WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.970 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.970 --> 00:00:03.750 align:middle line:84% I will just begin with my section 00:00:03.750 --> 00:00:06.150 align:middle line:84% from an essay that's in my book of essays 00:00:06.150 --> 00:00:09.750 align:middle line:90% and just to get us started. 00:00:09.750 --> 00:00:16.110 align:middle line:84% I was in Cairo in August 1990, when 00:00:16.110 --> 00:00:17.970 align:middle line:90% Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait. 00:00:17.970 --> 00:00:21.030 align:middle line:84% Like many people there, I accepted the UN efforts 00:00:21.030 --> 00:00:25.300 align:middle line:84% and the strong international response I knew the west-- 00:00:25.300 --> 00:00:26.550 align:middle line:90% strong international response. 00:00:26.550 --> 00:00:29.370 align:middle line:84% I knew the west acted quickly, only because Kuwait 00:00:29.370 --> 00:00:32.280 align:middle line:84% has important oil reserves, because Kuwait is not 00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:34.380 align:middle line:90% Cambodia or East Timor. 00:00:34.380 --> 00:00:37.770 align:middle line:84% But I also know that Saddam Hussein was a vicious man. 00:00:37.770 --> 00:00:39.870 align:middle line:84% And the idea of the world gathering strength 00:00:39.870 --> 00:00:43.630 align:middle line:84% to squash his totalitarian regime appealed to me 00:00:43.630 --> 00:00:46.970 align:middle line:90% and gave me some hope. 00:00:46.970 --> 00:00:49.790 align:middle line:84% However, my assessment of the events in Kuwait 00:00:49.790 --> 00:00:53.150 align:middle line:84% changed within weeks of my return to the United States. 00:00:53.150 --> 00:00:55.430 align:middle line:84% On the radio and television, reporters 00:00:55.430 --> 00:00:57.890 align:middle line:84% did not question the war's purpose, 00:00:57.890 --> 00:01:02.120 align:middle line:84% but instead referred to pundits, who, in so many words, 00:01:02.120 --> 00:01:05.600 align:middle line:84% declared the current conflict a natural byproduct 00:01:05.600 --> 00:01:08.690 align:middle line:84% of the inherently violent Arab mind. 00:01:08.690 --> 00:01:10.640 align:middle line:90% This is their thinking. 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:13.130 align:middle line:84% On the streets, there were the grotesque displays 00:01:13.130 --> 00:01:16.640 align:middle line:84% of patriotism and the Arab bashing, mosque burnings, bomb 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:19.670 align:middle line:84% threats, beatings of Arab-Americans, events 00:01:19.670 --> 00:01:23.570 align:middle line:84% that never made the news, which is happening, sort of, now. 00:01:23.570 --> 00:01:26.510 align:middle line:84% Or this was beginning to happen now 00:01:26.510 --> 00:01:29.270 align:middle line:84% with the most recent presidential election. 00:01:29.270 --> 00:01:31.760 align:middle line:84% Then there was a long telephone conversation 00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:34.460 align:middle line:84% with an Arab friend who said, the Arabs 00:01:34.460 --> 00:01:37.940 align:middle line:84% must learn to accept their small place in the world. 00:01:37.940 --> 00:01:39.230 align:middle line:90% This stunned me. 00:01:39.230 --> 00:01:41.150 align:middle line:84% I had heard many Arabs expressing 00:01:41.150 --> 00:01:43.790 align:middle line:84% self-deprecating, even self-loathing remarks 00:01:43.790 --> 00:01:46.260 align:middle line:84% about their race and nationality. 00:01:46.260 --> 00:01:49.310 align:middle line:84% I understood these remarks as angry expressions 00:01:49.310 --> 00:01:51.440 align:middle line:84% arising from a people's inability 00:01:51.440 --> 00:01:54.080 align:middle line:90% to achieve their ambitions. 00:01:54.080 --> 00:01:57.710 align:middle line:84% But I never heard resignation such as my friend's. 00:01:57.710 --> 00:02:00.950 align:middle line:84% Did my friend's attitude result from living in America 00:02:00.950 --> 00:02:04.970 align:middle line:84% and from being exposed to the US media and government 00:02:04.970 --> 00:02:07.130 align:middle line:90% propaganda? 00:02:07.130 --> 00:02:09.410 align:middle line:84% Though directed at the American people, 00:02:09.410 --> 00:02:13.400 align:middle line:84% could the propaganda have led a proud Arab such as my friend 00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:15.000 align:middle line:90% to feel inferior? 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:17.210 align:middle line:84% And I mean, so the propaganda or the stereotypes 00:02:17.210 --> 00:02:20.270 align:middle line:84% that are spread by American media 00:02:20.270 --> 00:02:22.310 align:middle line:84% and in the American establishment arts, 00:02:22.310 --> 00:02:25.460 align:middle line:84% if you will, about minorities and different races 00:02:25.460 --> 00:02:28.070 align:middle line:84% do sometimes bleed into the minds of the people 00:02:28.070 --> 00:02:29.030 align:middle line:90% of these minorities. 