WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.019 align:middle line:84% Well, I also want to thank Alison Deming publicly 00:00:04.019 --> 00:00:07.080 align:middle line:90% for being an incredible host. 00:00:07.080 --> 00:00:11.430 align:middle line:84% She picked me up in Coolidge, which 00:00:11.430 --> 00:00:15.810 align:middle line:84% is somewhere out there in the desert, and brought me here 00:00:15.810 --> 00:00:18.120 align:middle line:84% and put me up in this beautiful place actually called 00:00:18.120 --> 00:00:19.620 align:middle line:90% the poet's house. 00:00:19.620 --> 00:00:23.550 align:middle line:84% This in Adobe house and it's just my size. 00:00:23.550 --> 00:00:25.680 align:middle line:90% Everything is very small. 00:00:25.680 --> 00:00:27.960 align:middle line:90% I can reach all the shelves. 00:00:27.960 --> 00:00:30.900 align:middle line:84% And I don't know if it was constructed like for my visit 00:00:30.900 --> 00:00:33.660 align:middle line:84% because I know Mark Strand probably couldn't fit there. 00:00:33.660 --> 00:00:36.180 align:middle line:90% Don't ask any tall poets. 00:00:36.180 --> 00:00:39.720 align:middle line:84% But everyone has been wonderful to me across Arizona. 00:00:39.720 --> 00:00:41.610 align:middle line:84% And tomorrow we head for Flagstaff, 00:00:41.610 --> 00:00:44.580 align:middle line:84% which I understand is five hours through the desert. 00:00:44.580 --> 00:00:46.920 align:middle line:84% And I get to see all of your state 00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:49.570 align:middle line:84% before I leave for home on Friday. 00:00:49.570 --> 00:00:52.530 align:middle line:84% So I want to thank you for being here 00:00:52.530 --> 00:00:56.580 align:middle line:84% and for making my visit so satisfying. 00:00:56.580 --> 00:00:59.340 align:middle line:84% When Bob was talking about my lying, 00:00:59.340 --> 00:01:01.710 align:middle line:84% I wanted to explain something, because 00:01:01.710 --> 00:01:05.519 align:middle line:84% as some former Catholic, you can't let things 00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:08.070 align:middle line:90% like that go by. 00:01:08.070 --> 00:01:10.050 align:middle line:84% You can stretch the truth all you want, then 00:01:10.050 --> 00:01:12.863 align:middle line:84% you go to Saturday confession and make everything right. 00:01:12.863 --> 00:01:15.030 align:middle line:84% But since I don't go to Saturday confession anymore, 00:01:15.030 --> 00:01:18.590 align:middle line:84% I have to make things right anyway. 00:01:18.590 --> 00:01:22.770 align:middle line:84% What I was talking about and I'm going to begin with your leave 00:01:22.770 --> 00:01:25.920 align:middle line:84% to by reading an essay from Silent Dancing 00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:30.990 align:middle line:84% is the fact that the word essay used to freeze me. 00:01:30.990 --> 00:01:33.750 align:middle line:84% I like you, I went to graduate school 00:01:33.750 --> 00:01:37.230 align:middle line:84% and had to write essays and a thesis. 00:01:37.230 --> 00:01:41.340 align:middle line:84% And I literally made myself sick over the thesis 00:01:41.340 --> 00:01:43.800 align:middle line:84% because the professors kept insisting 00:01:43.800 --> 00:01:46.290 align:middle line:84% that I write in this extremely detached way that 00:01:46.290 --> 00:01:51.220 align:middle line:84% went completely against my personality. 00:01:51.220 --> 00:01:56.790 align:middle line:84% And I did it because I wanted that diploma. 00:01:56.790 --> 00:01:59.370 align:middle line:84% But lately in the last few years, 00:01:59.370 --> 00:02:03.010 align:middle line:84% I've decided that I wanted to write essays, 00:02:03.010 --> 00:02:05.850 align:middle line:84% but I wanted to write them in my own way. 00:02:05.850 --> 00:02:08.789 align:middle line:84% I wasn't going to be writing them with footnotes. 00:02:08.789 --> 00:02:11.680 align:middle line:84% I wasn't going to be footnoting my life. 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:16.030 align:middle line:84% And I was certainly not going to be reporting on my past. 00:02:16.030 --> 00:02:20.220 align:middle line:84% And so I decided that I could lie about my life, 00:02:20.220 --> 00:02:21.660 align:middle line:90% but not on purpose. 00:02:21.660 --> 00:02:24.810 align:middle line:84% Really what I tried to do and what I'm going to read you 00:02:24.810 --> 00:02:27.180 align:middle line:84% tonight is an attempt at the truth 00:02:27.180 --> 00:02:32.550 align:middle line:84% that was taken over by my writer's persona at some point. 00:02:32.550 --> 00:02:36.840 align:middle line:84% And it became something that has the truth of poetry 00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:40.440 align:middle line:84% rather than the truth of history or the factual truth. 