WEBVTT

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This is the moment where we
have a brief moment of silence

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for our interpreters tonight
who did not have that poem ahead

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of time and who are doing a
wonderful, wonderful thing

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by being here.

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We should clap for them.

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Can we do that.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Your one and your two.

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I was at a reading
some years ago where

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Mark Strand was reading.

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And Mark Strand's a
very narrative poet.

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And he had given the ASL
interpreters his poems

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before and so they stood up in
their turn and they interpreted

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and it was fine.

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And then they had a very
different poet Rae Armantrout.

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Do you know Rae Armantrout?

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I don't know-- I
know Rae Armantrout

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but I don't know her
poems because they

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don't want to be known.

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And she stood up and began
reading one poem after another

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without any commentary
in the middle.

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And I watched I actually read
ASL or I can interpret it

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and I watched the
ASL interpreter

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and she became more and more
excited and frantic in attempts

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and finally she started
making things up.

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She started making things
up and things went on

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and finally she just gave
up and she went like this.

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And she stood there
and faced the audience

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for the rest of Rae
Armantrout's reading

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and Rae Armantrout
was never the wiser.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And I often think
that maybe that

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was one of Rae
Armantrout's best readings

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and she didn't even know it.

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It was such a pity to miss that.

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This poem is called "The
Black Pickup Truck of Death

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is Driving Away."

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And I wrote it and I showed
it to a friend of mine,

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another friend.

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And she read it
and she looked back

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at me said must the pickup
truck of death be black?

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And I said yes, it must.

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You'll see why.

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This is one of those moments.

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Sometimes life just
gives you something

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and all you have to
do is write it down.

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And it's a poem.

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And these are fantastic moments.

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They're gift moments.

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I tell my students
you don't have

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to make-- if you're afraid
of making things up,

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my students are so desperately
scared of the imagination.

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I mean they might actually do
something that would make them

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different from other people.

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And that would be a great
tragedy they think for them.

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So I tell them you
just have to listen.

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Just listen.

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They say you mean
like eavesdrop.

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I said yes, that's what I mean.

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I was walking behind
students changing classes.

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Those of you who
are students are you

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on your cell phones
between classes?

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You are, aren't you?

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You are.

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I was walking behind
one the other day

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and I heard her say into
the cell phone what mayor?

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And there was a pause.

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She was listening and then
she said, oh, you mean

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that mayor, the other mayor.

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And I was like-- it
was the same thing

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with the Sherpas of Canada.

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I thought the other mayor,
I have to write this poem.

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You don't have to make anything
up if you are paying attention.

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This is called "The Black
Pickup Truck of Death

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is Driving Away."

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And for those of you who were
frightened by the last two

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poems, we're going to go back
to poems that tell stories now

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so it'll all be fine.

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It'll all be fine.

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In this dream only
it's not a dream

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you are about to give a lecture
in a storefront in Grosse Point

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Park, Michigan.

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The lecture is
about metaphors say

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and you can't seem to get
the audience quiet or seated.

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And then there's this honking
from the street outside

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and you turn, everybody
turns and it's

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a parade of little
leaguers in pickup trucks.

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The streets of
Grosse Point Park,

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Michigan are almost
deserted at this hour,

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swept clean by an early
morning thunderstorm.

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The trucks are just trucks.

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The sides plastered with
hand-drawn placards,

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the Nationals, the Mariners,
the Lansing Lug Nuts,

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and the beds full of young boys
in uniform who scowl and shout

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and hurl candy, something
they've apparently

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been told to do to the crowds.

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Only there really aren't
any crowds only us

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and a few people who were
out walking their dogs.

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And anyway, the boys
aren't throwing the candy

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into the imaginary crowds.

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They are throwing the candy
at the imaginary crowds

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so that it hits the pavement
and the plate glass of the shops

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and what bystanders there
are like stones or hail.

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One woman covers her
face to protect herself

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from the barrage.

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Another picks up the candy
and starts hurling it back

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at the boys.

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And then suddenly in
the midst of everything

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there's a truck with no
boys in it, no placards.

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And it's a black truck.

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And you can't see the driver
because of the dark tint

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of the windows.

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And you think this is the
black pickup truck of death.

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And somehow you're
pretty glad to see it.

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You think this is my team.

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You even laugh a little.

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But then the parade turns
East and the black pickup guns

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its engine straightforward.

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It was never actually
part of the parade.

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Its owner lives in
the neighborhood

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and was making a Saturday
morning run for milk or lumber

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or cigarettes.

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He just got caught up
in the festivities.

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He was probably impatient
to get somewhere else

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away from the mansions of the
1920s, the broad pavements.

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Memories of the auto
industry and the fires

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away from the screaming
boys and their candy

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and from the plate glass
behind which you are still

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standing in this dream.

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Only it's not a dream.

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With the audience settling
down now and wanting

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to hear more or less what you
have to say about metaphor,

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which is that it is not a game.

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Which is that it is an
alchemy of expression

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of what it means to be human.

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A bridge between the
things that are human

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and the things that are not.

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Between the living and the dead.

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And that out there beyond Grosse
Point Park, beyond Detroit even

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we are fighting a war again.

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And that out there further
out beyond the war history

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continues to circle.

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And that we are given a small
amount of time and materials

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and we do the best
we can with them.

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And sometimes one thing
is like another thing.

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And sometimes it isn't.

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And that once the trucks and
boys have passed somebody

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has to remain behind to
pick up all the candy

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from the sidewalks.

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And that some of us
wake with bruises

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and have no idea
how we got them.

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And some of us wake with bruises
and know all too well how

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we got them.

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And that somewhere out on
the edges of the dreams

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that turn out not to have been
dreams at all the black pickup

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turns its headlights
on and keeps

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driving through the nearly
deserted city in search

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of something, good
Mexican food maybe.

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And it is not about you
or the boys or the war.

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Except that when that same
evening you finally do lie down

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to sleep it's the
screams of the boys

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you keep hearing
inside your head

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and the thud of the candy
like the report of a gun.

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And this is not a metaphor.

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None of it.

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Not a dream but
you wish it were.

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And out of this wish
you write a poem.

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And out of your fierce rejection
of this wish you write a poem.

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And sometimes it's the
same poem around which

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history circles trying like us
to forget parts of the story.

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The plagues and the defeats,
the blood sacrifices.

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Like us dreaming of
a sweetness come down

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from the sky or some
god or a heaven.

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I think that's enough.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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