WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.410 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:02.410 --> 00:00:06.980 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.980 --> 00:00:07.480 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:09.340 align:middle line:90% So how is that? 00:00:09.340 --> 00:00:10.510 align:middle line:90% In the back louder? 00:00:10.510 --> 00:00:11.410 align:middle line:90% Closer? 00:00:11.410 --> 00:00:12.020 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:12.020 --> 00:00:12.520 align:middle line:90% Louder. 00:00:12.520 --> 00:00:14.300 align:middle line:90% It's much louder? 00:00:14.300 --> 00:00:14.800 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:15.590 align:middle line:90% Better? 00:00:15.590 --> 00:00:16.090 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:00:16.090 --> 00:00:17.230 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Claire. 00:00:17.230 --> 00:00:19.400 align:middle line:90% It's such a pleasure to be here. 00:00:19.400 --> 00:00:25.750 align:middle line:84% It's such a pleasure to see you all here on a Thursday, 00:00:25.750 --> 00:00:27.910 align:middle line:84% and a beautiful Thursday in Tucson. 00:00:27.910 --> 00:00:30.700 align:middle line:84% During homecoming, during midterms, 00:00:30.700 --> 00:00:33.370 align:middle line:90% you're a gorgeous crowd. 00:00:33.370 --> 00:00:38.230 align:middle line:84% And it's an honor to introduce Brenda Hillman. 00:00:38.230 --> 00:00:44.460 align:middle line:84% In 1936 Wallace Stevens wrote, "In the presence 00:00:44.460 --> 00:00:48.720 align:middle line:84% of extraordinary actuality, consciousness takes 00:00:48.720 --> 00:00:52.770 align:middle line:90% the place of the imagination." 00:00:52.770 --> 00:00:55.740 align:middle line:84% Noting a turn towards the documentary 00:00:55.740 --> 00:00:58.680 align:middle line:84% in a variety of arts, including poetry, 00:00:58.680 --> 00:01:01.590 align:middle line:84% Stevens explained that the Great Depression 00:01:01.590 --> 00:01:05.069 align:middle line:84% had focused everyone's attention quote, 00:01:05.069 --> 00:01:07.830 align:middle line:90% "In the direction of reality." 00:01:07.830 --> 00:01:12.330 align:middle line:84% That is to say, in the direction of fact. 00:01:12.330 --> 00:01:15.950 align:middle line:84% At our own time of extraordinary actuality 00:01:15.950 --> 00:01:18.620 align:middle line:84% when we're engaged in several wars 00:01:18.620 --> 00:01:21.050 align:middle line:84% as well as an almost unprecedented 00:01:21.050 --> 00:01:26.030 align:middle line:84% environmental, not to mention continuing economic crisis, 00:01:26.030 --> 00:01:30.580 align:middle line:84% we witness a new fascination with the fact. 00:01:30.580 --> 00:01:35.860 align:middle line:84% The 9-1-1 tape, the Body Cam, reality TV, status updates, 00:01:35.860 --> 00:01:38.410 align:middle line:90% Wikileaks. 00:01:38.410 --> 00:01:40.990 align:middle line:84% And yet I wonder if Wallace Stevens is not 00:01:40.990 --> 00:01:43.990 align:middle line:90% setting up a false either/or. 00:01:43.990 --> 00:01:47.050 align:middle line:84% In times of greatest social challenge, 00:01:47.050 --> 00:01:51.920 align:middle line:84% isn't imagination exactly what we need? 00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:54.320 align:middle line:84% Over the course of a career that spans 00:01:54.320 --> 00:01:57.410 align:middle line:84% more than 10 books and countless awards, 00:01:57.410 --> 00:02:03.400 align:middle line:84% Brenda Hillman has been writing work that defies easy binaries. 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:08.440 align:middle line:84% Her poetry is as imaginative as it is documentary, 00:02:08.440 --> 00:02:13.570 align:middle line:84% utilizing reportorial modes as well as alternative forms 00:02:13.570 --> 00:02:17.470 align:middle line:84% of knowledge gathering such as trance states, 00:02:17.470 --> 00:02:20.800 align:middle line:84% cataloging, questioning, and reinventing 00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:23.710 align:middle line:84% both the possibilities of the poem 00:02:23.710 --> 00:02:27.060 align:middle line:90% as well as language itself. 