WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.510 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.510 --> 00:00:05.080 align:middle line:84% And this one is called "How to Write a Poem in a Time of War." 00:00:05.080 --> 00:00:06.640 align:middle line:84% And these stories are everywhere. 00:00:06.640 --> 00:00:10.590 align:middle line:84% They're in our bones, in our DNA, stitching us. 00:00:10.590 --> 00:00:12.490 align:middle line:90% And they're in the land. 00:00:12.490 --> 00:00:17.010 align:middle line:84% And so, I keep hearing pieces of it 00:00:17.010 --> 00:00:19.890 align:middle line:84% up there in that hill where we're living. 00:00:19.890 --> 00:00:22.990 align:middle line:84% And then, I watch the news like everyone else. 00:00:22.990 --> 00:00:26.400 align:middle line:84% And I was watching about what was going on in Syria. 00:00:26.400 --> 00:00:30.000 align:middle line:84% And I always-- I remember the image of those twin baby girls. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:35.980 align:middle line:84% And I was thinking about war and as human beings, 00:00:35.980 --> 00:00:40.720 align:middle line:84% and how we do these, war lives within all of us. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:45.390 align:middle line:84% And so what I love so much about poetry 00:00:45.390 --> 00:00:47.880 align:middle line:90% is I never know what I'm doing. 00:00:47.880 --> 00:00:49.170 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:49.170 --> 00:00:53.520 align:middle line:84% I, yeah, of course there's craft and technique and all of that. 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:56.940 align:middle line:84% But there's the spirit of the thing. 00:00:56.940 --> 00:01:00.750 align:middle line:84% And so I wound up in a place in this poem 00:01:00.750 --> 00:01:03.780 align:middle line:84% that it was something given to me. 00:01:03.780 --> 00:01:07.470 align:middle line:90% And it surprised me. 00:01:07.470 --> 00:01:10.590 align:middle line:84% And there's two voices in this, the poet's voice. 00:01:10.590 --> 00:01:13.800 align:middle line:84% Like I was saying, if I'm going to write a historical memoir, 00:01:13.800 --> 00:01:14.760 align:middle line:90% I can't begin. 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:16.680 align:middle line:84% Where in the world am I going to begin? 00:01:16.680 --> 00:01:20.290 align:middle line:84% And it's kind of starts with, you can't begin just anywhere. 00:01:20.290 --> 00:01:21.990 align:middle line:90% It's a wreck. 00:01:21.990 --> 00:01:27.060 align:middle line:84% And it's called "How to Write a Poem in a Time of War." 00:01:27.060 --> 00:01:28.900 align:middle line:90% You can't begin just anywhere. 00:01:28.900 --> 00:01:30.120 align:middle line:90% It's a wreck. 00:01:30.120 --> 00:01:34.480 align:middle line:84% Shrapnel and the eye of a house, a row of houses, 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:36.660 align:middle line:84% there's a rat scrambling from light 00:01:36.660 --> 00:01:40.950 align:middle line:84% with fleshy trash in its mouth, a baby strapped to its mother's 00:01:40.950 --> 00:01:44.590 align:middle line:84% back cut loose, soldiers crawl the city, 00:01:44.590 --> 00:01:47.190 align:middle line:84% the river, this town, the village, the bedroom, 00:01:47.190 --> 00:01:47.850 align:middle line:90% our kitchen. 00:01:47.850 --> 00:01:50.790 align:middle line:90% They eat everything or burn it. 00:01:50.790 --> 00:01:52.650 align:middle line:90% They kill what they cannot take. 00:01:52.650 --> 00:01:54.570 align:middle line:90% They rape what they cannot kill. 00:01:54.570 --> 00:01:56.130 align:middle line:90% They take. 00:01:56.130 --> 00:02:00.600 align:middle line:84% Rumors fall like rain, like bombs, like mother and father 00:02:00.600 --> 00:02:03.780 align:middle line:84% tears swallowed for restless sleep, 00:02:03.780 --> 00:02:07.140 align:middle line:84% like sunset slanting toward a moonless midnight, 00:02:07.140 --> 00:02:10.380 align:middle line:84% like a train blown free of its destination, 00:02:10.380 --> 00:02:14.010 align:middle line:84% like a seed fallen where there is no chance of trees 00:02:14.010 --> 00:02:18.300 align:middle line:90% or any place for birds to live. 00:02:18.300 --> 00:02:19.620 align:middle line:90% No. 00:02:19.620 --> 00:02:21.870 align:middle line:90% Start here. 00:02:21.870 --> 00:02:24.510 align:middle line:84% Deer peer from the edge of the woods. 