WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.650 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.650 --> 00:00:05.910 align:middle line:84% I've had a-- a lot of poems I write are about the past, 00:00:05.910 --> 00:00:11.820 align:middle line:84% about my childhood, or about the past of my family. 00:00:11.820 --> 00:00:17.220 align:middle line:84% And the last year or so, I've been pursuing-- somewhat, 00:00:17.220 --> 00:00:17.880 align:middle line:90% anyways-- 00:00:17.880 --> 00:00:18.730 align:middle line:90% a genealogy. 00:00:18.730 --> 00:00:21.240 align:middle line:90% 00:00:21.240 --> 00:00:23.730 align:middle line:84% I've got a few poems that reflect that interest. 00:00:23.730 --> 00:00:26.280 align:middle line:84% This first one is called Naming The Children, 00:00:26.280 --> 00:00:29.670 align:middle line:84% and it's also about my grandfather on my mother's side 00:00:29.670 --> 00:00:31.200 align:middle line:90% of the family. 00:00:31.200 --> 00:00:34.530 align:middle line:84% And I'd been trying to write this poem for a long time. 00:00:34.530 --> 00:00:36.870 align:middle line:84% I think I must have written-- this is the fifth time, 00:00:36.870 --> 00:00:38.200 align:middle line:90% I think, I wrote the poem. 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:40.410 align:middle line:84% And I think it works now, this time. 00:00:40.410 --> 00:00:41.520 align:middle line:90% Each one was different. 00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:45.450 align:middle line:84% But the experience that I wanted to talk about-- 00:00:45.450 --> 00:00:48.660 align:middle line:84% one afternoon, when my wife and I were back east, 00:00:48.660 --> 00:00:51.960 align:middle line:84% we visited my grandfather in a nursing home, 00:00:51.960 --> 00:00:54.300 align:middle line:84% and he had had several strokes and had 00:00:54.300 --> 00:00:58.005 align:middle line:84% lost part of his verbal ability and part of his memory. 00:00:58.005 --> 00:01:01.458 align:middle line:90% 00:01:01.458 --> 00:01:03.000 align:middle line:84% Gail and I were supposed to bring him 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:05.310 align:middle line:90% to a party at my mother's house. 00:01:05.310 --> 00:01:09.870 align:middle line:84% And my grandfather was a quiet peasant gentleman, 00:01:09.870 --> 00:01:11.610 align:middle line:90% and his wife-- 00:01:11.610 --> 00:01:15.360 align:middle line:84% who sort of had run the family-- had died several years before. 00:01:15.360 --> 00:01:18.930 align:middle line:84% Anyways, he couldn't find a clean handkerchief 00:01:18.930 --> 00:01:22.150 align:middle line:84% to bring to the party with him, and he didn't want to go. 00:01:22.150 --> 00:01:24.960 align:middle line:84% He started to cry, he was very upset by it. 00:01:24.960 --> 00:01:29.610 align:middle line:84% And that sensitive moment somehow connected my wife 00:01:29.610 --> 00:01:33.480 align:middle line:84% and him together, something passed between them that seemed 00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:38.640 align:middle line:84% lovely, and delicate, and permanent. 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:41.310 align:middle line:84% Well, the poem, one more thing about it 00:01:41.310 --> 00:01:45.420 align:middle line:84% is that there's mentions of names-- how names change. 00:01:45.420 --> 00:01:49.440 align:middle line:84% When we drove from the nursing home to my mother's house, 00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:53.670 align:middle line:84% he told us, in order to keep his memory going, 00:01:53.670 --> 00:01:55.830 align:middle line:84% that he would recite the names of his children 00:01:55.830 --> 00:01:58.050 align:middle line:84% and his grandchildren in three languages-- 00:01:58.050 --> 00:02:01.438 align:middle line:84% in Russian, in Hebrew, in English. 00:02:01.438 --> 00:02:03.730 align:middle line:84% And that he would count to 10 in those three languages, 00:02:03.730 --> 00:02:05.855 align:middle line:84% and so he did count to 10 in those three languages. 00:02:05.855 --> 00:02:08.460 align:middle line:90% He got it all wrong. 00:02:08.460 --> 00:02:10.000 align:middle line:90% Just a little humor in it. 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:12.960 align:middle line:84% But one of the things that he told 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:15.300 align:middle line:84% me that interested me is my grandmother's given 00:02:15.300 --> 00:02:20.910 align:middle line:84% name in Russia was Hadassah, and her nickname-- 00:02:20.910 --> 00:02:24.300 align:middle line:84% her Jewish friends or family called her Hodya. 00:02:24.300 --> 00:02:26.513 align:middle line:84% The Russian people called her Olga. 00:02:26.513 --> 00:02:27.930 align:middle line:84% And then when she came to America, 00:02:27.930 --> 00:02:32.520 align:middle line:84% she was called Ida, which is not quite as not 00:02:32.520 --> 00:02:35.010 align:middle line:84% as earthy or exotic a name, I don't know. 00:02:35.010 --> 00:02:38.250 align:middle line:84% But there's some mention made of that in the poem. 00:02:38.250 --> 00:02:40.380 align:middle line:90% "Naming the Children." 00:02:40.380 --> 00:02:44.580 align:middle line:84% "He remembers good night and good morning. 00:02:44.580 --> 00:02:47.040 align:middle line:84% He remembers my wife, Gail, which 00:02:47.040 --> 00:02:51.540 align:middle line:84% is the wind, who sits beside him, stroking his thin right 00:02:51.540 --> 00:02:53.370 align:middle line:90% hand. 00:02:53.370 --> 00:02:55.980 align:middle line:84% From back of the car through the neighborhoods, 00:02:55.980 --> 00:02:58.230 align:middle line:84% he recites the names of his children 00:02:58.230 --> 00:03:01.200 align:middle line:90% in Russian, Hebrew, and English. 00:03:01.200 --> 00:03:04.350 align:middle line:84% The names squeeze through the damaged arteries, 00:03:04.350 --> 00:03:08.250 align:middle line:84% pass the house in Odessa, over the remarkable ocean 00:03:08.250 --> 00:03:09.930 align:middle line:90% to New York. 00:03:09.930 --> 00:03:15.240 align:middle line:84% Mischa will be Morris, Hodya will be Ida. 00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:18.960 align:middle line:84% 10 years later, my mother, Beatrice Florence, 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:21.900 align:middle line:90% stares into polished stone. 00:03:21.900 --> 00:03:28.380 align:middle line:84% At last, she sees herself, nee Bryna Fagel, beautiful bird, 00:03:28.380 --> 00:03:32.640 align:middle line:84% which is how it is in America, over the graves of our parents, 00:03:32.640 --> 00:03:33.570 align:middle line:90% how we are named." 00:03:33.570 --> 00:03:36.570 align:middle line:90% 00:03:36.570 --> 00:03:39.620 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:39.620 --> 00:03:44.000 align:middle line:90%