WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.750 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.750 --> 00:00:05.010 align:middle line:90% Hello, there. 00:00:05.010 --> 00:00:06.770 align:middle line:84% My question for you is, how would you 00:00:06.770 --> 00:00:10.100 align:middle line:84% describe your writing process when thinking of a poem? 00:00:10.100 --> 00:00:12.855 align:middle line:84% Because the director said that you can sort of 00:00:12.855 --> 00:00:15.230 align:middle line:84% take from everything around you, whether it's experiences 00:00:15.230 --> 00:00:17.540 align:middle line:90% or even objects [INAUDIBLE]. 00:00:17.540 --> 00:00:21.870 align:middle line:90% 00:00:21.870 --> 00:00:24.990 align:middle line:84% I don't think that I have a process that 00:00:24.990 --> 00:00:28.680 align:middle line:84% can be broken down into a series of simple steps or-- 00:00:28.680 --> 00:00:30.430 align:middle line:90% I mean, it's never simple. 00:00:30.430 --> 00:00:32.490 align:middle line:90% There are writers-- 00:00:32.490 --> 00:00:35.190 align:middle line:84% I find this with fiction writers a lot. 00:00:35.190 --> 00:00:38.970 align:middle line:84% They will say, like, first, I get up in the morning, 00:00:38.970 --> 00:00:41.340 align:middle line:90% and I run five miles. 00:00:41.340 --> 00:00:45.570 align:middle line:84% And then, I come back to my study. 00:00:45.570 --> 00:00:48.870 align:middle line:84% And I, then, will write for the next five 00:00:48.870 --> 00:00:53.520 align:middle line:84% hours uninterrupted before winning the National Book 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:54.030 align:middle line:90% Award. 00:00:54.030 --> 00:00:55.320 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:55.320 --> 00:00:56.800 align:middle line:90% I don't have like-- 00:00:56.800 --> 00:00:58.020 align:middle line:90% I hate running. 00:00:58.020 --> 00:00:59.220 align:middle line:90% I hate sports. 00:00:59.220 --> 00:01:00.780 align:middle line:84% Pretty much I have to force myself 00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:03.690 align:middle line:90% to even just go to yoga class. 00:01:03.690 --> 00:01:06.100 align:middle line:84% So I don't have that type of like routine. 00:01:06.100 --> 00:01:08.640 align:middle line:90% 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:11.880 align:middle line:90% I write in fits and starts. 00:01:11.880 --> 00:01:14.520 align:middle line:84% I sometimes can write in complete silence. 00:01:14.520 --> 00:01:16.870 align:middle line:90% I guess I prefer that. 00:01:16.870 --> 00:01:19.320 align:middle line:84% But I wrote a lot of the poems of which I 00:01:19.320 --> 00:01:24.390 align:middle line:84% particularly the villanelles while half listening to like 00:01:24.390 --> 00:01:28.050 align:middle line:84% the entirety of Downton Abbey just playing episode 00:01:28.050 --> 00:01:32.580 align:middle line:84% after episode because it was just engaging enough, 00:01:32.580 --> 00:01:34.560 align:middle line:90% but then not. 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:37.530 align:middle line:84% I could like listen to it a little bit, 00:01:37.530 --> 00:01:40.680 align:middle line:84% and then also write a villanelle. 00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:43.590 align:middle line:90% But that only happened one time. 00:01:43.590 --> 00:01:49.450 align:middle line:84% It feels like every book is really, really different. 00:01:49.450 --> 00:01:51.400 align:middle line:84% Every project feels very different. 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:54.130 align:middle line:84% It feels like it requires a different writing process. 00:01:54.130 --> 00:01:56.560 align:middle line:84% I always feel like I am doing it wrong 00:01:56.560 --> 00:02:00.400 align:middle line:84% whenever I am writing something which 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:02.920 align:middle line:84% probably means that I'm producing 00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:04.570 align:middle line:90% things that need to be written. 