WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:07.710 align:middle line:84% So-- so you can sense that there's an enormous dialectic 00:00:07.710 --> 00:00:08.550 align:middle line:90% going on here. 00:00:08.550 --> 00:00:10.630 align:middle line:84% There's an enormous amount of energy. 00:00:10.630 --> 00:00:13.890 align:middle line:84% And there's an enormous amount of shifting 00:00:13.890 --> 00:00:18.870 align:middle line:84% between levels of experience and levels of the world. 00:00:18.870 --> 00:00:21.720 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to read a passage which, sort of, analyzes 00:00:21.720 --> 00:00:27.930 align:middle line:84% some of the ways in which tonal complex tone is embodied here. 00:00:27.930 --> 00:00:30.180 align:middle line:90% Jason Shinder's, possible-- 00:00:30.180 --> 00:00:33.210 align:middle line:84% "Hospital", is another poem in which tone is employed 00:00:33.210 --> 00:00:35.910 align:middle line:90% in a dialectical manner. 00:00:35.910 --> 00:00:38.580 align:middle line:84% It is a poem in which tone dances around a singular 00:00:38.580 --> 00:00:39.540 align:middle line:90% narrative moment. 00:00:39.540 --> 00:00:41.220 align:middle line:90% The moment is simple. 00:00:41.220 --> 00:00:44.640 align:middle line:84% How the moment is handled is enormously complex. 00:00:44.640 --> 00:00:47.700 align:middle line:84% Taking it apart, prodding it, exposing it from one angle 00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:48.480 align:middle line:90% after another. 00:00:48.480 --> 00:00:51.600 align:middle line:84% Having a conversation, in a way, interrogating the moment. 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:53.490 align:middle line:90% Asking, what is this moment. 00:00:53.490 --> 00:00:54.390 align:middle line:90% Is it this? 00:00:54.390 --> 00:00:55.770 align:middle line:90% Is it that? 00:00:55.770 --> 00:00:58.110 align:middle line:90% Most every complex tonal -- 00:00:58.110 --> 00:01:01.680 align:middle line:84% poem that is tonally complex has a dominant fraction. 00:01:01.680 --> 00:01:03.960 align:middle line:84% And I would say that the dominant tonal fraction 00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:08.130 align:middle line:84% of this poem is pity, resentment. 00:01:08.130 --> 00:01:10.170 align:middle line:90% Pity, resentment. 00:01:10.170 --> 00:01:14.430 align:middle line:84% Attachment pushing away, revulsion. 00:01:14.430 --> 00:01:16.740 align:middle line:90% Attachment, revulsion. 00:01:16.740 --> 00:01:18.360 align:middle line:90% Pity, resentment. 00:01:18.360 --> 00:01:21.570 align:middle line:84% You can feel that that's the dominant tone that's 00:01:21.570 --> 00:01:24.450 align:middle line:84% running through the poem but there's an enormous amount 00:01:24.450 --> 00:01:27.540 align:middle line:90% of subsets in the poem. 00:01:27.540 --> 00:01:30.750 align:middle line:84% An enormous amount of micromanaged areas 00:01:30.750 --> 00:01:33.510 align:middle line:84% where there's an incredible kinds of intelligence 00:01:33.510 --> 00:01:35.190 align:middle line:90% coming through the poem. 00:01:35.190 --> 00:01:36.780 align:middle line:90% It is dialectical performance. 00:01:36.780 --> 00:01:39.210 align:middle line:84% This poem demonstrates what poetry can do better 00:01:39.210 --> 00:01:41.100 align:middle line:90% than any other literary form. 00:01:41.100 --> 00:01:43.890 align:middle line:84% Take a distinct lyric moment and slice it open. 00:01:43.890 --> 00:01:46.080 align:middle line:90% Skillfully peel back its fascia. 00:01:46.080 --> 00:01:50.070 align:middle line:84% Expose its muscular-- its musculature and skeleton. 00:01:50.070 --> 00:01:54.180 align:middle line:84% Cross section and label its most particular tissues. 00:01:54.180 --> 00:01:55.210 align:middle line:90% The scene is simple. 00:01:55.210 --> 00:01:58.680 align:middle line:84% Taking his color-- taking care of his mother in the hospital 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:01.330 align:middle line:90% but the tonal plot is complex. 00:02:01.330 --> 00:02:04.710 align:middle line:84% The dominant tonal angle is between sympathy and resentment 00:02:04.710 --> 00:02:07.860 align:middle line:84% but to say that this poem turned to alternate tones of pity 00:02:07.860 --> 00:02:10.050 align:middle line:84% and resentment, is true, but does not 00:02:10.050 --> 00:02:13.020 align:middle line:84% account for the rich variety of tonal engagement. 