WEBVTT

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Here's a poem-- a
strange poem called

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"Les Neiges d'Antan" which
means "The Snows d'Antan."

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Actually, Villon wrote it.

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I mean, he didn't
write this poem,

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but he wrote a poem
about les neiges d'Antan.

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You know that poem?

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It was translated
by Ruskin, Swinburne

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or some other Victorian who--

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someone will come after
the readings, oh, that

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was translated by--

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where are the snows
of yesteryear?

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There's no word,
yesteryear, in English.

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Except yesteryear.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And it's a beautiful poem.

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Villon is a great
poet, the greatest,

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one of the greatest
of the [? American ?] poets.

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And he wrote what he called
his testaments, about his life.

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The poems were
very, very personal,

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and they use-- like all
great breakthrough artists,

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they use the popular idiom.

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The people said, well,
you don't use language

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like that in poetry.

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As soon as you hear
that being said,

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you know you're
into something good.

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So it's about a woman named
Ruth, who was a girlfriend when

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I was 20 or 22.

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And one day I was
living in Indiana, PA,

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and I read in the
paper that this woman--

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in the Indiana whatever
it's called, Gazette--

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that this woman Ruth was hit
on the head with a tire iron

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by her husband,
because she was coming

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from a-- in the middle of
the night from a love affair.

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And he discovered her, and
he wasn't very generous.

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So and I used--

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I imitate some of the
language from Villon.

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"Where art thou now, thou Ruth?

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Whose husband in the
snow creased thy head

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with a tire iron, thou who wore
ridiculous hats when they were

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the rage, and loved
exotic cultures

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and dances such as the Haitian
Fling and the Portuguese

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Locomotive.

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My wife hated because
of her snooty attitude,

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or that her hair was swept
up and her nose was aquiline,

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and her two boys raised
hell with our green apples

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the Sunday they came to visit.

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She in whose Mercury we parked
for over a year, every night

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in front of her
mother's house, in one

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of the slightly genteel
streets that led into the park.

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The other side downhill,
really, from the merry-go-round.

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Or where is Nancy?

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Or who is the Nancy
Ezra Pound located

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in between his racial
diatribes and dry lyrics?

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Three times at
least in the cantos.

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But tell me where
that snow is now.

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And tell me-- as in where is
Tangerine and where is Flora--

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how old Ruth is?

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And where does she live?

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Does she still dance
the Locomotive,

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and does she bundle?"

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I haven't been
able to find Ruth.

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The song in French goes "Dictes moy où, n'en quel pays, 
est Flora, la belle Romaine... Someone tell me where 

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is Flora, the beautiful Roman," so--

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