00:02:04.570 --> 00:02:07.210 align:middle line:84% So there's some weird uncertainty 00:02:07.210 --> 00:02:15.190 align:middle line:84% and like imperilment that I seem to require plus Downton Abbey 00:02:15.190 --> 00:02:19.960 align:middle line:84% in order to write-- it's like a very strange alchemical process 00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:24.730 align:middle line:84% that does draw from all of the things that are around me. 00:02:24.730 --> 00:02:27.580 align:middle line:84% If I'm traveling a lot, then the locations of that travel 00:02:27.580 --> 00:02:29.290 align:middle line:90% will end up in the poems. 00:02:29.290 --> 00:02:32.020 align:middle line:84% If I'm doing like historical research, 00:02:32.020 --> 00:02:36.280 align:middle line:84% genealogical research, then that will appear in the poems. 00:02:36.280 --> 00:02:38.200 align:middle line:84% Conversations that I have with people, 00:02:38.200 --> 00:02:40.760 align:middle line:84% sometimes that will appear in the poems as well. 00:02:40.760 --> 00:02:42.880 align:middle line:84% If not the actual conversation, then something 00:02:42.880 --> 00:02:46.570 align:middle line:84% about the texture of the conversation will appear. 00:02:46.570 --> 00:02:52.030 align:middle line:84% But I can't really choreograph any of those things to happen. 00:02:52.030 --> 00:02:54.355 align:middle line:84% It's just sort of situational with me. 00:02:54.355 --> 00:02:56.762 align:middle line:90% 00:02:56.762 --> 00:02:57.970 align:middle line:90% It's a good question, though. 00:02:57.970 --> 00:03:05.960 align:middle line:90% 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:08.730 align:middle line:84% I'm cheating, but it's something that I didn't 00:03:08.730 --> 00:03:09.980 align:middle line:90% get an opportunity to ask you. 00:03:09.980 --> 00:03:11.690 align:middle line:84% Can you talk a little bit about how you 00:03:11.690 --> 00:03:14.120 align:middle line:90% decide the forms of your poems? 00:03:14.120 --> 00:03:16.730 align:middle line:84% [? There ?] that you sometimes do prose or prose 00:03:16.730 --> 00:03:19.100 align:middle line:84% poems and other times you do things 00:03:19.100 --> 00:03:20.275 align:middle line:90% where-- they're in stanzas. 00:03:20.275 --> 00:03:22.550 align:middle line:84% So can you talk a little bit about how 00:03:22.550 --> 00:03:25.760 align:middle line:84% you make that decision [? for ?] the poem? 00:03:25.760 --> 00:03:29.540 align:middle line:84% I always write different kinds of poems. 00:03:29.540 --> 00:03:34.070 align:middle line:84% So in each book, you'll see many forms being used. 00:03:34.070 --> 00:03:37.140 align:middle line:90% 00:03:37.140 --> 00:03:40.550 align:middle line:84% There are lots and lots of poets of color 00:03:40.550 --> 00:03:45.540 align:middle line:84% who are writing wonderful work right now, and of course, 00:03:45.540 --> 00:03:50.220 align:middle line:84% have always used traditional anglophone forms, 00:03:50.220 --> 00:03:53.240 align:middle line:90% such as the sonnet. 00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:55.640 align:middle line:84% And I wanted for "Witch Wife" to try 00:03:55.640 --> 00:03:58.340 align:middle line:84% to work with a traditional verse form. 00:03:58.340 --> 00:04:01.790 align:middle line:84% I mean, I have like a pantoum in here, and I have a sestina. 00:04:01.790 --> 00:04:05.240 align:middle line:84% But I wanted to do like a sustained thing 00:04:05.240 --> 00:04:07.280 align:middle line:90% in traditional verse form. 00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:10.340 align:middle line:84% But I didn't want to write sonnets 00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:14.330 align:middle line:84% because there were already so many wonderful ones that 00:04:14.330 --> 00:04:19.190 align:middle line:84% existed that I didn't want my poems to be compared 00:04:19.190 --> 00:04:20.399 align:middle line:90% to all of that. 00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:23.150 align:middle line:84% So I was like, I'll try something else. 00:04:23.150 --> 00:04:26.130 align:middle line:84% And then, I was like, I wonder I wonder 00:04:26.130 --> 00:04:27.380 align:middle line:90% if I could write a villanelle. 00:04:27.380 --> 00:04:29.390 align:middle line:84% I really had not written villanelles 00:04:29.390 --> 00:04:32.720 align:middle line:90% prior to this project. 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:34.880 align:middle line:84% So there's something really wonderfully dark 00:04:34.880 --> 00:04:35.780 align:middle line:90% about a villanelle. 