00:02:27.060 --> 00:02:29.100 align:middle line:90% In her 2009 collection-- 00:02:29.100 --> 00:02:32.310 align:middle line:84% Practical Water-- Hillman creates poems out 00:02:32.310 --> 00:02:35.700 align:middle line:84% of her experience attending congressional hearings 00:02:35.700 --> 00:02:39.690 align:middle line:84% as a member of the anti-war group, Code Pink. 00:02:39.690 --> 00:02:43.950 align:middle line:84% In one poem in the Senate Armed Services hearing, 00:02:43.950 --> 00:02:48.900 align:middle line:84% Hillman records, for example, the prickly intimate hairs 00:02:48.900 --> 00:02:54.030 align:middle line:84% behind the general's ears, a fly circling the room, 00:02:54.030 --> 00:02:59.010 align:middle line:84% and a vision of the goddess Ishtar from Babylon. 00:02:59.010 --> 00:03:01.290 align:middle line:84% In doing so, Hillman provides a view 00:03:01.290 --> 00:03:03.900 align:middle line:84% to the bureaucratic machinations that 00:03:03.900 --> 00:03:07.710 align:middle line:84% perpetuate combat and the damage such bureaucracy 00:03:07.710 --> 00:03:12.510 align:middle line:84% does to bodies on and off the battlefield as well 00:03:12.510 --> 00:03:15.930 align:middle line:84% as to culture and to language itself. 00:03:15.930 --> 00:03:20.490 align:middle line:84% As Hillman writes, "And I forget who asked, 00:03:20.490 --> 00:03:25.110 align:middle line:84% what isn't even in the same syntax of this language I'm 00:03:25.110 --> 00:03:27.600 align:middle line:90% trying to make no progress in? 00:03:27.600 --> 00:03:34.670 align:middle line:84% Asked, how the army would unoccupy, by North or South? 00:03:34.670 --> 00:03:38.030 align:middle line:84% A voice beside my insect ear said, 00:03:38.030 --> 00:03:42.660 align:middle line:84% 'These senators all have lives, kids with stuff to do, 00:03:42.660 --> 00:03:47.730 align:middle line:84% folks with cancer, some secret shame.'" 00:03:47.730 --> 00:03:50.490 align:middle line:84% Hillman lays bare the corruption of language 00:03:50.490 --> 00:03:54.600 align:middle line:84% in a phrase such as unoccupy, yet the poem also 00:03:54.600 --> 00:04:00.710 align:middle line:84% manages to humanize the senators who all have lives. 00:04:00.710 --> 00:04:02.060 align:middle line:90% In her most recent book-- 00:04:02.060 --> 00:04:04.760 align:middle line:84% Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire-- 00:04:04.760 --> 00:04:08.780 align:middle line:84% Hillman continues with her exploration of documentary, 00:04:08.780 --> 00:04:13.760 align:middle line:84% activist, and imaginative modes, encouraging a poetic set, 00:04:13.760 --> 00:04:17.630 align:middle line:84% quote, "Employs knowledge from diverse disciplines, 00:04:17.630 --> 00:04:20.600 align:middle line:84% honors the senses, returns to lexical roots, 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:22.820 align:middle line:84% reflects the weight of the subjective, 00:04:22.820 --> 00:04:25.040 align:middle line:84% enters into collective bargaining 00:04:25.040 --> 00:04:28.580 align:middle line:84% with the social and the political." 00:04:28.580 --> 00:04:31.850 align:middle line:84% And while this work is not afraid to declare, demand, 00:04:31.850 --> 00:04:35.690 align:middle line:84% instruct, dear audience member as you are about to find out, 00:04:35.690 --> 00:04:39.750 align:middle line:84% it does not lack for beauty or surprise. 00:04:39.750 --> 00:04:43.440 align:middle line:84% Brenda Hillman is a poet I want to follow to the barricades, as 00:04:43.440 --> 00:04:47.220 align:middle line:84% well as page after page over the course of experiment 00:04:47.220 --> 00:04:49.890 align:middle line:84% after experiment, where she constantly 00:04:49.890 --> 00:04:53.190 align:middle line:84% brings her readers into contact with that 00:04:53.190 --> 00:04:57.600 align:middle line:84% which is erudite, stunning, challenging, and inspiring. 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:00.000 align:middle line:84% It's my enormous pleasure to welcome back 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:02.100 align:middle line:90% to Tucson, Brenda Hillman. 00:05:02.100 --> 00:05:03.950 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]