00:02:13.020 --> 00:02:16.380 align:middle line:84% There are so many specific kinds of resentment represented here. 00:02:16.380 --> 00:02:18.360 align:middle line:84% Resentment of the heartless machinery 00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:21.000 align:middle line:84% of the stinking clean hospital, as a kind of resentment 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:22.650 align:middle line:90% of technology. 00:02:22.650 --> 00:02:25.110 align:middle line:84% Resentment of the mother's helplessness. 00:02:25.110 --> 00:02:27.720 align:middle line:84% Disgust for the mortality-- resentment of the body itself. 00:02:27.720 --> 00:02:30.000 align:middle line:84% Mortality in rot of the body, as represented 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:33.540 align:middle line:84% in the harsh language of shit and bowels and diaper. 00:02:33.540 --> 00:02:36.210 align:middle line:84% Introjected, internalized resentment 00:02:36.210 --> 00:02:39.180 align:middle line:84% of the speaker for himself and for his own helplessness 00:02:39.180 --> 00:02:40.080 align:middle line:90% and detachment. 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:42.312 align:middle line:84% Each moment in the poem has an angle 00:02:42.312 --> 00:02:44.520 align:middle line:84% and a different kind of distance and a different kind 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:45.870 align:middle line:90% of intensity. 00:02:45.870 --> 00:02:48.780 align:middle line:84% Writer's skilled in the employment of tone 00:02:48.780 --> 00:02:51.810 align:middle line:84% are always skilled ventriloquizers. 00:02:51.810 --> 00:02:52.920 align:middle line:90% And quoters. 00:02:52.920 --> 00:02:55.740 align:middle line:84% They're always good at appropriating voices and styles 00:02:55.740 --> 00:02:59.280 align:middle line:84% from other sources and employing them. 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:02.070 align:middle line:84% Here, you can see that in this way 00:03:02.070 --> 00:03:05.700 align:middle line:84% having tonal variety in a poem is also an act of collage. 00:03:05.700 --> 00:03:07.740 align:middle line:84% And it's an act of-- what should we call, go 00:03:07.740 --> 00:03:10.790 align:middle line:84% back to the Milosz quote, a poem is about the struggle of many. 00:03:10.790 --> 00:03:12.540 align:middle line:84% You can see this really-- the Milosz quote 00:03:12.540 --> 00:03:14.460 align:middle line:84% really makes sense in terms of this poem. 00:03:14.460 --> 00:03:17.550 align:middle line:84% And this poem really makes sense in terms of the Milosz quote. 00:03:17.550 --> 00:03:22.470 align:middle line:84% The poetry is to describe the struggle of a poe-- of a person 00:03:22.470 --> 00:03:24.240 align:middle line:90% to be just one person, right? 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:26.500 align:middle line:84% Very, very clearly embodied in this poem. 00:03:26.500 --> 00:03:30.300 align:middle line:84% Now, there's lots of pacing together and attitudes 00:03:30.300 --> 00:03:31.300 align:middle line:90% and altitudes. 00:03:31.300 --> 00:03:33.870 align:middle line:84% And I want to look at two moments in the poem just 00:03:33.870 --> 00:03:36.120 align:middle line:84% to show you what I'm talking about. 00:03:36.120 --> 00:03:38.640 align:middle line:84% The possibilities for language that have not 00:03:38.640 --> 00:03:41.160 align:middle line:84% been exhausted and, in fact, are enormously 00:03:41.160 --> 00:03:47.190 align:middle line:84% precise and enormously, sort of, directive and also sensitive. 00:03:47.190 --> 00:03:50.080 align:middle line:84% Look at this moment that I-- you heard how I read it. 00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:54.600 align:middle line:84% "Nobody knows, nobody can ever know how she has to pee 00:03:54.600 --> 00:03:55.980 align:middle line:90% but can't." 00:03:55.980 --> 00:04:01.210 align:middle line:84% Think about what's going on in that moment. 00:04:01.210 --> 00:04:03.120 align:middle line:84% This is the mother's implied speech. 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:06.120 align:middle line:84% I think this is an implied ventral-- 00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:08.160 align:middle line:84% ventriloquial act where the mother 00:04:08.160 --> 00:04:09.480 align:middle line:90% is speaking inside the poem. 00:04:09.480 --> 00:04:13.620 align:middle line:84% Nobody knows, nobody can ever know how she has to pee 00:04:13.620 --> 00:04:15.660 align:middle line:90% but can't, right? 