So in your metaphor of the waterslides, yeah,
what's gravity in the metaphor?
There has to be gravity for a waterslide to work.
I don't know.
I'm not responsible for my metaphors.
I mean, I think that's the, I mean, the feeling.
But yeah, I mean, I think that's the gravity is the force that
keeps you moving.
It is part of the fear and part of the excitement.
I don't know.
Maybe in-- maybe the gravity-- that's
the force that's actually keeping the poem.
The gravity is the center, and I think
it might be the combination of these things.
What is in my world?
How am I part of it?
How am I seeing it?
How can I provide a vision of it?
So it's a combination of the pursuit
of the impulses behind the poet's mission, which is--
I mean, I think the desire to create a work of art
dominates any sort of social political factor.
And so it's a combination of the potential
for contributing to a discourse but also creating
this thing that becomes a focal point of discussion.
But also the real anxiety, the real anxiety that
drives the poem.
So it's a combination of having a real, sort of, fear, anxiety.
We're talking about dread in talking about Tocqueville
combined with hope that this work will
create a certain awareness.
Sometimes that certain awareness is
to reach the bottom of despair.
It's to know how deep the see is,
and that itself is a great source of knowledge
in that sense.
So yeah, but then we are going to move around
to figure out all the parameters of this subject,
of its tragedies, of its potential points of recovery.
Yeah, that's the, sort of, swirling,
but the force that's putting it all together
is a serious curiosity, a certain and serious,
I would say, anxiety, to some degree
a personal and collective hope.
Is there another question?
We have time for one more.
Just checking.
You started off by talking about the epic poem
that you didn't write.
Yeah.
So what's the relationship between that poem
and Tocqueville and the long poem
that you wrote for that book?
I don't know.
Maybe because of--
Me becoming a citizen or becoming
a part of the place, citizens it's talked about as one
of the requirements or the sense of belonging,
and I think by the time Tocqueville came,
the sense of--
what shall I say-- citizenship in a larger sense
had been anchored.
I feel it, and I don't mean just, sort of,
American citizenship but a sense of like I
am a person of the world or responsible to say things
to contribute, to be a part of a dialogue.
So taking up that, sort of--
it's maybe agency, I think, the difference
that Tocqueville claims a certain agency
to talk about all of these things together, and to,
sort of, critique Tocqueville or to even say, oh, we
need a new Tocqueville, let it be my poem,
I think that's, kind of, an outrageous--
but, sort of, that's the change.
I mean, I think when I was a lot of cautious,
with this character.
I didn't have this letter.
And I think it was a good move not
to begin with the long poem, especially when you didn't have
a lot of the information or a lot of the research
or really in a sense of I didn't know how
to place that poem in that conversation about Islamophobia
and agoraphobia and racism in America.
And so as much as I was interested and as much
as my writing was a way to preserve a lot of memory,
it didn't seem like that would have been the way to go.
With Tocqueville, I think there's
a certain sense of I need to do this,
and this is a sense of I need to.
It's very important that this thing gets talked about.
I didn't feel that hesitance at all.
So maybe there's a difference.
But citizenship in a broader sense is an important, sort of,
gravity.
[LAUGH]
Well, thank you so much, Khaled.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]