WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.210 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.210 --> 00:00:09.480 align:middle line:84% That's about one third of that new book. 00:00:09.480 --> 00:00:11.910 align:middle line:90% Let's read some others. 00:00:11.910 --> 00:00:20.340 align:middle line:90% 00:00:20.340 --> 00:00:24.480 align:middle line:84% Somebody this afternoon asked about the poem 00:00:24.480 --> 00:00:30.120 align:middle line:90% about Warren G. Harding. 00:00:30.120 --> 00:00:35.970 align:middle line:84% Now I have complicated feelings of my own 00:00:35.970 --> 00:00:42.440 align:middle line:84% about the people in Ohio, and also 00:00:42.440 --> 00:00:46.760 align:middle line:84% about America, my country, and the leaders there. 00:00:46.760 --> 00:00:50.070 align:middle line:84% People who have tried to make sense out of it. 00:00:50.070 --> 00:00:52.220 align:middle line:84% I've been haunted for a long time. 00:00:52.220 --> 00:00:55.490 align:middle line:84% I keep remembering that Edmund Burke, who 00:00:55.490 --> 00:01:01.190 align:middle line:84% to me is one of the greatest public figures who ever lived, 00:01:01.190 --> 00:01:07.670 align:middle line:84% gave a very powerful oration in the House of Commons 00:01:07.670 --> 00:01:11.720 align:middle line:84% in England in about 1775, in which he 00:01:11.720 --> 00:01:17.780 align:middle line:84% defended the American colonists against King George III. 00:01:17.780 --> 00:01:20.930 align:middle line:84% And to do that openly and clearly 00:01:20.930 --> 00:01:24.140 align:middle line:84% as he did at that particular time, 00:01:24.140 --> 00:01:26.180 align:middle line:90% was the act of a brave man. 00:01:26.180 --> 00:01:29.050 align:middle line:90% 00:01:29.050 --> 00:01:33.060 align:middle line:84% He said something that's haunted me philosophically. 00:01:33.060 --> 00:01:35.070 align:middle line:84% He said, "to love our country, our country 00:01:35.070 --> 00:01:37.793 align:middle line:90% ought to be lovely." 00:01:37.793 --> 00:01:38.460 align:middle line:90% To make it-- No. 00:01:38.460 --> 00:01:39.930 align:middle line:84% It's "to make us love our country, 00:01:39.930 --> 00:01:42.180 align:middle line:90% our country ought to be lovely." 00:01:42.180 --> 00:01:44.220 align:middle line:90% Ought to be lovely. 00:01:44.220 --> 00:01:47.430 align:middle line:84% And doesn't that raise the old beautiful question? 00:01:47.430 --> 00:01:51.010 align:middle line:84% People used to make fun of President Harding all the time. 00:01:51.010 --> 00:01:52.600 align:middle line:90% He is from Ohio. 00:01:52.600 --> 00:01:55.980 align:middle line:90% He was buried in Ohio. 00:01:55.980 --> 00:01:56.970 align:middle line:90% And e.e. 00:01:56.970 --> 00:02:01.740 align:middle line:84% cummings, we were talking about this poem this afternoon, 00:02:01.740 --> 00:02:05.310 align:middle line:84% mocked him very brilliantly after Harding's death. 00:02:05.310 --> 00:02:09.030 align:middle line:84% Harding got in some kind of political trouble. 00:02:09.030 --> 00:02:11.730 align:middle line:84% You may not remember, but he got into some political trouble, 00:02:11.730 --> 00:02:15.330 align:middle line:90% but he cared about life. 00:02:15.330 --> 00:02:17.820 align:middle line:84% He was one of the Main Street crowd, all right. 00:02:17.820 --> 00:02:20.390 align:middle line:90% 00:02:20.390 --> 00:02:24.110 align:middle line:90% And I've heard him sneered at. 00:02:24.110 --> 00:02:28.070 align:middle line:84% I wrote my poem about him because I wanted to defend him 00:02:28.070 --> 00:02:30.140 align:middle line:90% against the sneer. 00:02:30.140 --> 00:02:33.410 align:middle line:84% I'll tell you why I don't think he should be sneered at. 00:02:33.410 --> 00:02:36.020 align:middle line:84% He got mixed up with a bunch of political crooks there 00:02:36.020 --> 00:02:41.090 align:middle line:84% in the early '20s, and he was an honest man 00:02:41.090 --> 00:02:42.905 align:middle line:90% who got mixed up with crooks. 00:02:42.905 --> 00:02:51.960 align:middle line:90% 00:02:51.960 --> 00:02:55.620 align:middle line:84% Right at the end of World War One, 00:02:55.620 --> 00:03:00.150 align:middle line:84% Harding, who was a Senator from Ohio, 00:03:00.150 --> 00:03:04.560 align:middle line:84% learned that a certain man named Herbert Hoover was 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:08.520 align:middle line:84% to be in charge of the relief of children in Europe. 00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:11.490 align:middle line:84% It was called the Committee for Belgian Relief. 