WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.280 align:middle line:84% Thank you, and it's a pleasure to be here. 00:00:03.280 --> 00:00:06.360 align:middle line:84% I want to thank Rex [? Dieter ?] for the use 00:00:06.360 --> 00:00:11.160 align:middle line:84% of his home for my wife and myself over here. 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:13.590 align:middle line:84% Sorry about the towels and the condition of the shower. 00:00:13.590 --> 00:00:18.000 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:24.910 align:middle line:84% You can retrieve your car Sunday morning, when we're gone. 00:00:24.910 --> 00:00:29.880 align:middle line:84% And I'd like to thank Lois and Dick Shelton and all 00:00:29.880 --> 00:00:34.920 align:middle line:84% of the people connected with the Poetry Center for the-- 00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:38.235 align:middle line:84% well, for simply doing the impossible of bringing in eight 00:00:38.235 --> 00:00:42.850 align:middle line:84% of us at one time and finding housing, transportation, 00:00:42.850 --> 00:00:47.370 align:middle line:84% and, more or less, allowing for the idiosyncrasies of everybody 00:00:47.370 --> 00:00:49.500 align:middle line:90% in the group. 00:00:49.500 --> 00:00:53.850 align:middle line:84% The popular song says, nobody does it better. 00:00:53.850 --> 00:00:59.100 align:middle line:84% After traveling for 10 days with eight more or less living 00:00:59.100 --> 00:00:59.610 align:middle line:90% poets-- 00:00:59.610 --> 00:01:02.183 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:02.183 --> 00:01:03.600 align:middle line:84% --it does seem appropriate to read 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:05.579 align:middle line:90% a long poem about cannibalism. 00:01:05.579 --> 00:01:08.940 align:middle line:90% 00:01:08.940 --> 00:01:13.200 align:middle line:84% But I would like to read just two or three poems from Song 00:01:13.200 --> 00:01:18.090 align:middle line:90% in a Strange Land first. 00:01:18.090 --> 00:01:23.100 align:middle line:84% Because several people asked to hear these. 00:01:23.100 --> 00:01:25.920 align:middle line:84% I had some other requests, but I'm going on with the reading, 00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:27.430 align:middle line:90% anyway. 00:01:27.430 --> 00:01:29.930 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:29.930 --> 00:01:33.930 align:middle line:90% 00:01:33.930 --> 00:01:36.120 align:middle line:84% I live in a town called Chico, which 00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:38.850 align:middle line:84% is in the Sacramento Valley about a hundred 00:01:38.850 --> 00:01:42.060 align:middle line:84% miles north of Sacramento and maybe 125 miles 00:01:42.060 --> 00:01:44.790 align:middle line:90% south of the Oregon border. 00:01:44.790 --> 00:01:47.610 align:middle line:84% We're on the valley floor right about sea level, 00:01:47.610 --> 00:01:52.440 align:middle line:84% and the Pacific Coast Ranges to the west and the Sierras 00:01:52.440 --> 00:01:54.030 align:middle line:90% to the east. 00:01:54.030 --> 00:01:55.860 align:middle line:84% Starting up into the Sierras, you 00:01:55.860 --> 00:01:57.630 align:middle line:84% come to a town called Oroville, which 00:01:57.630 --> 00:02:00.570 align:middle line:84% used to be an old lumbering town and a railroad town. 00:02:00.570 --> 00:02:02.640 align:middle line:90% The railroad has closed. 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:07.260 align:middle line:84% The lumber industry is in bad shape there. 00:02:07.260 --> 00:02:14.070 align:middle line:84% This poem is set in Oroville in the present time, 00:02:14.070 --> 00:02:15.112 align:middle line:90% about four years ago. 00:02:15.112 --> 00:02:17.070 align:middle line:84% It's called "A Bird is Whistling in the Trees." 00:02:17.070 --> 00:02:20.220 align:middle line:90% 00:02:20.220 --> 00:02:23.910 align:middle line:84% "A bird is whistling in the trees across the creek. 