WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:06.450 align:middle line:84% Then this last one I'm going to read is a long poem. 00:00:06.450 --> 00:00:10.590 align:middle line:84% And I feel compelled to read it because of something 00:00:10.590 --> 00:00:13.620 align:middle line:90% that we've been talking about. 00:00:13.620 --> 00:00:22.800 align:middle line:84% And that is that maybe dead words can be resurrected. 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:26.940 align:middle line:84% Maybe words that have been left gone from the language 00:00:26.940 --> 00:00:28.680 align:middle line:90% can be resurrected. 00:00:28.680 --> 00:00:32.310 align:middle line:84% I got into this poem when I was-- 00:00:32.310 --> 00:00:34.260 align:middle line:90% after my parents died. 00:00:34.260 --> 00:00:36.210 align:middle line:84% My parents died very close together, 00:00:36.210 --> 00:00:42.270 align:middle line:84% and I was in this state for a year or so, 00:00:42.270 --> 00:00:44.100 align:middle line:90% and I wrote out of it. 00:00:44.100 --> 00:00:48.120 align:middle line:84% And this is toward the end of that sequence of poems. 00:00:48.120 --> 00:00:50.520 align:middle line:84% It's a poem called "New Words," and it's 00:00:50.520 --> 00:00:55.020 align:middle line:84% about rifling through the OED, the Oxford English 00:00:55.020 --> 00:00:58.410 align:middle line:84% Dictionary, the 13 volumes, sitting in a room, 00:00:58.410 --> 00:01:00.840 align:middle line:84% a very naked room up in the fourth floor 00:01:00.840 --> 00:01:03.870 align:middle line:84% of the English building in Georgia. 00:01:03.870 --> 00:01:05.580 align:middle line:90% It's called a research room. 00:01:05.580 --> 00:01:10.710 align:middle line:84% And it's just got a table there and the 13 volumes of the OED, 00:01:10.710 --> 00:01:12.960 align:middle line:90% and I spent some time there. 00:01:12.960 --> 00:01:15.000 align:middle line:84% Some of it was sort of hiding time, I think. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:20.380 align:middle line:84% And I realized that I was hiding into my connoisseur 00:01:20.380 --> 00:01:22.290 align:middle line:84% sense of the language just looking through 00:01:22.290 --> 00:01:28.110 align:middle line:84% for words, old words that could be maybe used again. 00:01:28.110 --> 00:01:32.250 align:middle line:84% I got into this-- but this will introduce Galway maybe. 00:01:32.250 --> 00:01:36.540 align:middle line:84% By noticing that Galway goes ahead 00:01:36.540 --> 00:01:38.340 align:middle line:90% and just used his own words. 00:01:38.340 --> 00:01:42.300 align:middle line:84% He doesn't put the definitions in like I do. 00:01:42.300 --> 00:01:45.510 align:middle line:84% The word that got me started was goaf. 00:01:45.510 --> 00:01:49.477 align:middle line:84% And this is what I need these things for. 00:01:49.477 --> 00:01:51.810 align:middle line:84% Galway wanted me to read this thing without these things 00:01:51.810 --> 00:01:53.790 align:middle line:90% but I don't think I can. 00:01:53.790 --> 00:01:55.680 align:middle line:90% Maybe I eventually. 00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:56.570 align:middle line:90% Can you see this? 00:01:56.570 --> 00:01:57.640 align:middle line:90% All right, this is-- 00:01:57.640 --> 00:01:59.475 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:59.475 --> 00:02:05.240 align:middle line:90% 00:02:05.240 --> 00:02:08.870 align:middle line:90% So we're going to go on with it. 00:02:08.870 --> 00:02:09.630 align:middle line:90% This is the word. 00:02:09.630 --> 00:02:13.070 align:middle line:84% See, if I said goaf your mind wants 00:02:13.070 --> 00:02:15.830 align:middle line:84% to make it into coat, or goat, or something, 00:02:15.830 --> 00:02:17.490 align:middle line:90% and so but here you got it-- 00:02:17.490 --> 00:02:17.990 align:middle line:90% goaf. 00:02:17.990 --> 00:02:20.510 align:middle line:90% 00:02:20.510 --> 00:02:21.200 align:middle line:90% This is hard. 00:02:21.200 --> 00:02:23.730 align:middle line:90% 00:02:23.730 --> 00:02:27.410 align:middle line:84% At the end of this poem, a bunch of figures come in. 00:02:27.410 --> 00:02:30.410 align:middle line:84% People come in from off the street sort of Rabalais 00:02:30.410 --> 00:02:34.850 align:middle line:84% comes in and others from Missouri folklore. 