17:38.340 --> 00:17:49.592 align:middle line:90% 00:17:49.592 --> 00:17:51.300 align:middle line:84% Thanks to the poets for sharing the work. 00:17:51.300 --> 00:17:54.150 align:middle line:84% Francisco, thank you so much for bringing this event here. 00:17:54.150 --> 00:17:58.070 align:middle line:84% Everyone please buy some books and get them signed over there. 00:17:58.070 --> 00:18:03.000 align:middle line:90%