WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.920 align:middle line:90% Oh, I see one. 00:00:01.920 --> 00:00:02.850 align:middle line:90% There's a few hands. 00:00:02.850 --> 00:00:06.160 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:08.740 align:middle line:90% Hi, Alison and Susan. 00:00:08.740 --> 00:00:14.740 align:middle line:84% You've both spoken very deep concern 00:00:14.740 --> 00:00:21.040 align:middle line:84% with your imagery and your poetry, which is admirable. 00:00:21.040 --> 00:00:31.450 align:middle line:84% But I think that it isn't just out there that we 00:00:31.450 --> 00:00:33.400 align:middle line:90% need to be concerned for. 00:00:33.400 --> 00:00:36.940 align:middle line:84% I was very disturbed today to hear 00:00:36.940 --> 00:00:42.880 align:middle line:84% that, I believe it's the Board of Regents of this University 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:50.020 align:middle line:84% has decided that this concern that has been raised 00:00:50.020 --> 00:01:00.790 align:middle line:84% about investment in corporations that basically are dooming 00:01:00.790 --> 00:01:08.080 align:middle line:84% the planet have come down on doing something 00:01:08.080 --> 00:01:14.590 align:middle line:84% about these investments, because they make money. 00:01:14.590 --> 00:01:17.020 align:middle line:84% And what do you do with that money? 00:01:17.020 --> 00:01:24.390 align:middle line:84% You give thousands of dollars and bonuses to overpaid people. 00:01:24.390 --> 00:01:29.920 align:middle line:84% And you are all paying for this, with your tuition or whatever. 00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:35.130 align:middle line:84% And I think if you got out there and did 00:01:35.130 --> 00:01:39.740 align:middle line:84% some activist protesting, which I think you 00:01:39.740 --> 00:01:41.168 align:middle line:90% mentioned in another context-- 00:01:41.168 --> 00:01:45.450 align:middle line:90% 00:01:45.450 --> 00:01:50.180 align:middle line:84% I wouldn't probably be making this little speech 00:01:50.180 --> 00:01:55.550 align:middle line:84% if your concerns had not been for ecology and concern 00:01:55.550 --> 00:01:58.390 align:middle line:84% for the planet as well as local things. 00:01:58.390 --> 00:02:01.320 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:02:01.320 --> 00:02:02.565 align:middle line:90% Thank you, David. 00:02:02.565 --> 00:02:04.890 align:middle line:84% And I'd love to have your thoughts. 00:02:04.890 --> 00:02:07.690 align:middle line:90% 00:02:07.690 --> 00:02:09.160 align:middle line:90% Do you want to go? 00:02:09.160 --> 00:02:14.040 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think what's important about the context 00:02:14.040 --> 00:02:15.930 align:middle line:84% that you bring, and something that I 00:02:15.930 --> 00:02:18.030 align:middle line:84% try to think about in terms of my own work 00:02:18.030 --> 00:02:21.540 align:middle line:84% and in terms of teaching, is that there's 00:02:21.540 --> 00:02:23.490 align:middle line:84% something different between the activism we 00:02:23.490 --> 00:02:27.210 align:middle line:84% do on the page and activism that can happen off the page. 00:02:27.210 --> 00:02:30.150 align:middle line:84% And one doesn't make up for the other. 00:02:30.150 --> 00:02:36.720 align:middle line:84% And I think it is important to not just write, and think, 00:02:36.720 --> 00:02:38.700 align:middle line:84% and talk amongst ourselves about this stuff, 00:02:38.700 --> 00:02:42.780 align:middle line:84% but to figure out other ways to intervene sometimes 00:02:42.780 --> 00:02:49.790 align:middle line:84% with our bodies in terms of the issues that are difficult. 00:02:49.790 --> 00:02:55.340 align:middle line:84% Well, just to mention one hopeful sign of some leadership 00:02:55.340 --> 00:02:57.320 align:middle line:84% coming from a place where it may actually 00:02:57.320 --> 00:03:00.170 align:middle line:84% be influential in this regard is during the week 00:03:00.170 --> 00:03:02.480 align:middle line:84% of great climate events in New York, 00:03:02.480 --> 00:03:05.450 align:middle line:84% with the UN conference and the demonstrations, 00:03:05.450 --> 00:03:09.650 align:middle line:84% the Rockefeller Fund decided to divest from fossil fuel 00:03:09.650 --> 00:03:11.810 align:middle line:84% industries and to invest in alternative energy. 