00:02:34.850 --> 00:02:39.170 align:middle line:84% It gets very, very populated crowded toward the end, which 00:02:39.170 --> 00:02:42.740 align:middle line:84% I think is what it may be about as I write out of that solitude 00:02:42.740 --> 00:02:48.620 align:middle line:84% into a more populated state of mind. 00:02:48.620 --> 00:02:51.110 align:middle line:90% "New Words," like goaf-- 00:02:51.110 --> 00:02:54.260 align:middle line:84% "The Galway canal revives in the book of nightmares 00:02:54.260 --> 00:02:58.250 align:middle line:84% for a storage bin in a barn or in a mine, the dark place 00:02:58.250 --> 00:03:00.530 align:middle line:90% the ore's been taken from. 00:03:00.530 --> 00:03:03.620 align:middle line:90% A name for my year long trance. 00:03:03.620 --> 00:03:08.150 align:middle line:84% Whereas Coleman, he's back up in the goaf somewhere. 00:03:08.150 --> 00:03:14.930 align:middle line:84% Rames, Rames: a skeleton or any kind of framework. 00:03:14.930 --> 00:03:17.960 align:middle line:84% The rames of a new house seen through the trees. 00:03:17.960 --> 00:03:19.250 align:middle line:90% The rames of an idea. 00:03:19.250 --> 00:03:23.150 align:middle line:84% Just the rames of a man born on a night with no moon. 00:03:23.150 --> 00:03:27.320 align:middle line:84% Some it's hard to say, like solander, a box 00:03:27.320 --> 00:03:30.140 align:middle line:84% made in the form of a book used for holding botanical 00:03:30.140 --> 00:03:32.750 align:middle line:84% specimens, papers, maps, for hiding 00:03:32.750 --> 00:03:35.660 align:middle line:90% secret guns, shoplifting. 00:03:35.660 --> 00:03:38.870 align:middle line:84% Saprophagous, sarcophagi-- so it is, 00:03:38.870 --> 00:03:45.020 align:middle line:84% rifling the S volume of the OED, I come to satispassion. 00:03:45.020 --> 00:03:46.640 align:middle line:84% It doesn't mean what it ought to. 00:03:46.640 --> 00:03:49.520 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:51.830 align:middle line:84% Theological for enough agony to atone. 00:03:51.830 --> 00:03:54.860 align:middle line:90% 00:03:54.860 --> 00:03:58.790 align:middle line:84% Deliver us not, oh Lord, this day from satispassion. 00:03:58.790 --> 00:04:03.200 align:middle line:84% Sauvez qui peut or Sauvez qui peur, French for save yourself 00:04:03.200 --> 00:04:03.785 align:middle line:90% whoever can. 00:04:03.785 --> 00:04:05.630 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:05.630 --> 00:04:06.530 align:middle line:90% 00:04:06.530 --> 00:04:10.310 align:middle line:84% Meaning a general stampede or complete route. 00:04:10.310 --> 00:04:13.010 align:middle line:84% Cumberland College in Sauvez qui peut at Georgia Tech, 00:04:13.010 --> 00:04:14.420 align:middle line:90% 222 to nothing. 00:04:14.420 --> 00:04:17.120 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:20.660 align:middle line:84% Sawney, foolishly sentimental, whiny 00:04:20.660 --> 00:04:22.383 align:middle line:90% with false naive emotion." 00:04:22.383 --> 00:04:24.800 align:middle line:84% See, now what I want you to do is to remember these words, 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:26.180 align:middle line:90% and we can start using them. 00:04:26.180 --> 00:04:29.630 align:middle line:90% See, maybe words can come back. 00:04:29.630 --> 00:04:31.620 align:middle line:90% "Sawney"-- write them down, see? 00:04:31.620 --> 00:04:35.390 align:middle line:84% "Foolishly sentimental, whiny with false naive emotion. 00:04:35.390 --> 00:04:38.210 align:middle line:84% The Scottish variant for the name Sandy. 