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 --> 00:00:20.220 align:middle line:84% together and thinking about the larger gesture of Latino/a 00:00:20.220 --> 00:00:29.730 align:middle line:84% Poetry Now, which is meant to take a snapshot in 2011, 2012, 00:00:29.730 --> 00:00:35.290 align:middle line:84% 2013 of younger contemporary Latino poetry. 00:00:35.290 --> 00:00:40.320 align:middle line:84% I'd like one of you or all of you to take a shot at-- 00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:43.770 align:middle line:84% as you just experienced each other's work, 00:00:43.770 --> 00:00:46.450 align:middle line:84% to situate yourselves as a group, 00:00:46.450 --> 00:00:52.072 align:middle line:84% as a trio within the constellation of Latino poetry. 00:00:52.072 --> 00:00:55.509 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:55.509 --> 00:01:01.910 align:middle line:90% 00:01:01.910 --> 00:01:04.220 align:middle line:84% Well, maybe the anecdote might be the place to begin, 00:01:04.220 --> 00:01:08.420 align:middle line:84% which is how we met, and that's meaningful insofar 00:01:08.420 --> 00:01:12.290 align:middle line:84% as I think that the three of us here-- 00:01:12.290 --> 00:01:15.120 align:middle line:84% our commitments have been long and continue 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:17.270 align:middle line:84% to be associated with what might be called 00:01:17.270 --> 00:01:20.000 align:middle line:84% research-based or investigative poetries, 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:21.950 align:middle line:90% experimental poetries. 00:01:21.950 --> 00:01:26.030 align:middle line:84% and yet our concern for the culture concept, 00:01:26.030 --> 00:01:28.730 align:middle line:84% 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 --> 00:01:43.603 align:middle line:84% And so I think the reason I spoke with Elective Affinities, 00:01:43.603 --> 00:01:45.520 align:middle line:84% it soon became very clear that I was beginning 00:01:45.520 --> 00:01:48.820 align:middle line:84% to read poets who identified as Latino or Latina 00:01:48.820 --> 00:01:53.680 align:middle line:84% and who were asking the kinds of both formal and subject-based 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:58.330 align:middle line:84% questions that 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 --> 00:02:10.630 align:middle line:84% are interested in is exploding the notion that there 00:02:10.630 --> 00:02:15.280 align:middle line:84% are scripts that we are asked to perform simply because 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:17.320 align:middle line:84% of our last names or our cultural background 00:02:17.320 --> 00:02:19.840 align:middle line:84% and that certain ways of enunciating 00:02:19.840 --> 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 --> 00:02:37.390 align:middle line:90% 00:02:37.390 --> 00:02:39.100 align:middle line:84% One follow-up, and then I open it up. 00:02:39.100 --> 00:02:41.440 align:middle line:84% So when you think about your work 00:02:41.440 --> 00:02:44.110 align:middle line:84% within, again, the constellation of Latino poetry, say, 00:02:44.110 --> 00:02:46.540 align:middle line:84% from the late '60s to now, do you 00:02:46.540 --> 00:02:51.280 align:middle line:84% see or have any of you identified 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:56.245 align:middle line:84% any poets with whom you share affinities 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 --> 00:03:04.530 align:middle line:84% I mean, the thing is, it's like, those aren't 00:03:04.530 --> 00:03:09.480 align:middle line:84% solitary in the sense of being exclusive to certain cultural 00:03:09.480 --> 00:03:10.980 align:middle line:84% conceptions and cultural identities, 00:03:10.980 --> 00:03:13.635 align:middle line:84% but rather, those shared the same space with-- 00:03:13.635 --> 00:03:16.140 align:middle line:90% 00:03:16.140 --> 00:03:20.190 align:middle line:84% a story would be to explain how I was reading James Wright, 00:03:20.190 --> 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, I'm 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 them 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 Rosmarie Waldrop, 00:03:34.290 --> 00:03:36.900 align:middle line:84% I don't find different contrasts in aesthetics. 