WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.880 align:middle line:90% 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:12.390 align:middle line:84% As you write about 70 sonnets in a row, 00:00:12.390 --> 00:00:14.410 align:middle line:84% the instructions that you have to give yourself 00:00:14.410 --> 00:00:18.610 align:middle line:84% are pretty clear about what not to do anymore. 00:00:18.610 --> 00:00:20.970 align:middle line:90% It's very hard, though. 00:00:20.970 --> 00:00:23.220 align:middle line:84% The great thing about fixed form, 00:00:23.220 --> 00:00:26.340 align:middle line:84% in particular, a form that has such a glorious history, even 00:00:26.340 --> 00:00:29.550 align:middle line:84% if you take liberties with it, is that it 00:00:29.550 --> 00:00:31.380 align:middle line:90% becomes a mode of seeing. 00:00:31.380 --> 00:00:33.450 align:middle line:90% That's the way in which-- 00:00:33.450 --> 00:00:36.780 align:middle line:84% that sort of use of paradox in a single turn in the middle 00:00:36.780 --> 00:00:39.960 align:middle line:84% and all that happening in a highly-compressed way in 14 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:44.160 align:middle line:84% lines, becomes a way of sort of moving through the world. 00:00:44.160 --> 00:00:50.860 align:middle line:84% So make yourself turn that off, so you don't do that anymore. 00:00:50.860 --> 00:00:52.290 align:middle line:90% I found really hard. 00:00:52.290 --> 00:00:54.240 align:middle line:84% And I found it useful to give myself 00:00:54.240 --> 00:01:00.060 align:middle line:84% other sort of formal exercises to replace those 00:01:00.060 --> 00:01:01.240 align:middle line:90% so that I couldn't do it. 00:01:01.240 --> 00:01:03.180 align:middle line:90% I couldn't make the turn. 00:01:03.180 --> 00:01:05.940 align:middle line:84% And particularly, in terms of the line length, 00:01:05.940 --> 00:01:09.660 align:middle line:84% to try to write a poem that had either a much longer line 00:01:09.660 --> 00:01:12.390 align:middle line:90% or a much shorter line. 00:01:12.390 --> 00:01:17.550 align:middle line:84% And also to move away from the notion of idiomatic speech, 00:01:17.550 --> 00:01:20.340 align:middle line:84% where I felt it was my obligation in that book 00:01:20.340 --> 00:01:22.830 align:middle line:84% to try to see if I could persuade you 00:01:22.830 --> 00:01:24.570 align:middle line:84% that these could be actual people 00:01:24.570 --> 00:01:28.320 align:middle line:84% and this is how they might speak. 00:01:28.320 --> 00:01:31.380 align:middle line:84% So I'll read you a couple of things 00:01:31.380 --> 00:01:34.920 align:middle line:84% that-- two different ways of going about that. 00:01:34.920 --> 00:01:40.470 align:middle line:84% Here's one way-- is to make the line extremely artificial. 00:01:40.470 --> 00:01:42.097 align:middle line:90% A line of poetry is artificial. 00:01:42.097 --> 00:01:43.680 align:middle line:84% It doesn't exist in the natural world. 00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:45.780 align:middle line:84% We make it up, whether we base it 00:01:45.780 --> 00:01:47.370 align:middle line:84% on something that has happened before, 00:01:47.370 --> 00:01:53.130 align:middle line:84% or we do it in so-called free verse. 00:01:53.130 --> 00:01:56.652 align:middle line:90% So I think you'll hear this. 00:01:56.652 --> 00:01:58.770 align:middle line:84% This is a poem that's written in tercets, which 00:01:58.770 --> 00:02:00.450 align:middle line:90% is to say three long stanzas. 00:02:00.450 --> 00:02:04.240 align:middle line:84% And basically, the line is three strokes. 00:02:04.240 --> 00:02:05.978 align:middle line:90% That doesn't exist in speech. 00:02:05.978 --> 00:02:07.770 align:middle line:84% And so there's going to be some place where 00:02:07.770 --> 00:02:10.889 align:middle line:84% you have to mangle the speech to make it come out, 00:02:10.889 --> 00:02:12.910 align:middle line:90% or you're not. 00:02:12.910 --> 00:02:15.450 align:middle line:84% And the two things are going to stand against one another. 00:02:15.450 --> 00:02:18.930 align:middle line:84% I think it'll sound different to you than those sonnets did. 00:02:18.930 --> 00:02:21.060 align:middle line:84% This is a poem called "Long Marriage." 00:02:21.060 --> 00:02:24.170 align:middle line:90% 00:02:24.170 --> 00:02:30.350 align:middle line:84% "Forward his numb foot, back her foot, his chin on her head, 00:02:30.350 --> 00:02:33.380 align:middle line:90% her head on his collarbone. 00:02:33.380 --> 00:02:38.870 align:middle line:84% During those marathons between wars, our vivid Dark Times, 00:02:38.870 --> 00:02:43.130 align:middle line:84% each dancer holds the other up so he, 00:02:43.130 --> 00:02:47.090 align:middle line:84% as the vertical heap barely moves yet moves, 00:02:47.090 --> 00:02:53.900 align:middle line:84% or she, eyes half-lidded, unmoored, can rest. 00:02:53.900 --> 00:02:58.430 align:middle line:84% Why these, surviving a decimated field? 00:02:58.430 --> 00:03:01.580 align:middle line:84% More than a lucky fit, not planks 00:03:01.580 --> 00:03:06.140 align:middle line:84% planed from the same oak trunk but mortise and tenon. 00:03:06.140 --> 00:03:10.580 align:middle line:84% It is the yolk that makes the pair, that binds them 00:03:10.580 --> 00:03:14.570 align:middle line:84% to their blind resolve, two kids who 00:03:14.570 --> 00:03:17.750 align:middle line:84% thought the world was burning itself out, 00:03:17.750 --> 00:03:23.150 align:middle line:84% and bet on a matched disregard for the safe and the sad. 00:03:23.150 --> 00:03:27.380 align:middle line:84% Look, one hisses toward the flared familiar ear, 00:03:27.380 --> 00:03:32.315 align:middle line:84% we've come this far, this far, this far." 00:03:32.315 --> 00:03:41.122 align:middle line:90% 00:03:41.122 --> 00:03:43.080 align:middle line:84% You might think that's a grim little poem but-- 00:03:43.080 --> 00:03:46.470 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:46.470 --> 00:03:48.900 align:middle line:84% A person who's been married as long as I have 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:51.390 align:middle line:84% thinks of it as a triumphal poem. 00:03:51.390 --> 00:03:54.740 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:54.740 --> 00:03:57.000 align:middle line:90%