00:04:38.210 --> 00:04:39.740 align:middle line:90% Don't get in that sawney voice. 00:04:39.740 --> 00:04:41.030 align:middle line:90% We won't be gone long. 00:04:41.030 --> 00:04:44.160 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:44.660 align:middle line:90% 00:04:44.660 --> 00:04:46.160 align:middle line:90% Someone at a reading-- 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:48.230 align:middle line:84% someone asked once at a reading where 00:04:48.230 --> 00:04:50.480 align:middle line:90% are other people in your poems? 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:53.540 align:middle line:84% What if I had said each old word is breathing out 00:04:53.540 --> 00:04:56.240 align:middle line:90% of someone's name, like Sawney? 00:04:56.240 --> 00:05:00.380 align:middle line:84% The ear is the last face, says Emily, in one of her letters. 00:05:00.380 --> 00:05:03.770 align:middle line:84% Seg, a callus of hard skin on the hand. 00:05:03.770 --> 00:05:07.880 align:middle line:84% Segent describes a quadruped in a sitting position 00:05:07.880 --> 00:05:08.900 align:middle line:90% with four legs upright. 00:05:08.900 --> 00:05:11.120 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:13.910 align:middle line:90% Selachian, like a shark. 00:05:13.910 --> 00:05:16.460 align:middle line:84% Selenelion, pertaining to the moon, 00:05:16.460 --> 00:05:19.320 align:middle line:84% considered as a world within itself. 00:05:19.320 --> 00:05:23.600 align:middle line:84% Selcouth, self known, known to the self. 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:26.270 align:middle line:84% Meaning marvelous, and wonderful, and rare. 00:05:26.270 --> 00:05:31.700 align:middle line:84% A constant selcouth sound, like cicadas or the surf. 00:05:31.700 --> 00:05:33.410 align:middle line:90% St. Elmo's Fire. 00:05:33.410 --> 00:05:35.060 align:middle line:84% What am I looking for in dictionaries 00:05:35.060 --> 00:05:36.830 align:middle line:90% but St. Elmo's Fire. 00:05:36.830 --> 00:05:39.170 align:middle line:84% The glow of atmospheric electricity 00:05:39.170 --> 00:05:41.960 align:middle line:84% that appears as a tip of light on pointed objects 00:05:41.960 --> 00:05:43.280 align:middle line:90% in bad weather. 00:05:43.280 --> 00:05:46.490 align:middle line:84% Corpus sancti, St. Elmo's breath. 00:05:46.490 --> 00:05:50.300 align:middle line:84% The words protect us with their cold light. 00:05:50.300 --> 00:05:53.300 align:middle line:84% The face does look like an ear eventually. 00:05:53.300 --> 00:05:55.610 align:middle line:90% Words we're using now burn out. 00:05:55.610 --> 00:05:57.680 align:middle line:90% What the point is I don't know. 00:05:57.680 --> 00:06:00.020 align:middle line:84% There's not a word in English for that time 00:06:00.020 --> 00:06:01.700 align:middle line:90% when the world will not exist. 00:06:01.700 --> 00:06:05.060 align:middle line:84% The Maoris have one, both for when there wasn't life 00:06:05.060 --> 00:06:06.500 align:middle line:90% and when there won't be-- 00:06:06.500 --> 00:06:08.090 align:middle line:90% po. 00:06:08.090 --> 00:06:11.330 align:middle line:84% P-O in the OED means peacock and small devil. 00:06:11.330 --> 00:06:13.160 align:middle line:90% Origin unknown. 00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:16.430 align:middle line:84% Pollex, the innermost digit of the forelimb. 00:06:16.430 --> 00:06:19.100 align:middle line:84% An air breathing vertebrates, the thumb. 00:06:19.100 --> 00:06:20.960 align:middle line:90% Whales have thumbs. 00:06:20.960 --> 00:06:25.550 align:middle line:84% Polrose the pit under a water wheel." 00:06:25.550 --> 00:06:26.660 align:middle line:90% Pit under a water wheel. 00:06:26.660 --> 00:06:28.700 align:middle line:90% They have a word for that now. 00:06:28.700 --> 00:06:35.120 align:middle line:84% Pome as a verb, to form a compact head or heart. 00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:38.840 align:middle line:84% As a cabbage that pome close to the ground. 