WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.160 align:middle line:90% 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:12.120 align:middle line:84% The first poem is called, "Prayer to the Good Poet." 00:00:12.120 --> 00:00:14.235 align:middle line:84% You might call this poem an ars poetica. 00:00:14.235 --> 00:00:18.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:20.370 align:middle line:84% I know many of you have written poems, 00:00:20.370 --> 00:00:23.880 align:middle line:84% and occasionally one reflects on the very nature 00:00:23.880 --> 00:00:25.980 align:middle line:84% of poetry itself, tries to figure out 00:00:25.980 --> 00:00:31.110 align:middle line:84% what has meant something to him in his life, 00:00:31.110 --> 00:00:36.030 align:middle line:84% in poetry and in life, and how poetry and life might sometimes 00:00:36.030 --> 00:00:38.010 align:middle line:90% become one. 00:00:38.010 --> 00:00:43.710 align:middle line:84% At a particular time, I heard that my father in Ohio 00:00:43.710 --> 00:00:44.625 align:middle line:90% was terribly ill. 00:00:44.625 --> 00:00:48.890 align:middle line:90% 00:00:48.890 --> 00:00:50.880 align:middle line:90% He's quite old now. 00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:52.953 align:middle line:90% He's still very strong. 00:00:52.953 --> 00:00:53.620 align:middle line:90% He's a good man. 00:00:53.620 --> 00:00:57.270 align:middle line:90% 00:00:57.270 --> 00:01:00.660 align:middle line:84% And I was thinking about him, and I was also 00:01:00.660 --> 00:01:04.379 align:middle line:84% thinking about what I cared about in my own life, 00:01:04.379 --> 00:01:07.740 align:middle line:84% and I cared about a lot of things in Ohio. 00:01:07.740 --> 00:01:13.230 align:middle line:84% I also cared about a certain poet, Horace. 00:01:13.230 --> 00:01:15.420 align:middle line:90% I care very much about Horace. 00:01:15.420 --> 00:01:19.920 align:middle line:84% When I was a boy in high school in Martin's Ferry, Ohio, 00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:20.970 align:middle line:90% I started to read Horace. 00:01:20.970 --> 00:01:23.368 align:middle line:84% I read him further and more thoroughly 00:01:23.368 --> 00:01:24.285 align:middle line:90% when I was in college. 00:01:24.285 --> 00:01:28.440 align:middle line:90% 00:01:28.440 --> 00:01:33.120 align:middle line:84% Horace is pretty far away from the ideals-- 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:36.750 align:middle line:84% the ideal poets of people at the moment. 00:01:36.750 --> 00:01:37.560 align:middle line:90% That's all right. 00:01:37.560 --> 00:01:38.460 align:middle line:90% I love him. 00:01:38.460 --> 00:01:44.970 align:middle line:90% 00:01:44.970 --> 00:01:46.950 align:middle line:90% He'll last, I think. 00:01:46.950 --> 00:01:51.480 align:middle line:84% Maybe for the next two weeks or so. 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:54.910 align:middle line:90% 00:01:54.910 --> 00:01:58.960 align:middle line:90% "Prayer to the Good Poet" 00:01:58.960 --> 00:02:03.130 align:middle line:84% "Quintus Horatius Flaccus, my good secret. 00:02:03.130 --> 00:02:09.460 align:middle line:84% Now my father, a good man in Ohio, lies alone in pain 00:02:09.460 --> 00:02:14.530 align:middle line:84% and I scarcely know where to turn now. 00:02:14.530 --> 00:02:19.090 align:middle line:84% 50 years he worked in that bitter factory. 00:02:19.090 --> 00:02:23.470 align:middle line:84% He learned how to love what I found so ugly. 00:02:23.470 --> 00:02:25.120 align:middle line:90% Ugliness. 00:02:25.120 --> 00:02:27.430 align:middle line:90% What is it? 00:02:27.430 --> 00:02:31.840 align:middle line:90% A bitter taste of one body. 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:36.910 align:middle line:84% Now if I ask anything, I would ask you 00:02:36.910 --> 00:02:39.040 align:middle line:84% how to gather my father to your bosom. 