WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.780 align:middle line:84% Well, think I'll read later one more poem from this book. 00:00:06.780 --> 00:00:11.190 align:middle line:84% And I want to devote the rest of my two hour reading. 00:00:11.190 --> 00:00:16.440 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:16.440 --> 00:00:21.660 align:middle line:84% Now, if I called these American songs or little songs-- which 00:00:21.660 --> 00:00:23.910 align:middle line:84% is one of the meanings of sonnets-- nobody 00:00:23.910 --> 00:00:26.070 align:middle line:90% would've given me any trouble. 00:00:26.070 --> 00:00:28.770 align:middle line:84% That I called them American sonnets, 00:00:28.770 --> 00:00:31.710 align:middle line:84% because I felt they were indeed sonnets, 00:00:31.710 --> 00:00:34.590 align:middle line:84% albeit sonnets of a different order 00:00:34.590 --> 00:00:37.335 align:middle line:84% than you might be used to, from the eighth grade. 00:00:37.335 --> 00:00:41.820 align:middle line:90% 00:00:41.820 --> 00:00:45.940 align:middle line:84% Many of the academics gave me trouble, that's not a sonnet, 00:00:45.940 --> 00:00:48.510 align:middle line:84% it doesn't have 14 lines, doesn't 00:00:48.510 --> 00:00:53.220 align:middle line:84% have either the Petrarchan or the Shakespearean organization 00:00:53.220 --> 00:00:57.090 align:middle line:90% of rhymes et cetera. 00:00:57.090 --> 00:01:01.260 align:middle line:84% It doesn't rhyme, but it does have 00:01:01.260 --> 00:01:05.820 align:middle line:84% what's called a volta, switch, change, turn, in the Midlands, 00:01:05.820 --> 00:01:08.670 align:middle line:84% though sometimes there's no turn apparent. 00:01:08.670 --> 00:01:12.120 align:middle line:84% At any rate, there are 20 lines or 18 lines 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:14.160 align:middle line:84% and, I'm going to change the next book, 00:01:14.160 --> 00:01:15.698 align:middle line:84% I'm going to call it American Song. 00:01:15.698 --> 00:01:17.490 align:middle line:84% Except, I got a lot of attention because it 00:01:17.490 --> 00:01:19.440 align:middle line:84% was called American Sonnets, because people 00:01:19.440 --> 00:01:20.898 align:middle line:90% wanted to attack it. 00:01:20.898 --> 00:01:24.390 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:24.390 --> 00:01:30.810 align:middle line:84% And, the sonnet tends to be very personal, and it tends to be-- 00:01:30.810 --> 00:01:32.670 align:middle line:84% generally speaking, Shakespeare's sonnets 00:01:32.670 --> 00:01:37.470 align:middle line:90% are an example, and or Petrarch. 00:01:37.470 --> 00:01:39.810 align:middle line:84% I mean, by the way, Shakespeare violated 00:01:39.810 --> 00:01:42.510 align:middle line:84% all the rules of the sonnet when he wrote a sonnet, 00:01:42.510 --> 00:01:44.250 align:middle line:84% having Petrarch turning in his grave. 00:01:44.250 --> 00:01:51.660 align:middle line:90% 00:01:51.660 --> 00:01:54.120 align:middle line:84% And--but this, sonnets as I say, tend to be personal, 00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:57.570 align:middle line:84% even solipsistic, that is they are about things that other 00:01:57.570 --> 00:01:59.820 align:middle line:90% people might not understand. 00:01:59.820 --> 00:02:06.960 align:middle line:84% Mine are autobiographical, they all tend to be about early days 00:02:06.960 --> 00:02:09.300 align:middle line:84% in my life, which happened to occur in Pittsburgh, 00:02:09.300 --> 00:02:13.500 align:middle line:84% and for some reason, I saw when I 00:02:13.500 --> 00:02:15.870 align:middle line:84% finished these sonnets, that they all 00:02:15.870 --> 00:02:17.730 align:middle line:90% took place in the winter. 