WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.150 align:middle line:90%


00:00:03.150 --> 00:00:04.350 align:middle line:90%
Yes.

00:00:04.350 --> 00:00:06.720 align:middle line:84%
Place is obviously
important to your writing.

00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:08.850 align:middle line:84%
I was wondering where
you considered home,

00:00:08.850 --> 00:00:11.240 align:middle line:84%
and where do you
like to go to write?

00:00:11.240 --> 00:00:11.740 align:middle line:90%
Oh.

00:00:11.740 --> 00:00:14.188 align:middle line:90%


00:00:14.188 --> 00:00:16.230 align:middle line:84%
OK, that's going to have
to be the last question.

00:00:16.230 --> 00:00:22.700 align:middle line:90%


00:00:22.700 --> 00:00:25.994 align:middle line:90%
Who are we, you know?

00:00:25.994 --> 00:00:30.408 align:middle line:90%
I mean, where is our home?

00:00:30.408 --> 00:00:32.369 align:middle line:84%
For centuries, people
assumed that we

00:00:32.369 --> 00:00:34.380 align:middle line:90%
didn't belong on Earth at all.

00:00:34.380 --> 00:00:37.080 align:middle line:84%
Our home was elsewhere,
we were souls

00:00:37.080 --> 00:00:40.010 align:middle line:90%
who were temporarily incarnate.

00:00:40.010 --> 00:00:45.020 align:middle line:84%
And the trick was to
make your way back home.

00:00:45.020 --> 00:00:48.190 align:middle line:84%
There's no doubt, if you
were Augustine, for instance.

00:00:48.190 --> 00:00:48.815 align:middle line:90%
Fourth century.

00:00:48.815 --> 00:00:50.462 align:middle line:84%
He could see Rome
burning, but he

00:00:50.462 --> 00:00:51.920 align:middle line:84%
knew that that was
not his home, it

00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:54.620 align:middle line:84%
was North Africa is
home-- his home is.

00:00:54.620 --> 00:00:55.970 align:middle line:90%
At the source.

00:00:55.970 --> 00:00:59.330 align:middle line:90%
And I don't have that belief.

00:00:59.330 --> 00:01:04.140 align:middle line:84%
So home has to be, in some
sense, terrestrial for me.

00:01:04.140 --> 00:01:08.000 align:middle line:84%
I'm deeply, deeply
stained, the way

00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:11.300 align:middle line:84%
a flower would be stained
by the particular soil,

00:01:11.300 --> 00:01:13.940 align:middle line:90%
by having grown up in Africa.

00:01:13.940 --> 00:01:20.117 align:middle line:84%
South Africa, I think,
is my home as an animal.

00:01:20.117 --> 00:01:21.200 align:middle line:90%
But as I said, who are we?

00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:27.500 align:middle line:90%


00:01:27.500 --> 00:01:28.460 align:middle line:90%
I can do that any time.

00:01:28.460 --> 00:01:38.630 align:middle line:90%


00:01:38.630 --> 00:01:39.950 align:middle line:90%
That's just one of them, too.

00:01:39.950 --> 00:01:42.932 align:middle line:90%


00:01:42.932 --> 00:01:46.400 align:middle line:84%
We were doing this
reading [INAUDIBLE]..

00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:49.530 align:middle line:84%
You know, the thing is, I mean,
I'll come back to the question,

00:01:49.530 --> 00:01:53.310 align:middle line:84%
but if you think of where
poetry was performed,

00:01:53.310 --> 00:01:58.650 align:middle line:84%
where it was heard, so
much else is being heard.

00:01:58.650 --> 00:02:01.680 align:middle line:84%
Poetry is an oral form
delivered in Africa.

00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:03.930 align:middle line:84%
Words included the
sounds of the night.

00:02:03.930 --> 00:02:06.390 align:middle line:84%
Words included the
sounds of the fire.

00:02:06.390 --> 00:02:09.990 align:middle line:84%
You would have heard
the lions, as you do.

00:02:09.990 --> 00:02:11.490 align:middle line:84%
You would have heard
the hyenas, you

00:02:11.490 --> 00:02:13.170 align:middle line:84%
would have heard
the night birds.

00:02:13.170 --> 00:02:16.900 align:middle line:84%
And those are folded into
the fabric of the poem,

00:02:16.900 --> 00:02:21.720 align:middle line:84%
so that the myth of Orpheus is
not totally out of the head.

00:02:21.720 --> 00:02:26.130 align:middle line:84%
It's very much out of sense of
what a home might be for humans

00:02:26.130 --> 00:02:27.910 align:middle line:90%
and most other creatures.

00:02:27.910 --> 00:02:30.720 align:middle line:84%
So that's, by way of
free associating off

00:02:30.720 --> 00:02:33.540 align:middle line:84%
of that first level of,
where's my home as an animal?