00:02:40.440 --> 00:02:43.050 align:middle line:84% The reason for that is I'm going to read 00:02:43.050 --> 00:02:47.280 align:middle line:84% you a story about how I learned to tell stories 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:49.080 align:middle line:90% at my grandmother's house. 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:51.120 align:middle line:90% And I was a little girl there. 00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:55.740 align:middle line:84% And what I heard, I cannot report to you word for word. 00:02:55.740 --> 00:02:58.530 align:middle line:84% I just know that I learned from this old lady 00:02:58.530 --> 00:02:59.940 align:middle line:90% how to tell a story. 00:02:59.940 --> 00:03:02.110 align:middle line:84% And I want to tell you that story. 00:03:02.110 --> 00:03:06.165 align:middle line:84% But if I start thinking, I have to go back and interview people 00:03:06.165 --> 00:03:09.150 align:middle line:84% so that I could put down the exact right words, 00:03:09.150 --> 00:03:12.870 align:middle line:84% so that people will approve like my committee 00:03:12.870 --> 00:03:15.900 align:middle line:90% and you're my committee now. 00:03:15.900 --> 00:03:17.760 align:middle line:84% Then I won't be able to write it. 00:03:17.760 --> 00:03:22.928 align:middle line:84% So that's what I meant when I told Bob that it's my life. 00:03:22.928 --> 00:03:23.970 align:middle line:90% What are you going to do? 00:03:23.970 --> 00:03:26.250 align:middle line:84% Go and interview my grandmother to make sure 00:03:26.250 --> 00:03:28.020 align:middle line:90% that I told you the truth. 00:03:28.020 --> 00:03:32.790 align:middle line:84% So what I would like to do tonight then 00:03:32.790 --> 00:03:36.480 align:middle line:84% is to read you this essay from Silent Dancing, 00:03:36.480 --> 00:03:39.240 align:middle line:84% and then finish with a poetry reading. 00:03:39.240 --> 00:03:42.090 align:middle line:84% And the reason I feel free to do that, even though I was brought 00:03:42.090 --> 00:03:45.870 align:middle line:84% here as a poet and not as a nonfiction writer, 00:03:45.870 --> 00:03:50.900 align:middle line:84% is because the reason that I wrote this book was poetry. 00:03:50.900 --> 00:03:53.160 align:middle line:84% The way it started, and I like going back 00:03:53.160 --> 00:03:57.060 align:middle line:84% to the genesis of things because it allows me to understand 00:03:57.060 --> 00:04:01.110 align:middle line:84% my work, I did a reading of the Bread Loaf writers conference, 00:04:01.110 --> 00:04:04.110 align:middle line:84% and one of my literary mothers was in the audience. 00:04:04.110 --> 00:04:07.620 align:middle line:84% I have several women across the nation that 00:04:07.620 --> 00:04:10.080 align:middle line:84% have taken an interest in me and have sort of 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:12.450 align:middle line:90% helped me along the way. 00:04:12.450 --> 00:04:15.330 align:middle line:84% That was Hilma Wolitzer, the writer 00:04:15.330 --> 00:04:17.310 align:middle line:90% from New York, the novelist. 00:04:17.310 --> 00:04:19.140 align:middle line:84% And she said, you know, those stories 00:04:19.140 --> 00:04:21.540 align:middle line:84% you tell in between poems, she says, 00:04:21.540 --> 00:04:25.080 align:middle line:84% they deserve a place in your art. 00:04:25.080 --> 00:04:29.370 align:middle line:84% You should write those stories, either as stories or as essays. 00:04:29.370 --> 00:04:31.230 align:middle line:84% And so I said that's a good idea. 00:04:31.230 --> 00:04:35.160 align:middle line:84% So I started looking at my poems in a new way 00:04:35.160 --> 00:04:37.560 align:middle line:84% and from looking at the poems and trying 00:04:37.560 --> 00:04:41.160 align:middle line:84% to figure out what led me to write those poems, 00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:43.110 align:middle line:90% I wrote these essays. 00:04:43.110 --> 00:04:47.790 align:middle line:84% And so the essays do not explain the poems. 00:04:47.790 --> 00:04:51.760 align:middle line:84% Sometimes they are only vaguely connected. 00:04:51.760 --> 00:04:56.700 align:middle line:84% But I allowed myself to find that spot in time 00:04:56.700 --> 00:05:00.490 align:middle line:84% or that place in my life or that thought that generated 00:05:00.490 --> 00:05:02.530 align:middle line:90% that poem to become an essay. 00:05:02.530 --> 00:05:04.390 align:middle line:84% And so every essay in the book is 00:05:04.390 --> 00:05:06.790 align:middle line:84% followed by one, two, or three poems 00:05:06.790 --> 00:05:10.840 align:middle line:84% that I feel come together in some way. 00:05:10.840 --> 00:05:14.530 align:middle line:84% So anyway, I would like to say a couple of things 00:05:14.530 --> 00:05:17.740 align:middle line:90% more, and then read you "Casa." 00:05:17.740 --> 00:05:20.710 align:middle line:84% It's really the bulk of my work has 00:05:20.710 --> 00:05:25.180 align:middle line:84% to do with growing up Puerto Rican in the United States. 