WEBVTT

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These poems may not seem like
they are informed or influenced

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by Japanese aesthetics.

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But actually, they are, in
my mind, anyway, very much.

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I am very influenced by
Japanese aesthetics and poetics.

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The Japanese language
is vocabulary

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poor, which means that
there's actually--

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that it's very rich in words
with multiple meanings,

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sounds with multiple meanings.

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And so the Japanese
use that lavishly,

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wonderfully, especially since
their poetry is so economical.

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OK, I'm sort of putting
my professor hat on.

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I'll stop.

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But what's particularly
interesting for me,

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especially with
poems that have to do

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with science in a language that,
for me, is totally exotic--

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the language of science
is totally exotic--

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is to find words where
[SNAP] it just [SNAP]

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breaks open and can move
in different directions.

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So, you know, collect, collect
myself as one collects themself

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to do something.

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So that that's
kind of what I'm--

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one thing I'm up to here.

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"The Dream of Knife,
Fork, and Spoon."

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"I can't recall where to
set the knife and spoon.

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I can't recall which
side to place the napkin,

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or which bread
plate belongs to me,

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or how to engage
in benign chatter.

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I can't recall, when more than
one fork, which to use first,

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or what to make of
a bowl of water.

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I can't see the place
cards or recall any names.

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The humiliation is
impressive, the scorn.

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No matter how much my
brain revises the dinner

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to see if the host
was a family member,

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I can't recall which dish
ran away with which spoon."

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