WEBVTT

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--and tone, here's some of my
premises outlined down here.

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Tone constructs angles and
distances, inside a poem.

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Declares and insinuates
attachments and detachments.

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It is most visible
in angularities,

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in the constant multilevel
dialectic going on

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between material ingredients,
champagne and tampons,

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adjective and noun,
lovable bastard,

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between what is
being said and how

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it is being said [? see Paley ?]
between odd and signifying

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grammatical anatomies.

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A host of erratic errata.

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The problem with many poems
is the total conversation

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is not sufficiently
complex or expressive

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of the simultaneity
of what we know.

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And there's some more
about tonal [INAUDIBLE].

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Now I want to plunge on.

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I want to look at
least two of the poems.

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Of course, I misspent my
time a little bit here

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but we're still going to
have some time for some Q and A.

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And I want to go to a poem
on the page after that,

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called "Hospital" by a
poet named Jason Shinder.

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So the point I want to
make is if you go back

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to the Matthea Harvey and
the Mark Halliday poem,

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you can see that these--

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I think it is very important in
the distance of this poem is,

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I'm not going to be fooled.

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I'm not going to be sucked
into the representational,

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you know, myth,
into the paradigm,

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into the hegemony of narrative.

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I'm not going to be
suckered by the convention.

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I'm not going to participate in
these conventions of narrative

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that are done a
thousand times before.

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I'm not going to be fooled.

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But the desire not to be
fooled is only half of poetry.

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There's another half.

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That's the detachment half.

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The attachment half
is the other half.

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And when you look at that
little passage by Paley

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you can see that she
is in the situation.

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She actually ends up
sleeping with the guy, OK.

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That's the willingness to be
part of the problem, you know.

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As opposed to just stepping
away from the problem entirely.

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So, here's a poem
by Jason Shinder

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that I think is quite amazing
for its tonal complexity.

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"Hospital."

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"While the machine is
sucking the black suds from

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my mother's"-- the moment is a
son is sitting by his hospital

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bed with his mother-- "while
the machine is sucking the black

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suds from my mother's blood
and then sending it back down,

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stinking clean, into the pistol
to kneel down into her chest.

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I climb out of my shoes
and slip a cotton swab

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of water between her teeth.

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Her dentures sliding off
the back porch of her mouth.

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Nobody knows.

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Nobody can ever know how she
has to pee wrapped in a diaper

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but can't.

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The yellow eggs she ate one
hour ago already the shit

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in her bowels.

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And lonely.

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Head hanging from the
balcony of her body, lonely.

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Darkest passage from the
hairless vagina, lonely.

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But brave, but lonely.

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Because I did not
stay all night.

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Because I won't.

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Because I'm going to pull out
her bone that hurts the most

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and break the back of every
word I ever said to her.

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The world is evil, mother.

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And so-- and I am too."

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