WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.970 align:middle line:84% Here's Milosz's poem "Merchants". 00:00:02.970 --> 00:00:05.220 align:middle line:84% "In the town where miracle"-- this guy 00:00:05.220 --> 00:00:08.760 align:middle line:90% wrote this in his 90s-- 00:00:08.760 --> 00:00:11.310 align:middle line:84% "In a town where a miracle occurred, 00:00:11.310 --> 00:00:13.590 align:middle line:84% merchants install their booths side 00:00:13.590 --> 00:00:17.010 align:middle line:84% by side along a street through which pilgrims proceed. 00:00:17.010 --> 00:00:22.030 align:middle line:90% 00:00:22.030 --> 00:00:24.370 align:middle line:84% They display their goods wondering 00:00:24.370 --> 00:00:26.680 align:middle line:84% at the stupidity which compels people 00:00:26.680 --> 00:00:31.450 align:middle line:84% to buy little crosses, tiny medals, rosaries, even 00:00:31.450 --> 00:00:34.030 align:middle line:84% plastic bottles in the shape of the Madonna 00:00:34.030 --> 00:00:36.940 align:middle line:84% for preservation of the healing water. 00:00:36.940 --> 00:00:39.640 align:middle line:84% The sick on their stretchers, the paralyzed 00:00:39.640 --> 00:00:43.060 align:middle line:84% in their wheelchairs, fortified virgins, 00:00:43.060 --> 00:00:48.160 align:middle line:84% in their disdainful belief that religion is self-consolation 00:00:48.160 --> 00:00:53.710 align:middle line:84% based on the understandable need for any kind of rescue. 00:00:53.710 --> 00:00:55.150 align:middle line:90% They rub their hands." 00:00:55.150 --> 00:00:56.590 align:middle line:90% I think that couplet is amazing. 00:00:56.590 --> 00:01:00.160 align:middle line:84% "They rub their hands, reckon, add into their inventory 00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:02.440 align:middle line:84% new supplies of crucifixes or nickel coins 00:01:02.440 --> 00:01:04.780 align:middle line:84% imprinted with the effigies of popes. 00:01:04.780 --> 00:01:07.480 align:middle line:84% The pilgrims, looking into their faces onto 00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:09.760 align:middle line:84% which have crept scarcely noticeable smiles"-- 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:11.920 align:middle line:84% looking into the faces of the merchants-- 00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:14.560 align:middle line:84% "feel threatened in their faith, just as children 00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:18.610 align:middle line:84% feel threatened by grown-ups, keepers of a secret guessed at, 00:01:18.610 --> 00:01:21.220 align:middle line:90% but still vague." 00:01:21.220 --> 00:01:24.250 align:middle line:84% So here, this poem is about faith. 00:01:24.250 --> 00:01:26.170 align:middle line:84% And that's part of the good news that I've 00:01:26.170 --> 00:01:29.350 align:middle line:84% been bringing to you or the problematic problem 00:01:29.350 --> 00:01:31.420 align:middle line:90% that I'm talking about. 00:01:31.420 --> 00:01:35.110 align:middle line:84% I find this most astonishing is that this writer manages 00:01:35.110 --> 00:01:39.310 align:middle line:84% to simultaneously point out the precariousness of both 00:01:39.310 --> 00:01:41.980 align:middle line:84% the position of the believers and the position 00:01:41.980 --> 00:01:43.150 align:middle line:90% of the non-believers. 00:01:43.150 --> 00:01:46.990 align:middle line:84% To suggest that anxiety, not truth, 00:01:46.990 --> 00:01:51.040 align:middle line:84% may be the underlying source for their distinct beliefs. 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:55.540 align:middle line:84% Anxiety may be what is animating the religious seekers 00:01:55.540 --> 00:01:58.420 align:middle line:84% in their belief in God and in a miracle. 00:01:58.420 --> 00:02:01.570 align:middle line:84% And anxiety may be the source for the cynicism 00:02:01.570 --> 00:02:02.320 align:middle line:90% of the merchant. 00:02:02.320 --> 00:02:04.870 align:middle line:84% And yet, the poem shows all of these humans 00:02:04.870 --> 00:02:06.760 align:middle line:90% with compassion and insight. 