00:03:11.490 --> 00:03:15.270 align:middle line:84% Harding went over to him, this big, husky, very 00:03:15.270 --> 00:03:19.290 align:middle line:84% good looking, beautiful man shook hands with Hoover 00:03:19.290 --> 00:03:21.340 align:middle line:90% and said, neighbor. 00:03:21.340 --> 00:03:22.215 align:middle line:90% I want to be helpful. 00:03:22.215 --> 00:03:25.080 align:middle line:90% 00:03:25.080 --> 00:03:27.500 align:middle line:90% That's funny, isn't it? 00:03:27.500 --> 00:03:28.280 align:middle line:90% No? 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:31.790 align:middle line:84% Well, compare it with some other public statements 00:03:31.790 --> 00:03:33.200 align:middle line:90% we've had in the 20th century. 00:03:33.200 --> 00:03:36.557 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:36.557 --> 00:03:38.765 align:middle line:84% Like my favorite-- Nach dem Sieg des Waffens muss der 00:03:38.765 --> 00:03:45.220 align:middle line:84% biologischer Sieg folgen, said Hitler 00:03:45.220 --> 00:03:47.500 align:middle line:84% on the eve of the Polish campaign. 00:03:47.500 --> 00:03:50.200 align:middle line:84% And after the military victory will 00:03:50.200 --> 00:03:51.640 align:middle line:90% come the biological victory. 00:03:51.640 --> 00:03:54.310 align:middle line:90% Well, you can take your choice. 00:03:54.310 --> 00:03:57.220 align:middle line:84% I know maybe Harding was a failure, but I like him. 00:03:57.220 --> 00:04:00.040 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:00.040 --> 00:04:01.150 align:middle line:90% He may have been a mess. 00:04:01.150 --> 00:04:02.770 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:04:02.770 --> 00:04:04.830 align:middle line:84% He may have been a failure but that is a failure. 00:04:04.830 --> 00:04:07.900 align:middle line:90% I am willing to share. 00:04:07.900 --> 00:04:09.830 align:middle line:84% "Neighbor, I want to be helpful." 00:04:09.830 --> 00:04:13.195 align:middle line:84% Then he got confused and screwed up with some other crooks. 00:04:13.195 --> 00:04:16.938 align:middle line:90% 00:04:16.938 --> 00:04:30.290 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:30.290 --> 00:04:36.410 align:middle line:84% In this poem, when I refer to the north, 00:04:36.410 --> 00:04:40.070 align:middle line:84% I mean simply that Marion, Ohio is 00:04:40.070 --> 00:04:42.860 align:middle line:90% north of Martins Ferry, Ohio. 00:04:42.860 --> 00:04:49.070 align:middle line:90% 00:04:49.070 --> 00:04:51.880 align:middle line:84% This is called "Two Poems About President Harding." 00:04:51.880 --> 00:04:56.820 align:middle line:90% 00:04:56.820 --> 00:04:58.500 align:middle line:90% "One. 00:04:58.500 --> 00:04:59.025 align:middle line:90% His death. 00:04:59.025 --> 00:05:05.320 align:middle line:90% 00:05:05.320 --> 00:05:10.330 align:middle line:84% In Marion, the honey locust trees are falling. 00:05:10.330 --> 00:05:15.670 align:middle line:84% Everybody in town remembers the white hair, the campaign 00:05:15.670 --> 00:05:22.060 align:middle line:84% of a lost summer, the front porch open to the public, 00:05:22.060 --> 00:05:26.305 align:middle line:84% and the vaguely stunned smile of a lucky man. 00:05:26.305 --> 00:05:29.410 align:middle line:90% 00:05:29.410 --> 00:05:36.010 align:middle line:84% Neighbor, I want to be helpful, he said once. 00:05:36.010 --> 00:05:40.450 align:middle line:84% Later, you think I'm honest, don't you? 00:05:40.450 --> 00:05:41.440 align:middle line:90% weeping, drunk. 00:05:41.440 --> 00:05:44.050 align:middle line:90% 00:05:44.050 --> 00:05:48.580 align:middle line:90% I am drunk this evening in 1961. 00:05:48.580 --> 00:05:54.580 align:middle line:84% In a jag for my countrymen who died of crab meat on the way 00:05:54.580 --> 00:05:57.310 align:middle line:90% back from Alaska. 00:05:57.310 --> 00:06:01.160 align:middle line:90% Everyone knows that joke. 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:04.210 align:middle line:84% How many honey locusts have fallen, 00:06:04.210 --> 00:06:09.580 align:middle line:84% pitched root long into the open graves of strip mines 00:06:09.580 --> 00:06:15.460 align:middle line:84% since the first World War ended, and Wilson, the gaunt deacon, 00:06:15.460 --> 00:06:17.875 align:middle line:90% jogged sullenly into silence. 