WEBVTT

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What a generous introduction.

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Lordy, lordy.

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How do I ever live up to that?

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Shall I give you my first born?

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I do want to clarify one
thing, though, that book where

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I-- where the Jane
reference comes from,

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was actually in Cuba.

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Because we were a
colony of the US.

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And so we had books in English.

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Yes, and so there was
a Dick and Jane book.

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And it was my playmates who
said, ha-neh, and I said Jane.

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Only because my sister
had already taught me

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that from her English classes.

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Something that happens
too, when there's

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either blondes
involved, or English

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involved and people
don't know where

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it takes place in my life,
and I want to assure you,

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there are blondes in Cuba.

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So when I read "The First
Woman" and I say that Eva

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is a blonde like Liv Ullmann.

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People go, oh, that must have
been in the Midwest, where

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she grew up.

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No, Eva was in Cuba.

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I am so honored to reconnect
with Marilyn Hacker, who

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is the most generous person
on the face of this Earth.

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And she has been pushing
me forward for years,

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without knowing
who the hell I was.

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I remember when I
was in my 20s getting

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a letter from the
MacDowell Colony,

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saying that she had recommended
me for a residency there.

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Of course, I was just scraping
by, in my little life,

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and couldn't afford
the time to go away.

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But I thought, how did
she know I'm alive?

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Who is this Marilyn Hacker?

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That she knows that I'm alive,
and she in subsequent years

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continued to do things
like that for me.

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I never took advantage of it.

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I just thought oh, no,
it's like I have to make it

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on the strength of my work.

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I can't possibly have
anyone support me.

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Of course, I'm now 47, and
I've just giving it up.

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Whoever wants to support me can.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I mean, my manuscript was
like a runner-up or a finalist

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for like 14 years.

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And I just thought, forever
a bridesmaid, never a bride.

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My gown was getting
a little old.

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So I'm going to start out
reading the first poem

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and then I'll sort of
read some poems in between

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and read the last
one, to give you

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a sort of a little Whitman
sampler of the book,

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from cover to cover.

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But I have to put on my glasses
because I can't see anymore.

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The reason I look a
little baked today,

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I'm usually not this
healthy looking.

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I'm usually pale looking even
though I live in Los Angeles.

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But Frances Sjoberg
dragged me out

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to the Sonora
Desert Museum, which

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I insisted to be
taken to, and stood

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by as I imitated all the
various birds in the Aviary.

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And I think that's
where I got this,

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It was 20 minutes with the
Magpie Jay or something.

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How time flies when
you're talking with jays.

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This first poem is
called "Archaeology"

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and it opens the book.

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Sarabande has the site now,
called Sarabande in Education,

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where schools can sign up and
correspond with the authors,

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Sarabande authors, and
be online and have chats.

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And I just finished one
of those a few weeks ago.

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And I'm surprised
that people think

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that there's something
fictitious about my poetry.

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Like, did that really happen?

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And is that really
from your life?

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And things like that.

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I go, really, I'm not tricky.

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Everything that's
there happened.

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If I refer to--

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And then somebody didn't
know who Willy Loman was

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and I had to explain to them.

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I thought, OK, how
old is this person?

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Who doesn't know
who Willy Loman is?

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But I like to--

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everyone likes a little context.

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And so I'd like to say that
this archaeology poem actually

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comes from my having
literally dug in my backyard

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and finding this object.

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"Archaeology"

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I thought at first it was a
bullet, metallic, cylindrical,

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one and rounded, the other flat.

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But once unearthed from the
garden, the little wheel

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design of plastic jewels--

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the color of watermelon
tourmaline or spring grasses

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roadside through New Mexico
blurring past the windows--

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told me what I found, though its
identity eluded me, retreating

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into guesses about its color.

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What was it?

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Or how much remained,
or whose lips

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it had touched before
sealing forever.

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Because it certainly won't
open now, though I see a seam

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2/3 down its taut little
body and twist and twist.

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When I wash it in the sink
and scrub off the rust,

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searching for a name, its marble
patina looks art-directed.

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Evocative little clouds
of reddish sienna

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burn against the greenish
night in the tropics.

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You can hear crickets
and farther off

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the timbre of frogs.

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From the veranda you intuit
blooms pulsing in the dark.

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A lava glow smolders on the
opposite hill, the air gravid.

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Its weight in your hand,
you think creyón de labios.

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Something ancient pushed
up red from underneath,

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something so childish
it's perfect.

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Crayon for the lips.

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Drawing yourself in, inventing
yourself as the world

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you know erases itself.

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Words wash over you and
you can't help but think,

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this one's called
Atlantis, say, or Pompeii.

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That's because I have a lifelong
desire to name lipsticks.

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I really think that's
a poet's real calling.

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[LAUGHTER]

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