00:06:38.840 --> 00:06:40.910 align:middle line:84% Potamic, of rivers and things that 00:06:40.910 --> 00:06:45.380 align:middle line:84% live there like turtles, moons, water wheels, cabbages, 00:06:45.380 --> 00:06:48.200 align:middle line:84% and words that hold an image for a moment 00:06:48.200 --> 00:06:51.860 align:middle line:84% before they turn to sand and silver paint. 00:06:51.860 --> 00:06:54.240 align:middle line:84% Backwards from the center with the M volume, 00:06:54.240 --> 00:06:58.880 align:middle line:84% musophobist, One who regards poetry with suspicious dislike. 00:06:58.880 --> 00:07:02.128 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:02.128 --> 00:07:03.520 align:middle line:90% 00:07:03.520 --> 00:07:05.320 align:middle line:90% Muskin, pretty face. 00:07:05.320 --> 00:07:07.390 align:middle line:90% Sweetheart. 00:07:07.390 --> 00:07:11.065 align:middle line:84% Mimp, to pass up one's mouth primly in silence. 00:07:11.065 --> 00:07:12.070 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:12.070 --> 00:07:14.950 align:middle line:84% She just sits there with her muskin all mimped up. 00:07:14.950 --> 00:07:18.359 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:18.359 --> 00:07:19.820 align:middle line:90% 00:07:19.820 --> 00:07:22.790 align:middle line:84% Melrose, a curative preparation made of powdered 00:07:22.790 --> 00:07:24.890 align:middle line:90% rose leaves, honey, and alcohol. 00:07:24.890 --> 00:07:27.530 align:middle line:84% When she looks like that give her some melrose. 00:07:27.530 --> 00:07:29.810 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:29.810 --> 00:07:34.460 align:middle line:84% Mees, the form that a rabbit leaves pressed in the grass 00:07:34.460 --> 00:07:36.228 align:middle line:90% and comes home to." 00:07:36.228 --> 00:07:38.180 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:38.180 --> 00:07:39.380 align:middle line:90% Don't forget that. 00:07:39.380 --> 00:07:41.270 align:middle line:90% "Maris, the womb. 00:07:41.270 --> 00:07:44.040 align:middle line:90% 00:07:44.040 --> 00:07:46.370 align:middle line:90% [? Mali, ?] dotingly fond. 00:07:46.370 --> 00:07:48.455 align:middle line:84% [? Mali ?] father maketh wicked child. 00:07:48.455 --> 00:07:51.200 align:middle line:90% 00:07:51.200 --> 00:07:55.820 align:middle line:84% [? Massillon-- ?] no, Mahu, A name for the devil. 00:07:55.820 --> 00:07:58.790 align:middle line:84% Mahu-- I mean, [? massillon, ?] thin 00:07:58.790 --> 00:08:01.160 align:middle line:90% and shriveled from poverty. 00:08:01.160 --> 00:08:04.610 align:middle line:84% Taking such small steps down the list. 00:08:04.610 --> 00:08:06.290 align:middle line:84% Alphabetically disguising the way 00:08:06.290 --> 00:08:08.840 align:middle line:84% I say the same thing over and over. 00:08:08.840 --> 00:08:12.530 align:middle line:84% How this is where I hide in a room with 13 00:08:12.530 --> 00:08:14.900 align:middle line:90% dictionaries and no windows. 00:08:14.900 --> 00:08:19.160 align:middle line:84% Hide from women who love more than I can stand to be loved. 00:08:19.160 --> 00:08:22.840 align:middle line:84% Who want me not to hide inside the breath of an old word 00:08:22.840 --> 00:08:26.750 align:middle line:84% or inside their bodies like St. Elmo's Fire playing 00:08:26.750 --> 00:08:28.640 align:middle line:90% under the shoulder blades. 00:08:28.640 --> 00:08:33.049 align:middle line:84% Rabalais, St. Francois, help me out. 00:08:33.049 --> 00:08:37.429 align:middle line:84% Fanfreluche-- this is one of Rabelais made up word. 00:08:37.429 --> 00:08:39.500 align:middle line:90% To trifle, to act wantonly. 