00:02:06.760 --> 00:02:10.713 align:middle line:84% He doesn't resolve the scene or the human condition for us. 00:02:10.713 --> 00:02:12.130 align:middle line:84% If anything, you might say that he 00:02:12.130 --> 00:02:14.560 align:middle line:84% tilts the balance slightly towards the merchants 00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:15.850 align:middle line:90% is where he ends up. 00:02:15.850 --> 00:02:18.760 align:middle line:84% But he poses it with astonishing precision, 00:02:18.760 --> 00:02:21.280 align:middle line:84% and delicacy, and deliberateness. 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:23.260 align:middle line:84% He shows us the situation, which is 00:02:23.260 --> 00:02:28.300 align:middle line:84% the-- he shows us the situation in a very particular context, 00:02:28.300 --> 00:02:31.150 align:middle line:84% which is the originating source for so much history 00:02:31.150 --> 00:02:34.420 align:middle line:84% and culture, the wars that are going on right now. 00:02:34.420 --> 00:02:37.870 align:middle line:84% That is a great, great model for what poetry and a poet 00:02:37.870 --> 00:02:39.280 align:middle line:90% can aspire to. 00:02:39.280 --> 00:02:42.400 align:middle line:84% And if you want to look at some of the beautiful delicacies 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:45.910 align:middle line:84% of the poem, you can consider the word fortify 00:02:45.910 --> 00:02:47.890 align:middle line:90% in that couplet. 00:02:47.890 --> 00:02:50.973 align:middle line:84% And that amazing sentence, the sick on their stretchers, 00:02:50.973 --> 00:02:52.390 align:middle line:84% the paralyzed in their wheelchairs 00:02:52.390 --> 00:02:54.880 align:middle line:84% fortify the merchants-- look how many twists and turns 00:02:54.880 --> 00:02:59.230 align:middle line:84% his sentence takes-- in their disdainful belief. 00:02:59.230 --> 00:03:00.190 align:middle line:90% In their belief. 00:03:00.190 --> 00:03:03.520 align:middle line:84% They have a belief too, a disdainful belief. 00:03:03.520 --> 00:03:07.600 align:middle line:84% They're not really set up as noble models. 00:03:07.600 --> 00:03:09.670 align:middle line:84% Their religion is self-consolation. 00:03:09.670 --> 00:03:12.140 align:middle line:84% But it's based on the understandable. 00:03:12.140 --> 00:03:15.250 align:middle line:84% It's a completely understandable self-consolation, 00:03:15.250 --> 00:03:17.590 align:middle line:84% understandable need for any kind of rescue. 00:03:17.590 --> 00:03:20.800 align:middle line:84% So there's such a complex balance 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:24.190 align:middle line:84% of contempts and sympathies here, all articulated 00:03:24.190 --> 00:03:25.190 align:middle line:90% in two sentences. 00:03:25.190 --> 00:03:30.370 align:middle line:84% This is what somebody who really knows language, and knows 00:03:30.370 --> 00:03:35.050 align:middle line:84% the world, and has spent a lifetime sort of striving 00:03:35.050 --> 00:03:40.030 align:middle line:84% to be able to formulate its complex pithy ways 00:03:40.030 --> 00:03:42.400 align:middle line:90% and ways that are so intact. 00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:44.380 align:middle line:90% He talks about hierarchies. 00:03:44.380 --> 00:03:48.520 align:middle line:84% And he's set up a very complex system of checks and balances 00:03:48.520 --> 00:03:51.220 align:middle line:84% here, which is full of interesting and not 00:03:51.220 --> 00:03:53.770 align:middle line:84% simplistic or reductive hierarchies. 00:03:53.770 --> 00:03:57.730 align:middle line:84% So tonal complexity is a way that poetry possibly 00:03:57.730 --> 00:04:02.050 align:middle line:84% can be adequate to represent an experience in the world. 00:04:02.050 --> 00:04:03.980 align:middle line:90% And that's my good news. 00:04:03.980 --> 00:04:05.530 align:middle line:90% And so that's it. 00:04:05.530 --> 00:04:06.740 align:middle line:90% That's it. 00:04:06.740 --> 00:04:08.320 align:middle line:90% And so now we can open the -- 00:04:08.320 --> 00:04:10.170 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:10.170 --> 00:04:11.000 align:middle line:90%