00:03:36.900 --> 00:03:40.260 align:middle line:90% 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 --> 00:03:51.450 align:middle line:84% but there's still a these writers 00:03:51.450 --> 00:03:55.680 align:middle line:84% that exist within that paradigm that are doing these really 00:03:55.680 --> 00:03:59.580 align:middle line:84% kind of innovative, questioning, pursuing, 00:03:59.580 --> 00:04:01.485 align:middle line:90% challenging these structures. 00:04:01.485 --> 00:04:05.430 align:middle line:84% I know we mentioned Gronk earlier, Asco, 00:04:05.430 --> 00:04:09.120 align:middle line:84% in a variety of even what I'm looking at, 00:04:09.120 --> 00:04:11.910 align:middle line:84% late 19th-century work that's already pursuing this 00:04:11.910 --> 00:04:17.829 align:middle line:84% prior to the European-based historical avant-garde 00:04:17.829 --> 00:04:20.279 align:middle line:90% in 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 kind of 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 --> 00:04:42.310 align:middle line:90% 00:04:42.310 --> 00:04:46.970 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think it's complicated to look back and sort of say, 00:04:46.970 --> 00:04:47.948 align:middle line:90% is it doing this? 00:04:47.948 --> 00:04:48.490 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:04:48.490 --> 00:04:50.770 align:middle line:84% I think Alurista and Juan Felipe Herrera are 00:04:50.770 --> 00:04:51.978 align:middle line:90% kind of experimental writers. 00:04:51.978 --> 00:04:52.853 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:04:52.853 --> 00:04:54.820 align:middle line:84% They were groundbreaking, and they did things 00:04:54.820 --> 00:04:56.170 align:middle line:90% that people hadn't done before. 00:04:56.170 --> 00:05:00.070 align:middle line:84% And 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 --> 00:05:13.228 align:middle line:84% I think of Juan Felipe Herrera writing Akrílica just 00:05:13.228 --> 00:05:15.520 align:middle line:84% as the language poets are coming up, and I'm wondering, 00:05:15.520 --> 00:05:18.020 align:middle line:84% why 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 --> 00:05:30.670 align:middle line:90% 00:05:30.670 --> 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 --> 00:05:41.005 align:middle line:84% Would you say a little more about that concept? 00:05:41.005 --> 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 --> 00:05:56.460 align:middle line:84% of what might be experienced, and what I'm about to say 00:05:56.460 --> 00:05:57.628 align:middle line:90% does not negate that. 00:05:57.628 --> 00:05:58.920 align:middle line:90% Poetry comes out of experience. 00:05:58.920 --> 00:06:01.045 align:middle line:84% We had a conversation with the great undergraduates 00:06:01.045 --> 00:06:04.470 align:middle line:84% this morning about how does one process experience. 00:06:04.470 --> 00:06:07.470 align:middle line:84% But it seems to me that poetry has a commitment 00:06:07.470 --> 00:06:10.590 align:middle line:84% as well because it is a legitimate inquiry 00:06:10.590 --> 00:06:13.110 align:middle line:84% into the world that it has the ability. 00:06:13.110 --> 00:06:15.030 align:middle line:90% It's a powerful technology. 00:06:15.030 --> 00:06:18.570 align:middle line:84% It's a powerful tool to ask questions about history, 00:06:18.570 --> 00:06:22.365 align:middle line:90% about the present. 00:06:22.365 --> 00:06:24.240 align:middle line:84% Where does that subject fit into the present? 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:27.000 align:middle line:90% How is one an historical actor? 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:28.500 align:middle line:90% Where is desire in that? 00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:32.220 align:middle line:84% How do spirit and fantasy play into subjectivity 00:06:32.220 --> 00:06:36.250 align:middle line:84% in the realm of social disaster, for example? 00:06:36.250 --> 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 a 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 --> 00:06:58.750 align:middle line:84% I have a couple questions that I'll throw out there. 