00:02:33.540 --> 00:02:35.400 align:middle line:90%
It is in Africa.

00:02:35.400 --> 00:02:37.830 align:middle line:84%
It is also in those
parts of the world which,

00:02:37.830 --> 00:02:43.710 align:middle line:84%
for me, allow my creaturehood
to exert itself most fully.

00:02:43.710 --> 00:02:47.550 align:middle line:84%
And those tend to be places,
if I'm in the United States,

00:02:47.550 --> 00:02:49.620 align:middle line:90%
like Arizona.

00:02:49.620 --> 00:02:50.880 align:middle line:90%
It stands to reason.

00:02:50.880 --> 00:02:54.042 align:middle line:84%
Where am I not cooped
in, bound as much?

00:02:54.042 --> 00:02:55.500 align:middle line:84%
Where is there a
sense of openness?

00:02:55.500 --> 00:02:56.550 align:middle line:90%
Where is the sky large?

00:02:56.550 --> 00:02:58.660 align:middle line:84%
Where all their
large land masses,

00:02:58.660 --> 00:03:01.800 align:middle line:84%
both horizontally
and vertically?

00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:04.170 align:middle line:84%
Where are all the
extremes which will not

00:03:04.170 --> 00:03:10.020 align:middle line:84%
allow life as we expect to
have it given to us to survive?

00:03:10.020 --> 00:03:13.530 align:middle line:84%
Now that's a crucial
sense of where my home is.

00:03:13.530 --> 00:03:17.190 align:middle line:84%
My home is not in a comfortable,
prefabricated place.

00:03:17.190 --> 00:03:18.645 align:middle line:90%
I'm not at home there.

00:03:18.645 --> 00:03:20.655 align:middle line:84%
I'm only at home
in a place where

00:03:20.655 --> 00:03:24.220 align:middle line:90%
my survival is put in question.

00:03:24.220 --> 00:03:28.410 align:middle line:84%
So that's another
layer of an answer.

00:03:28.410 --> 00:03:29.730 align:middle line:90%
I adore the ocean.

00:03:29.730 --> 00:03:33.240 align:middle line:84%
I'm probably more
amphibious than--

00:03:33.240 --> 00:03:34.828 align:middle line:90%
what do we call bipeds?

00:03:34.828 --> 00:03:35.370 align:middle line:90%
I don't know.

00:03:35.370 --> 00:03:40.180 align:middle line:84%
But I'm more of a sea creature
than a human creature.

00:03:40.180 --> 00:03:48.900 align:middle line:84%
And so my home comes
back to me on shorelines.

00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:52.125 align:middle line:90%
Where am I at home?

00:03:52.125 --> 00:03:55.260 align:middle line:84%
I can keep asking the question
in different registers.

00:03:55.260 --> 00:03:56.550 align:middle line:90%
Where am I home religiously?

00:03:56.550 --> 00:03:57.930 align:middle line:90%
Nowhere.

00:03:57.930 --> 00:03:59.640 align:middle line:90%
Nor should I be.

00:03:59.640 --> 00:04:02.130 align:middle line:90%
Where am I home politically?

00:04:02.130 --> 00:04:03.300 align:middle line:90%
Nowhere now.

00:04:03.300 --> 00:04:12.010 align:middle line:90%


00:04:12.010 --> 00:04:15.820 align:middle line:84%
It's surely a question that
drives people to the page.

00:04:15.820 --> 00:04:17.200 align:middle line:90%
Poetry is not a home.

00:04:17.200 --> 00:04:18.519 align:middle line:90%
Emerson made that very clear.

00:04:18.519 --> 00:04:20.620 align:middle line:90%
He said it was a vehicle.

00:04:20.620 --> 00:04:21.240 align:middle line:90%
It's a bridge.

00:04:21.240 --> 00:04:23.350 align:middle line:90%
You can't live on the bridge.

00:04:23.350 --> 00:04:29.680 align:middle line:84%
So it's a way of moving towards
the construction in the soul

00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:32.470 align:middle line:90%
of what home might be.

00:04:32.470 --> 00:04:35.695 align:middle line:84%
Otherwise, we can't really keep
concepts like justice alive.

00:04:35.695 --> 00:04:41.280 align:middle line:90%


00:04:41.280 --> 00:04:43.095 align:middle line:84%
Was that the beginning
of an answer?

00:04:43.095 --> 00:04:49.950 align:middle line:90%


00:04:49.950 --> 00:04:52.140 align:middle line:90%
OK, well I really do thank you.

00:04:52.140 --> 00:04:53.990 align:middle line:90%
Very much.

00:04:53.990 --> 00:04:56.000 align:middle line:90%