00:02:24.510 --> 00:02:28.710 align:middle line:84% We used to see woodpeckers the size of the sun, red birds, 00:02:28.710 --> 00:02:33.030 align:middle line:84% and we're greeted by chickadees with their good morning songs. 00:02:33.030 --> 00:02:37.830 align:middle line:84% We started to cook outside, slippery with dew and laughter, 00:02:37.830 --> 00:02:42.210 align:middle line:90% oh, these smoky, sweet sunrises. 00:02:42.210 --> 00:02:46.770 align:middle line:84% We tried to pretend war wasn't going to happen. 00:02:46.770 --> 00:02:49.710 align:middle line:84% Though, they began building their houses all around us 00:02:49.710 --> 00:02:51.510 align:middle line:90% and demanding more. 00:02:51.510 --> 00:02:54.660 align:middle line:84% They started teaching our children their god's story, 00:02:54.660 --> 00:02:58.320 align:middle line:84% a story in which we'd always be slaves. 00:02:58.320 --> 00:02:59.790 align:middle line:90% No, not here. 00:02:59.790 --> 00:03:02.220 align:middle line:90% You can't begin here. 00:03:02.220 --> 00:03:04.500 align:middle line:84% This is memory shredded, because it 00:03:04.500 --> 00:03:09.780 align:middle line:84% is impossible to hold with words, even poetry. 00:03:09.780 --> 00:03:15.270 align:middle line:84% These memories were left here with the trees, the torn pocket 00:03:15.270 --> 00:03:19.140 align:middle line:84% of your daughter's hand sewn dress, the sash, the lace, 00:03:19.140 --> 00:03:21.930 align:middle line:84% the baby's delicately beaded moccasins still 00:03:21.930 --> 00:03:25.830 align:middle line:84% connected to the foot, a young man's note of promise 00:03:25.830 --> 00:03:27.690 align:middle line:90% to his beloved. 00:03:27.690 --> 00:03:31.830 align:middle line:84% No, this is not the best place to begin. 00:03:31.830 --> 00:03:35.070 align:middle line:84% Everyone was asleep despite the distant bombs. 00:03:35.070 --> 00:03:37.830 align:middle line:84% Terror had become the familiar stranger. 00:03:37.830 --> 00:03:40.920 align:middle line:84% Our beloved twin girls curled up in their nightgowns 00:03:40.920 --> 00:03:43.650 align:middle line:90% next to their father and me. 00:03:43.650 --> 00:03:46.470 align:middle line:84% If we begin here, none of us will make it 00:03:46.470 --> 00:03:50.130 align:middle line:90% to the end of the poem. 00:03:50.130 --> 00:03:52.770 align:middle line:84% Someone has to make it out alive, 00:03:52.770 --> 00:03:57.570 align:middle line:84% said a grandfather to his grandson, his granddaughter, 00:03:57.570 --> 00:04:00.540 align:middle line:84% as he blew his most powerful song 00:04:00.540 --> 00:04:04.170 align:middle line:90% into the hearts of the children. 00:04:04.170 --> 00:04:07.470 align:middle line:84% There, it would be hidden from the soldiers who 00:04:07.470 --> 00:04:13.140 align:middle line:84% would take them miles, rivers, mountains from the navel cord 00:04:13.140 --> 00:04:16.079 align:middle line:90% place of the origin story. 00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:19.290 align:middle line:84% He knew one day, for a day, the grandchildren 00:04:19.290 --> 00:04:24.240 align:middle line:84% would return generations later over slick highways constructed 00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:26.580 align:middle line:84% over the old trails, through walls 00:04:26.580 --> 00:04:29.820 align:middle line:84% of laws meant to hamper or destroy, 00:04:29.820 --> 00:04:33.990 align:middle line:84% over stones burying libraries of the winds. 00:04:33.990 --> 00:04:43.320 align:middle line:84% He sang us back, brought us home to these smoky green hills. 00:04:43.320 --> 00:04:46.500 align:middle line:90% Yes, begin here. 00:04:46.500 --> 00:04:47.000 align:middle line:90%