00:08:39.500 --> 00:08:41.870 align:middle line:90% Fanfreluching it 30 times a day. 00:08:41.870 --> 00:08:43.580 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:43.580 --> 00:08:47.030 align:middle line:84% Grimp, to climb energetically using hands and feet. 00:08:47.030 --> 00:08:49.250 align:middle line:84% How the little grimper made it, I'll never know. 00:08:49.250 --> 00:08:51.340 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:51.340 --> 00:08:53.830 align:middle line:84% Griggles, small apples left on the tree 00:08:53.830 --> 00:08:58.090 align:middle line:84% by the gatherer for the children to have. 00:08:58.090 --> 00:09:00.480 align:middle line:84% [? Grennans, ?] the whiskers of a cat. 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:02.980 align:middle line:84% Cut the [? grennans ?] off one side she'll walk in a circle. 00:09:02.980 --> 00:09:05.380 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:05.380 --> 00:09:07.690 align:middle line:90% Glore, loose fat. 00:09:07.690 --> 00:09:10.510 align:middle line:84% Strange to see two eyes waking up 00:09:10.510 --> 00:09:14.560 align:middle line:90% in the midst of all that glore. 00:09:14.560 --> 00:09:19.540 align:middle line:84% Gillian, a flirty feisty girl, and right under, 00:09:19.540 --> 00:09:22.480 align:middle line:84% Gillian a burnt tail, will of the wisp, 00:09:22.480 --> 00:09:25.840 align:middle line:84% a little phosphorescence in the swamp. 00:09:25.840 --> 00:09:29.050 align:middle line:84% Barnaby, the 11th of June, St. Barnabus' day, 00:09:29.050 --> 00:09:32.050 align:middle line:84% the longest under the old calendar, hence anything 00:09:32.050 --> 00:09:35.600 align:middle line:84% long and drawn out, like this poem. 00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:38.860 align:middle line:84% Battologist, someone who repeats himself a lot, 00:09:38.860 --> 00:09:41.320 align:middle line:84% from Battos, the stammering man, who 00:09:41.320 --> 00:09:44.320 align:middle line:84% went to ask the Delphic oracle about his voice, 00:09:44.320 --> 00:09:48.730 align:middle line:84% and all she said was, you shall become a king in Libya. 00:09:48.730 --> 00:09:50.890 align:middle line:84% He kept asking, what about my voice? 00:09:50.890 --> 00:09:53.500 align:middle line:90% Well, what about my voice? 00:09:53.500 --> 00:09:57.610 align:middle line:84% Now, his name is the front half to a word nobody uses, and he, 00:09:57.610 --> 00:09:59.950 align:middle line:84% one of the chief personalities in a list poem 00:09:59.950 --> 00:10:02.470 align:middle line:84% of what we no longer have in common. 00:10:02.470 --> 00:10:05.950 align:middle line:84% Ferdful, either awesome, inspiring fear, 00:10:05.950 --> 00:10:08.740 align:middle line:90% or full of fear, or both. 00:10:08.740 --> 00:10:10.330 align:middle line:90% Is anybody down there? 00:10:10.330 --> 00:10:12.910 align:middle line:90% He shouted ferdfully. 00:10:12.910 --> 00:10:15.340 align:middle line:84% Yes, came back the ferdful answer. 00:10:15.340 --> 00:10:18.910 align:middle line:90% 00:10:18.910 --> 00:10:23.560 align:middle line:84% Feriation, a cessation of work, the act of keeping a holiday, 00:10:23.560 --> 00:10:26.320 align:middle line:84% simple feriation was enough for the weekend. 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:28.660 align:middle line:90% No binges, no feasts. 00:10:28.660 --> 00:10:32.800 align:middle line:84% Fernshaw, a thicket of ferns, secret places along creeks 00:10:32.800 --> 00:10:36.910 align:middle line:84% around Chattanooga were fernshaws, and nobody knew it. 00:10:36.910 --> 00:10:40.360 align:middle line:84% Fid, a small, but thick piece of anything, 00:10:40.360 --> 00:10:45.820 align:middle line:90% as a fid of cheese or hamburger. 00:10:45.820 --> 00:10:50.800 align:middle line:84% Fidibus, a paper, paper match for lighting pipes. 00:10:50.800 --> 00:10:52.990 align:middle line:84% Fidicinal, of stringed instruments and those 00:10:52.990 --> 00:10:54.640 align:middle line:90% that play them. 00:10:54.640 --> 00:11:00.430 align:middle line:84% Suddenly, my fiddle was blew out in one long fidicinal gust. 00:11:00.430 --> 00:11:04.030 align:middle line:84% Figgum, trickery, stop your wicked figgum 00:11:04.030 --> 00:11:07.210 align:middle line:90% and play the game right. 