WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.927 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.927 --> 00:00:06.760 align:middle line:84% This next poem is called, "The First Woman". 00:00:06.760 --> 00:00:08.350 align:middle line:90% And it's a terza rima. 00:00:08.350 --> 00:00:12.250 align:middle line:84% I teach myself forms, because I don't believe in MFA programs. 00:00:12.250 --> 00:00:13.970 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry about that view. 00:00:13.970 --> 00:00:17.780 align:middle line:90% And so, I do it on my own. 00:00:17.780 --> 00:00:21.920 align:middle line:84% And so I decided that I was going to teach myself forms. 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:25.610 align:middle line:84% And one of them, because I like the name, was a terza rima. 00:00:25.610 --> 00:00:27.100 align:middle line:84% I just thought it'd be nice to say 00:00:27.100 --> 00:00:30.040 align:middle line:90% I have written a terza rima. 00:00:30.040 --> 00:00:33.460 align:middle line:84% But also another thing was because I 00:00:33.460 --> 00:00:36.530 align:middle line:84% had read one of those books about women 00:00:36.530 --> 00:00:39.370 align:middle line:84% confronting the spiritual whatever the hell it was. 00:00:39.370 --> 00:00:42.385 align:middle line:90% And there was-- 00:00:42.385 --> 00:00:44.760 align:middle line:84% It's-- when I'm coming in on a positive moment, you know, 00:00:44.760 --> 00:00:46.510 align:middle line:84% if ever I say, "whatever the hell it was," 00:00:46.510 --> 00:00:50.110 align:middle line:84% it just means that my brain's not firing anymore. 00:00:50.110 --> 00:00:51.910 align:middle line:90% You just have to forgive me. 00:00:51.910 --> 00:00:54.880 align:middle line:84% But it was-- in it there was a little piece 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:58.103 align:middle line:84% by Ursula Le Guin, where Eve gets to unname everything. 00:00:58.103 --> 00:00:59.770 align:middle line:84% Like Adam names everything, and then Eve 00:00:59.770 --> 00:01:00.942 align:middle line:90% get to unname everything. 00:01:00.942 --> 00:01:01.900 align:middle line:90% It is really beautiful. 00:01:01.900 --> 00:01:04.120 align:middle line:84% You really-- Catch me later, I might 00:01:04.120 --> 00:01:05.379 align:middle line:90% remember the name of the book. 00:01:05.379 --> 00:01:09.010 align:middle line:84% And it's really a fabulous piece and so I thought, "Oh, 00:01:09.010 --> 00:01:10.330 align:middle line:90% I have an Eve story." 00:01:10.330 --> 00:01:12.820 align:middle line:84% And then I thought what form do I want to cast it in. 00:01:12.820 --> 00:01:14.620 align:middle line:84% So I decided that I wanted the terza rima, 00:01:14.620 --> 00:01:17.410 align:middle line:84% because basically it was a menage a trois between me 00:01:17.410 --> 00:01:18.400 align:middle line:90% and Adam and Eve. 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:20.793 align:middle line:84% So I like tercets for that reason. 00:01:20.793 --> 00:01:22.210 align:middle line:84% And the other thing, this is going 00:01:22.210 --> 00:01:24.580 align:middle line:84% to horrify Marilyn, the formalist in her, 00:01:24.580 --> 00:01:28.570 align:middle line:84% because I'm sure that terza rima was not intended in this way. 00:01:28.570 --> 00:01:32.140 align:middle line:84% But I like the way that the rhymes are like little valises 00:01:32.140 --> 00:01:33.982 align:middle line:84% or suitcases, where you open them up, 00:01:33.982 --> 00:01:35.440 align:middle line:84% and then you take the middle rhyme, 00:01:35.440 --> 00:01:38.470 align:middle line:84% and then you place it beside it and you open it up again. 00:01:38.470 --> 00:01:40.610 align:middle line:84% And since this is a journey I thought, 00:01:40.610 --> 00:01:43.150 align:middle line:84% what better form than to have like a series 00:01:43.150 --> 00:01:46.420 align:middle line:84% of little suitcases, unpacking the information in the poem. 00:01:46.420 --> 00:01:48.310 align:middle line:84% And then also that it ends with a couplet. 00:01:48.310 --> 00:01:50.643 align:middle line:84% I mean traditionally you don't have to have the couplet. 00:01:50.643 --> 00:01:54.427 align:middle line:84% But usually any number of tercets that you'd like, 00:01:54.427 --> 00:01:55.760 align:middle line:90% and then it ends with a couplet. 00:01:55.760 --> 00:01:57.400 align:middle line:84% I thought, "Perfect, a bunch of little 00:01:57.400 --> 00:01:58.940 align:middle line:90% suitcases that you lift-- 00:01:58.940 --> 00:01:59.440 align:middle line:90% open." 00:01:59.440 --> 00:02:02.383 align:middle line:84% You know how it goes with the A-B-A. So you pick that B. 00:02:02.383 --> 00:02:04.300 align:middle line:84% And you lift it up and you put it beside that. 00:02:04.300 --> 00:02:07.180 align:middle line:84% And then you open that up, and then C emerges in the middle. 