00:02:23.910 --> 00:02:27.480 align:middle line:84% On the bank, a young Mitú man and woman, awake since dawn, 00:02:27.480 --> 00:02:32.250 align:middle line:84% fuss with their fire, snapping spry twigs to feed the flame. 00:02:32.250 --> 00:02:37.410 align:middle line:84% A rope of smoke floats through the thin mountain air. 00:02:37.410 --> 00:02:40.020 align:middle line:84% After coffee, she offers to cook nothing else, 00:02:40.020 --> 00:02:42.870 align:middle line:84% and they give it up, pack up two bedrolls 00:02:42.870 --> 00:02:47.610 align:middle line:84% and soak their coals with water cupped from the creek. 00:02:47.610 --> 00:02:51.090 align:middle line:84% She watches the sun light tall pines like torches 00:02:51.090 --> 00:02:53.310 align:middle line:90% beginning to blaze. 00:02:53.310 --> 00:02:56.160 align:middle line:84% Among the trees, one brown bat sails home 00:02:56.160 --> 00:02:58.410 align:middle line:90% in the haze of daybreak. 00:02:58.410 --> 00:03:00.960 align:middle line:84% Find us a house in town, she says. 00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:03.180 align:middle line:84% I won't have my baby in these woods. 00:03:03.180 --> 00:03:07.620 align:middle line:84% He won't be born in the dirt like me. 00:03:07.620 --> 00:03:11.640 align:middle line:84% How can he argue against her shame? 00:03:11.640 --> 00:03:14.130 align:middle line:84% Yet her anger never alters her voice. 00:03:14.130 --> 00:03:18.510 align:middle line:84% She speaks still in that same urgent tone. 00:03:18.510 --> 00:03:24.840 align:middle line:84% Someplace dry and warm with one big bed and our own stove. 00:03:24.840 --> 00:03:27.030 align:middle line:84% In silence, they start like strangers 00:03:27.030 --> 00:03:29.130 align:middle line:84% down a steep grade of poor growth 00:03:29.130 --> 00:03:33.540 align:middle line:84% past a stand of scribed timber, the best trees cut for lumber, 00:03:33.540 --> 00:03:37.140 align:middle line:84% much of the rest blown over to rot under rain or snow-- 00:03:37.140 --> 00:03:40.350 align:middle line:84% no place his family ought to live the whole year. 00:03:40.350 --> 00:03:44.790 align:middle line:84% Although he'll admit it to himself, he won't say so. 00:03:44.790 --> 00:03:49.200 align:middle line:84% Nowhere to go but hike on into town, looking for work. 00:03:49.200 --> 00:03:52.500 align:middle line:84% A lumber plant open outside Oroville, tarpaulin 00:03:52.500 --> 00:03:55.530 align:middle line:84% tied over a few wood piles, two trucks hauling 00:03:55.530 --> 00:03:59.250 align:middle line:90% heavy timber through the gate. 00:03:59.250 --> 00:04:02.460 align:middle line:84% In a gully below the road, the raw air of autumn 00:04:02.460 --> 00:04:05.040 align:middle line:90% greets the grass. 00:04:05.040 --> 00:04:07.650 align:middle line:84% When they rest here, her dress stretches 00:04:07.650 --> 00:04:10.830 align:middle line:84% taut on her swelling belly, too high to cover 00:04:10.830 --> 00:04:14.010 align:middle line:90% the tan curve of her thigh. 00:04:14.010 --> 00:04:16.440 align:middle line:84% His hand caresses her breast, which 00:04:16.440 --> 00:04:18.480 align:middle line:90% has become a mound of muscle. 00:04:18.480 --> 00:04:21.329 align:middle line:90% All her nerves are alert. 00:04:21.329 --> 00:04:25.260 align:middle line:84% She rises to comb her hair like a long veil, 00:04:25.260 --> 00:04:27.420 align:middle line:84% letting it fall about her blouse. 00:04:27.420 --> 00:04:31.140 align:middle line:90% They turn once more toward town. 00:04:31.140 --> 00:04:34.590 align:middle line:84% Before they reach the streets, she hears him humming, 00:04:34.590 --> 00:04:38.250 align:middle line:84% better days are coming for you and for me. 00:04:38.250 --> 00:04:40.110 align:middle line:90% Then she takes up the tune. 00:04:40.110 --> 00:04:42.090 align:middle line:90% But both are out of breath. 00:04:42.090 --> 00:04:45.840 align:middle line:84% They have to laugh while breeze blows over the troubled gully, 00:04:45.840 --> 00:04:48.500 align:middle line:90% over the gulf of their life." 00:04:48.500 --> 00:04:49.000 align:middle line:90%