00:04:15.660 --> 00:04:18.240 align:middle line:84% It is very sympathetic but I think that the mother's voice 00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:19.320 align:middle line:90% is in there. 00:04:19.320 --> 00:04:20.820 align:middle line:84% This is the mother's implied speech. 00:04:20.820 --> 00:04:24.690 align:middle line:84% Inside the empathetically ventriloqual lines 00:04:24.690 --> 00:04:26.910 align:middle line:84% there are at least three tonal suggestions, 00:04:26.910 --> 00:04:29.820 align:middle line:84% separate distinct tonal suggestions that I can hear. 00:04:29.820 --> 00:04:33.030 align:middle line:84% To begin with, the repetition emphasizes 00:04:33.030 --> 00:04:36.162 align:middle line:84% the mother's infantilization by weakness, 00:04:36.162 --> 00:04:38.370 align:middle line:84% which is suggested elsewhere in the poem, for example 00:04:38.370 --> 00:04:41.880 align:middle line:84% that detail about the diaper but the repetition 00:04:41.880 --> 00:04:45.450 align:middle line:84% is not just the empathy of the speaker it also is a, kind of, 00:04:45.450 --> 00:04:46.110 align:middle line:90% mockery. 00:04:46.110 --> 00:04:48.240 align:middle line:84% It suggests the whininess of the mother. 00:04:48.240 --> 00:04:50.430 align:middle line:84% The childish self-pity in the mother's voice 00:04:50.430 --> 00:04:52.590 align:middle line:84% as does her use of the word, pee. 00:04:52.590 --> 00:04:54.390 align:middle line:84% There's pity here but there's also 00:04:54.390 --> 00:04:57.720 align:middle line:84% an element of mimicry, inflected with a tone of the speaker's 00:04:57.720 --> 00:04:58.920 align:middle line:90% contempt. 00:04:58.920 --> 00:05:01.450 align:middle line:84% Placing the position of compulsory witness 00:05:01.450 --> 00:05:04.690 align:middle line:84% who clearly does know how she is suffering. 00:05:04.690 --> 00:05:07.660 align:middle line:84% And the inevitably-- inadequate caretaker. 00:05:07.660 --> 00:05:10.330 align:middle line:84% The narrator's resentment is implicit. 00:05:10.330 --> 00:05:15.280 align:middle line:84% That's one element there or that's two. 00:05:15.280 --> 00:05:20.770 align:middle line:84% Empathy and resentment, contempt, mimicry and sympathy. 00:05:20.770 --> 00:05:22.600 align:middle line:90% There's a third tone too. 00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:26.260 align:middle line:84% A more general kind of cultural echo infiltrating this repeated 00:05:26.260 --> 00:05:27.040 align:middle line:90% phrase. 00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:31.210 align:middle line:84% Nobody knows, echoes a refrain of the traditional slave 00:05:31.210 --> 00:05:32.260 align:middle line:90% spiritual. 00:05:32.260 --> 00:05:36.440 align:middle line:84% As in, nobody knows the trouble I've seen but Jesus. 00:05:36.440 --> 00:05:38.830 align:middle line:84% You think that that's just hallucination on my part? 00:05:38.830 --> 00:05:40.060 align:middle line:90% Maybe it is. 00:05:40.060 --> 00:05:43.060 align:middle line:90% Nobody knows, nobody knows. 00:05:43.060 --> 00:05:46.810 align:middle line:84% You see, this is how language, this is how historical, this 00:05:46.810 --> 00:05:50.200 align:middle line:84% is how our common cultural speech feeds 00:05:50.200 --> 00:05:54.460 align:middle line:84% in completely unobtrusively on a sub audible level. 00:05:54.460 --> 00:05:56.680 align:middle line:84% And yet, it participates in the moment. 00:05:56.680 --> 00:05:58.550 align:middle line:84% And when that feeds into the poem, 00:05:58.550 --> 00:06:01.030 align:middle line:84% you see that the scenario of the poem 00:06:01.030 --> 00:06:04.270 align:middle line:84% is completely lifted above an act of confessionalism. 00:06:04.270 --> 00:06:09.970 align:middle line:84% It becomes the human drama of suffering, 00:06:09.970 --> 00:06:13.750 align:middle line:84% of having to die, of, you know, of having to watch people die. 00:06:13.750 --> 00:06:18.700 align:middle line:84% Nobody knows, nobody knows but then you have a deep, you know, 00:06:18.700 --> 00:06:22.090 align:middle line:84% deep kind of resonance or echo or resonance 00:06:22.090 --> 00:06:25.420 align:middle line:84% which is coming from the culture completely 00:06:25.420 --> 00:06:26.980 align:middle line:90% outside of the frame. 00:06:26.980 --> 00:06:28.900 align:middle line:90% That's tonal complexity. 00:06:28.900 --> 00:06:31.260 align:middle line:90% Look at one other moment-- 00:06:31.260 --> 00:06:32.000 align:middle line:90%