00:02:07.180 --> 00:02:09.130 align:middle line:84% And you open up that C. And you open that up, 00:02:09.130 --> 00:02:10.505 align:middle line:84% and then D emerges in the middle. 00:02:10.505 --> 00:02:13.510 align:middle line:84% So it felt like continually-- these, kind of like-- almost 00:02:13.510 --> 00:02:15.970 align:middle line:90% like Russian boxes or something. 00:02:15.970 --> 00:02:19.720 align:middle line:84% And so the two lines at the end, the couplet, 00:02:19.720 --> 00:02:22.790 align:middle line:84% felt to me like the feet landing at the end of the journey. 00:02:22.790 --> 00:02:23.290 align:middle line:90% So-- 00:02:23.290 --> 00:02:26.095 align:middle line:90% 00:02:26.095 --> 00:02:27.970 align:middle line:84% This is what happens when you're self-taught. 00:02:27.970 --> 00:02:32.320 align:middle line:84% You find all these weird ways to associate with the structural-- 00:02:32.320 --> 00:02:35.300 align:middle line:90% "The First Woman". 00:02:35.300 --> 00:02:36.890 align:middle line:84% "She was my Sunday school teacher 00:02:36.890 --> 00:02:38.690 align:middle line:90% when I was just seven and eight. 00:02:38.690 --> 00:02:41.930 align:middle line:84% He was the newly hired pastor, an albino, 00:02:41.930 --> 00:02:45.320 align:middle line:84% alarming sight with his transparent eyelashes 00:02:45.320 --> 00:02:47.600 align:middle line:84% and mouse-pink skin that looked like it might hurt 00:02:47.600 --> 00:02:50.030 align:middle line:90% whenever she caressed his arm. 00:02:50.030 --> 00:02:52.410 align:middle line:84% Since Eva was her name, to my child's mind 00:02:52.410 --> 00:02:55.800 align:middle line:84% it made great sense that she should fall in love with him. 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:56.870 align:middle line:90% He was Adán. 00:02:56.870 --> 00:03:00.740 align:middle line:84% Before the Fall and afterward, her invert twin. 00:03:00.740 --> 00:03:04.400 align:middle line:84% And she, Eva, was blonde as well, though more robust, 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:06.410 align:middle line:90% like Liv Ullmann. 00:03:06.410 --> 00:03:10.010 align:middle line:84% I loved her honey hair, her full lips, 00:03:10.010 --> 00:03:13.373 align:middle line:90% her green eyes a nameless sin. 00:03:13.373 --> 00:03:14.790 align:middle line:84% Not that I worried all that much-- 00:03:14.790 --> 00:03:17.060 align:middle line:90% the church was Presbyterian. 00:03:17.060 --> 00:03:20.450 align:middle line:84% In Sunday school, her way to teach us kids to pray 00:03:20.450 --> 00:03:23.090 align:middle line:84% was to comment on all the beauty we could touch or see 00:03:23.090 --> 00:03:24.620 align:middle line:90% in our environment. 00:03:24.620 --> 00:03:28.550 align:middle line:84% My hand was always in the air to volunteer my sentiment. 00:03:28.550 --> 00:03:31.160 align:middle line:84% Since other kids considered prayer a chore, 00:03:31.160 --> 00:03:33.410 align:middle line:90% the floor was usually mine. 00:03:33.410 --> 00:03:36.650 align:middle line:84% My list of joys left out her hair 00:03:36.650 --> 00:03:39.320 align:middle line:84% but blessed the red hibiscus seen through the windows 00:03:39.320 --> 00:03:41.900 align:middle line:90% while others bowed their heads. 00:03:41.900 --> 00:03:45.140 align:middle line:84% Her heart I schemed to win with purple prose 00:03:45.140 --> 00:03:46.670 align:middle line:90% on meringue clouds. 00:03:46.670 --> 00:03:48.560 align:middle line:84% For who was Adán, anyway, I thought, 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:50.150 align:middle line:90% but nada spelled backward? 00:03:50.150 --> 00:03:52.730 align:middle line:90% 00:03:52.730 --> 00:03:57.020 align:middle line:84% While hers, reversed, called out, 'Ave! 00:03:57.020 --> 00:04:03.200 align:middle line:84% Ave!' The lyric of a bird born and airborne on the same day. 00:04:03.200 --> 00:04:05.990 align:middle line:84% But it was night when I saw her outside the church 00:04:05.990 --> 00:04:07.640 align:middle line:90% for the last time-- 00:04:07.640 --> 00:04:12.170 align:middle line:84% yellow light, mosquitoes, summer. 00:04:12.170 --> 00:04:15.350 align:middle line:84% I shaped a barking dog, a fine but disembodied pair 00:04:15.350 --> 00:04:17.209 align:middle line:90% of wings with my hands. 00:04:17.209 --> 00:04:20.360 align:middle line:84% She spoke in hushed tones with my parents. 00:04:20.360 --> 00:04:24.050 align:middle line:84% The next day I would find myself up north, in a strange house, 00:04:24.050 --> 00:04:25.940 align:middle line:84% without my tongue and almost blind, 00:04:25.940 --> 00:04:28.460 align:middle line:90% there was so much to see. 00:04:28.460 --> 00:04:32.720 align:middle line:84% This caused Cuba, my past, to be eclipsed in time, 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:35.730 align:middle line:90% but Eva stayed, a loss. 00:04:35.730 --> 00:04:39.320 align:middle line:84% 'Ave,' I learned, meant also this-- 00:04:39.320 --> 00:04:43.210 align:middle line:84% 'Farewell!' I haven't seen her since."