00:06:58.750 --> 00:07:02.310 align:middle line:84% It could be for any of you, and you 00:07:02.310 --> 00:07:04.330 align:middle line:90% can do what you want with them. 00:07:04.330 --> 00:07:08.350 align:middle line:84% One is that you all do work editing as well, too, 00:07:08.350 --> 00:07:10.470 align:middle line:84% and I'm curious, the relationship between how 00:07:10.470 --> 00:07:14.340 align:middle line:84% you conceive editing versus how that informs your creative work 00:07:14.340 --> 00:07:15.600 align:middle line:90% and vice-versa. 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:18.780 align:middle line:84% And second is that one of the things that I notice 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 --> 00:07:24.450 align:middle line:90% and organisms coming up. 00:07:24.450 --> 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 --> 00:07:32.670 align:middle line:84% and then, more in sort of a conceptual frame, 00:07:32.670 --> 00:07:36.210 align:middle line:84% 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, and then it went and 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 --> 00:08:02.220 align:middle line:84% And I think editing goes into that as when 00:08:02.220 --> 00:08:07.230 align:middle line:84% I read this other work, I'm encountering my process 00:08:07.230 --> 00:08:10.950 align:middle line:84% and experience 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 --> 00:08:17.010 align:middle line:84% doing because I want to push it, because I see 00:08:17.010 --> 00:08:21.930 align:middle line:84% these other writers doing these type of moments, I mean, 00:08:21.930 --> 00:08:25.680 align:middle line:84% what I would consider like their epistemological approach 00:08:25.680 --> 00:08:28.540 align:middle line:84% to kind of just world experience. 00:08:28.540 --> 00:08:32.100 align:middle line:84% And when I put on that guise, how does that manifest? 00:08:32.100 --> 00:08:35.370 align:middle line:84% Because most of my work are exercises 00:08:35.370 --> 00:08:38.610 align:middle line:84% that I base off of other writers because I 00:08:38.610 --> 00:08:41.880 align:middle line:84% want to kind of 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 --> 00:08:46.680 align:middle line:84% And I don't think this knowledge-based pursuit 00:08:46.680 --> 00:08:48.130 align:middle line:90% is a new thing. 00:08:48.130 --> 00:08:54.120 align:middle line:84% I mean, you can go back to Shelley, to the Greeks where-- 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:54.840 align:middle line:90% exactly. 00:08:54.840 --> 00:08:58.020 align:middle line:84% This is something that's quite classical in the sense of how 00:08:58.020 --> 00:09:01.890 align:middle line:84% conceptions of the world are created vis-a-vis language 00:09:01.890 --> 00:09:05.128 align:middle line:90% and the aesthetic. 00:09:05.128 --> 00:09:07.170 align:middle line:84% 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 I 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 --> 00:09:29.520 align:middle line:84% have based off my father and Agent Orange, 00:09:29.520 --> 00:09:32.460 align:middle line:84% the fact that my body is quite literally a symbol 00:09:32.460 --> 00:09:36.430 align:middle line:84% of imperialism rooted off kind of genetic disorders. 00:09:36.430 --> 00:09:40.470 align:middle line:84% So 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 --> 00:09:45.920 align:middle line:90% And the body is pretty sexy. 00:09:45.920 --> 00:09:49.680 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:49.680 --> 00:09:51.670 align:middle line:90% I like editing a lot. 00:09:51.670 --> 00:09:55.010 align:middle line:84% It's one of my favorite things to do, 00:09:55.010 --> 00:09:57.120 align:middle line:84% and I'm very good at very few things. 00:09:57.120 --> 00:09:59.130 align:middle line:84% But one of them is helping people 00:09:59.130 --> 00:10:01.500 align:middle line:84% imagine how a book can be and what a book can be 00:10:01.500 --> 00:10:04.020 align:middle line:84% and what it means 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 --> 00:10:37.410 align:middle line:84% and put it in the world and help them get an audience. 00:10:37.410 --> 00:10:41.100 align:middle line:84% There's just nothing that's better than that, I think. 00:10:41.100 --> 00:10:42.775 align:middle line:84% 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 --> 00:10:53.700 align:middle line:90% Similarly to J. Michael-- 00:10:53.700 --> 00:10:55.080 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 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 site of violence. 