00:11:07.210 --> 00:11:09.490 align:middle line:84% Turning the pages with an ache, the spine 00:11:09.490 --> 00:11:12.130 align:middle line:84% of an unopened volume in me, leafing the pages for I 00:11:12.130 --> 00:11:12.970 align:middle line:90% don't know what. 00:11:12.970 --> 00:11:18.820 align:middle line:84% Quatch, a word, a sound, not one quatch from you two. 00:11:18.820 --> 00:11:22.240 align:middle line:84% Queachy, dense with undergrowth, the queachy woods 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:24.740 align:middle line:90% kept them from getting far. 00:11:24.740 --> 00:11:28.380 align:middle line:84% Quisquilious, of the nature of rubbish or refuse, 00:11:28.380 --> 00:11:32.890 align:middle line:84% quisquilious sculpture on display in the garden. 00:11:32.890 --> 00:11:36.220 align:middle line:84% Quodlibetical, a quodlibet bit is any question, in philosophy 00:11:36.220 --> 00:11:39.820 align:middle line:84% or theology, proposed solely as an exercise in argument. 00:11:39.820 --> 00:11:44.590 align:middle line:84% Buckley is less effective for being so quodlibetical. 00:11:44.590 --> 00:11:46.480 align:middle line:84% Granted these are for collectors, 00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:50.230 align:middle line:84% whose lives are hidden, as mine is to me, 00:11:50.230 --> 00:11:52.930 align:middle line:84% faced with definitions and loose ends, 00:11:52.930 --> 00:11:55.960 align:middle line:84% moving over a big book like a kitchen match, 00:11:55.960 --> 00:12:00.820 align:middle line:84% feeling for a rough place, May, a year ago, 00:12:00.820 --> 00:12:04.840 align:middle line:84% the drive from midnight to 4:00, singing and crying too late, 00:12:04.840 --> 00:12:07.990 align:middle line:84% they said, the nurses, but I talked and joked 00:12:07.990 --> 00:12:11.920 align:middle line:84% inside the coma, how she sat up to a 5:00 AM 00:12:11.920 --> 00:12:16.250 align:middle line:84% when I won best athlete at camp, too excited to sleep. 00:12:16.250 --> 00:12:20.620 align:middle line:84% What have you won that we're staying up this late again? 00:12:20.620 --> 00:12:23.260 align:middle line:84% Familiar moving around the mouth and about the eyes, 00:12:23.260 --> 00:12:24.880 align:middle line:90% and she went back. 00:12:24.880 --> 00:12:28.870 align:middle line:84% And I held that hand, holding her in the world, I thought, 00:12:28.870 --> 00:12:33.520 align:middle line:84% but that's not so, or if it is, I let go the next morning 00:12:33.520 --> 00:12:36.010 align:middle line:90% and slept myself. 00:12:36.010 --> 00:12:38.200 align:middle line:90% Some words we have no record of. 00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:40.960 align:middle line:84% Some get written down and last for centuries 00:12:40.960 --> 00:12:42.700 align:middle line:84% before they lose their limits and come 00:12:42.700 --> 00:12:46.120 align:middle line:84% to mean almost anything, nonsense words. 00:12:46.120 --> 00:12:49.930 align:middle line:84% The best is sense nonsense both, child 00:12:49.930 --> 00:12:53.110 align:middle line:90% and parent, earth and sky. 00:12:53.110 --> 00:12:55.300 align:middle line:84% Each of us has a separate face, word, 00:12:55.300 --> 00:12:59.470 align:middle line:84% and name until we look so long at a twin, 00:12:59.470 --> 00:13:03.760 align:middle line:84% or down at the water, or up into night sky so long, 00:13:03.760 --> 00:13:08.860 align:middle line:84% our face becomes an ear, listening to everything. 00:13:08.860 --> 00:13:11.410 align:middle line:84% Three at random from the supplement-- 00:13:11.410 --> 00:13:15.400 align:middle line:84% killhag, a wooden trap to catch rabbits. 00:13:15.400 --> 00:13:16.930 align:middle line:90% The killhags are out. 00:13:16.930 --> 00:13:19.150 align:middle line:90% Watch your feet. 00:13:19.150 --> 00:13:22.600 align:middle line:84% Gorpen, of anything that stares in a dumb way, 00:13:22.600 --> 00:13:25.360 align:middle line:90% the gorpen crowd at the gate. 