WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.640 align:middle line:90% 00:00:07.640 --> 00:00:10.130 align:middle line:84% I hope you can join us following Mr. Matthews' 00:00:10.130 --> 00:00:14.570 align:middle line:84% reading in the terrace lounge for reception. 00:00:14.570 --> 00:00:16.340 align:middle line:84% The terrace lounge is on the second floor 00:00:16.340 --> 00:00:19.715 align:middle line:84% of the Student Union in the older section of the Union. 00:00:19.715 --> 00:00:23.620 align:middle line:90% 00:00:23.620 --> 00:00:27.100 align:middle line:84% If you have not received a copy of the spring schedule, 00:00:27.100 --> 00:00:28.780 align:middle line:84% I will have some at the reception. 00:00:28.780 --> 00:00:31.760 align:middle line:90% Be happy to give them to you. 00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:35.320 align:middle line:84% You may have noticed that the name of the Poetry Center 00:00:35.320 --> 00:00:39.490 align:middle line:84% has changed to University of Arizona Poetry Center. 00:00:39.490 --> 00:00:42.140 align:middle line:90% We're in the same place. 00:00:42.140 --> 00:00:45.640 align:middle line:90% Our hours are the same. 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:48.550 align:middle line:84% And I hope you will find that we have a fine reading 00:00:48.550 --> 00:00:51.065 align:middle line:90% schedule for the spring. 00:00:51.065 --> 00:00:52.690 align:middle line:84% Including Mr. Matthews reading tonight, 00:00:52.690 --> 00:00:54.760 align:middle line:84% we will have five visiting poets. 00:00:54.760 --> 00:01:00.080 align:middle line:90% 00:01:00.080 --> 00:01:02.570 align:middle line:84% Next Wednesday night, in this auditorium, 00:01:02.570 --> 00:01:07.490 align:middle line:84% we will have a faculty reading by Steven Orlen. 00:01:07.490 --> 00:01:11.225 align:middle line:90% That's January 31st, 8:30 PM. 00:01:11.225 --> 00:01:14.330 align:middle line:90% 00:01:14.330 --> 00:01:18.710 align:middle line:84% We have scheduled for the spring three student readings. 00:01:18.710 --> 00:01:22.160 align:middle line:84% The first reading will be February 14th, 00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:23.390 align:middle line:90% three weeks from tonight. 00:01:23.390 --> 00:01:26.090 align:middle line:90% 00:01:26.090 --> 00:01:28.820 align:middle line:84% In the old days, when the Poetry Center was very small 00:01:28.820 --> 00:01:32.210 align:middle line:84% and there were not poetry writing classes, 00:01:32.210 --> 00:01:36.530 align:middle line:84% they used to have Friday afternoon hours when people 00:01:36.530 --> 00:01:39.890 align:middle line:90% were invited to come and read. 00:01:39.890 --> 00:01:44.660 align:middle line:84% And we decided that it would be nice to have another hour when 00:01:44.660 --> 00:01:49.740 align:middle line:84% the reading was open to all and any interested students. 00:01:49.740 --> 00:01:55.020 align:middle line:84% So on February 14th, the reading will be open. 00:01:55.020 --> 00:01:57.320 align:middle line:84% We will not invite anyone to read. 00:01:57.320 --> 00:02:00.470 align:middle line:90% We invite everyone to read. 00:02:00.470 --> 00:02:02.900 align:middle line:84% If you'd like any more information about it, 00:02:02.900 --> 00:02:05.150 align:middle line:84% I hope you'll call the Poetry Center to talk to us. 00:02:05.150 --> 00:02:10.539 align:middle line:90% 00:02:10.539 --> 00:02:14.710 align:middle line:84% This evening, I'm happy to introduce you 00:02:14.710 --> 00:02:21.010 align:middle line:84% to William Matthews, young poet who was born in Cincinnati, 00:02:21.010 --> 00:02:26.110 align:middle line:84% educated at Yale and at Chapel Hill at the University of North 00:02:26.110 --> 00:02:28.240 align:middle line:90% Carolina. 00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:31.690 align:middle line:84% While a student at Chapel Hill, he 00:02:31.690 --> 00:02:35.890 align:middle line:84% was one of the co-founders of the poetry magazine Little 00:02:35.890 --> 00:02:40.021 align:middle line:84% Bolero and The Little Bolero Press. 00:02:40.021 --> 00:02:43.180 align:middle line:84% He presently teaches at Cornell University. 00:02:43.180 --> 00:02:47.020 align:middle line:84% Makes his home in Ithaca, New York. 00:02:47.020 --> 00:02:50.440 align:middle line:84% He's published two books with Random House-- 00:02:50.440 --> 00:02:56.530 align:middle line:84% Ruining the New Road and Sleek for the Long Flight. 00:02:56.530 --> 00:02:59.018 align:middle line:90% We welcome Mr. William Matthews. 00:02:59.018 --> 00:03:02.476 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:02.476 --> 00:03:08.910 align:middle line:90% 00:03:08.910 --> 00:03:11.550 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:03:11.550 --> 00:03:16.562 align:middle line:84% I'm going to begin by reading a prose poem because about half 00:03:16.562 --> 00:03:19.020 align:middle line:84% of the pieces I'll read tonight will be short prose pieces. 