00:11:00.090 --> 00:11:03.090 align:middle line:84% It's the first site of violence in many cases 00:11:03.090 --> 00:11:05.430 align:middle line:84% and many contexts, and so it's hard for me 00:11:05.430 --> 00:11:07.830 align:middle line:84% not to think of myself as a body. 00:11:07.830 --> 00:11:10.290 align:middle line:90% And it's sexy, too. 00:11:10.290 --> 00:11:10.830 align:middle line:90% I agree. 00:11:10.830 --> 00:11:14.316 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:14.316 --> 00:11:18.260 align:middle line:90% 00:11:18.260 --> 00:11:19.260 align:middle line:90% I'll talk about amoebas. 00:11:19.260 --> 00:11:23.550 align:middle line:90% 00:11:23.550 --> 00:11:25.740 align:middle line:84% One of my favorite writers, Roger Caillois, 00:11:25.740 --> 00:11:33.420 align:middle line:84% wrote about amoebas as exemplary of an important surrealist 00:11:33.420 --> 00:11:36.960 align:middle line:84% motif, which is that the degree to which my body becomes more 00:11:36.960 --> 00:11:39.360 align:middle line:84% 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 --> 00:11:56.297 align:middle line:90% of human activity. 00:11:56.297 --> 00:12:00.033 align:middle line:90% 00:12:00.033 --> 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 --> 00:12:11.010 align:middle line:84% so can you talk a little bit about that mambo between being 00:12:11.010 --> 00:12:12.660 align:middle line:90% a poet and an art historian? 00:12:12.660 --> 00:12:17.040 align:middle line:84% And then just for the other, the importance of visual culture-- 00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:18.990 align:middle line:84% obviously, you wrote about Ana Mendieta. 00:12:18.990 --> 00:12:21.247 align:middle line:84% And so what is that, and how does that 00:12:21.247 --> 00:12:22.205 align:middle line:90% get into your politics? 00:12:22.205 --> 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 --> 00:12:35.190 align:middle line:84% now a piece on Ana Mendieta, just her filmworks, which 00:12:35.190 --> 00:12:38.760 align:middle line:84% will be an exhibition sometime in the next year or the year 00:12:38.760 --> 00:12:39.810 align:middle line:90% 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 --> 00:12:49.650 align:middle line:84% In other words, 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 --> 00:12:54.510 align:middle line:90% in my professional environments. 00:12:54.510 --> 00:12:58.500 align:middle line:84% But 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 --> 00:13:08.340 align:middle line:90% and desires about them. 00:13:08.340 --> 00:13:11.190 align:middle line:90% 00:13:11.190 --> 00:13:13.265 align:middle line:84% And it's only by way of looking that-- 00:13:13.265 --> 00:13:15.390 align:middle line:84% one way of establishing the difference between self 00:13:15.390 --> 00:13:20.460 align:middle line:84% and others through is through vision 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 vice versa. 00:13:29.310 --> 00:13:31.830 align:middle line:90% 00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:33.930 align:middle line:90% They're almost inseparable. 00:13:33.930 --> 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 --> 00:13:45.187 align:middle line:84% if there's one contribution I think 00:13:45.187 --> 00:13:46.770 align:middle line:84% that I can make as an art historian is 00:13:46.770 --> 00:13:51.060 align:middle line:84% to bring the idea that the developmental account is not 00:13:51.060 --> 00:13:56.490 align:middle line:84% the only account 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 it such that it fits nicely with the end result 00:14:07.980 --> 00:14:09.630 align:middle line:84% that we were hoping to find, right? 00:14:09.630 --> 00:14:10.860 align:middle line:90% Hence we find it, right? 00:14:10.860 --> 00:14:15.061 align:middle line:90% 00:14:15.061 --> 00:14:17.370 align:middle line:84% I love art, 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 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 --> 00:14:45.440 align:middle line:84% what I want to do as a poet, and so I 00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:49.040 align:middle line:84% try to understand that, those impulses, 00:14:49.040 --> 00:14:52.017 align:middle line:84% and try to translate them into language because I can't even 00:14:52.017 --> 00:14:52.850 align:middle line:90% draw a stick figure. 