WEBVTT

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[OPENING NOTES OF BEETHOVEN'S
5TH SYMPHONY PLAYING]

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That's all Justice's
poems have to be.

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That's the pattern.

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There's the asymmetry.

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OK.

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That's enough.

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[MUSIC STOPS]

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That's exactly the
same principle.

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It's exactly the same principle.

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He starts out with that
little melodic chunk.

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That's a little chunk, da-da-da.

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And then, he's going to
give it to you again.

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Da-da-da.

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Right?

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He's going to repeat it.

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And so, that's what
establishes the pattern for it.

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And then, he's going
to complicate that

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by letting it sweep
past those restrictions.

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So then, it's going
to just start--

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it's like mitosis, it's
like cell division, right?

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Once that thing starts dividing,
and then it divides again,

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and it divides again,
just like that.

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Da-da-da-da.

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So, off it goes.

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That's a huge asymmetry, right?

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Here's the pattern, and
then, oh, off it goes.

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That's what Justice
does in this very poem.

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Farewell is the bell
beginning to ring.

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That's the da-da-da.

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Now, he's going to do it again.

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The children singing
do not yet hear.

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So it's establishing in
your ear what the rules are,

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what the parameters are,
what the pattern is.

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The sun is shining
in their song.

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Oh, this is just a
tiny little variation.

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This isn't very much, you
probably wouldn't notice that.

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Except, we have these two
words that are left over--

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the sun is in fact shining
upon the schoolyard,

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on children swinging like
tongues of a bell swung out

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on the long arc of a silence.

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That will not seem to have
been a silence till it

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is broken, as it is breaking.

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You hear that?

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The syntax is saying to
you, forget all that stuff

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about the syllables, forget all
that stuff about that meter,

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forget all that stuff
about two lines at a time.

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I'm taking you way over here
in right branching syntax.

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Here we go, right
branching, right

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branching, and never going to go
there, never going to go there.

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So that the energy
then that's coming out

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of the rhythmic
system of the sense

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is pulling you way away
from what that pattern was.

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We know the pattern is not gone,
pattern is still there, right?

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You see it on the page,
and you can go through,

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and you can look at the meter.

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And you're going to
find that, pretty

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much with one
exception in the poem,

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it's going to be all dimeter.

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It's going to be
two feet per line.

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He never varies it,
five syllables per line.

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What changes is the
relationship between the line

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and the sentence, right?

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And the sentence
becomes more important.

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Does that make sense to you?

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Right branching, the
sun is in fact shining.

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Shining where,
where is it shining?

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It is shining upon the
schoolyard on children.

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Which children is it
shining on, Mr. Justice?

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The children swinging
like tongues.

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What kind of
tongues, Mr. Justice?

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The tongues of a bell.

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Which bell, Mr. Justice?

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The bell swung out.

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Swung out where?

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Where is it?

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Swung out on the long arc.

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Which arc of a silence?

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Right branching
syntax, do you hear it?

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It's like hang on to
the tail of the horse,

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because the horse has
already smelled the barn,

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and it is going there.

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It is absolutely going there.

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Like Beethoven's exposition of
his opening theme, I would say,

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it's exactly the same principle.

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And it's the same
principle or the management

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of two kinds of rhythm, OK?

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Beethoven doesn't set
aside his time signature.

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That's still in there.

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But the two kinds of rhythm
are not entirely at peace

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with one another.

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Not at all at peace with
one another, I would say.

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And it's that exhilaration and
that disorder that thrills us,

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it seems to me.

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It not only keeps the
peace from being boring,

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it makes the peace heroic.

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Because it's threatening
at every minute

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to just tear the thing right
away from its time signature,

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right away from its key
signature, everything else.

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It's going somewhere.

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It's going to grab us by the
throat and pull us over there.

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And I would say that
the Justice poem is

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doing exactly the same thing.

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And look where it ends.

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Justice is a
classicist, he's not

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going to just jump out
there into outer space

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and stay in outer space.

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On children swinging like
tongues of a bell, swung out

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on the long on the
arc of a silence,

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that will not seem to have
been a silence till it

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is broken, as it is breaking.

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We come back to where
we started, right?

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We will come back to that
pattern, there it is again.

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Till it is broken, two
strokes, you hear it?

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As it is breaking, and
all that nice little sort

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of echoing rhyme
among the sounds,

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the broken, the breaking,
like it is, till it is,

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as it is, so when it come down
to some sort of resting place.

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Justice is also a
composer of music.

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And he knows full
well the art created

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when a piece, as
Jourdain says, "wanders

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into unfamiliar territory then
returns to momentary repose."

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Upon hearing this
resolution, a brain groups.

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A brain, the listener,
groups the preceding notes,

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then readies itself to
perceive the next progression.

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Lesser resolutions
create lesser phrases

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that can be built into
hierarchies of larger ones.

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We want to do just a
little more Mr. Beethoven?

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Oh, I didn't pause
it, I stopped it.

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It don't matter.

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OK.

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Oh.

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No, it don't matter.

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It doesn't matter?

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No, you keep going from
wherever you stopped, right?

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No.

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Because it's a CD, it's going
to start at the beginning again.

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That's OK, that's right.

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We can hear it again.

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OK.

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Great.

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