WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.019 align:middle line:90%


00:00:04.019 --> 00:00:08.815 align:middle line:84%
I want to start by reading
some translations from a book

00:00:08.815 --> 00:00:10.440 align:middle line:84%
that I didn't think
had been published.

00:00:10.440 --> 00:00:18.000 align:middle line:84%
And was put in my hands by the
publisher George Hitchcock,

00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:23.370 align:middle line:84%
who's also very fond of Tucson
and coming here, just a couple

00:00:23.370 --> 00:00:30.010 align:middle line:84%
of weeks ago it's a
book of translations

00:00:30.010 --> 00:00:34.750 align:middle line:84%
of poems by Roberto
Quiroz, who's an Argentine.

00:00:34.750 --> 00:00:37.280 align:middle line:84%
A poet about whom I
don't know very much.

00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:38.980 align:middle line:84%
I know that he's
a man in his 50s.

00:00:38.980 --> 00:00:42.550 align:middle line:84%
And he's published
five books of poems.

00:00:42.550 --> 00:00:44.890 align:middle line:84%
The first was called
First Vertical Poetry.

00:00:44.890 --> 00:00:48.100 align:middle line:84%
And the second was called
Second Vertical Poetry.

00:00:48.100 --> 00:00:50.110 align:middle line:84%
And the third was called
Third Vertical Poetry.

00:00:50.110 --> 00:00:55.150 align:middle line:84%
And I made a selection
from the five books

00:00:55.150 --> 00:00:56.530 align:middle line:90%
and called it Vertical Poetry.

00:00:56.530 --> 00:00:59.715 align:middle line:90%


00:00:59.715 --> 00:01:01.090 align:middle line:84%
I didn't know
anything about him.

00:01:01.090 --> 00:01:06.670 align:middle line:84%
And I'm amazed to find that
he's as little known as he is.

00:01:06.670 --> 00:01:10.180 align:middle line:90%


00:01:10.180 --> 00:01:12.310 align:middle line:84%
Nobody seemed to
have heard anything

00:01:12.310 --> 00:01:16.450 align:middle line:84%
about Roberto Eduardo's
a few years ago.

00:01:16.450 --> 00:01:20.890 align:middle line:84%
And I thought he was very good
when I read in one or two poems

00:01:20.890 --> 00:01:23.230 align:middle line:84%
and wrote off and got
the rest of his books

00:01:23.230 --> 00:01:27.400 align:middle line:84%
and started traveling around
with them in my pocket.

00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:30.790 align:middle line:84%
And little by little, they
began to transfer themselves

00:01:30.790 --> 00:01:32.740 align:middle line:90%
to the margin in English.

00:01:32.740 --> 00:01:37.270 align:middle line:84%
And so that's how this
book got together.

00:01:37.270 --> 00:01:43.060 align:middle line:84%
There's an epigraph for all
of the poems at the beginning

00:01:43.060 --> 00:01:47.470 align:middle line:84%
of the first vertical
poetry, which was published

00:01:47.470 --> 00:01:49.970 align:middle line:90%
in sometime in the 50s.

00:01:49.970 --> 00:01:51.550 align:middle line:90%
I don't remember exactly when.

00:01:51.550 --> 00:01:54.340 align:middle line:90%


00:01:54.340 --> 00:01:56.170 align:middle line:90%
I don't know.

00:01:56.170 --> 00:02:02.140 align:middle line:84%
But I think that the epigraph
is an ironic allusion

00:02:02.140 --> 00:02:05.860 align:middle line:90%
to a fragment of Heraclitus.

00:02:05.860 --> 00:02:09.250 align:middle line:84%
And as I'm a Heraclitus
addict myself,

00:02:09.250 --> 00:02:13.883 align:middle line:90%
I was very interested by this.

00:02:13.883 --> 00:02:15.550 align:middle line:84%
There's a fragment
of Heraclitus anyway.

00:02:15.550 --> 00:02:20.275 align:middle line:84%
That goes the way up and
the way down are the same.

00:02:20.275 --> 00:02:23.140 align:middle line:90%


00:02:23.140 --> 00:02:25.490 align:middle line:84%
As with almost all of the
fragments of Heraclitus

00:02:25.490 --> 00:02:28.870 align:middle line:84%
is one of the mysterious
things about it is

00:02:28.870 --> 00:02:31.390 align:middle line:84%
and what doesn't even know
whether it's a fragment.

00:02:31.390 --> 00:02:33.340 align:middle line:84%
I mean, it may be
the whole thing.

00:02:33.340 --> 00:02:37.570 align:middle line:84%
And the Heraclitus felt that
this was worth several volumes.

00:02:37.570 --> 00:02:40.090 align:middle line:84%
As indeed, it has proved
to be worth several volumes

00:02:40.090 --> 00:02:45.230 align:middle line:84%
of philosophical
discussion back and forth.

00:02:45.230 --> 00:02:51.430 align:middle line:84%
But anyway, there's this
little also very mysterious,

00:02:51.430 --> 00:02:53.540 align:middle line:90%
three-line poem of Juarroz.

00:02:53.540 --> 00:02:56.110 align:middle line:84%
This is an epigraph to
all of them, which goes--

00:02:56.110 --> 00:02:59.170 align:middle line:90%
and they're all untitled--

00:02:59.170 --> 00:03:03.250 align:middle line:84%
"going up is only a little
shorter or a little longer

00:03:03.250 --> 00:03:05.370 align:middle line:90%
than going down."

00:03:05.370 --> 00:03:06.000 align:middle line:90%