00:06:17.875 --> 00:06:20.430 align:middle line:90% 00:06:20.430 --> 00:06:25.890 align:middle line:84% Tonight, the cancerous ghosts of old con men 00:06:25.890 --> 00:06:32.070 align:middle line:84% shed their leaves, for a proud man, lost 00:06:32.070 --> 00:06:35.910 align:middle line:84% between the turnpike near Cleveland 00:06:35.910 --> 00:06:39.540 align:middle line:84% and the chiropractor signs looming among dead Mulberry 00:06:39.540 --> 00:06:45.825 align:middle line:84% trees, there is no place left to go but home. 00:06:45.825 --> 00:06:49.450 align:middle line:90% 00:06:49.450 --> 00:06:54.490 align:middle line:84% Warren lacks mentality, one of his friends said. 00:06:54.490 --> 00:06:58.070 align:middle line:90% Yet he was beautiful. 00:06:58.070 --> 00:07:04.750 align:middle line:84% He was the snowfall turned to white stallions standing still 00:07:04.750 --> 00:07:08.440 align:middle line:90% under dark elm trees. 00:07:08.440 --> 00:07:10.790 align:middle line:90% He died in public. 00:07:10.790 --> 00:07:13.975 align:middle line:84% He claimed the secret right to be ashamed. 00:07:13.975 --> 00:07:25.330 align:middle line:90% 00:07:25.330 --> 00:07:26.470 align:middle line:90% Two. 00:07:26.470 --> 00:07:28.540 align:middle line:90% His tomb in Ohio." 00:07:28.540 --> 00:07:30.880 align:middle line:84% As I say in the, poem I've never been there. 00:07:30.880 --> 00:07:34.210 align:middle line:84% H.L Mencken wrote something about the death 00:07:34.210 --> 00:07:37.060 align:middle line:90% of William Jennings Bryan. 00:07:37.060 --> 00:07:41.020 align:middle line:84% Bryan died after the Scopes Trial in Tennessee and Mencken 00:07:41.020 --> 00:07:42.640 align:middle line:90% said-- 00:07:42.640 --> 00:07:45.310 align:middle line:84% I love Mencken, but I've always been horrified 00:07:45.310 --> 00:07:48.790 align:middle line:90% by this, his obituary on Bryan. 00:07:48.790 --> 00:07:53.240 align:middle line:84% He didn't die of a broken heart, he died of a busted gut. 00:07:53.240 --> 00:07:53.740 align:middle line:90% Well. 00:07:53.740 --> 00:07:57.110 align:middle line:90% 00:07:57.110 --> 00:08:02.100 align:middle line:84% "The 100 slag piles north of us at the mercy of the moon 00:08:02.100 --> 00:08:06.960 align:middle line:84% and rain, he lies in his ridiculous tomb 00:08:06.960 --> 00:08:09.600 align:middle line:90% our fellow citizen. 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:12.000 align:middle line:84% No, I have never seen that place, 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:14.820 align:middle line:84% where many shadows of faceless thieves 00:08:14.820 --> 00:08:19.590 align:middle line:84% chuckle and stumble and embrace on beer cans, 00:08:19.590 --> 00:08:22.770 align:middle line:90% stogie butts, and graves. 00:08:22.770 --> 00:08:27.810 align:middle line:84% One holiday, one rainy week after the country fell apart, 00:08:27.810 --> 00:08:30.990 align:middle line:84% Hoover and Coolidge came to speak and sniffle 00:08:30.990 --> 00:08:33.870 align:middle line:90% about his broken heart. 00:08:33.870 --> 00:08:40.320 align:middle line:84% His grave, a huge absurdity, embarrassed cops and visitors. 00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:43.380 align:middle line:84% Hoover and Coolidge crept away by night, 00:08:43.380 --> 00:08:46.620 align:middle line:90% and women closed their doors. 00:08:46.620 --> 00:08:51.210 align:middle line:84% Now junk men call their children in before they 00:08:51.210 --> 00:08:53.940 align:middle line:90% catch their death of cold. 00:08:53.940 --> 00:08:59.190 align:middle line:84% Young lovers let the moon begin its quick spring, in the day 00:08:59.190 --> 00:09:03.690 align:middle line:84% and as it grows old, the mean one-legger who rakes up leaves 00:09:03.690 --> 00:09:07.650 align:middle line:84% has chased the loafers out of the park. 00:09:07.650 --> 00:09:10.290 align:middle line:84% Minnegan Leonard half believes in God 00:09:10.290 --> 00:09:13.200 align:middle line:90% and the poolroom goes dark. 00:09:13.200 --> 00:09:16.410 align:middle line:84% America goes on, goes on laughing, 00:09:16.410 --> 00:09:19.020 align:middle line:90% and Harding was a fool. 00:09:19.020 --> 00:09:24.960 align:middle line:84% Even his big pretentious stone lays him bare to ridicule. 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:27.870 align:middle line:90% I know it, but don't look at me. 00:09:27.870 --> 00:09:30.480 align:middle line:84% By God, I didn't start this mess. 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:34.380 align:middle line:84% Whatever moon and rain may be, the hearts of men 00:09:34.380 --> 00:09:36.770 align:middle line:90% are merciless." 00:09:36.770 --> 00:09:48.000 align:middle line:90%