00:04:35.780 --> 00:04:39.230 align:middle line:84% There's something-- it's like a velvet ribbon, 00:04:39.230 --> 00:04:41.068 align:middle line:84% like the way that the repetition happens 00:04:41.068 --> 00:04:42.860 align:middle line:84% and you sort of see one side of the ribbon. 00:04:42.860 --> 00:04:44.235 align:middle line:84% And then, it repeats against, you 00:04:44.235 --> 00:04:46.580 align:middle line:84% see another side of the ribbon as it goes forward. 00:04:46.580 --> 00:04:49.478 align:middle line:84% That really matched up with the kind of personality 00:04:49.478 --> 00:04:51.270 align:middle line:84% that I wanted to come through in this book. 00:04:51.270 --> 00:04:54.110 align:middle line:84% So I really wanted the spine of "Witch Wife" 00:04:54.110 --> 00:04:57.230 align:middle line:84% to be these villanelles that I wrote. 00:04:57.230 --> 00:04:59.870 align:middle line:84% And the other forms are just what 00:04:59.870 --> 00:05:01.580 align:middle line:90% the poem needs at the time. 00:05:01.580 --> 00:05:04.580 align:middle line:84% Sometimes the poem does need to be in a prose block, 00:05:04.580 --> 00:05:07.730 align:middle line:84% and other times it needs to be in some other occasional form, 00:05:07.730 --> 00:05:09.590 align:middle line:90% or maybe a traditional form. 00:05:09.590 --> 00:05:13.640 align:middle line:84% I do test out different forms for poems 00:05:13.640 --> 00:05:18.710 align:middle line:84% that seem to want to find a resting place that I haven't 00:05:18.710 --> 00:05:20.360 align:middle line:90% already found for it. 00:05:20.360 --> 00:05:23.120 align:middle line:84% So sometimes I'm like, I want to write a villanelle, 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:25.250 align:middle line:90% and that can happen. 00:05:25.250 --> 00:05:28.730 align:middle line:84% And sometimes, I'm working on a poem and the lineation 00:05:28.730 --> 00:05:32.780 align:middle line:84% and the enjambment of that poem becomes 00:05:32.780 --> 00:05:36.530 align:middle line:84% apparent in revision which I've actually learned now 00:05:36.530 --> 00:05:40.370 align:middle line:90% is part of writing. 00:05:40.370 --> 00:05:43.130 align:middle line:84% The revision process is at a time of discovery 00:05:43.130 --> 00:05:45.035 align:middle line:84% just as much as a drafting process is. 00:05:45.035 --> 00:05:56.840 align:middle line:90% 00:05:56.840 --> 00:05:59.120 align:middle line:90% I'll ask a question. 00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:02.390 align:middle line:90% Who are your influences? 00:06:02.390 --> 00:06:05.030 align:middle line:84% Well, thanks to you all, I got to put together 00:06:05.030 --> 00:06:06.545 align:middle line:90% a lucky 13 buzz-- 00:06:06.545 --> 00:06:08.000 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:12.613 align:middle line:84% --that I grabbed off of the shelves over in the library 00:06:12.613 --> 00:06:14.030 align:middle line:84% which-- what direction is that in? 00:06:14.030 --> 00:06:14.880 align:middle line:90% Where's the library? 00:06:14.880 --> 00:06:15.380 align:middle line:90% Over here. 00:06:15.380 --> 00:06:20.060 align:middle line:84% Yeah, so that was amazing, wonderful experience. 00:06:20.060 --> 00:06:23.060 align:middle line:84% And so some of the books that you'll find on there-- 00:06:23.060 --> 00:06:28.010 align:middle line:90% I picked La Vita Nuova by Dante. 00:06:28.010 --> 00:06:30.950 align:middle line:84% I picked the collected Phillis Wheatley. 00:06:30.950 --> 00:06:37.920 align:middle line:84% I chose The Grey Album, Kevin Young's book, critical book. 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:39.410 align:middle line:90% What else did I pick? 00:06:39.410 --> 00:06:42.380 align:middle line:84% Rita Dove's "Mother Love" was gifted to me by my high school 00:06:42.380 --> 00:06:43.080 align:middle line:90% English teacher. 00:06:43.080 --> 00:06:44.663 align:middle line:84% It was really the first book of poetry 00:06:44.663 --> 00:06:47.150 align:middle line:90% that I ever read cover to cover. 00:06:47.150 --> 00:06:50.480 align:middle line:84% So I mean, that was a book that just had to be, 00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:52.910 align:middle line:90% that had to be in that stack. 00:06:52.910 --> 00:06:56.510 align:middle line:84% I'm reading a lot of poems by African American women. 00:06:56.510 --> 00:06:59.390 align:middle line:84% I'm reading Camille Dungy, Tracy K. Smith. 