00:03:19.020 --> 00:03:21.900 align:middle line:90% 00:03:21.900 --> 00:03:23.430 align:middle line:84% Prose poems is really a name that's 00:03:23.430 --> 00:03:27.208 align:middle line:84% given to them by default. It's like saying cold fire 00:03:27.208 --> 00:03:27.750 align:middle line:90% or something. 00:03:27.750 --> 00:03:29.820 align:middle line:84% There's something paradoxical and impossible 00:03:29.820 --> 00:03:32.580 align:middle line:90% about the idea of a prose poem. 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:35.070 align:middle line:84% Whatever they are, I started writing them 00:03:35.070 --> 00:03:37.662 align:middle line:84% because I became fascinated with a French poet, 00:03:37.662 --> 00:03:38.370 align:middle line:90% a friend of mine. 00:03:38.370 --> 00:03:42.960 align:middle line:84% And I have spent four years translating some prose poems 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:44.910 align:middle line:84% by French poet named Jean Follain. 00:03:44.910 --> 00:03:50.040 align:middle line:84% And after about two years of working on these poems, 00:03:50.040 --> 00:03:51.600 align:middle line:90% it occurred to me-- 00:03:51.600 --> 00:03:53.220 align:middle line:90% I get ideas slowly-- 00:03:53.220 --> 00:03:55.110 align:middle line:84% it occurred to me to write some of my own. 00:03:55.110 --> 00:03:58.200 align:middle line:84% And I started writing prose poems. 00:03:58.200 --> 00:04:01.260 align:middle line:84% I've become rather staunch about it as an activity 00:04:01.260 --> 00:04:03.930 align:middle line:84% and staunch about prose poems as a form 00:04:03.930 --> 00:04:06.750 align:middle line:84% because I found that when I talk to my fellow poets, 00:04:06.750 --> 00:04:09.270 align:middle line:84% they greeted the news that I was working on prose poems 00:04:09.270 --> 00:04:10.005 align:middle line:90% with a strange-- 00:04:10.005 --> 00:04:12.983 align:middle line:90% 00:04:12.983 --> 00:04:15.150 align:middle line:84% well, they would say, what are you doing these days. 00:04:15.150 --> 00:04:17.108 align:middle line:84% And I said, well, I'm writing some prose poems. 00:04:17.108 --> 00:04:22.800 align:middle line:84% And they would say, oh, as if, gee, I 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:27.570 align:middle line:84% hope it'll be all right soon or as if they received 00:04:27.570 --> 00:04:29.940 align:middle line:84% the news that I'd been caught dancing to Everett Dirksen 00:04:29.940 --> 00:04:32.250 align:middle line:84% records or something that was really going to damage 00:04:32.250 --> 00:04:36.540 align:middle line:90% my general reputation in life. 00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:38.220 align:middle line:84% So when I published my last book, 00:04:38.220 --> 00:04:39.540 align:middle line:90% I put a lot of prose poems in. 00:04:39.540 --> 00:04:41.562 align:middle line:84% And I didn't put them in a separate section. 00:04:41.562 --> 00:04:43.270 align:middle line:84% And I didn't call them anything separate. 00:04:43.270 --> 00:04:47.160 align:middle line:84% I just displayed them in among what some poets call 00:04:47.160 --> 00:04:50.010 align:middle line:84% regular poems or real poems but which 00:04:50.010 --> 00:04:52.260 align:middle line:84% I call, in order not to make that kind of distinction, 00:04:52.260 --> 00:04:52.905 align:middle line:90% verse poems. 00:04:52.905 --> 00:04:56.310 align:middle line:90% 00:04:56.310 --> 00:04:58.405 align:middle line:84% I was first moved to write them because of working 00:04:58.405 --> 00:04:59.280 align:middle line:90% on the Follain poems. 00:04:59.280 --> 00:05:02.550 align:middle line:84% But after writing a few awful imitations of Follain, 00:05:02.550 --> 00:05:04.620 align:middle line:84% it occurred to me that there was a great deal 00:05:04.620 --> 00:05:09.000 align:middle line:84% of short prose in American language 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:14.280 align:middle line:84% that we don't think of it as art, prose. 00:05:14.280 --> 00:05:16.410 align:middle line:90% I'm a newspaper junkie. 00:05:16.410 --> 00:05:18.000 align:middle line:84% Today, for example, on the flight out, 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.090 align:middle line:90% I read the Pittsburgh paper. 00:05:21.090 --> 00:05:23.340 align:middle line:84% I read a Syracuse paper, a Pittsburgh paper, 00:05:23.340 --> 00:05:24.243 align:middle line:90% and a Chicago paper. 00:05:24.243 --> 00:05:25.410 align:middle line:90% I collapsed when I got here. 00:05:25.410 --> 00:05:26.850 align:middle line:84% I haven't yet read an Arizona paper. 