00:05:25.180 --> 00:05:28.240 align:middle line:84% And particularly from my life which was literally 00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:32.540 align:middle line:84% divided into my time on the island and my time in Paterson, 00:05:32.540 --> 00:05:35.410 align:middle line:84% New Jersey, where I spent most of my adolescence. 00:05:35.410 --> 00:05:37.720 align:middle line:84% And that was because my father was in the Navy 00:05:37.720 --> 00:05:39.700 align:middle line:84% and he was stationed in Brooklyn yard. 00:05:39.700 --> 00:05:42.340 align:middle line:84% Every time he went on a tour of duty with the Navy, 00:05:42.340 --> 00:05:44.410 align:middle line:84% he sent us back to my grandmother's house 00:05:44.410 --> 00:05:45.820 align:middle line:90% on the island. 00:05:45.820 --> 00:05:48.610 align:middle line:84% She was like the family's matriarch. 00:05:48.610 --> 00:05:53.770 align:middle line:84% And while we were there, I lived among cousins and young aunts 00:05:53.770 --> 00:05:55.730 align:middle line:90% and uncles, a large family. 00:05:55.730 --> 00:05:58.240 align:middle line:90% I spoke only Spanish. 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:00.940 align:middle line:84% I went wild in this Caribbean island. 00:06:00.940 --> 00:06:02.620 align:middle line:84% And then the rest of the year, I would 00:06:02.620 --> 00:06:06.580 align:middle line:84% live in New Jersey in this big apartment building in a very 00:06:06.580 --> 00:06:07.910 align:middle line:90% urban setting. 00:06:07.910 --> 00:06:10.210 align:middle line:84% And so when I started writing, I found 00:06:10.210 --> 00:06:13.600 align:middle line:84% that my brain was divided into those two worlds, 00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:16.000 align:middle line:84% and that I could write about both experiences 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:18.160 align:middle line:84% and try to make them come together. 00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:21.280 align:middle line:84% And that is the bulk, though, not all of my writing 00:06:21.280 --> 00:06:23.500 align:middle line:84% because I'm also an English teacher, 00:06:23.500 --> 00:06:27.730 align:middle line:84% and I was exposed to the same kinds of things that you were. 00:06:27.730 --> 00:06:31.588 align:middle line:84% And so I also write about, like some 00:06:31.588 --> 00:06:33.130 align:middle line:84% of the poems I will read tonight have 00:06:33.130 --> 00:06:38.740 align:middle line:84% to do with taking some women from literature 00:06:38.740 --> 00:06:44.260 align:middle line:84% and adopting their personas and pretending to be 00:06:44.260 --> 00:06:47.350 align:middle line:90% like Penelope for example. 00:06:47.350 --> 00:06:50.200 align:middle line:84% But I will first start with "Casa." 00:06:50.200 --> 00:06:53.380 align:middle line:84% And casa means home, as you all know. 00:06:53.380 --> 00:06:56.020 align:middle line:84% You have to know a little Spanish living here. 00:06:56.020 --> 00:06:58.810 align:middle line:84% And the reason I called it casa is because I grew up 00:06:58.810 --> 00:07:00.370 align:middle line:90% hearing about casa. 00:07:00.370 --> 00:07:02.500 align:middle line:84% Whenever something went wrong, my mother 00:07:02.500 --> 00:07:05.050 align:middle line:84% would say, well, in casa, it used 00:07:05.050 --> 00:07:08.350 align:middle line:84% to be done this way or mama used to do It this way. 00:07:08.350 --> 00:07:11.590 align:middle line:84% So casa became this mythical place 00:07:11.590 --> 00:07:14.930 align:middle line:84% where everything went right all the time. 00:07:14.930 --> 00:07:17.860 align:middle line:84% And of course, that didn't exist and I found out 00:07:17.860 --> 00:07:19.270 align:middle line:90% when I went to Puerto Rico. 00:07:19.270 --> 00:07:22.420 align:middle line:84% But still later on, casa became where 00:07:22.420 --> 00:07:27.700 align:middle line:84% I went when I wanted to remember my Puerto Rican heritage. 00:07:27.700 --> 00:07:31.480 align:middle line:84% So casa is the home of my imagination. 00:07:31.480 --> 00:07:38.530 align:middle line:84% In this essay, it's a story about a storyteller telling 00:07:38.530 --> 00:07:40.710 align:middle line:90% a story. 00:07:40.710 --> 00:07:44.080 align:middle line:84% And in it, I trace my literary heritage back 00:07:44.080 --> 00:07:48.460 align:middle line:84% to these women who sat around my grandmother's casa 00:07:48.460 --> 00:07:51.870 align:middle line:84% and told stories in the afternoon.