WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.370 align:middle line:90%


00:00:03.370 --> 00:00:04.630 align:middle line:90%
Well, thank you so much.

00:00:04.630 --> 00:00:06.190 align:middle line:84%
I can only echo
to what Jay said,

00:00:06.190 --> 00:00:09.548 align:middle line:84%
you guys know how to do
introductions around here.

00:00:09.548 --> 00:00:11.590 align:middle line:84%
I should just go home,
and you should just listen

00:00:11.590 --> 00:00:14.260 align:middle line:90%
to a lot of introductions.

00:00:14.260 --> 00:00:15.440 align:middle line:90%
Thank you so much.

00:00:15.440 --> 00:00:18.520 align:middle line:84%
Thanks to all of you who've had
a hand in making this happen.

00:00:18.520 --> 00:00:21.580 align:middle line:90%
Diana and Paola, Tyler, Julie.

00:00:21.580 --> 00:00:25.960 align:middle line:84%
Thank you, everybody,
for all the warm welcome

00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:30.250 align:middle line:84%
that I've had here, and
that Jay's had remotely.

00:00:30.250 --> 00:00:31.840 align:middle line:84%
This has not been
said explicitly

00:00:31.840 --> 00:00:33.550 align:middle line:84%
but maybe I should
say it right now.

00:00:33.550 --> 00:00:35.020 align:middle line:90%
Jay's my husband.

00:00:35.020 --> 00:00:41.320 align:middle line:84%
And so one of the interesting
features of this moment

00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:44.470 align:middle line:84%
is that he and I both have books
coming out at the same time,

00:00:44.470 --> 00:00:48.100 align:middle line:84%
and they are both responding
I guess to the same set

00:00:48.100 --> 00:00:52.420 align:middle line:90%
of biographical circumstances.

00:00:52.420 --> 00:00:56.230 align:middle line:84%
But I thought that it
might be, I don't know,

00:00:56.230 --> 00:00:59.620 align:middle line:84%
a useful thing to do to
step into a different mode

00:00:59.620 --> 00:01:00.880 align:middle line:90%
for a few minutes.

00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:04.989 align:middle line:84%
So because I'm in Tucson, and
you people know your deserts

00:01:04.989 --> 00:01:07.092 align:middle line:90%
as I from Utah know my deserts.

00:01:07.092 --> 00:01:08.800 align:middle line:84%
So I'm going to start
off with the desert

00:01:08.800 --> 00:01:12.510 align:middle line:90%
poem called Three Bouquets.

00:01:12.510 --> 00:01:14.160 align:middle line:90%
One.

00:01:14.160 --> 00:01:18.570 align:middle line:84%
What awful love worked
this superfluity?

00:01:18.570 --> 00:01:23.640 align:middle line:84%
My US Geological Survey map
grids the haphazard landscape

00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:26.130 align:middle line:90%
into restrained geometries.

00:01:26.130 --> 00:01:31.410 align:middle line:84%
Bulges and sandstone hoodoos
smoothed by the benign cursive

00:01:31.410 --> 00:01:33.860 align:middle line:90%
of contour lines.

00:01:33.860 --> 00:01:37.790 align:middle line:84%
But look at the chart's
least cluttered corner.

00:01:37.790 --> 00:01:41.300 align:middle line:84%
The cartographer
abandoned his strict piety

00:01:41.300 --> 00:01:44.180 align:middle line:90%
to boutonniere the desert.

00:01:44.180 --> 00:01:45.620 align:middle line:90%
A compass rose.

00:01:45.620 --> 00:01:49.850 align:middle line:84%
Its free hand arabesques
transgressed the quadrants,

00:01:49.850 --> 00:01:53.690 align:middle line:84%
A Baroque whimsy of
the official pen.

00:01:53.690 --> 00:01:58.370 align:middle line:84%
I imagine him gripping silent
his staves and theater light.

00:01:58.370 --> 00:02:03.260 align:middle line:84%
Stumped by some unmatchable
beauty, it bucking his measure,

00:02:03.260 --> 00:02:05.840 align:middle line:90%
efflorescence in him.

00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:11.240 align:middle line:84%
Heart struck, he tricks
out the plateau in posies.

00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:13.040 align:middle line:90%
Two.

00:02:13.040 --> 00:02:14.540 align:middle line:90%
Fond romantic.

00:02:14.540 --> 00:02:18.800 align:middle line:84%
I've followed the map farther
than asphalt. Taken myself

00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:23.630 align:middle line:84%
up to the bare coordinates
where the compass rose blooms.

00:02:23.630 --> 00:02:26.660 align:middle line:84%
I'm quick to see the
cartographer's flourish

00:02:26.660 --> 00:02:28.340 align:middle line:90%
as a Valentine.

00:02:28.340 --> 00:02:32.120 align:middle line:84%
Quicker to want what
beauty forced its mark here

00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:34.980 align:middle line:90%
to lose my bearings by it.

00:02:34.980 --> 00:02:39.140 align:middle line:84%
Let my North be this rosy
seduction of sandstone

00:02:39.140 --> 00:02:40.670 align:middle line:90%
flashed with quartz.

00:02:40.670 --> 00:02:46.160 align:middle line:84%
My East, that far high mountain
shining like all the kingdoms

00:02:46.160 --> 00:02:48.650 align:middle line:90%
of the world.

00:02:48.650 --> 00:02:50.230 align:middle line:90%
Three.

00:02:50.230 --> 00:02:54.010 align:middle line:84%
My dear cartographer,
how misplaced

00:02:54.010 --> 00:02:56.530 align:middle line:90%
our faith in the compass rose?

00:02:56.530 --> 00:02:59.950 align:middle line:84%
As if its love not
could fix beauty.

00:02:59.950 --> 00:03:04.590 align:middle line:84%
As if it marked anything
but the heart's excesses.

00:03:04.590 --> 00:03:08.070 align:middle line:84%
My own heart surges
to pitch its rococo

00:03:08.070 --> 00:03:11.040 align:middle line:90%
against the map's hard facts.

00:03:11.040 --> 00:03:15.080 align:middle line:84%
It is willing to break
itself to flower.

00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:18.000 align:middle line:90%