00:06:59.390 --> 00:07:01.310 align:middle line:90% I have Life on Mars in my stack. 00:07:01.310 --> 00:07:03.260 align:middle line:84% But I just taught her new book Wade 00:07:03.260 --> 00:07:07.460 align:middle line:84% in the Water which is an amazing book. 00:07:07.460 --> 00:07:11.240 align:middle line:84% There's so many exciting women poets 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:12.950 align:middle line:90% that I feel like I've had to-- 00:07:12.950 --> 00:07:15.080 align:middle line:84% I feel like I'm sort of scrambling 00:07:15.080 --> 00:07:21.440 align:middle line:84% to get my reading of women poets of all stripes up to speed. 00:07:21.440 --> 00:07:25.250 align:middle line:84% Because when you're at a traditional University, 00:07:25.250 --> 00:07:27.800 align:middle line:90% certainly-- 00:07:27.800 --> 00:07:29.480 align:middle line:84% in my generation of poets that came up, 00:07:29.480 --> 00:07:33.600 align:middle line:84% it was mostly male poets that were on the syllabus. 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:36.280 align:middle line:90% And so you to sort of-- 00:07:36.280 --> 00:07:39.200 align:middle line:84% you have Dickinson in there, but Dickinson almost doesn't even 00:07:39.200 --> 00:07:41.120 align:middle line:84% count as a woman really in that way. 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:43.790 align:middle line:84% The way that she's narrated into the canon, 00:07:43.790 --> 00:07:45.620 align:middle line:90% it's just like Dickinson. 00:07:45.620 --> 00:07:50.150 align:middle line:84% But next to all of these other men-- 00:07:50.150 --> 00:07:52.730 align:middle line:84% and then there's no other women on the syllabus. 00:07:52.730 --> 00:07:59.210 align:middle line:84% And no one ever talks about that situation until now. 00:07:59.210 --> 00:08:01.640 align:middle line:84% So I mean, I'm still really discovering 00:08:01.640 --> 00:08:06.612 align:middle line:84% so many wonderful poets whom I should have read earlier. 00:08:06.612 --> 00:08:08.570 align:middle line:84% I should have taken upon myself to read earlier 00:08:08.570 --> 00:08:09.920 align:middle line:90% when I was an undergraduate. 00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:13.130 align:middle line:84% One of the books in the stack is Anne Sexton's All My Pretty 00:08:13.130 --> 00:08:16.400 align:middle line:84% Ones which was a book from the early 1960s which 00:08:16.400 --> 00:08:18.230 align:middle line:90% is an amazing-- 00:08:18.230 --> 00:08:19.670 align:middle line:90% just an amazing book. 00:08:19.670 --> 00:08:22.370 align:middle line:84% We read a lot of Plath, but we also 00:08:22.370 --> 00:08:26.750 align:middle line:84% need to read Sexton and particularly that collection. 00:08:26.750 --> 00:08:28.860 align:middle line:84% It's very emotional and personal, 00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:31.760 align:middle line:84% but it's also very formally robust and rigorous. 00:08:31.760 --> 00:08:35.112 align:middle line:84% And you just see her attention to form play out 00:08:35.112 --> 00:08:36.320 align:middle line:90% over the course of that book. 00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:40.490 align:middle line:84% And it really just sets the table for so many other things 00:08:40.490 --> 00:08:43.110 align:middle line:90% that you can do in poetry. 00:08:43.110 --> 00:08:44.390 align:middle line:90% So I'm reading-- 00:08:44.390 --> 00:08:46.160 align:middle line:84% I'm influenced by a lot of women poets 00:08:46.160 --> 00:08:49.400 align:middle line:84% at this point, a lot of poets of color at this point, 00:08:49.400 --> 00:08:51.680 align:middle line:84% but I also really like going back and reading 00:08:51.680 --> 00:08:56.360 align:middle line:84% older things, things that are slash quote/unquote 00:08:56.360 --> 00:08:57.800 align:middle line:90% "canonical." 00:08:57.800 --> 00:08:59.840 align:middle line:90% I always go back to Dante. 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:04.760 align:middle line:84% Every time you open up the Divine Comedy, it's happening. 00:09:04.760 --> 00:09:05.990 align:middle line:90% They're on the journey. 00:09:05.990 --> 00:09:08.270 align:middle line:90% It's going on. 00:09:08.270 --> 00:09:11.780 align:middle line:84% Similar-- you can open up a book like Moby Dick too 00:09:11.780 --> 00:09:12.590 align:middle line:90% and the same-- 00:09:12.590 --> 00:09:13.855 align:middle line:90% that's the same effect. 