00:02:17.730 --> 00:02:20.430 align:middle line:84% There are no spring songs, they're all about the snow, 00:02:20.430 --> 00:02:21.630 align:middle line:90% I don't know why. 00:02:21.630 --> 00:02:26.130 align:middle line:84% That's not a deliberate, 'Mr. Stern chose to write sonnets 00:02:26.130 --> 00:02:30.660 align:middle line:84% about snow', when you read that in some critical appraisal 00:02:30.660 --> 00:02:32.330 align:middle line:90% of me or anybody, you know what? 00:02:32.330 --> 00:02:32.830 align:middle line:90% Stupid. 00:02:32.830 --> 00:02:35.500 align:middle line:90% 00:02:35.500 --> 00:02:37.740 align:middle line:84% But these sonnets I want to read, 00:02:37.740 --> 00:02:40.950 align:middle line:84% I want to dedicate this reading to my little granddaughter, 00:02:40.950 --> 00:02:43.410 align:middle line:90% Rebecca. 00:02:43.410 --> 00:02:47.280 align:middle line:84% One of the sonnets in this book I wrote for her, 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:49.575 align:middle line:84% and when she was about four months old at the time. 00:02:49.575 --> 00:02:50.242 align:middle line:90% Where's Rebecca? 00:02:50.242 --> 00:02:51.660 align:middle line:90% She went outside. 00:02:51.660 --> 00:02:53.220 align:middle line:90% Well, she can't hear me. 00:02:53.220 --> 00:02:56.340 align:middle line:84% And my apologies to Jane Miller who was here, 00:02:56.340 --> 00:02:59.100 align:middle line:84% and who might be embarrassed but her-- 00:02:59.100 --> 00:03:02.895 align:middle line:84% her name is in this poem because, my poems are always 00:03:02.895 --> 00:03:06.420 align:middle line:84% deal with the truth, and this actually happened. 00:03:06.420 --> 00:03:09.600 align:middle line:90% So here we go. 00:03:09.600 --> 00:03:11.040 align:middle line:84% "It was Jane Miller who called--", 00:03:11.040 --> 00:03:14.190 align:middle line:90% I was lying on the floor. 00:03:14.190 --> 00:03:17.490 align:middle line:84% Before that, Jane was lying on the floor. 00:03:17.490 --> 00:03:20.820 align:middle line:84% "It was Jane Miller who called my lips beautiful, 00:03:20.820 --> 00:03:23.100 align:middle line:84% but that was the only because she was comparing me 00:03:23.100 --> 00:03:27.000 align:middle line:84% to my darling Rebecca who has a mouth like a red peach, 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:32.370 align:middle line:84% a red finch, a salmon, who laid beside me amused and puzzled, 00:03:32.370 --> 00:03:34.890 align:middle line:84% with her small head drawn back, taking 00:03:34.890 --> 00:03:39.300 align:middle line:84% part of the world in the way her great-great-grandfather did 00:03:39.300 --> 00:03:42.690 align:middle line:84% in Poland, and her great-great-grandmother 00:03:42.690 --> 00:03:44.610 align:middle line:90% in Pennsylvania. 00:03:44.610 --> 00:03:48.300 align:middle line:84% As they stood there, charily waiting for her birth oh, 00:03:48.300 --> 00:03:50.490 align:middle line:84% a century ago, though one of them 00:03:50.490 --> 00:03:52.800 align:middle line:84% looking into a steaming marsh, one 00:03:52.800 --> 00:03:56.100 align:middle line:84% of them walking through a frozen valley, for all I 00:03:56.100 --> 00:03:58.705 align:middle line:90% know their lips beautiful too. 00:03:58.705 --> 00:04:00.330 align:middle line:84% And I can't wait till she is old enough 00:04:00.330 --> 00:04:03.540 align:middle line:84% to root through some pictures she will find in her mother's 00:04:03.540 --> 00:04:07.020 align:middle line:84% house, or Anne Marie's house, and spread them out 00:04:07.020 --> 00:04:07.800 align:middle line:90% on the floor. 00:04:07.800 --> 00:04:11.310 align:middle line:84% Something from Prague of course, or something from the wedding, 00:04:11.310 --> 00:04:15.090 align:middle line:84% me with a broken shoulder and a black tuxedo, 00:04:15.090 --> 00:04:18.089 align:middle line:90% ridiculous naturally in her day. 00:04:18.089 --> 00:04:23.100 align:middle line:84% But maybe touching, that she could sit down and stare at, 00:04:23.100 --> 00:04:28.590 align:middle line:84% or hold against her cheek, her first trip East." 00:04:28.590 --> 00:04:30.560 align:middle line:90% It's called "Rebecca".