00:02:39.040 --> 00:02:42.160 align:middle line:90% 00:02:42.160 --> 00:02:46.480 align:middle line:84% He knew, after all, how to love Italians. 00:02:46.480 --> 00:02:50.050 align:middle line:90% Others said dagos. 00:02:50.050 --> 00:02:54.430 align:middle line:84% One good friend of mine, Benny Cappelletti, 00:02:54.430 --> 00:02:58.330 align:middle line:84% told me how in a basketball game one person 00:02:58.330 --> 00:03:04.960 align:middle line:84% called him a dirty Guinea, and Benny did not even slug him. 00:03:04.960 --> 00:03:08.110 align:middle line:90% 00:03:08.110 --> 00:03:12.850 align:middle line:84% Quintus Horatius Flaccus, my good secret. 00:03:12.850 --> 00:03:15.820 align:middle line:84% Benny Cappelletti had the fastest hands 00:03:15.820 --> 00:03:18.880 align:middle line:90% in that fast Ohio Valley. 00:03:18.880 --> 00:03:22.470 align:middle line:90% He could have killed him. 00:03:22.470 --> 00:03:28.410 align:middle line:84% More than love, my father knew how to bear love. 00:03:28.410 --> 00:03:33.810 align:middle line:84% One quick woman, a dark river of labor. 00:03:33.810 --> 00:03:38.550 align:middle line:84% He led me and my two good brothers to gather 00:03:38.550 --> 00:03:41.880 align:middle line:90% and swim there. 00:03:41.880 --> 00:03:46.330 align:middle line:84% I still love the fine beauty of his body. 00:03:46.330 --> 00:03:49.920 align:middle line:84% He could pitch a very good Sunday baseball. 00:03:49.920 --> 00:03:54.210 align:middle line:84% One afternoon, he shifted to left hand 00:03:54.210 --> 00:03:56.025 align:middle line:90% and struck out three men. 00:03:56.025 --> 00:04:00.900 align:middle line:90% 00:04:00.900 --> 00:04:07.260 align:middle line:84% Every time I go back home to Ohio, he sits down and tells me 00:04:07.260 --> 00:04:10.290 align:middle line:90% he loves Italians. 00:04:10.290 --> 00:04:16.890 align:middle line:84% How can I tell you why he loves you, Quintus Horatius? 00:04:16.890 --> 00:04:19.980 align:middle line:84% I worked once in the factory that he worked in. 00:04:19.980 --> 00:04:22.980 align:middle line:90% 00:04:22.980 --> 00:04:27.270 align:middle line:84% Now, I work in the factory that you live in. 00:04:27.270 --> 00:04:33.660 align:middle line:84% Some people think poetry is easy, but you two didn't. 00:04:33.660 --> 00:04:36.660 align:middle line:90% 00:04:36.660 --> 00:04:39.090 align:middle line:90% Easy, easy, I ask you. 00:04:39.090 --> 00:04:41.880 align:middle line:90% Easy, easy. 00:04:41.880 --> 00:04:47.010 align:middle line:84% Early evening by Tiber, by the Ohio, 00:04:47.010 --> 00:04:50.220 align:middle line:84% give the gift to each lovely other. 00:04:50.220 --> 00:04:53.040 align:middle line:90% I would be happy. 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:55.950 align:middle line:90% Now my son is another poet. 00:04:55.950 --> 00:05:00.210 align:middle line:90% Fathers, I can go on living. 00:05:00.210 --> 00:05:02.610 align:middle line:90% I was afraid once. 00:05:02.610 --> 00:05:05.850 align:middle line:84% Four loving fathers meeting together 00:05:05.850 --> 00:05:10.290 align:middle line:90% would be a cold day in hell. 00:05:10.290 --> 00:05:15.660 align:middle line:84% Quintus Horatius Flaccus, my good father, 00:05:15.660 --> 00:05:18.010 align:middle line:90% you were just the beginning. 00:05:18.010 --> 00:05:23.490 align:middle line:84% You, quick and lonely, metrical crystals of February. 00:05:23.490 --> 00:05:24.765 align:middle line:90% It is just snow." 00:05:24.765 --> 00:05:34.270 align:middle line:90% 00:05:34.270 --> 00:05:36.110 align:middle line:84% I don't think Horace was a Latin poet. 00:05:36.110 --> 00:05:40.110 align:middle line:84% He's an Italian, a premature Italian. 00:05:40.110 --> 00:05:50.485 align:middle line:90%