00:02:29.030 --> 00:02:34.310 align:middle line:84% So how did my friend come up with that sort of notion? 00:02:34.310 --> 00:02:37.748 align:middle line:84% And I did not know then, and I still don't know the answer 00:02:37.748 --> 00:02:38.540 align:middle line:90% to these questions. 00:02:38.540 --> 00:02:41.750 align:middle line:84% I did, however, know that the gap between my friend's 00:02:41.750 --> 00:02:46.190 align:middle line:84% attitude and mine and the even larger gap between my attitude 00:02:46.190 --> 00:02:49.310 align:middle line:84% and that of the majority of the people of the country in which 00:02:49.310 --> 00:02:51.740 align:middle line:84% I have chosen to live, these gaps 00:02:51.740 --> 00:02:55.580 align:middle line:84% demanded an explanation, a bridging and an epic of sorts. 00:02:55.580 --> 00:02:57.320 align:middle line:84% I called the cable company, which 00:02:57.320 --> 00:02:59.630 align:middle line:84% was airing all of that hostility, 00:02:59.630 --> 00:03:02.240 align:middle line:90% and canceled my subscription. 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:04.160 align:middle line:90% I sat down to write. 00:03:04.160 --> 00:03:08.210 align:middle line:84% I've gone back to get cable again. 00:03:08.210 --> 00:03:11.240 align:middle line:90% And I use it now to repress. 00:03:11.240 --> 00:03:15.020 align:middle line:84% Watching a lot of British soccer. 00:03:15.020 --> 00:03:17.660 align:middle line:84% Maybe not an explanation but a response 00:03:17.660 --> 00:03:21.230 align:middle line:84% to the dehumanization of the people I had grown up amongst 00:03:21.230 --> 00:03:24.620 align:middle line:84% and to whom I still belong, a people 00:03:24.620 --> 00:03:29.120 align:middle line:84% who have been stereotyped as incompetent boobs forever 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:32.480 align:middle line:84% fumbling for their fezzes or bloodthirsty primitives, 00:03:32.480 --> 00:03:35.240 align:middle line:84% backward scheming fanatic terrorists who 00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:38.210 align:middle line:84% are dirty, dishonest, oversexed and corrupt 00:03:38.210 --> 00:03:41.090 align:middle line:84% to have a record of what Hollywood-- 00:03:41.090 --> 00:03:43.460 align:middle line:90% Hollywood has provided this. 00:03:43.460 --> 00:03:46.880 align:middle line:84% There is a great documentary called Reel Arabs, 00:03:46.880 --> 00:03:51.220 align:middle line:84% R-E-E-L Arabs, which just, it's a-- 00:03:51.220 --> 00:03:53.000 align:middle line:84% I don't know if people know what this is-- 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:56.240 align:middle line:84% film called Cinema Paradiso, was at the end 00:03:56.240 --> 00:03:58.440 align:middle line:84% this reel of like kissing scenes. 00:03:58.440 --> 00:04:01.190 align:middle line:90% So it's almost like all the-- 00:04:01.190 --> 00:04:06.080 align:middle line:84% it's the cinema inferno for the Arabs or the Arab leaders. 00:04:06.080 --> 00:04:09.620 align:middle line:84% It's like all of this crap that Hollywood has put out. 00:04:09.620 --> 00:04:11.630 align:middle line:84% So it's a nightmarish films for the Arabs, 00:04:11.630 --> 00:04:14.030 align:middle line:84% but it's something that has been happening 00:04:14.030 --> 00:04:16.310 align:middle line:84% for a long time, this stereotyping. 00:04:16.310 --> 00:04:18.920 align:middle line:84% It was difficult not to take these representations of Arabs 00:04:18.920 --> 00:04:19.850 align:middle line:90% personally. 00:04:19.850 --> 00:04:22.640 align:middle line:84% And it was as a person, that is, a spokesman 00:04:22.640 --> 00:04:24.560 align:middle line:84% of the tribe that I wanted to speak. 00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:27.020 align:middle line:84% Again, all of these terms are kind of relevant, 00:04:27.020 --> 00:04:29.240 align:middle line:84% because when we're talking about an epic, 00:04:29.240 --> 00:04:32.640 align:middle line:84% an epic is in many ways a poem from the inside. 00:04:32.640 --> 00:04:35.060 align:middle line:84% And here's perhaps the idea that you-- and I'll 00:04:35.060 --> 00:04:38.090 align:middle line:84% get to this-- that your time to write an epic from the outside 00:04:38.090 --> 00:04:40.010 align:middle line:90% to an outside audience. 00:04:40.010 --> 00:04:42.290 align:middle line:84% The representations of the Arabs were a lie, 00:04:42.290 --> 00:04:45.320 align:middle line:84% and I knew something better, something closer to the truth. 00:04:45.320 --> 00:04:49.250 align:middle line:84% As an artist though I distrusted quick reactions. 00:04:49.250 --> 00:04:54.380 align:middle line:84% An artistic endeavor must go beyond the initial stimuli 00:04:54.380 --> 00:04:57.230 align:middle line:84% for it and endure for it to become art. 00:04:57.230 --> 00:04:58.850 align:middle line:84% Though I'm primarily a poet, I still 00:04:58.850 --> 00:05:02.450 align:middle line:84% try not to limit my options to that genre. 