WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.510 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.510 --> 00:00:03.160 align:middle line:84%
And I think that's
enough of those, though.

00:00:03.160 --> 00:00:06.190 align:middle line:84%
You'd-- No, that's
got too much Latin.

00:00:06.190 --> 00:00:07.590 align:middle line:84%
This is-- I rather
like this poem

00:00:07.590 --> 00:00:10.350 align:middle line:84%
because I stole it
absolutely completely

00:00:10.350 --> 00:00:14.880 align:middle line:84%
from Kenner's pages 451 and
two of Kenner's book "The Pound

00:00:14.880 --> 00:00:15.990 align:middle line:90%
Era."

00:00:15.990 --> 00:00:19.470 align:middle line:84%
And every word in my poem
is from Kenner, either,

00:00:19.470 --> 00:00:22.020 align:middle line:84%
whether it's in
Latin or in English.

00:00:22.020 --> 00:00:25.200 align:middle line:84%
So that gives you an
idea of the trouble--

00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:28.020 align:middle line:84%
Oh, here's one I'd like to
read for sentimental reasons.

00:00:28.020 --> 00:00:30.480 align:middle line:84%
I lost a very dear
friend last year.

00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:33.000 align:middle line:84%
Tennessee Williams, who
was a wonderful friend

00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:36.660 align:middle line:84%
over the years, always a
delightful, sweet, kind,

00:00:36.660 --> 00:00:38.070 align:middle line:90%
marvelous person to be with.

00:00:38.070 --> 00:00:39.690 align:middle line:90%
And his law struck me.

00:00:39.690 --> 00:00:46.350 align:middle line:84%
And I wrote bits of
sentimental verse, but so what.

00:00:46.350 --> 00:00:50.490 align:middle line:84%
Tennessee called death,
the sudden subway.

00:00:50.490 --> 00:00:53.310 align:middle line:90%
And now he has taken that train.

00:00:53.310 --> 00:00:56.620 align:middle line:84%
But there are so many
good things to remember.

00:00:56.620 --> 00:00:59.130 align:middle line:84%
First, the young
man in sloppy pants

00:00:59.130 --> 00:01:02.550 align:middle line:84%
and a torn gray sweater, whom
I met at Lincoln Kirstein

00:01:02.550 --> 00:01:04.170 align:middle line:90%
cocktail party.

00:01:04.170 --> 00:01:07.950 align:middle line:84%
He was very shy and had
hidden himself in a side room.

00:01:07.950 --> 00:01:10.680 align:middle line:84%
I too was shy, but
we got talking.

00:01:10.680 --> 00:01:14.250 align:middle line:84%
He told me that he wrote plays
and that he loved Hart Crane.

00:01:14.250 --> 00:01:16.950 align:middle line:84%
He carried the poems of
Crane in his knapsack,

00:01:16.950 --> 00:01:19.170 align:middle line:90%
wherever he hitchhiked.

00:01:19.170 --> 00:01:22.080 align:middle line:84%
Then his first night
of glory in Chicago,

00:01:22.080 --> 00:01:25.980 align:middle line:84%
when he and Laurette Taylor
made a new American theater.

00:01:25.980 --> 00:01:29.250 align:middle line:84%
I remember happy days with him
in London, and Italy, and Key

00:01:29.250 --> 00:01:32.040 align:middle line:84%
West, and how often
friends and writers who

00:01:32.040 --> 00:01:35.040 align:middle line:84%
were down on their luck
told me how generously

00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:36.360 align:middle line:90%
he had helped them.

00:01:36.360 --> 00:01:38.790 align:middle line:84%
But you would never
hear that from him.

00:01:38.790 --> 00:01:42.780 align:middle line:84%
So many fine things to
remember that I can live again

00:01:42.780 --> 00:01:47.400 align:middle line:84%
in my mind until it
is my turn to join him

00:01:47.400 --> 00:01:49.500 align:middle line:90%
on the sudden subway.

00:01:49.500 --> 00:01:50.000 align:middle line:90%