WEBVTT

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Sort of the two of
them in a nutshell.

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That's the right phrase.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I've always wanted
to write a poem that

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was perfectly organized
so that at least that

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could be said for it.

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And in reading
Aristotle's Poetics,

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Aristotle enunciates this idea
that works have a beginning,

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a middle, and an end.

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Now we know this.

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It is part of the chlorine
of the cultural pool

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we swim in every day.

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But for Aristotle,
it's a new idea.

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And he goes on about
it at some length.

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Surprisingly.

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And if you want to
feel really smart,

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go back and read this
part of the Poetics

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because he says things like that
after the middle is the end.

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There's nothing
before the beginning.

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This is very new
information [INAUDIBLE]..

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Well, the upshot was I
wrote a poem in three parts,

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and it's called "Aristotle."

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"This is the beginning.

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Almost anything can happen here.

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This is where you find
the creation of light,

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a fish wriggling on to land,
the first word of Paradise

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Lost on an empty page.

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Think of an egg, the
letter A, a woman

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ironing on a bare stage as
the heavy curtain rises.

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This is the very beginning.

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The first person narrator
introduces himself,

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tells us about his lineage.

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The mezzo-soprano
stands in the wings.

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Here, the climbers
are studying a map

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or pulling on their
long woolen socks.

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This is early on, years
before the ark, dawn.

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The profile of an
animal is being

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smeared on the wall of a
cave and you have not yet

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learned to crawl.

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This is the opening, the gambit,
a pawn moving forward an inch.

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This is your first
night with her.

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Your first night without her.

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This is the first part where
the wheels begin to turn

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or the elevator
begins its ascent

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before the doors lurch apart.

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This is the middle.

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Things have had time
to get complicated.

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Messy, really.

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Nothing is simple anymore.

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Cities have sprouted up
along the rivers teeming

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with people at cross
purposes, a million schemes,

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a million wild looks.

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Disappointment unshoulders
his knapsack here

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and pitches his ragged tent.

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This is the sticky part
where the plot congeals,

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where the action suddenly
reverses or swerves off

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in some outrageous direction.

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Here, the narrator
devotes a long paragraph

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to why Miriam does not
want Edward's child.

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Someone hides a
letter under a pillow.

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Here, the aria rises to a
pitch, a song of betrayal salted

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with revenge, and
the climbing party

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is stuck on a ledge
halfway up the mountain.

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This is the bridge,
the painful modulation.

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This is the thick of things.

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So much is crowded
into the middle.

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The guitars of Spain,
piles of ripe avocados,

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Russian uniforms, noisy
parties, lakeside kisses,

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arguments heard through a wall.

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Too much to name, too
much to think about.

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And this is the end.

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The car running out
of road, to the river

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losing its name in an ocean.

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The long nose of the
photographed horse

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touching the white
electronic line.

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This is the colophon, the
last elephant in the parade,

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the empty wheelchair,
and pigeons floating down

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in the evening.

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Here, the stage is
littered with bodies,

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the narrator leads the
characters back to their cells,

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and the climbers
are in their graves.

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It is me hitting the period,
and you closing the book.

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It is Sylvia Plath
in the kitchen,

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and St. Clement with an
anchor around his neck.

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This is the final bit,
thinning away to nothing.

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This is the end
according to Aristotle,

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what we have all
been waiting for,

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what everything comes down to.

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The destination we
cannot help imagining,

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a streak of light in
the sky, a hat on a peg.

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And outside the cabin,
falling leaves."

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