The last book that I had that's over there
is called Your Father On the Train of Ghosts.
And it was a collaboration with another poet, which was
something kind of new for me.
I had met another poet who Joshua also
knows named John Gallaher.
And I had been really interested, I mentioned
this last night, why does making art
mean that we have to be alone?
This was a puzzle for me.
Why do we have to go away from the people we care about?
You all know this.
Most of you who are writers or artists,
you know that there's something about going into another place
and closing the door, as our friend Miss Wolfe said,
and having that time away from other people.
And that's fine, as far as it goes.
But it can be lonely, can't it, to be an artist or a writer?
And I thought, it shouldn't have to be that way.
And I thought about the example of the dadaist
and the surrealist, for whom writing was a communal act,
often, at least.
So John Gallaher and I started writing poems back and forth
to one another.
And over 16 months, we wrote 750 pages of poems.
It was astonishing.
And it was a beautiful way to be alive for a little while.
I was asked this morning in a class,
what does that mean to you?
What did it mean to you?
And I said, you know, I think it was about friendship.
I think it was about what shape would friendship
take if friendship were a poem?
So we wrote these poems, and I'm going to read a few of them
from the book.
It was a fascinating way to be there, to be here.
This is called Your Lover, Later.
Your lover is on the roof, the gray roof.
Your lover is sitting on the roof of that house
you remember.
Your lover, long ago, sitting there with both hands down.
Your lover, sitting there, waving into the pockets of air.
It's an easy idea.
All the people of the town are out on their roofs,
little people over their porch lights, legs over the edges,
like so many high and beautiful beings.
And one of them is your lover.
Remember?
Some of them, you can see, and some not.
Call to them.
Why not call to them, and then listen all night, all night,
the sound of that town, your lover on the roof, and a train
along the horizon that's crowded with hotels.
And the Ford dealership is setting
off balloons, red and blue and green and white balloons.
I'd like to climb up there.
It would be such an easy concept,
such an easy way to be.
And what about your lover?
It's such a large town, isn't it?
So many roofs.
And so many people with their hands at their sides
in the future.
It's easy.
It has to be.
Tell me again what to do.