WEBVTT

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And so that the last poem in the
book is the tornada this time.

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It's called "Skin," and
begins with a large U,

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which is reminiscent of
illuminated manuscripts.

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They would have
those large letters,

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and there would be little
pictures inside them.

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And so I wanted this
large U to suggest that,

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because this goes back to
an earlier scene of writing.

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Before there was this figure of
light happily running forever

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and ever-- it could
have been inspiration,

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it could have been death,
it could be the artist,

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it could be light itself--

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running through that
landscape of tissue paper.

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This is a very different scene
of writing, where the ink is

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black and the paper is white.

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And the writing surface--

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like paper-- was actually
made of a skin of-- it

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was called vellum.

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And in the Middle
Ages they would--

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because this expensive
material was rare,

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they would use it and then
scrape off the writing

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if it was no longer
needed and use it again.

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And that so the surface
is a palimpsest.

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That's the word for it.

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And I think that's a
good metaphor for what

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anyone who comes to
art has to be prepared

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to perform this scraping off.

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And at the same time, you
cannot live simply by writing

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your love down on the page.

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So this poem called "Skin."

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"Uncurl the sheet of vellum.

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There are the obscurely
interrupted complex roses,

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the letters of English.

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The vine with 1,000 ears,
the decay of the tempera

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and the decay of the
vegetative shell.

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The decay of
addition, of cracking,

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and air with its vigor,
which grinds or is

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perhaps shifted
away like the day.

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Uncurl the sheets,
there is in them

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the decay of the
trembling recorder,

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the decay of the dipping hands
of the chant, of the anvil

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in the ear.

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The decay of the
swallow-like bell

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tolls bolting from the tower.

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Did the scrivener will with
one's utter heart the snail's

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pace risk catch it in the
bell's sound, smell it

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in the domicile rain?

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To love the thin vellums and
the erasure scraping on them.

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To love anything,
you must be prepared

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to rip or bare its trace."

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That's how I'll finish.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you so much.

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[INAUDIBLE] And my
most serious work.

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So that's what I wanted to read.

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Thanks.

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