00:03:11.810 --> 00:03:17.060 align:middle line:84% Now, when you have funds and moneyed aspects 00:03:17.060 --> 00:03:19.700 align:middle line:84% of the culture taking that degree of leadership, 00:03:19.700 --> 00:03:23.780 align:middle line:84% that, I think, makes a very big statement in the marketplace 00:03:23.780 --> 00:03:27.540 align:middle line:84% and within the culture of the market. 00:03:27.540 --> 00:03:31.730 align:middle line:84% And so I found that to be a very encouraging thing, 00:03:31.730 --> 00:03:34.180 align:middle line:84% and it may influence other change. 00:03:34.180 --> 00:03:39.020 align:middle line:84% In terms of what's happening at our institution, 00:03:39.020 --> 00:03:41.900 align:middle line:84% I've been on an island off the Eastern coast of Canada, 00:03:41.900 --> 00:03:45.140 align:middle line:84% and I am pathetically uninformed about the most recent aspects 00:03:45.140 --> 00:03:46.190 align:middle line:90% of that conversation. 00:03:46.190 --> 00:03:47.810 align:middle line:90% I apologize to you for that. 00:03:47.810 --> 00:03:52.430 align:middle line:90% 00:03:52.430 --> 00:03:55.400 align:middle line:90% This is a question for Alison. 00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:58.400 align:middle line:84% Your book Zoologies must have taken a great deal of research. 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:01.960 align:middle line:84% What does your research look like? 00:04:01.960 --> 00:04:04.350 align:middle line:84% Yes, it took me 10 years to write. 00:04:04.350 --> 00:04:06.330 align:middle line:84% I also wrote two poetry books in that 10 years. 00:04:06.330 --> 00:04:08.280 align:middle line:90% But it's varied. 00:04:08.280 --> 00:04:12.090 align:middle line:84% You know, I do a variety of forms of research, 00:04:12.090 --> 00:04:18.540 align:middle line:84% both traditional archival library internet research, 00:04:18.540 --> 00:04:22.110 align:middle line:84% and I do a lot of site visits and go out 00:04:22.110 --> 00:04:24.150 align:middle line:90% into the field with scientists. 00:04:24.150 --> 00:04:29.200 align:middle line:84% Because you're trying to find a scene to enliven an essay. 00:04:29.200 --> 00:04:31.200 align:middle line:84% It's just really helpful to be out in the field. 00:04:31.200 --> 00:04:34.620 align:middle line:84% And particularly with scientific concepts or research 00:04:34.620 --> 00:04:37.860 align:middle line:84% that might be really hard for me to get my head around, 00:04:37.860 --> 00:04:39.540 align:middle line:84% I could read a bunch of research papers 00:04:39.540 --> 00:04:42.040 align:middle line:90% and just be totally confused. 00:04:42.040 --> 00:04:45.607 align:middle line:84% But if I say to the head of the spotted owl team 00:04:45.607 --> 00:04:47.190 align:middle line:84% up in the Andrews Experimental Forest, 00:04:47.190 --> 00:04:49.500 align:middle line:84% could I go out with you when you do your rounds to look 00:04:49.500 --> 00:04:51.570 align:middle line:84% at the owl nest tomorrow morning, 00:04:51.570 --> 00:04:54.600 align:middle line:84% and I have that experience, and can render it into a scene, 00:04:54.600 --> 00:04:57.112 align:middle line:84% I can get it in a way that it's a narrative 00:04:57.112 --> 00:04:58.320 align:middle line:90% that I can share with others. 00:04:58.320 --> 00:05:00.903 align:middle line:84% If somebody wants the research, the research papers are there, 00:05:00.903 --> 00:05:04.020 align:middle line:84% but I'm looking for more the story 00:05:04.020 --> 00:05:07.530 align:middle line:84% that has a kind of human interest element 00:05:07.530 --> 00:05:14.100 align:middle line:84% and where the emotions of the experience and the reflection 00:05:14.100 --> 00:05:16.950 align:middle line:84% of the experience are as important as the science. 00:05:16.950 --> 00:05:22.300 align:middle line:84% So I do lots of different types of research. 00:05:22.300 --> 00:05:25.260 align:middle line:84% But I think, as all of us who do essays, 00:05:25.260 --> 00:05:28.530 align:middle line:84% I do believe that we're always testing 00:05:28.530 --> 00:05:30.240 align:middle line:84% our research against our own experience 00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:32.820 align:middle line:84% and wanting to put our feet on the ground in a place 00:05:32.820 --> 00:05:36.610 align:middle line:84% or with a person who knows the subject better than we do. 00:05:36.610 --> 00:05:40.500 align:middle line:84% And we want to kind of feel, how does my experience butt up 00:05:40.500 --> 00:05:41.067 align:middle line:90% against that? 00:05:41.067 --> 00:05:42.150 align:middle line:90% Does it sound right to me? 00:05:42.150 --> 00:05:45.720 align:middle line:84% Or no matter how good this guy's research might be, 00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:47.640 align:middle line:84% does it really strike me wrong, and now I 00:05:47.640 --> 00:05:51.270 align:middle line:84% have an argument I want to register in the essay. 00:05:51.270 --> 00:05:54.300 align:middle line:84% That's our great subjectivity as essayists-- we're just 00:05:54.300 --> 00:05:55.950 align:middle line:90% cranky and skeptical. 00:05:55.950 --> 00:05:58.866 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:58.866 --> 00:06:00.070 align:middle line:90% 00:06:00.070 --> 00:06:00.570 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:06:00.570 --> 00:06:02.040 align:middle line:90% I have a question for Susan. 00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:04.230 align:middle line:90% Thanks for reading. 00:06:04.230 --> 00:06:08.310 align:middle line:84% I notice in your work an inherent comfort between 00:06:08.310 --> 00:06:13.050 align:middle line:84% the body as sight embodiment and your own personal and also just 00:06:13.050 --> 00:06:16.350 align:middle line:84% the world, and then you're dealing a lot with ideas that 00:06:16.350 --> 00:06:23.280 align:middle line:84% are in a way real abstract-- the economy, capitalism-- 00:06:23.280 --> 00:06:25.440 align:middle line:84% where the sight of the body is in that. 00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:28.230 align:middle line:84% And often I think there's a duality that people 00:06:28.230 --> 00:06:29.250 align:middle line:90% perceive around that. 00:06:29.250 --> 00:06:33.120 align:middle line:84% It's like the stock market or money or-- 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:35.460 align:middle line:84% just to be very trite, but generally speaking. 00:06:35.460 --> 00:06:37.560 align:middle line:84% But I notice in your work a comfort 00:06:37.560 --> 00:06:41.100 align:middle line:84% in a harmony in some sense that even results 00:06:41.100 --> 00:06:42.810 align:middle line:90% in disharmony by intention. 00:06:42.810 --> 00:06:44.760 align:middle line:84% And I'm wondering how that feels for you 00:06:44.760 --> 00:06:47.640 align:middle line:84% when you're writing it-- how it feels in the process? 00:06:47.640 --> 00:06:49.920 align:middle line:84% I'm assuming the reflection in your poetry 00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:52.170 align:middle line:84% is a true reflection of the feeling. 00:06:52.170 --> 00:06:53.070 align:middle line:90% Or maybe I'm wrong. 00:06:53.070 --> 00:06:54.445 align:middle line:84% But I'm just curious if you could 00:06:54.445 --> 00:06:57.540 align:middle line:84% speak on that, because I find it's very beautiful 00:06:57.540 --> 00:06:59.910 align:middle line:90% but also truth telling. 00:06:59.910 --> 00:07:00.840 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:07:00.840 --> 00:07:05.220 align:middle line:84% Thank you for your thoughtful response to the work. 00:07:05.220 --> 00:07:08.790 align:middle line:84% I feel like both of those, both the letter 00:07:08.790 --> 00:07:10.860 align:middle line:84% project and the stock market project 00:07:10.860 --> 00:07:15.420 align:middle line:84% got created out of a sense of lived experience 00:07:15.420 --> 00:07:19.290 align:middle line:84% being different than another narration that was being told. 00:07:19.290 --> 00:07:21.330 align:middle line:84% I think that's what Tyler was referencing 00:07:21.330 --> 00:07:25.500 align:middle line:84% in the introduction, that there was this way, when 00:07:25.500 --> 00:07:28.560 align:middle line:90% the financial crisis of 2008-- 00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:32.670 align:middle line:84% the continuing crisis, perhaps, is the way to talk about it-- 00:07:32.670 --> 00:07:36.420 align:middle line:84% was discussed, it was being told-- 00:07:36.420 --> 00:07:38.525 align:middle line:84% the stock market was one of the biggest indicators 00:07:38.525 --> 00:07:39.400 align:middle line:90% of what was going on. 00:07:39.400 --> 00:07:42.390 align:middle line:84% And even though I'm a poet, I get money, right? 00:07:42.390 --> 00:07:45.088 align:middle line:84% It's not like, why are they talking about the stock market? 00:07:45.088 --> 00:07:46.380 align:middle line:90% We should talk about the trees. 00:07:46.380 --> 00:07:50.550 align:middle line:84% But there were these other things 00:07:50.550 --> 00:07:52.590 align:middle line:84% that weren't being registered, and there's 00:07:52.590 --> 00:07:56.850 align:middle line:84% a naturalness with which that number gets thrown out 00:07:56.850 --> 00:08:02.490 align:middle line:84% as talking about the health of our economy and our nation. 00:08:02.490 --> 00:08:05.580 align:middle line:90% The nation of Bhutan has-- 00:08:05.580 --> 00:08:09.540 align:middle line:84% they don't do a gross domestic product, 00:08:09.540 --> 00:08:11.220 align:middle line:90% it's a gross happiness product. 00:08:11.220 --> 00:08:14.010 align:middle line:84% They literally measure the happiness of their inherit-- 00:08:14.010 --> 00:08:19.740 align:middle line:84% so part of it was sort of using that frame 00:08:19.740 --> 00:08:21.630 align:middle line:84% and in some ways then writing poems 00:08:21.630 --> 00:08:26.610 align:middle line:84% that maybe, for me, were even more traditionally lyric 00:08:26.610 --> 00:08:29.250 align:middle line:84% and first person than some of my other work. 00:08:29.250 --> 00:08:34.980 align:middle line:84% Because that frame made me more comfortable. 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:36.299 align:middle line:90% I also had a kid. 00:08:36.299 --> 00:08:40.169 align:middle line:84% I was in the process of getting pregnant and having a baby. 00:08:40.169 --> 00:08:42.720 align:middle line:84% Some of you guys saw CAConrad here, 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:46.680 align:middle line:84% who's a poet who really believes in doing things 00:08:46.680 --> 00:08:49.350 align:middle line:84% to get us into different frames of mind to making art. 00:08:49.350 --> 00:08:50.730 align:middle line:90% He has these great things-- 00:08:50.730 --> 00:08:53.610 align:middle line:84% put your foot in a bucket and stand in a doorway. 00:08:53.610 --> 00:08:55.260 align:middle line:90% He calls them somatic exercises. 00:08:55.260 --> 00:08:58.050 align:middle line:84% And my biggest somatic exercises was having a kid. 00:08:58.050 --> 00:09:01.560 align:middle line:84% You know, it just completely also sort of changed 00:09:01.560 --> 00:09:03.690 align:middle line:90% how I registered-- 00:09:03.690 --> 00:09:06.690 align:middle line:84% my own subjectivity had this secondary repercussion. 00:09:06.690 --> 00:09:10.260 align:middle line:84% I think I felt more comfortable inhabiting a first-person lyric 00:09:10.260 --> 00:09:11.265 align:middle line:90% than maybe I had before. 00:09:11.265 --> 00:09:15.420 align:middle line:90% 00:09:15.420 --> 00:09:17.340 align:middle line:84% I have a question, but I just want to say, 00:09:17.340 --> 00:09:20.130 align:middle line:84% Susan, if you get money, I need to talk 00:09:20.130 --> 00:09:22.620 align:middle line:90% to you afterwards. 00:09:22.620 --> 00:09:26.160 align:middle line:90% I mean, I basically get money. 00:09:26.160 --> 00:09:28.110 align:middle line:84% This is sort of my own concern, but you 00:09:28.110 --> 00:09:29.980 align:middle line:84% started with a poem called "Meditation." 00:09:29.980 --> 00:09:31.260 align:middle line:90% And-- 00:09:31.260 --> 00:09:35.100 align:middle line:84% So there's a bit of that exploration in the book, 00:09:35.100 --> 00:09:40.170 align:middle line:84% and I think it's probably one of the important strands 00:09:40.170 --> 00:09:43.080 align:middle line:84% in thinking about what animals have meant to us 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:45.030 align:middle line:84% and have meant to the human imagination 00:09:45.030 --> 00:09:46.950 align:middle line:84% from the very, very, very beginning of art. 00:09:46.950 --> 00:09:51.180 align:middle line:84% Because all of the earliest art is all animal imagery-- 00:09:51.180 --> 00:09:52.830 align:middle line:84% the carvings, the cave paintings. 00:09:52.830 --> 00:09:56.490 align:middle line:84% So there's some speculation, and Clayton Eshleman 00:09:56.490 --> 00:09:58.350 align:middle line:84% has written about this in Juniper Fuse, 00:09:58.350 --> 00:10:03.090 align:middle line:84% that art came about at that time when the human mind began 00:10:03.090 --> 00:10:06.180 align:middle line:84% to perceive itself as separating from the animal world. 00:10:06.180 --> 00:10:09.420 align:middle line:84% And it needed to project something back out, 00:10:09.420 --> 00:10:12.690 align:middle line:84% because it understood what this loss was-- 00:10:12.690 --> 00:10:15.930 align:middle line:84% that it was so profound that without some reciprocating 00:10:15.930 --> 00:10:18.690 align:middle line:84% act of the inner life reconnecting 00:10:18.690 --> 00:10:21.240 align:middle line:84% with the outer world, we just couldn't go on, 00:10:21.240 --> 00:10:22.500 align:middle line:90% or our ancestors couldn't go. 00:10:22.500 --> 00:10:25.890 align:middle line:84% So anyway, I am glad that you raise it. 00:10:25.890 --> 00:10:32.070 align:middle line:84% And obviously, the other way I do research on that is I'm 00:10:32.070 --> 00:10:33.750 align:middle line:84% seeing a Jungian analyst, and reading 00:10:33.750 --> 00:10:37.770 align:middle line:84% a lot of Carl Jung and James Hillman, 00:10:37.770 --> 00:10:40.530 align:middle line:84% and trying to understand the ways 00:10:40.530 --> 00:10:43.350 align:middle line:84% that the science of the mind have 00:10:43.350 --> 00:10:47.400 align:middle line:84% tried to give us a language for talking about the inner world. 00:10:47.400 --> 00:10:50.310 align:middle line:90% 00:10:50.310 --> 00:10:51.960 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:10:51.960 --> 00:10:55.020 align:middle line:84% When I was writing some of the stock market poems, 00:10:55.020 --> 00:11:01.560 align:middle line:84% I was reading Buddhist texts, and also writers on Buddhism, 00:11:01.560 --> 00:11:05.070 align:middle line:84% and also some consciousness texts. 00:11:05.070 --> 00:11:10.500 align:middle line:84% And I keep thinking about this Oppen quote from a poem. 00:11:10.500 --> 00:11:13.440 align:middle line:84% I'm going to paraphrase, so don't mark me off-- 00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:15.060 align:middle line:84% don't detract from my recitation. 00:11:15.060 --> 00:11:19.230 align:middle line:84% But he says, a man stands on a beach, goes to a beach, 00:11:19.230 --> 00:11:21.450 align:middle line:84% sits next to a rock, and then he says, two, 00:11:21.450 --> 00:11:24.420 align:middle line:90% we find ourselves in two. 00:11:24.420 --> 00:11:26.550 align:middle line:84% And it's interesting, right, because we normally 00:11:26.550 --> 00:11:29.970 align:middle line:84% think we find ourselves with someone else. 00:11:29.970 --> 00:11:33.450 align:middle line:84% But in the Oppen poem, when there's no one else there, 00:11:33.450 --> 00:11:35.400 align:middle line:90% you sit by a rock too. 00:11:35.400 --> 00:11:39.990 align:middle line:84% And I think that, for me sometimes, 00:11:39.990 --> 00:11:45.030 align:middle line:84% putting me up or trying to situate myself within a system 00:11:45.030 --> 00:11:48.210 align:middle line:84% is also about figuring out that system-- 00:11:48.210 --> 00:11:50.250 align:middle line:84% it's about resistance to the system. 00:11:50.250 --> 00:11:51.450 align:middle line:90% But you also learn-- 00:11:51.450 --> 00:11:53.310 align:middle line:84% I think any time we put ourselves up 00:11:53.310 --> 00:11:56.790 align:middle line:84% in the context or frame what we do with something else, 00:11:56.790 --> 00:12:00.600 align:middle line:90% we learn about ourselves. 00:12:00.600 --> 00:12:03.060 align:middle line:84% I don't know if that helps in answering your question, 00:12:03.060 --> 00:12:09.750 align:middle line:84% but I think that's part of my interest in not simply sort 00:12:09.750 --> 00:12:12.630 align:middle line:84% of regurgitating my life on the page, 00:12:12.630 --> 00:12:17.550 align:middle line:84% but figuring out if I can situate myself on a larger map, 00:12:17.550 --> 00:12:21.200 align:middle line:84% is that helpful to other folks as well? 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:23.564 align:middle line:84% And we have to figure out those cartographies. 00:12:23.564 --> 00:12:26.170 align:middle line:90% 00:12:26.170 --> 00:12:26.830 align:middle line:90% Great. 00:12:26.830 --> 00:12:28.640 align:middle line:90% Thank you, both, so much. 00:12:28.640 --> 00:12:29.240 align:middle line:90% And-- 00:12:29.240 --> 00:12:30.140 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:12:30.140 --> 00:12:31.799 align:middle line:90% 00:12:31.799 --> 00:12:32.299 align:middle line:90%