WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.890 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.890 --> 00:00:04.680 align:middle line:90%
OK, now I'm going to read--

00:00:04.680 --> 00:00:07.750 align:middle line:84%
the work from now on
will be in my new book,

00:00:07.750 --> 00:00:10.710 align:middle line:84%
which is coming out late this
spring from Harper & Row.

00:00:10.710 --> 00:00:13.230 align:middle line:84%
I wish I could
tell you the title.

00:00:13.230 --> 00:00:14.190 align:middle line:90%
I've gone through many.

00:00:14.190 --> 00:00:18.450 align:middle line:84%
I could give you five
to possibly look for.

00:00:18.450 --> 00:00:21.390 align:middle line:90%
That won't help.

00:00:21.390 --> 00:00:23.160 align:middle line:84%
These first ones that
I'm going to read

00:00:23.160 --> 00:00:26.220 align:middle line:84%
are from a little chapbook
that was published last winter

00:00:26.220 --> 00:00:27.510 align:middle line:90%
called Magritte Series.

00:00:27.510 --> 00:00:31.920 align:middle line:84%
And that will be included
in this larger book.

00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:35.010 align:middle line:84%
These poems were
written in response

00:00:35.010 --> 00:00:41.040 align:middle line:84%
to the sensibility of the
painter, Rene Magritte, whose

00:00:41.040 --> 00:00:44.010 align:middle line:84%
paintings I've felt
deeply in contact

00:00:44.010 --> 00:00:46.180 align:middle line:90%
with for a very long time.

00:00:46.180 --> 00:00:48.510 align:middle line:84%
He's not really a
painter that painters

00:00:48.510 --> 00:00:50.920 align:middle line:90%
get very excited about.

00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:52.470 align:middle line:90%
And I understand that.

00:00:52.470 --> 00:00:54.540 align:middle line:84%
Because I love painting
for itself, too,

00:00:54.540 --> 00:00:57.030 align:middle line:84%
and I have lots of
friends who are painters.

00:00:57.030 --> 00:00:59.310 align:middle line:84%
But he's a very
literary painter.

00:00:59.310 --> 00:01:03.450 align:middle line:84%
And he also isn't, from
a literary point of view,

00:01:03.450 --> 00:01:04.500 align:middle line:90%
he's not obvious.

00:01:04.500 --> 00:01:08.580 align:middle line:84%
His surrealism, he's
lumped in under that title.

00:01:08.580 --> 00:01:12.330 align:middle line:84%
But it's not gross like
Dali or something like that.

00:01:12.330 --> 00:01:15.720 align:middle line:84%
It's very-- excuse
me if you like him.

00:01:15.720 --> 00:01:18.120 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:20.970 align:middle line:90%


00:01:20.970 --> 00:01:22.950 align:middle line:84%
I mean, it's just a
very exact rendering.

00:01:22.950 --> 00:01:24.990 align:middle line:84%
But there's always
something just slightly

00:01:24.990 --> 00:01:28.620 align:middle line:84%
strange happening,
which is like my life.

00:01:28.620 --> 00:01:33.180 align:middle line:84%
And so I identified pretty
strongly with the paintings

00:01:33.180 --> 00:01:36.120 align:middle line:84%
and decided, when
a student of mine

00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:37.620 align:middle line:84%
gave me a wonderful,
big collection

00:01:37.620 --> 00:01:39.120 align:middle line:84%
of Magritte paintings,
that I wanted

00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:41.340 align:middle line:90%
to try to work with the book.

00:01:41.340 --> 00:01:43.380 align:middle line:84%
And what I did, I
decided to arbitrarily

00:01:43.380 --> 00:01:45.880 align:middle line:84%
name the poems the
names of the paintings.

00:01:45.880 --> 00:01:52.327 align:middle line:84%
But I'm not trying to talk
about exactly what's going on

00:01:52.327 --> 00:01:53.910 align:middle line:84%
literally in the
painting but to enter

00:01:53.910 --> 00:01:57.600 align:middle line:84%
into some kind of dialogue with
that unconscious thing that's

00:01:57.600 --> 00:02:00.780 align:middle line:90%
coming up in his paintings.

00:02:00.780 --> 00:02:02.935 align:middle line:90%
So I'll read you four of those.

00:02:02.935 --> 00:02:04.560 align:middle line:84%
I might just read
you the little quotes

00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:05.760 align:middle line:90%
in the front of the book.

00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:08.699 align:middle line:84%
And these are from AM
Hammacher, who wrote

00:02:08.699 --> 00:02:10.960 align:middle line:90%
the text for the Magritte book.

00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:14.130 align:middle line:84%
The first one says, "Even in
the realm of the half conscious,

00:02:14.130 --> 00:02:19.380 align:middle line:84%
his urge was toward control,
consciousness, exactitude.

00:02:19.380 --> 00:02:23.130 align:middle line:84%
Like Ouspensky, he was familiar
with those delicate, brittle

00:02:23.130 --> 00:02:27.210 align:middle line:84%
states of lucidity during
sleep in which the sleeper is

00:02:27.210 --> 00:02:29.550 align:middle line:90%
conscious of himself."

00:02:29.550 --> 00:02:33.000 align:middle line:84%
And the second quote
says, "This evolution

00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:36.720 align:middle line:84%
in Magritte's work of
pre-Renaissance space in which

00:02:36.720 --> 00:02:40.440 align:middle line:84%
movement is frustrated
and the depth uncertain

00:02:40.440 --> 00:02:43.740 align:middle line:84%
opens up to him the
possibility of inventive play

00:02:43.740 --> 00:02:45.180 align:middle line:90%
with imaginary spaces."

00:02:45.180 --> 00:02:53.080 align:middle line:90%


00:02:53.080 --> 00:02:53.905 align:middle line:90%
"The Secret Life."

00:02:53.905 --> 00:02:57.800 align:middle line:90%


00:02:57.800 --> 00:03:02.210 align:middle line:84%
"Suddenly, there were
bruises at various places

00:03:02.210 --> 00:03:07.040 align:middle line:84%
along his left thigh and
just below the kneecap.

00:03:07.040 --> 00:03:11.810 align:middle line:84%
He could see the freckles
holding their bits of brown

00:03:11.810 --> 00:03:15.860 align:middle line:84%
as the purple flesh
turned to yellow.

00:03:15.860 --> 00:03:20.330 align:middle line:84%
But mostly he knew when
the bruised parts of him

00:03:20.330 --> 00:03:25.700 align:middle line:84%
came into contact with other
firm objects and a light

00:03:25.700 --> 00:03:30.050 align:middle line:84%
but definite sense of
pain surprised him,

00:03:30.050 --> 00:03:34.730 align:middle line:84%
and he stopped to locate it,
to understand the source,

00:03:34.730 --> 00:03:39.620 align:middle line:84%
and recapture some set of
moments in which his flesh had

00:03:39.620 --> 00:03:45.500 align:middle line:84%
received blows distinct enough
in precisely those spots he

00:03:45.500 --> 00:03:49.400 align:middle line:90%
understood now as tender.

00:03:49.400 --> 00:03:54.970 align:middle line:84%
All his body was tender, but
most of it did not know."

00:03:54.970 --> 00:03:56.487 align:middle line:90%