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:28.060 align:middle line:84% Huma, a fabulous bird and Persian myth, 00:13:28.060 --> 00:13:31.360 align:middle line:84% so restless that it never lights, 00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:36.190 align:middle line:84% and good fortune to anyone it hovers directly over." 00:13:36.190 --> 00:13:40.720 align:middle line:84% Mixed blessing, I guess, but "the cemetery goes on and on 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:43.090 align:middle line:84% where words are buried, Killhags, 00:13:43.090 --> 00:13:48.070 align:middle line:84% full of different gorpen beasts, above the huma floating. 00:13:48.070 --> 00:13:50.800 align:middle line:84% Speaking dead words, there is a confused solitude 00:13:50.800 --> 00:13:52.420 align:middle line:90% for each of us. 00:13:52.420 --> 00:13:55.010 align:middle line:84% Think of translating this to another language, 00:13:55.010 --> 00:13:57.610 align:middle line:90% trying to find similar terms. 00:13:57.610 --> 00:14:01.660 align:middle line:84% Words exist somewhere between being and not, most of these 00:14:01.660 --> 00:14:06.610 align:middle line:84% closer to not back in the gulf of compilations and folklore. 00:14:06.610 --> 00:14:10.570 align:middle line:84% There's a terrifying legend in Missouri of a headless cobbler, 00:14:10.570 --> 00:14:14.190 align:middle line:84% who has in place of a head, 20 or 30 unmatched shoes 00:14:14.190 --> 00:14:16.260 align:middle line:84% in a great clump between his shoulders, 00:14:16.260 --> 00:14:18.510 align:middle line:90% like an unsolvable puzzle. 00:14:18.510 --> 00:14:20.550 align:middle line:84% When someone is about to die, he comes out 00:14:20.550 --> 00:14:24.450 align:middle line:84% of his cave to take one of any pair he can find, like 00:14:24.450 --> 00:14:28.680 align:middle line:84% dead words end up, one more empty shoe for some collectors 00:14:28.680 --> 00:14:29.910 align:middle line:90% mind. 00:14:29.910 --> 00:14:34.020 align:middle line:84% The living word though is like the god Janus, one face, 00:14:34.020 --> 00:14:36.630 align:middle line:84% looking at meaning in the dictionary, the other looking 00:14:36.630 --> 00:14:38.370 align:middle line:90% out the window at what is. 00:14:38.370 --> 00:14:43.530 align:middle line:84% In death, they split apart at the back of the neck and fall, 00:14:43.530 --> 00:14:45.810 align:middle line:84% one with great relief into water, 00:14:45.810 --> 00:14:50.100 align:middle line:84% the other filled with itself, the other end of the cave, 00:14:50.100 --> 00:14:52.680 align:middle line:90% no longer double. 00:14:52.680 --> 00:14:55.020 align:middle line:90% Close the book and listen. 00:14:55.020 --> 00:14:59.880 align:middle line:84% There's a man shouting in the middle of the street. 00:14:59.880 --> 00:15:02.970 align:middle line:90% Get up for what it means. 00:15:02.970 --> 00:15:04.860 align:middle line:90% If it's a dance, you must dance. 00:15:04.860 --> 00:15:08.850 align:middle line:90% If it's death, you must die. 00:15:08.850 --> 00:15:12.720 align:middle line:84% What a chill when it rains, what wind 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:17.220 align:middle line:84% comes the dance you must dance, comes death, you can't help it. 00:15:17.220 --> 00:15:18.480 align:middle line:90% Get up. 00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:23.190 align:middle line:84% There's a man calling in the middle of the street." 00:15:23.190 --> 00:15:23.690 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:15:23.690 --> 00:15:26.170 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:15:26.170 --> 00:15:52.960 align:middle line:90% 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:55.480 align:middle line:84% There will be a short quiz after that. 00:15:55.480 --> 00:15:57.330 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER]