WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.550 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.550 --> 00:00:11.020 align:middle line:84% The very ending image between him and her a third person 00:00:11.020 --> 00:00:14.070 align:middle line:84% is an image that [? Bly ?] has used. 00:00:14.070 --> 00:00:17.640 align:middle line:84% Are you familiar with his views of that same-- 00:00:17.640 --> 00:00:18.480 align:middle line:90% No, I'm not. 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:20.580 align:middle line:90% No, I'd like to be, though. 00:00:20.580 --> 00:00:23.530 align:middle line:84% I cannot recall the poem, but that's-- 00:00:23.530 --> 00:00:25.140 align:middle line:90% No, I didn't know about it. 00:00:25.140 --> 00:00:27.647 align:middle line:84% Do you mean about that two create the third. 00:00:27.647 --> 00:00:28.480 align:middle line:90% To create the third. 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:30.120 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah. 00:00:30.120 --> 00:00:31.350 align:middle line:90% I didn't know that. 00:00:31.350 --> 00:00:36.630 align:middle line:84% I'm sure it's probably such a common experience. 00:00:36.630 --> 00:00:41.282 align:middle line:84% That sense of-- there's something between the two 00:00:41.282 --> 00:00:48.020 align:middle line:90% that's more spirit than flesh 00:00:48.020 --> 00:00:51.950 align:middle line:84% Is it a space between the two, or the tension between the two, 00:00:51.950 --> 00:00:57.020 align:middle line:84% or the unknown between the two that inhabits the third, 00:00:57.020 --> 00:01:02.420 align:middle line:84% or how do you envision this third creation 00:01:02.420 --> 00:01:05.780 align:middle line:90% that the two make? 00:01:05.780 --> 00:01:06.890 align:middle line:90% Well, I just think-- 00:01:06.890 --> 00:01:12.560 align:middle line:84% let's say that I can call someone 3,000 miles away, 00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:16.880 align:middle line:84% and we still recognize each other's voices, 00:01:16.880 --> 00:01:18.450 align:middle line:90% we still have a relationship. 00:01:18.450 --> 00:01:21.140 align:middle line:84% So there's some mysterious force that, 00:01:21.140 --> 00:01:26.390 align:middle line:84% once there is a relationship between two, that actually has 00:01:26.390 --> 00:01:29.060 align:middle line:90% an actual existence of its own. 00:01:29.060 --> 00:01:33.950 align:middle line:84% And somehow you experience it most strongly 00:01:33.950 --> 00:01:36.710 align:middle line:84% over space and time, the weirdness of it, 00:01:36.710 --> 00:01:40.070 align:middle line:84% that there is in fact something that's there. 00:01:40.070 --> 00:01:43.400 align:middle line:84% Which, according to the way we live in time and space, 00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:45.224 align:middle line:90% shouldn't be there, but it is. 00:01:45.224 --> 00:01:49.810 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:01:49.810 --> 00:01:52.958 align:middle line:84% Would you talk a little bit about rhyme and subversion 00:01:52.958 --> 00:01:53.500 align:middle line:90% in your work? 00:01:53.500 --> 00:01:57.520 align:middle line:84% I know that we can hear a lot more oral rhyme than one 00:01:57.520 --> 00:01:59.140 align:middle line:90% might see at the ends of lines. 00:01:59.140 --> 00:02:01.900 align:middle line:84% And here I'm thinking about Marjorie Perloff's 00:02:01.900 --> 00:02:05.800 align:middle line:84% talking about Sylvia Plath manipulating rhyme-- 00:02:05.800 --> 00:02:06.970 align:middle line:90% the [INAUDIBLE] essay. 00:02:06.970 --> 00:02:11.278 align:middle line:84% But can you talk about the use of rhyme in your poems? 00:02:11.278 --> 00:02:12.580 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:02:12.580 --> 00:02:13.930 align:middle line:90% Well, for me, it's more-- 00:02:13.930 --> 00:02:17.140 align:middle line:90% 00:02:17.140 --> 00:02:22.090 align:middle line:84% I think that I have a spiral at the center of the way I 00:02:22.090 --> 00:02:25.960 align:middle line:90% think and perceive the world. 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:29.260 align:middle line:84% So that it's an echo effect-- that I've already been here 00:02:29.260 --> 00:02:34.630 align:middle line:84% and it's a slight off version of the time before, 00:02:34.630 --> 00:02:37.000 align:middle line:90% so it's an echo-- 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:40.880 align:middle line:84% an inexact echo of where I was before. 00:02:40.880 --> 00:02:42.370 align:middle line:90% And so for me it's-- 00:02:42.370 --> 00:02:47.050 align:middle line:84% and also, it has some kind of humor to it. 00:02:47.050 --> 00:02:51.700 align:middle line:84% So that I had those two things going at once, I remember this, 00:02:51.700 --> 00:02:54.430 align:middle line:90% but it's sort of funny too. 00:02:54.430 --> 00:02:57.671 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:57.671 --> 00:02:59.512 align:middle line:90% 00:02:59.512 --> 00:03:00.220 align:middle line:90% I'm just curious. 00:03:00.220 --> 00:03:03.790 align:middle line:84% I was trying to hold together what you just read. 00:03:03.790 --> 00:03:04.390 align:middle line:90% Right. 00:03:04.390 --> 00:03:06.380 align:middle line:90% And I couldn't do it. 00:03:06.380 --> 00:03:07.190 align:middle line:90% You couldn't do it. 00:03:07.190 --> 00:03:08.170 align:middle line:90% I couldn't do it. 00:03:08.170 --> 00:03:11.560 align:middle line:84% So I mean, if you had to articulate a certain principle, 00:03:11.560 --> 00:03:17.837 align:middle line:84% I mean, thematically, or images, or sound patterns for that. 00:03:17.837 --> 00:03:18.670 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:03:18.670 --> 00:03:22.120 align:middle line:84% Well, I didn't read the breaks, but it's in 14 parts, 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:25.102 align:middle line:84% so it's sort of like the 14 stations of the passion. 00:03:25.102 --> 00:03:27.560 align:middle line:84% I didn't want to break it up like that, but there are two-- 00:03:27.560 --> 00:03:31.060 align:middle line:90% 00:03:31.060 --> 00:03:35.900 align:middle line:84% two senses of the world operating simultaneously. 00:03:35.900 --> 00:03:40.360 align:middle line:84% One is about human love, and the other one 00:03:40.360 --> 00:03:45.010 align:middle line:84% is a sense of this, sort of, prolonged state of suffering 00:03:45.010 --> 00:03:46.390 align:middle line:90% or crucifixion. 00:03:46.390 --> 00:03:49.030 align:middle line:84% That has a more metaphorical-- so the two, 00:03:49.030 --> 00:03:53.240 align:middle line:84% I completely put like that together. 00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:55.270 align:middle line:84% Yeah I was trying to get the 14, and I-- 00:03:55.270 --> 00:03:57.910 align:middle line:84% Yeah, if I had read the numbers, you would have heard it. 00:03:57.910 --> 00:04:01.105 align:middle line:90% Each one has five parts of 14. 00:04:01.105 --> 00:04:03.460 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:04:03.460 --> 00:04:05.770 align:middle line:90% Groups. 00:04:05.770 --> 00:04:08.578 align:middle line:90% Five columns, 14 parts. 00:04:08.578 --> 00:04:10.495 align:middle line:84% But I thought, it's so boring to read numbers. 00:04:10.495 --> 00:04:12.610 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:12.610 --> 00:04:16.510 align:middle line:84% But I can see, hearing anything this long, once, 00:04:16.510 --> 00:04:18.834 align:middle line:84% like that must sound totally nuts. 00:04:18.834 --> 00:04:21.939 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:21.939 --> 00:04:28.600 align:middle line:90% 00:04:28.600 --> 00:04:31.990 align:middle line:84% I started hearing in one part, a string of, maybes, 00:04:31.990 --> 00:04:35.510 align:middle line:84% and then I started hearing several, ifs. 00:04:35.510 --> 00:04:40.210 align:middle line:84% So I started thinking of this as dwelling 00:04:40.210 --> 00:04:43.210 align:middle line:90% is provisional-- as possibility. 00:04:43.210 --> 00:04:46.900 align:middle line:84% And even when you're making statements of definition, 00:04:46.900 --> 00:04:49.150 align:middle line:84% like your heart is, or the heart is-- 00:04:49.150 --> 00:04:51.128 align:middle line:84% it was like throwing out the possibilities. 00:04:51.128 --> 00:04:52.045 align:middle line:90% That's right, exactly. 00:04:52.045 --> 00:04:55.210 align:middle line:84% In a way, though, I think I like hearing it without the numbers. 00:04:55.210 --> 00:04:59.800 align:middle line:84% Because there is myriad ways in which 00:04:59.800 --> 00:05:01.370 align:middle line:90% I can connect parts of it. 00:05:01.370 --> 00:05:04.250 align:middle line:84% And I just wondered, do you have the sense-- 00:05:04.250 --> 00:05:07.990 align:middle line:84% I like that sense of it not being able to be pinned down. 00:05:07.990 --> 00:05:10.600 align:middle line:84% Well, that's my whole thing about the world 00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:13.480 align:middle line:84% is that we live in a state of bewilderment. 00:05:13.480 --> 00:05:16.540 align:middle line:84% And that the most dangerous thing 00:05:16.540 --> 00:05:18.470 align:middle line:90% is to be sure of anything-- 00:05:18.470 --> 00:05:22.210 align:middle line:84% that you've got to allow yourself that state of-- oh, 00:05:22.210 --> 00:05:24.520 align:middle line:84% where one minute you're absolutely sure that this 00:05:24.520 --> 00:05:28.300 align:middle line:84% is the answer, the next it's the complete contradiction of that. 00:05:28.300 --> 00:05:32.290 align:middle line:84% And if you could live in that state, you're in good shape, 00:05:32.290 --> 00:05:35.590 align:middle line:90% but it's hard. 00:05:35.590 --> 00:05:37.210 align:middle line:84% But so, you're absolutely right, it 00:05:37.210 --> 00:05:40.060 align:middle line:84% is just throwing out possibilities, 00:05:40.060 --> 00:05:42.880 align:middle line:90% and often contradicted. 00:05:42.880 --> 00:05:45.740 align:middle line:90% One contradicts the other. 00:05:45.740 --> 00:05:47.442 align:middle line:90% So that is definitely. 00:05:47.442 --> 00:05:50.160 align:middle line:90% 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:53.190 align:middle line:84% I want to ask you about the sense of balance 00:05:53.190 --> 00:05:56.050 align:middle line:84% that you strive for as you work on your poetry. 00:05:56.050 --> 00:05:59.260 align:middle line:84% Because it seems to me, being so balanced 00:05:59.260 --> 00:06:04.780 align:middle line:84% between the rendering of emotion and the sense of visuals-- 00:06:04.780 --> 00:06:08.020 align:middle line:84% strong visual sense and also sense of emotion. 00:06:08.020 --> 00:06:11.760 align:middle line:84% And you used the image of a sphere earlier. 00:06:11.760 --> 00:06:16.360 align:middle line:84% And I hear that a lot in your work, and I don't know if you-- 00:06:16.360 --> 00:06:19.650 align:middle line:84% sounds like you revise a lot, but some people don't revise. 00:06:19.650 --> 00:06:21.650 align:middle line:84% So I'd love to know if you revise, and if so, 00:06:21.650 --> 00:06:26.530 align:middle line:84% if you revise for that kind of sense of balance and tension? 00:06:26.530 --> 00:06:28.180 align:middle line:90% I do rev-- 00:06:28.180 --> 00:06:30.490 align:middle line:90% I revise a lot, but I can't-- 00:06:30.490 --> 00:06:31.960 align:middle line:90% I write all the time. 00:06:31.960 --> 00:06:33.370 align:middle line:90% I don't know-- 00:06:33.370 --> 00:06:36.760 align:middle line:84% I don't write thinking that I'm making something. 00:06:36.760 --> 00:06:41.110 align:middle line:84% I have an anti-iconic sense of about writing, 00:06:41.110 --> 00:06:44.860 align:middle line:84% and that it's quite fleeting, and not important, 00:06:44.860 --> 00:06:47.490 align:middle line:84% so throw it over your shoulder and move on to the next one. 00:06:47.490 --> 00:06:50.950 align:middle line:84% But I do-- I want to get each one right. 00:06:50.950 --> 00:06:56.710 align:middle line:84% And then it's almost as if it's just a period of time that 00:06:56.710 --> 00:07:02.020 align:middle line:84% creates the form, so it's like an arc of exhaustion 00:07:02.020 --> 00:07:05.962 align:middle line:84% with a certain idea, and then I just can't take it any further. 00:07:05.962 --> 00:07:07.420 align:middle line:84% And that's really what determines-- 00:07:07.420 --> 00:07:13.140 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:13.140 --> 00:07:14.850 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:07:14.850 --> 00:07:19.870 align:middle line:84% There's a few points where there is really funny images. 00:07:19.870 --> 00:07:27.400 align:middle line:84% I'm referring to specifically the line, [INAUDIBLE] so many 00:07:27.400 --> 00:07:30.980 align:middle line:90% animal that [INAUDIBLE] them. 00:07:30.980 --> 00:07:31.480 align:middle line:90% Right 00:07:31.480 --> 00:07:33.610 align:middle line:84% It's very beautiful, when you think-- 00:07:33.610 --> 00:07:38.610 align:middle line:84% but isn't, just in terms of craft, is there anything that-- 00:07:38.610 --> 00:07:46.690 align:middle line:84% because a lot of the language is an [INAUDIBLE] in a sense. 00:07:46.690 --> 00:07:49.130 align:middle line:84% Do you-- are you aware of prepping 00:07:49.130 --> 00:07:51.330 align:middle line:90% the reader [INAUDIBLE]. 00:07:51.330 --> 00:07:55.680 align:middle line:84% Is there any sort of craft techniques that you aware 00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:58.892 align:middle line:90% of, or is it just as it goes? 00:07:58.892 --> 00:07:59.858 align:middle line:90% Ahem. 00:07:59.858 --> 00:08:04.730 align:middle line:84% You mean, would I try to find a perfect-- 00:08:04.730 --> 00:08:09.390 align:middle line:90% that perfect set of words or-- 00:08:09.390 --> 00:08:13.730 align:middle line:84% No, it's not about the image itself, but that how those-- 00:08:13.730 --> 00:08:17.390 align:middle line:84% it's similar, to follow up some of the last questions about 00:08:17.390 --> 00:08:20.253 align:middle line:90% how when that-- 00:08:20.253 --> 00:08:21.920 align:middle line:84% because we were kind of moving through-- 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:25.650 align:middle line:90% 00:08:25.650 --> 00:08:28.160 align:middle line:90% kind of a shower of words. 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:28.750 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah. 00:08:28.750 --> 00:08:34.690 align:middle line:84% --come to some clearing where [INAUDIBLE] 00:08:34.690 --> 00:08:37.539 align:middle line:84% It's all just-- I swear it's just-- 00:08:37.539 --> 00:08:39.740 align:middle line:84% the poem-- I just do it all the time. 00:08:39.740 --> 00:08:44.350 align:middle line:84% So that poem came in one stream, and then I broke it down. 00:08:44.350 --> 00:08:46.030 align:middle line:90% And I had read a fairy-- 00:08:46.030 --> 00:08:49.720 align:middle line:84% a beautiful fairy tale in which the brother 00:08:49.720 --> 00:08:56.650 align:middle line:84% of the heroine of this story was eaten by animals because he 00:08:56.650 --> 00:08:59.096 align:middle line:90% had eaten so many animals. 00:08:59.096 --> 00:09:00.250 align:middle line:90% I guess what I mean is-- 00:09:00.250 --> 00:09:02.740 align:middle line:90% And that was pretty grim. 00:09:02.740 --> 00:09:05.810 align:middle line:84% The animals recognize-- were familiar with this body, 00:09:05.810 --> 00:09:08.890 align:middle line:90% and that was [INAUDIBLE] 00:09:08.890 --> 00:09:10.870 align:middle line:90% What was the story? 00:09:10.870 --> 00:09:13.240 align:middle line:84% It was actually a Native American tale. 00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:14.800 align:middle line:90% I have the little book at home. 00:09:14.800 --> 00:09:19.280 align:middle line:90% Just a beautiful obscure story. 00:09:19.280 --> 00:09:22.338 align:middle line:84% I can't remember the name But do you-- 00:09:22.338 --> 00:09:23.755 align:middle line:84% that doesn't answer your question. 00:09:23.755 --> 00:09:24.790 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:24.790 --> 00:09:27.310 align:middle line:84% It's more like how cautions are you in-- 00:09:27.310 --> 00:09:32.260 align:middle line:90% 00:09:32.260 --> 00:09:35.260 align:middle line:90% in the pacing, in a sense. 00:09:35.260 --> 00:09:39.380 align:middle line:84% Is it kind of-- would you then, in the process of revision, 00:09:39.380 --> 00:09:40.520 align:middle line:90% be very cautious about-- 00:09:40.520 --> 00:09:43.460 align:middle line:84% Yeah, no, my revisions go on forever. 00:09:43.460 --> 00:09:46.100 align:middle line:84% I mean, I do pick away and do balancing 00:09:46.100 --> 00:09:48.560 align:middle line:84% and absolutely moving things around 00:09:48.560 --> 00:09:51.380 align:middle line:84% to make sure things go in the right place. 00:09:51.380 --> 00:09:54.410 align:middle line:84% It's just the first draft is just an outburst, 00:09:54.410 --> 00:09:59.460 align:middle line:84% and I never know it will come out of that. 00:09:59.460 --> 00:10:00.210 align:middle line:90% One more question? 00:10:00.210 --> 00:10:03.150 align:middle line:90% 00:10:03.150 --> 00:10:06.630 align:middle line:84% I'd like to come back to the concept of being sure 00:10:06.630 --> 00:10:09.480 align:middle line:84% and after a while not being sure anymore. 00:10:09.480 --> 00:10:12.450 align:middle line:84% Is it the necessary condition for you to create? 00:10:12.450 --> 00:10:16.230 align:middle line:84% I mean, you're part of my [INAUDIBLE] outside 00:10:16.230 --> 00:10:17.520 align:middle line:90% of [INAUDIBLE] science. 00:10:17.520 --> 00:10:21.750 align:middle line:84% And as a scientist we like to control things, 00:10:21.750 --> 00:10:22.680 align:middle line:90% we like to be sure. 00:10:22.680 --> 00:10:25.540 align:middle line:90% 00:10:25.540 --> 00:10:27.750 align:middle line:84% And I'm astonished at the way a poet thinks 00:10:27.750 --> 00:10:30.180 align:middle line:84% and is it the condition for creation, 00:10:30.180 --> 00:10:36.540 align:middle line:84% this issue of not being sure and then produce things? 00:10:36.540 --> 00:10:38.880 align:middle line:84% I would think it's probably quite similar. 00:10:38.880 --> 00:10:42.960 align:middle line:84% I mean, each one I believe that moment, I totally have got all 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:45.070 align:middle line:90% the evidence and it's correct. 00:10:45.070 --> 00:10:47.070 align:middle line:84% And then-- but it's not quite the truth, 00:10:47.070 --> 00:10:50.550 align:middle line:84% so then I throw it away and move on to the next one. 00:10:50.550 --> 00:10:52.772 align:middle line:84% That's funny, because this is a way of thinking 00:10:52.772 --> 00:10:54.022 align:middle line:90% as a science makes me nervous. 00:10:54.022 --> 00:10:55.170 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:55.170 --> 00:10:55.837 align:middle line:90% Yeah 00:10:55.837 --> 00:10:56.670 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:10:56.670 --> 00:11:01.890 align:middle line:84% Because-- but it couldn't-- you couldn't be a good scientist 00:11:01.890 --> 00:11:03.870 align:middle line:90% if you're too sure all the time. 00:11:03.870 --> 00:11:04.495 align:middle line:90% Sure, sure. 00:11:04.495 --> 00:11:05.370 align:middle line:90% You know what I mean? 00:11:05.370 --> 00:11:06.230 align:middle line:90% You would have to-- 00:11:06.230 --> 00:11:09.070 align:middle line:90% What we are striving to. 00:11:09.070 --> 00:11:19.390 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] in a way [INAUDIBLE] Anyways, [INAUDIBLE] 00:11:19.390 --> 00:11:23.530 align:middle line:90% No, I see what you're saying. 00:11:23.530 --> 00:11:25.030 align:middle line:90% Thank you all very much. 00:11:25.030 --> 00:11:28.380 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:11:28.380 --> 00:11:31.000 align:middle line:90%