WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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It's nice to be here.

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I'm going to begin
tonight by reading

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a poem by a poet I discovered
recently, though he's

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been around a long time.

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I did some research in
the Stanford Archives

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at a conservative think
tank called The Hoover.

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But the interesting
thing about The Hoover,

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is that they save
leftist literature.

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And I was reading the
poetry of The Daily Worker,

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because they had so much
working-class literature there

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in the poems of
The Daily Worker.

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And I discovered this one
particular poet that I thought

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was just, he was great.

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I thought, this guy's great.

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And his name was Edwin
Rolfe, whose real name

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was Saul Fishman.

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He was a Jewish red diaper baby.

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He was a lifelong member
of the Communist party.

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He fought with the
Abraham Lincoln Brigades

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with the Republican Army
in Spain, and all in all,

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was a big supporter
of the Hollywood Ten

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when they were being
persecuted by the House

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on Un-American Activities,
which he would have

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had to appear before
had he not had

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a heart condition at the time.

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He died in 1954.

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One of his last
published books was

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a book about Spain and about
his experiences fighting there.

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And it was something
for him that

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became a formative kind of,
seminal experience for him.

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And so I want to read you a poem
of his, because he's a poet,

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I think, that needs to be
read and listened to, still.

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And the name of
the poem that I'm

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going to read you is the
last book in his manuscript

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of his book called First
Love and Other Poems

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and it's the title
poem, "First Love".

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And interestingly
enough, he does

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a play on that romantic idea.

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Because that first love is
also that very appalling thing

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called "war" in Spain.

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And so I'll just
read you the poem.

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"First love.

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Again, I am summoned
to the eternal field,

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green with the blood still
fresh at the roots of flowers.

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Green through the
dust-rimmed memory

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of faces that moved among the
trees, there for the last time

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before the final shock, the
glazed eye, the hasty mound.

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But why are my thoughts
in another country?

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Why do I always return
to the sunken road

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through corroded hills, with the
Moorish castle's shadow casting

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ruins over my shoulder, and the
black-smocked girl approaching,

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her hands laden with grapes?

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I am eager to enter it.

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Eager to end it.

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Perhaps, this one
will be the last one.

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And men, afterward, will
study our arms in museums,

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and nod their heads, and frown,
and name the inadequate dates,

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and stumble with infant tongues
over the strange place names.

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But my heart is forever
captive of that other war that

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taught me first, the meaning
of peace and of comradeship.

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And always, I think
of my friend who,

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amid the apparition of
bombs, saw on the lyric

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lake the single perfect swan."

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