00:05:26.850 --> 00:05:27.360 align:middle line:90% But I will. 00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:30.060 align:middle line:84% I always love reading the papers wherever I go. 00:05:30.060 --> 00:05:33.510 align:middle line:84% And so I read all this prose in the paper, short prose. 00:05:33.510 --> 00:05:38.040 align:middle line:84% I read obituary columns, horoscopes, sports columns, 00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:41.820 align:middle line:84% advice to the lovelorn, Heloise's household hints. 00:05:41.820 --> 00:05:45.390 align:middle line:84% These are all forms of prose which are very formulaic. 00:05:45.390 --> 00:05:47.110 align:middle line:84% The prose always works the same way. 00:05:47.110 --> 00:05:50.260 align:middle line:84% It's as patterned and it clicks 1, 2, 3, beginning, middle, 00:05:50.260 --> 00:05:53.310 align:middle line:84% and end, as neatly as fairy stories 00:05:53.310 --> 00:05:55.570 align:middle line:84% starting once upon a time and so forth. 00:05:55.570 --> 00:05:58.080 align:middle line:84% And so when I first started wanting 00:05:58.080 --> 00:06:03.228 align:middle line:84% to write prose poems that didn't sound like Jean Follain, 00:06:03.228 --> 00:06:05.520 align:middle line:84% but that sounded like something that I might run across 00:06:05.520 --> 00:06:10.050 align:middle line:84% in American language, one of the early ones I wrote 00:06:10.050 --> 00:06:11.265 align:middle line:90% was a horoscope entry. 00:06:11.265 --> 00:06:14.640 align:middle line:90% 00:06:14.640 --> 00:06:18.180 align:middle line:84% I was feeling betrayed by astrology at that time 00:06:18.180 --> 00:06:21.690 align:middle line:84% because it was about the point where astrology had really 00:06:21.690 --> 00:06:24.960 align:middle line:84% reached the common marketplace so that you would get 00:06:24.960 --> 00:06:26.708 align:middle line:84% a little tumbler with your sign on it 00:06:26.708 --> 00:06:28.500 align:middle line:84% if you filled up with eight or more gallons 00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:30.000 align:middle line:90% at the gas station. 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:31.802 align:middle line:84% And they always started out promisingly. 00:06:31.802 --> 00:06:33.510 align:middle line:84% They addressed me directly and personally 00:06:33.510 --> 00:06:35.190 align:middle line:84% and intimately, and I liked that. 00:06:35.190 --> 00:06:36.880 align:middle line:84% They told me nice things about myself, 00:06:36.880 --> 00:06:38.190 align:middle line:90% which was also pleasant. 00:06:38.190 --> 00:06:41.070 align:middle line:84% And then they veered off into generalities, 00:06:41.070 --> 00:06:44.700 align:middle line:84% doubtless under the pressure of having the entry necessarily 00:06:44.700 --> 00:06:48.000 align:middle line:84% explained equally personally the lives of the 500 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:50.490 align:middle line:84% million other people with the same sign. 00:06:50.490 --> 00:06:54.270 align:middle line:90% But I didn't like this. 00:06:54.270 --> 00:06:55.170 align:middle line:90% I wanted it to go on. 00:06:55.170 --> 00:06:56.430 align:middle line:90% I want it to be more personal. 00:06:56.430 --> 00:06:57.763 align:middle line:90% I wanted it to be more intimate. 00:06:57.763 --> 00:07:00.210 align:middle line:90% I wanted to talk to me directly. 00:07:00.210 --> 00:07:02.910 align:middle line:84% I wanted all other Scorpios in the world to fall away 00:07:02.910 --> 00:07:04.800 align:middle line:90% from this particular message. 00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:08.820 align:middle line:84% I never found a horoscope column that did this. 00:07:08.820 --> 00:07:12.900 align:middle line:84% And in fact, the entries in my home newspaper 00:07:12.900 --> 00:07:14.880 align:middle line:84% are written by a man named Carol Richter. 00:07:14.880 --> 00:07:20.250 align:middle line:84% And unlike a lot of advice of that kind which 00:07:20.250 --> 00:07:22.440 align:middle line:84% centers on getting rich and having 00:07:22.440 --> 00:07:24.180 align:middle line:84% an exciting but destructive sex life 00:07:24.180 --> 00:07:27.180 align:middle line:84% and going on long journeys and things like that, 00:07:27.180 --> 00:07:30.120 align:middle line:84% this guy tells you how to get along at the office 00:07:30.120 --> 00:07:35.940 align:middle line:84% so that there'll be things like impressed that bigwig today 00:07:35.940 --> 00:07:39.840 align:middle line:90% or spend evening with mate. 00:07:39.840 --> 00:07:41.370 align:middle line:90% I like that one. 00:07:41.370 --> 00:07:44.580 align:middle line:84% And my favorite is show that you are ethical. 00:07:44.580 --> 00:07:45.960 align:middle line:90% Doesn't say, be ethical. 00:07:45.960 --> 00:07:48.710 align:middle line:84% It just says, show that you're ethical.