00:05:02.450 --> 00:05:07.010 align:middle line:84% OK, so I begin to write this poem, and I think of this poem. 00:05:07.010 --> 00:05:13.490 align:middle line:84% And I begin to think that I'm going to write an epic. 00:05:13.490 --> 00:05:17.370 align:middle line:84% But anyway the essay is called "Epic Temptations 00:05:17.370 --> 00:05:19.760 align:middle line:90% on an Unwritten Poem". 00:05:19.760 --> 00:05:22.100 align:middle line:90% I didn't write that poem. 00:05:22.100 --> 00:05:25.610 align:middle line:90% And here, perhaps why. 00:05:25.610 --> 00:05:28.670 align:middle line:84% The goals and approaches I set for the poem 00:05:28.670 --> 00:05:30.620 align:middle line:84% would have easily disqualified it 00:05:30.620 --> 00:05:35.120 align:middle line:84% for what has been traditionally known as epic. 00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:39.380 align:middle line:84% The poem I had in mind would violate the general conception 00:05:39.380 --> 00:05:43.970 align:middle line:84% of an epic as a narrative of its audience's own cultural, 00:05:43.970 --> 00:05:45.910 align:middle line:90% historical, or mythic heritage. 00:05:45.910 --> 00:05:47.410 align:middle line:84% So when I talk about the long poems, 00:05:47.410 --> 00:05:49.070 align:middle line:90% I'm talking about historically. 00:05:49.070 --> 00:05:56.800 align:middle line:84% And epic poems are like Homer, like "Paradise Lost". 00:05:56.800 --> 00:06:01.480 align:middle line:84% These are poems from a sort of from the nation. 00:06:01.480 --> 00:06:03.730 align:middle line:90% They're about the nation. 00:06:03.730 --> 00:06:08.860 align:middle line:84% A lot of the great Yugoslav or Serbian epics, 00:06:08.860 --> 00:06:12.340 align:middle line:84% I mean, that's how Serbian nationality is preserved. 00:06:12.340 --> 00:06:14.380 align:middle line:90% Some of them about martyrs. 00:06:14.380 --> 00:06:16.780 align:middle line:90% Some of them about great heroes. 00:06:16.780 --> 00:06:20.200 align:middle line:84% So in essence, these are poems that 00:06:20.200 --> 00:06:25.517 align:middle line:84% are narrative of the audience's own cultural, historical, 00:06:25.517 --> 00:06:26.350 align:middle line:90% and mythic heritage. 00:06:26.350 --> 00:06:29.150 align:middle line:84% And here you're thinking, I need to write a long poem that's 00:06:29.150 --> 00:06:31.750 align:middle line:90% sort of contrary to these. 00:06:31.750 --> 00:06:36.280 align:middle line:84% So it is a tale of the tribe told by its members. 00:06:36.280 --> 00:06:38.680 align:middle line:84% While I consider myself a de facto member 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:41.260 align:middle line:84% of the American eclectic tribe, I 00:06:41.260 --> 00:06:43.510 align:middle line:84% intended to write a poem that would introduce 00:06:43.510 --> 00:06:46.150 align:middle line:84% one people to another, a function that was never 00:06:46.150 --> 00:06:47.320 align:middle line:90% associated with the epic. 00:06:47.320 --> 00:06:50.440 align:middle line:84% The epics don't tend to say, let's get together. 00:06:50.440 --> 00:06:52.720 align:middle line:84% And let's be nice, like how we beat you up, 00:06:52.720 --> 00:06:54.280 align:middle line:90% or you killed so many of us. 00:06:54.280 --> 00:06:56.890 align:middle line:90% That's what epics do. 00:06:56.890 --> 00:07:01.030 align:middle line:84% Another aspect of the epic is Ezra Pound asserted epic cannot 00:07:01.030 --> 00:07:04.780 align:middle line:84% be written against the grain of its time. 00:07:04.780 --> 00:07:09.520 align:middle line:84% The writer must voice the general heart. 00:07:09.520 --> 00:07:12.010 align:middle line:84% And in turn, I understand the idea 00:07:12.010 --> 00:07:14.560 align:middle line:90% of the voice, the general heart. 00:07:14.560 --> 00:07:17.110 align:middle line:84% That seems like similar to what we had said before. 00:07:17.110 --> 00:07:19.030 align:middle line:84% But what does he mean that it should not be 00:07:19.030 --> 00:07:22.840 align:middle line:90% against the grain of its time? 00:07:22.840 --> 00:07:27.040 align:middle line:84% Perhaps it should anticipate further. 00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:30.100 align:middle line:84% It should-- it's very difficult to actually think of what Pound 00:07:30.100 --> 00:07:32.590 align:middle line:84% meant by that, because he envisioned-- 00:07:32.590 --> 00:07:35.710 align:middle line:84% I can say envisioned a return to the past that 00:07:35.710 --> 00:07:40.060 align:middle line:84% may be part of what Eliot had wanted, T.S. Eliot had wanted. 00:07:40.060 --> 00:07:49.930 align:middle line:84% So but there's a certain sort of synchronicity, sort of the epic 00:07:49.930 --> 00:07:51.910 align:middle line:90% maybe can move a society. 