WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.365 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:02.365 --> 00:00:06.160 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:07.480 align:middle line:90% This is a wonderful night. 00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:10.150 align:middle line:84% This is Carl Phillips's first time with us. 00:00:10.150 --> 00:00:12.320 align:middle line:90% And I hope it's first of many. 00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:14.560 align:middle line:84% But our shop talked the other night. 00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:16.953 align:middle line:84% We felt so pressed for time and had so many things 00:00:16.953 --> 00:00:19.120 align:middle line:84% I wanted to discuss that I'm going to make this very 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:21.970 align:middle line:84% short to give him maximum time to share 00:00:21.970 --> 00:00:26.320 align:middle line:84% his work Carl Phillips's first book of poems, In The Blood, 00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:30.070 align:middle line:84% was published in 1992 and immediately received 00:00:30.070 --> 00:00:32.500 align:middle line:90% the Samuel French Morse Award. 00:00:32.500 --> 00:00:35.320 align:middle line:84% In the 20 years since, he has published 10 poetry 00:00:35.320 --> 00:00:36.220 align:middle line:90% collections. 00:00:36.220 --> 00:00:39.880 align:middle line:84% Most recently, Double Shadow, which won the Los Angeles book 00:00:39.880 --> 00:00:41.080 align:middle line:90% review. 00:00:41.080 --> 00:00:43.600 align:middle line:84% He's also published a book of essays and poetry, 00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:46.090 align:middle line:84% which I see over here, Coin of the Realm 00:00:46.090 --> 00:00:49.720 align:middle line:84% and a translation of Sophocles, Philoctetes. 00:00:49.720 --> 00:00:50.662 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:50.662 --> 00:00:51.370 align:middle line:90% I know I blow it. 00:00:51.370 --> 00:00:52.810 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:52.810 --> 00:00:54.340 align:middle line:84% You could just fill that in later. 00:00:54.340 --> 00:00:55.070 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:55.070 --> 00:00:57.940 align:middle line:84% And there's a new collection of his poems called Silverchest, 00:00:57.940 --> 00:01:00.300 align:middle line:90% which will be out in April. 00:01:00.300 --> 00:01:01.950 align:middle line:84% Phillips was elected a chancellor 00:01:01.950 --> 00:01:05.459 align:middle line:84% of the Academy of American Poets in 2006, 00:01:05.459 --> 00:01:08.220 align:middle line:84% and he's judged the Yale Series of Younger Poets 00:01:08.220 --> 00:01:10.680 align:middle line:90% Prize since 2010. 00:01:10.680 --> 00:01:12.780 align:middle line:84% He cites the ancient Greek and Roman 00:01:12.780 --> 00:01:15.870 align:middle line:84% writers among his early literary influences, 00:01:15.870 --> 00:01:19.210 align:middle line:84% and he taught high school Latin for nearly a decade. 00:01:19.210 --> 00:01:21.930 align:middle line:84% He's currently a professor at Washington University 00:01:21.930 --> 00:01:23.670 align:middle line:90% in St. Louis. 00:01:23.670 --> 00:01:25.500 align:middle line:84% First and foremost, Carl Phillips 00:01:25.500 --> 00:01:29.100 align:middle line:84% is a lyric poet rooted in straightforward forms 00:01:29.100 --> 00:01:30.540 align:middle line:90% of classic themes. 00:01:30.540 --> 00:01:33.420 align:middle line:84% His poems cut deep into the core and crux 00:01:33.420 --> 00:01:36.270 align:middle line:84% of the human condition, in his words, 00:01:36.270 --> 00:01:39.930 align:middle line:84% by parsing dark and difficult distinctions. 00:01:39.930 --> 00:01:43.830 align:middle line:84% Relentless in his determination to say the unsayable, 00:01:43.830 --> 00:01:46.770 align:middle line:84% Phillips does so with his mastery of syntax, 00:01:46.770 --> 00:01:50.730 align:middle line:84% juxtaposing contradictions, questioning incongruities, 00:01:50.730 --> 00:01:53.610 align:middle line:84% creating resolution where there was none. 00:01:53.610 --> 00:01:57.210 align:middle line:84% Even his punctuation works over time with its brackets, 00:01:57.210 --> 00:02:01.770 align:middle line:84% dashes, colons, and ellipses, freighted with power to shape 00:02:01.770 --> 00:02:05.670 align:middle line:84% and even replicate what seems formless. 00:02:05.670 --> 00:02:09.660 align:middle line:84% He's intrigued by the ideas of restraint and release, 00:02:09.660 --> 00:02:12.420 align:middle line:84% both on the page and with the body. 00:02:12.420 --> 00:02:14.820 align:middle line:84% The tension between opposing forces 00:02:14.820 --> 00:02:18.090 align:middle line:84% as in the restless choir than any human life 00:02:18.090 --> 00:02:22.000 align:middle line:84% can be sometimes cast forth all over again 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:27.480 align:middle line:84% its double shadow, no risk and no faint hardness. 00:02:27.480 --> 00:02:30.570 align:middle line:84% Phillips takes us to places we've never been before 00:02:30.570 --> 00:02:33.600 align:middle line:84% from life as a recklessly fed bonfire 00:02:33.600 --> 00:02:37.620 align:middle line:84% to a place where love lies deciduous asleep. 00:02:37.620 --> 00:02:40.980 align:middle line:84% He takes us through gorse and thorn and bracken, 00:02:40.980 --> 00:02:45.270 align:middle line:84% recreating such rough passage in the route of his poetic line. 00:02:45.270 --> 00:02:48.660 align:middle line:84% So when we come upon a clearing in which logic drives 00:02:48.660 --> 00:02:52.890 align:middle line:84% a traditionally beautiful poem, a poem like Speak Low, 00:02:52.890 --> 00:02:55.600 align:middle line:84% its authority and clarity are well 00:02:55.600 --> 00:02:59.020 align:middle line:84% earned pleasures for speaker and reader alike. 00:02:59.020 --> 00:03:01.270 align:middle line:84% Phillips's poetry can be difficult. 00:03:01.270 --> 00:03:04.380 align:middle line:90% It is difficult, often complex. 00:03:04.380 --> 00:03:08.430 align:middle line:84% But then so are the questions he asks, questions of metaphysics, 00:03:08.430 --> 00:03:12.960 align:middle line:84% epistemology, as well as the universal themes he pursues 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:15.750 align:middle line:90% with honesty and fearlessness. 00:03:15.750 --> 00:03:17.880 align:middle line:84% If you can agree with Robert Hayden 00:03:17.880 --> 00:03:21.870 align:middle line:84% that all art is pain suffered and outlived, 00:03:21.870 --> 00:03:24.810 align:middle line:84% then you will agree with me that we are in the presence tonight 00:03:24.810 --> 00:03:28.110 align:middle line:84% of a master artist, a major artist, one 00:03:28.110 --> 00:03:32.580 align:middle line:84% whose poetry beyond all else is breathtakingly beautiful. 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:33.990 align:middle line:90% Please welcome Carl Phillips. 00:03:33.990 --> 00:03:37.340 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:37.340 --> 00:03:43.000 align:middle line:90%