00:14:52.850 --> 00:14:53.630 align:middle line:90% 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 --> 00:14:59.763 align:middle line:84% I think about what they're doing, 00:14:59.763 --> 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 --> 00:15:05.450 align:middle line:84% How could I enact that in a poem? 00:15:05.450 --> 00:15:08.570 align:middle line:84% And that back and forth is ongoing. 00:15:08.570 --> 00:15:12.650 align:middle line:84% It's, I think, 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 --> 00:15:18.220 align:middle line:90% 00:15:18.220 --> 00:15:20.800 align:middle line:90% I mean, when I think of-- 00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:23.410 align:middle line:84% whether it be criticism or poetry, 00:15:23.410 --> 00:15:27.070 align:middle line:84% I think "poetry" is a term that operates 00:15:27.070 --> 00:15:30.580 align:middle line:84% like the term "subjectivity," like the term "white," 00:15:30.580 --> 00:15:33.730 align:middle line:84% like the term "Latino," these kind of broad strokes 00:15:33.730 --> 00:15:36.130 align:middle line:84% that attempt to encapsulate and generalize 00:15:36.130 --> 00:15:40.060 align:middle line:84% about a certain activity that when one looks at it quite 00:15:40.060 --> 00:15:43.630 align:middle line:84% particularly, that general term is kind of vacated 00:15:43.630 --> 00:15:45.400 align:middle line:90% 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 --> 00:15:56.562 align:middle line:84% I really don't believe in poetry versus visual art 00:15:56.562 --> 00:15:58.270 align:middle line:84% because they're both manners of thinking, 00:15:58.270 --> 00:16:01.660 align:middle line:84% and poetry doesn't necessarily end up with a poem. 00:16:01.660 --> 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 --> 00:16:12.386 align:middle line:90% 00:16:12.386 --> 00:16:15.280 align:middle line:90% So-- 00:16:15.280 --> 00:16:18.455 align:middle line:90% What is a poetic consciousness? 00:16:18.455 --> 00:16:19.330 align:middle line:90% You're looking at it. 00:16:19.330 --> 00:16:22.810 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:16:22.810 --> 00:16:23.710 align:middle line:90% That was my escape. 00:16:23.710 --> 00:16:27.070 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:16:27.070 --> 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 --> 00:16:36.460 align:middle line:84% was this interview with Jean-Luc Nancy, or yesterday. 00:16:36.460 --> 00:16:37.930 align:middle line:90% It was on the flight over. 00:16:37.930 --> 00:16:40.540 align:middle line:84% And he was doing an interview, and he 00:16:40.540 --> 00:16:44.050 align:middle line:84% 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 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 --> 00:17:00.850 align:middle line:84% and I think, in some ways, that's 00:17:00.850 --> 00:17:07.150 align:middle line:84% inhabiting that liminal space where self-contradiction 00:17:07.150 --> 00:17:13.735 align:middle line:84% can be both present and allow a vacating and an openness. 00:17:13.735 --> 00:17:16.599 align:middle line:90% 00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:18.880 align:middle line:84% I mean, that's my kind of haphazard way 00:17:18.880 --> 00:17:20.169 align:middle line:90% of negotiating 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 --> 00:17:36.060 align:middle line:90% 00:17:36.060 --> 00:17:38.319 align:middle line:84% OK, thank you all so much for coming. 00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:38.819 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:17:38.819 --> 00:17:39.319 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:17:39.319 --> 00:17:42.731 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:17:42.731 --> 00:17:49.508 align:middle line:90% 00:17:49.508 --> 00:17:51.300 align:middle line:84% Thanks to the poets for sharing their 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 --> 00:17:58.320 align:middle line:84% Everyone, please buy some books and get them signed over there. 00:17:58.320 --> 00:18:01.670 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:18:01.670 --> 00:18:03.000 align:middle line:90%