00:07:51.910 --> 00:07:55.870 align:middle line:84% But it is, maybe it's a part of that it's something that 00:07:55.870 --> 00:08:01.120 align:middle line:84% fills a need that society is anticipating 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:04.070 align:middle line:84% or that an intellectual feels that the society needs. 00:08:04.070 --> 00:08:08.350 align:middle line:84% So this is all to say that it comes 00:08:08.350 --> 00:08:14.580 align:middle line:84% from a sense of belonging, or at least it has come from that. 00:08:14.580 --> 00:08:16.530 align:middle line:84% The epic, third point is the epic 00:08:16.530 --> 00:08:19.260 align:middle line:84% addresses the citizen, not the individual 00:08:19.260 --> 00:08:22.080 align:middle line:84% in his or her absolute inwardness. 00:08:22.080 --> 00:08:23.940 align:middle line:84% This is from a critic named Bernstein, 00:08:23.940 --> 00:08:26.460 align:middle line:84% to affirm values that the citizens believes 00:08:26.460 --> 00:08:27.360 align:middle line:90% to some level. 00:08:27.360 --> 00:08:31.170 align:middle line:84% So there has to be a sort of a ground, a firm 00:08:31.170 --> 00:08:34.980 align:middle line:90% ground of agreement. 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:36.690 align:middle line:84% I had this discussion once, there's 00:08:36.690 --> 00:08:39.960 align:middle line:84% a great book called Teaching With Your Mouth Shut. 00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:43.470 align:middle line:84% Some of you might know this book or professors. 00:08:43.470 --> 00:08:49.140 align:middle line:84% It's about pedagogy and how all you need to do is in some ways, 00:08:49.140 --> 00:08:51.780 align:middle line:84% just sort of let the text speak for the students. 00:08:51.780 --> 00:08:53.460 align:middle line:84% And the students sort of [INAUDIBLE] 00:08:53.460 --> 00:08:56.310 align:middle line:90% But the text he used was Homer. 00:08:56.310 --> 00:08:59.940 align:middle line:84% Actually for example, when I'm teaching Homer, you know, 00:08:59.940 --> 00:09:02.730 align:middle line:84% this is-- the students will get engaged and get the-- 00:09:02.730 --> 00:09:05.190 align:middle line:84% reason the students might get engaged in Homer 00:09:05.190 --> 00:09:08.250 align:middle line:84% is that they've drunk versions of Homer 00:09:08.250 --> 00:09:09.420 align:middle line:90% in their mother's milk. 00:09:09.420 --> 00:09:14.040 align:middle line:84% I mean, so there's that history of heroism 00:09:14.040 --> 00:09:22.350 align:middle line:84% of the sort of man of the others that sort of need to be fought. 00:09:22.350 --> 00:09:26.160 align:middle line:84% There is a certain way in which we know Homer 00:09:26.160 --> 00:09:27.930 align:middle line:90% before we read Homer. 00:09:27.930 --> 00:09:29.520 align:middle line:84% There's a pattern in the stories. 00:09:29.520 --> 00:09:31.740 align:middle line:84% There's a pattern in the characterization. 00:09:31.740 --> 00:09:36.460 align:middle line:84% There's a pattern in which these people are ours. 00:09:36.460 --> 00:09:38.260 align:middle line:90% They're not others. 00:09:38.260 --> 00:09:41.010 align:middle line:84% So yes, you can teach Homer with your mouth shut, 00:09:41.010 --> 00:09:41.700 align:middle line:90% to some extent. 00:09:41.700 --> 00:09:43.470 align:middle line:84% Because the students are going to-- waiting to talk-- blah, 00:09:43.470 --> 00:09:44.590 align:middle line:90% blah, blah, blah. 00:09:44.590 --> 00:09:48.000 align:middle line:84% And when you're talking about, even something 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:49.860 align:middle line:84% like Things Fall Apart, which people 00:09:49.860 --> 00:09:55.650 align:middle line:84% have studied in high schools and so on, you 00:09:55.650 --> 00:09:59.190 align:middle line:90% could see that this is not-- 00:09:59.190 --> 00:10:02.070 align:middle line:84% the people in these books are not their people. 00:10:02.070 --> 00:10:04.530 align:middle line:84% They're not people that they're sort of used to. 00:10:04.530 --> 00:10:08.130 align:middle line:84% And it's not easy to teach Things 00:10:08.130 --> 00:10:12.390 align:middle line:84% Fall Apart or Mahmoud Darwish or a book about a Muslim woman 00:10:12.390 --> 00:10:16.070 align:middle line:90% or a man with your mouth shut. 00:10:16.070 --> 00:10:18.400 align:middle line:84% How do you have that conversation? 00:10:18.400 --> 00:10:21.330 align:middle line:84% So there is a sense in the book, which 00:10:21.330 --> 00:10:25.890 align:middle line:84% is that the epic is addresses the citizen, not 00:10:25.890 --> 00:10:29.580 align:middle line:84% the individual, but also addresses his or her values. 00:10:29.580 --> 00:10:33.690 align:middle line:84% And there's a level of identification 00:10:33.690 --> 00:10:38.370 align:middle line:84% that we have with the epics, that we have with these epic 00:10:38.370 --> 00:10:42.570 align:middle line:84% figures, that may not be readily available with texts that 00:10:42.570 --> 00:10:44.460 align:middle line:90% are outside the Western canon. 00:10:44.460 --> 00:10:46.620 align:middle line:84% And this is again, this is different. 00:10:46.620 --> 00:10:49.920 align:middle line:84% So to think of an epic being there 00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:52.920 align:middle line:84% to introduce a different people to another 00:10:52.920 --> 00:10:56.850 align:middle line:90% or to humanize the others. 00:10:56.850 --> 00:10:59.710 align:middle line:84% That's not the traditional approach, 00:10:59.710 --> 00:11:00.960 align:middle line:90% let's put it this way. 00:11:00.960 --> 00:11:04.170 align:middle line:84% Furthermore, a sense of hope and heroism 00:11:04.170 --> 00:11:06.960 align:middle line:84% are associated strongly with the epic. 00:11:06.960 --> 00:11:09.810 align:middle line:84% Pound wrote that for 40 years, I have schooled myself 00:11:09.810 --> 00:11:13.020 align:middle line:84% to write an epic which belongs in the dark force 00:11:13.020 --> 00:11:17.760 align:middle line:84% across the purgatory of human error and ends in light. 00:11:17.760 --> 00:11:20.280 align:middle line:84% Considering the war that was taking place in time 00:11:20.280 --> 00:11:22.890 align:middle line:84% at the time, the story I wanted to tell 00:11:22.890 --> 00:11:26.670 align:middle line:84% was more an act of desperation than hope. 00:11:26.670 --> 00:11:30.840 align:middle line:84% As for heroes, and epic is considered a storehouse 00:11:30.840 --> 00:11:34.380 align:middle line:84% of heroic examples and precepts by which 00:11:34.380 --> 00:11:37.800 align:middle line:84% later generations would measure their own conduct. 00:11:37.800 --> 00:11:39.450 align:middle line:90% That would have been a hope-- 00:11:39.450 --> 00:11:40.470 align:middle line:90% I didn't want to-- 00:11:40.470 --> 00:11:42.180 align:middle line:84% I wasn't going to undertake this project 00:11:42.180 --> 00:11:44.100 align:middle line:90% with some element of hope. 00:11:44.100 --> 00:11:50.160 align:middle line:84% But I think, I wasn't sure that I could actually 00:11:50.160 --> 00:11:51.860 align:middle line:90% have that hope. 00:11:51.860 --> 00:11:56.160 align:middle line:84% Now, I want to sort of-- here are 00:11:56.160 --> 00:12:02.880 align:middle line:84% some things that sort of also put a slowdown in the project. 00:12:02.880 --> 00:12:06.060 align:middle line:84% There were perhaps technical generic issues 00:12:06.060 --> 00:12:07.350 align:middle line:90% that time may have passed. 00:12:07.350 --> 00:12:17.380 align:middle line:90% 00:12:17.380 --> 00:12:21.520 align:middle line:84% So there are certain ways in which the drama of the epic, we 00:12:21.520 --> 00:12:22.990 align:middle line:90% may have surpassed it. 00:12:22.990 --> 00:12:25.030 align:middle line:84% But with the contemporary practice, 00:12:25.030 --> 00:12:29.950 align:middle line:84% I learned that there are many more ways in which you 00:12:29.950 --> 00:12:31.192 align:middle line:90% could write the long poem. 00:12:31.192 --> 00:12:32.650 align:middle line:84% But there are certain concerns that 00:12:32.650 --> 00:12:35.360 align:middle line:84% must be addressed for the writing to continue. 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:41.050 align:middle line:84% One of these, I think, is that the poet --when the decision 00:12:41.050 --> 00:12:42.970 align:middle line:84% to write a poem takes place, there's 00:12:42.970 --> 00:12:46.900 align:middle line:84% an element of self-definition or self possession, if you will. 00:12:46.900 --> 00:12:50.140 align:middle line:84% Robert Hayden explains the idea of writing "Middle Passage", 00:12:50.140 --> 00:12:55.510 align:middle line:84% how it came to him, which is a poem about the journeys 00:12:55.510 --> 00:12:59.440 align:middle line:84% of African slaves from the Western shores of Africa. 00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:02.890 align:middle line:84% They had been stolen, kidnapped, and then placed 00:13:02.890 --> 00:13:09.100 align:middle line:84% into these storehouses in various ports 00:13:09.100 --> 00:13:10.210 align:middle line:90% around West Africa. 00:13:10.210 --> 00:13:12.430 align:middle line:84% And then from there, they are taken 00:13:12.430 --> 00:13:16.870 align:middle line:84% to New Orleans or Savannah or Mobile or wherever that may be. 00:13:16.870 --> 00:13:19.240 align:middle line:84% And of course, you've seen these diagrams 00:13:19.240 --> 00:13:21.940 align:middle line:90% of what these boats look like. 00:13:21.940 --> 00:13:23.870 align:middle line:84% You essentially had-- essentially, 00:13:23.870 --> 00:13:25.330 align:middle line:84% it's almost like people are packed 00:13:25.330 --> 00:13:27.400 align:middle line:90% in exactly like sardines. 00:13:27.400 --> 00:13:29.620 align:middle line:90% And many died and so on. 00:13:29.620 --> 00:13:32.510 align:middle line:84% So he wanted to write about that. 00:13:32.510 --> 00:13:34.840 align:middle line:84% So the idea of writing his poem, "The Middle Passage", 00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:39.130 align:middle line:84% which is not very long, but came to him from a Stephen Vincent 00:13:39.130 --> 00:13:42.940 align:middle line:84% Benét poem that prophecies a poet who will write 00:13:42.940 --> 00:13:47.320 align:middle line:84% a black-skinned epic, epic with the long black spear. 00:13:47.320 --> 00:13:51.740 align:middle line:84% Hayden said, I dare to hope that I might be that poet. 00:13:51.740 --> 00:13:54.400 align:middle line:84% Similarly, Walt Whitman decided to cast himself 00:13:54.400 --> 00:13:56.800 align:middle line:84% in the role of his own epic hero. 00:13:56.800 --> 00:14:00.280 align:middle line:84% His eyes would be turned both inward and outward, 00:14:00.280 --> 00:14:03.850 align:middle line:84% and his voice would be both personal and public. 00:14:03.850 --> 00:14:06.490 align:middle line:84% Whitman wrote Leaves of Grass with the notion of himself 00:14:06.490 --> 00:14:08.950 align:middle line:84% as the American prototypical persona. 00:14:08.950 --> 00:14:11.650 align:middle line:84% But with Hayden and Whitman mythologized themselves 00:14:11.650 --> 00:14:14.650 align:middle line:84% into the role of their audiences' spokesman. 00:14:14.650 --> 00:14:18.700 align:middle line:84% These poets do not simply insert themselves into history, 00:14:18.700 --> 00:14:21.730 align:middle line:84% rather they emphasize that their people's history must 00:14:21.730 --> 00:14:23.530 align:middle line:90% be processed through them. 00:14:23.530 --> 00:14:25.960 align:middle line:84% The epic poet must have a sense of 00:14:25.960 --> 00:14:28.720 align:middle line:84% self-importance, if to some degree, even some 00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:30.070 align:middle line:90% delusions of grandeur. 00:14:30.070 --> 00:14:34.390 align:middle line:84% I had to compensate for this by developing the first person 00:14:34.390 --> 00:14:36.820 align:middle line:84% omniscient voice in the poem I was working on. 00:14:36.820 --> 00:14:38.740 align:middle line:84% To assume omniscience, I had to believe 00:14:38.740 --> 00:14:40.750 align:middle line:84% that all the facts and fictions I wrote 00:14:40.750 --> 00:14:43.600 align:middle line:84% and that proved to be somewhat difficult text. 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:46.420 align:middle line:84% So there's a kind of positioning of yourself as a poet. 00:14:46.420 --> 00:14:48.370 align:middle line:90% I'm going to write the big poem. 00:14:48.370 --> 00:14:49.300 align:middle line:90% Who am I? 00:14:49.300 --> 00:14:52.720 align:middle line:90% 00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:54.910 align:middle line:84% What is it, my mission that I have? 00:14:54.910 --> 00:14:57.550 align:middle line:84% So there's a certain self-mythologization. 00:14:57.550 --> 00:15:00.430 align:middle line:84% I mean, even if you're writing all in third person, 00:15:00.430 --> 00:15:04.090 align:middle line:84% you have to mythologize your role as an operator. 00:15:04.090 --> 00:15:06.560 align:middle line:84% I'm looking at something like this, 00:15:06.560 --> 00:15:08.260 align:middle line:84% which is a great, great book called, 00:15:08.260 --> 00:15:11.320 align:middle line:84% by Charles Reznikoff, Testimony, which 00:15:11.320 --> 00:15:16.660 align:middle line:84% is an American history based on court records. 00:15:16.660 --> 00:15:17.860 align:middle line:90% He was a lawyer. 00:15:17.860 --> 00:15:24.500 align:middle line:84% He studied about 30 years of American court records. 00:15:24.500 --> 00:15:27.460 align:middle line:84% He would write one record of maybe 100 pages, 00:15:27.460 --> 00:15:29.260 align:middle line:84% and he may come up with a paragraph. 00:15:29.260 --> 00:15:33.010 align:middle line:84% And this is a book that's about 600 pages long. 00:15:33.010 --> 00:15:36.580 align:middle line:84% And it is full of stories of people on railroads. 00:15:36.580 --> 00:15:41.530 align:middle line:84% The book is divided into a lot of working stories, Blacks, 00:15:41.530 --> 00:15:44.860 align:middle line:84% Mexicans, north, south, stories of shipping, 00:15:44.860 --> 00:15:46.240 align:middle line:90% stories of railroads. 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:48.370 align:middle line:90% It's a great, great document. 00:15:48.370 --> 00:15:53.380 align:middle line:84% So even though Reznikoff is absent, 00:15:53.380 --> 00:15:56.770 align:middle line:84% there is [INAUDIBLE] of ambition and ambition for the book 00:15:56.770 --> 00:16:00.730 align:middle line:84% and a certain kind of self-mythologization 00:16:00.730 --> 00:16:01.690 align:middle line:90% to sustain. 00:16:01.690 --> 00:16:03.880 align:middle line:84% I'm going to write a book that will do something. 00:16:03.880 --> 00:16:06.770 align:middle line:84% And I think that maybe it's a claim of agency. 00:16:06.770 --> 00:16:09.910 align:middle line:84% Let's not over call it as mythological. 00:16:09.910 --> 00:16:14.350 align:middle line:84% So there's a claim of agency that the big poem demands, 00:16:14.350 --> 00:16:20.950 align:middle line:84% that perhaps the shorter, more innocuous or spontaneous lyric 00:16:20.950 --> 00:16:22.420 align:middle line:90% poem doesn't demand. 00:16:22.420 --> 00:16:26.240 align:middle line:90% So here's Testimony. 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:31.670 align:middle line:84% Reznikoff also wrote a great book of poetry or lyric poetry 00:16:31.670 --> 00:16:36.140 align:middle line:84% called The Holocaust, which takes the documents of-- 00:16:36.140 --> 00:16:40.035 align:middle line:84% what is the city in Germany where the trials were held? 00:16:40.035 --> 00:16:41.370 align:middle line:90% Nuremberg. 00:16:41.370 --> 00:16:46.200 align:middle line:84% The Nuremberg trials that also renders them 00:16:46.200 --> 00:16:48.630 align:middle line:84% into these sort of testimonies of Holocaust 00:16:48.630 --> 00:16:49.950 align:middle line:90% survivors and so on. 00:16:49.950 --> 00:16:53.400 align:middle line:90% So a great documentary poet. 00:16:53.400 --> 00:16:55.290 align:middle line:84% So there's another aspect which is 00:16:55.290 --> 00:16:58.410 align:middle line:90% juggling history and fiction. 00:16:58.410 --> 00:17:01.680 align:middle line:84% Paul Merchant, a critic, argues that the epic poet 00:17:01.680 --> 00:17:04.770 align:middle line:84% uses historical materials for his own ends. 00:17:04.770 --> 00:17:07.440 align:middle line:84% I, on the other hand, wanted to write a history using poetry. 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:09.420 align:middle line:84% The difference between these two approaches 00:17:09.420 --> 00:17:12.900 align:middle line:84% may seem artificial, considering how epic or fictional history 00:17:12.900 --> 00:17:13.680 align:middle line:90% is. 00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:15.300 align:middle line:84% Regardless of whether the writer wants 00:17:15.300 --> 00:17:18.030 align:middle line:84% to emphasize history or fiction in the epic, 00:17:18.030 --> 00:17:21.329 align:middle line:84% the writer must possess encyclopedic knowledge or close 00:17:21.329 --> 00:17:24.839 align:middle line:84% to it of the culture she or he is writing about. 00:17:24.839 --> 00:17:27.839 align:middle line:84% Adrienne Rich addresses this point in the following 00:17:27.839 --> 00:17:29.790 align:middle line:90% lines of one of her poems. 00:17:29.790 --> 00:17:33.480 align:middle line:84% Suppose you want to write of a woman braiding another woman's 00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:38.010 align:middle line:84% hair, straight down or with beads and shells in three 00:17:38.010 --> 00:17:40.950 align:middle line:90% strand plaits or cornrows. 00:17:40.950 --> 00:17:43.050 align:middle line:84% You had better know the thickness, 00:17:43.050 --> 00:17:47.400 align:middle line:84% the length, the pattern, why she decides to braid her hair, 00:17:47.400 --> 00:17:51.660 align:middle line:84% how it is done to her, what country it happens in, 00:17:51.660 --> 00:17:54.360 align:middle line:84% what else happens in that country. 00:17:54.360 --> 00:17:56.140 align:middle line:90% You have to know these things. 00:17:56.140 --> 00:17:59.940 align:middle line:84% So if a poet-- this is the long poem. 00:17:59.940 --> 00:18:04.710 align:middle line:84% You may want to begin with the lyric image, the precise image. 00:18:04.710 --> 00:18:09.180 align:middle line:84% There's a great haiku about my dead wife's comb, 00:18:09.180 --> 00:18:12.180 align:middle line:84% my cold dead wife's comb in my bed. 00:18:12.180 --> 00:18:13.920 align:middle line:84% And he discovers-- his wife had died, 00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:17.640 align:middle line:84% but her iron comb on a cold night is still in the bed. 00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:20.250 align:middle line:90% And it pricks his foot. 00:18:20.250 --> 00:18:23.010 align:middle line:84% So that image of the lyric moment. 00:18:23.010 --> 00:18:25.410 align:middle line:84% In a longer poem, it has to be surrounded-- 00:18:25.410 --> 00:18:28.350 align:middle line:84% it has to be filled with so many other aspects. 00:18:28.350 --> 00:18:30.780 align:middle line:84% Urgent demands from the writer, contextual knowledge, 00:18:30.780 --> 00:18:33.030 align:middle line:90% even if one is to write a lyric. 00:18:33.030 --> 00:18:34.930 align:middle line:84% For me, the problem was the opposite. 00:18:34.930 --> 00:18:38.010 align:middle line:84% I had a broad sense of Libya's history 00:18:38.010 --> 00:18:41.460 align:middle line:84% but not enough of the details, such as the quotidian scene 00:18:41.460 --> 00:18:43.380 align:middle line:90% Rich describes. 00:18:43.380 --> 00:18:46.060 align:middle line:84% History does not give these details. 00:18:46.060 --> 00:18:48.900 align:middle line:84% And as a writer, I would face problems 00:18:48.900 --> 00:18:53.970 align:middle line:84% if she or he tries to fill these gaps with imaginary or overly 00:18:53.970 --> 00:18:55.870 align:middle line:90% imagined situations. 00:18:55.870 --> 00:19:01.800 align:middle line:84% So I had one story, which I rewrote 00:19:01.800 --> 00:19:03.330 align:middle line:84% several times, which is the story 00:19:03.330 --> 00:19:04.620 align:middle line:90% of the birth of my father. 00:19:04.620 --> 00:19:07.740 align:middle line:84% When my family had to leave Libya in the 20s 00:19:07.740 --> 00:19:10.500 align:middle line:84% after the Italian colonization, they 00:19:10.500 --> 00:19:16.080 align:middle line:84% had to walk maybe 1,500 miles through the desert. 00:19:16.080 --> 00:19:20.080 align:middle line:84% And my father was born somewhere on that trip. 00:19:20.080 --> 00:19:25.980 align:middle line:84% So just the idea of this birth somewhere along the road, 00:19:25.980 --> 00:19:29.560 align:middle line:84% maybe he was conceived during this long journey. 00:19:29.560 --> 00:19:31.650 align:middle line:84% If that's an image that I had that I could feel, 00:19:31.650 --> 00:19:33.660 align:middle line:84% but there's so much else that happened. 00:19:33.660 --> 00:19:35.370 align:middle line:90% There are so many details-- 00:19:35.370 --> 00:19:37.290 align:middle line:84% to know the country's history but to not 00:19:37.290 --> 00:19:39.660 align:middle line:84% to know the little bits, and to know 00:19:39.660 --> 00:19:42.450 align:middle line:84% that your family had also many gaps in the stories 00:19:42.450 --> 00:19:43.410 align:middle line:90% or reluctant. 00:19:43.410 --> 00:19:47.320 align:middle line:84% People who've had a difficult life, 00:19:47.320 --> 00:19:49.500 align:middle line:84% they don't want to always share the details 00:19:49.500 --> 00:19:53.640 align:middle line:84% and not the family end up at the comic, happy ending 00:19:53.640 --> 00:19:56.070 align:middle line:84% towards the end of all that exile. 00:19:56.070 --> 00:19:58.890 align:middle line:84% But they didn't reveal the hard parts. 00:19:58.890 --> 00:20:00.390 align:middle line:84% They were not going to detail them. 00:20:00.390 --> 00:20:02.370 align:middle line:90% So the details were not there. 00:20:02.370 --> 00:20:05.280 align:middle line:84% And so it was difficult to bring them together. 00:20:05.280 --> 00:20:08.220 align:middle line:84% And then access, the last point which has really what 00:20:08.220 --> 00:20:11.100 align:middle line:90% my poem to an end is access. 00:20:11.100 --> 00:20:16.110 align:middle line:84% I was a political refugee in Libya still in 1991. 00:20:16.110 --> 00:20:17.910 align:middle line:84% I did not really have much access 00:20:17.910 --> 00:20:23.160 align:middle line:84% to many books about Libya or to go to Libya itself to find out 00:20:23.160 --> 00:20:25.640 align:middle line:90% these stories. 00:20:25.640 --> 00:20:29.070 align:middle line:84% So there is also the issue of geographical access. 00:20:29.070 --> 00:20:31.560 align:middle line:84% I found it difficult to visualize scenes and speakers 00:20:31.560 --> 00:20:33.990 align:middle line:84% having not visited Libya for 14 years. 00:20:33.990 --> 00:20:36.120 align:middle line:90% Imagination is rooted in memory. 00:20:36.120 --> 00:20:38.580 align:middle line:84% If one's memory of a place dies, so 00:20:38.580 --> 00:20:41.980 align:middle line:84% does the ability to write imaginatively about it. 00:20:41.980 --> 00:20:44.280 align:middle line:84% In other cases in which I was not 00:20:44.280 --> 00:20:46.200 align:middle line:84% going to write poems based on memory, 00:20:46.200 --> 00:20:48.510 align:middle line:84% I needed physical access to certain settings, 00:20:48.510 --> 00:20:52.710 align:middle line:84% in order to accurately describe the scenes of the poems. 00:20:52.710 --> 00:20:54.810 align:middle line:84% Places always adjust the cadences 00:20:54.810 --> 00:20:57.210 align:middle line:84% in which the poetry about them is to be written. 00:20:57.210 --> 00:20:59.610 align:middle line:84% I needed access to Libya to feel the cadence 00:20:59.610 --> 00:21:01.680 align:middle line:84% and to tell the stories according to the rhythm. 00:21:01.680 --> 00:21:06.420 align:middle line:84% So this is essentially why a poem was not written. 00:21:06.420 --> 00:21:09.750 align:middle line:90% You needed a certain-- 00:21:09.750 --> 00:21:13.650 align:middle line:84% the epic sort of the long poem is contrary, at least 00:21:13.650 --> 00:21:18.870 align:middle line:84% traditionally, contrary to the aims of descent, 00:21:18.870 --> 00:21:21.090 align:middle line:90% to some extent. 00:21:21.090 --> 00:21:24.502 align:middle line:90% But that's not always true. 00:21:24.502 --> 00:21:26.460 align:middle line:84% And then there's a kind of a sense of belonging 00:21:26.460 --> 00:21:30.060 align:middle line:84% and self-definition and access to information 00:21:30.060 --> 00:21:34.160 align:middle line:90% that was necessary.