00:09:13.855 --> 00:09:15.230 align:middle line:84% And that's not true of every book 00:09:15.230 --> 00:09:19.610 align:middle line:84% that you open up where the book is actually like taking place 00:09:19.610 --> 00:09:21.590 align:middle line:84% no matter what page you open it to. 00:09:21.590 --> 00:09:23.810 align:middle line:84% So I kind of look for that feeling or effect. 00:09:23.810 --> 00:09:31.390 align:middle line:90% 00:09:31.390 --> 00:09:36.030 align:middle line:84% So hearing you talk about Camille Dungy has influence 00:09:36.030 --> 00:09:40.050 align:middle line:84% to you and noting that a lot of their poetry 00:09:40.050 --> 00:09:43.530 align:middle line:84% deals with nature, I was wondering, in your poems-- 00:09:43.530 --> 00:09:47.100 align:middle line:84% particularly, I noted in "Little Gals." 00:09:47.100 --> 00:09:49.680 align:middle line:84% There seems to be an intersection between nature 00:09:49.680 --> 00:09:54.690 align:middle line:84% and imagination in that poem or something like fantastical. 00:09:54.690 --> 00:09:58.380 align:middle line:84% I wondered, what space do you make for imagination and maybe 00:09:58.380 --> 00:10:01.350 align:middle line:84% fantasy like the entrance of that into your poems 00:10:01.350 --> 00:10:04.380 align:middle line:84% and like nature as like reality and sort 00:10:04.380 --> 00:10:05.790 align:middle line:90% of the intersection of the two? 00:10:05.790 --> 00:10:08.910 align:middle line:84% That's an excellent-- I think that's an excellent question. 00:10:08.910 --> 00:10:14.490 align:middle line:84% For me, I am a person who is a very uncomfortable in nature. 00:10:14.490 --> 00:10:17.280 align:middle line:84% I will get the most mosquito bites. 00:10:17.280 --> 00:10:20.430 align:middle line:90% I will get lost. 00:10:20.430 --> 00:10:23.340 align:middle line:84% People will have to come rescue me, like, all these things. 00:10:23.340 --> 00:10:27.000 align:middle line:90% I will ski off of something. 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:30.870 align:middle line:84% It's not-- I don't have this like amazing comfort 00:10:30.870 --> 00:10:34.080 align:middle line:90% like within nature. 00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:38.250 align:middle line:84% So for me, a forest, like, clearing or something 00:10:38.250 --> 00:10:40.680 align:middle line:84% is like the space where something magical could 00:10:40.680 --> 00:10:42.060 align:middle line:90% possibly happen. 00:10:42.060 --> 00:10:46.545 align:middle line:84% So I think about nature in the like Midsummer Night's Dream 00:10:46.545 --> 00:10:49.920 align:middle line:90% sense of it's this other sphere. 00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:52.710 align:middle line:84% It's like closed to this other thing, this other place, 00:10:52.710 --> 00:10:54.582 align:middle line:90% or this other realm maybe. 00:10:54.582 --> 00:10:56.040 align:middle line:84% And when you go into nature, you're 00:10:56.040 --> 00:10:58.940 align:middle line:90% going into this other realm. 00:10:58.940 --> 00:11:00.690 align:middle line:84% One of the things that happened with Black 00:11:00.690 --> 00:11:03.450 align:middle line:84% genealogy is that I went to Virginia. 00:11:03.450 --> 00:11:05.455 align:middle line:84% Also-- my mother decided because this 00:11:05.455 --> 00:11:07.080 align:middle line:84% had to do with genealogy and her family 00:11:07.080 --> 00:11:10.140 align:middle line:84% that she was also going to be supervising this research. 00:11:10.140 --> 00:11:12.570 align:middle line:90% So she came with me to Virginia. 00:11:12.570 --> 00:11:16.380 align:middle line:84% And I had-- we found out from the Historical Society 00:11:16.380 --> 00:11:20.580 align:middle line:84% that basically my great great grandfather and his family 00:11:20.580 --> 00:11:25.020 align:middle line:84% were buried in this small family plot 00:11:25.020 --> 00:11:27.730 align:middle line:84% that-- it had been part of their farmland. 00:11:27.730 --> 00:11:31.220 align:middle line:84% I mean, like traditionally people that had farms, 00:11:31.220 --> 00:11:35.420 align:middle line:84% you'd have like a family cemetery plot within that land. 00:11:35.420 --> 00:11:37.820 align:middle line:84% But then, what happens is that when the land passes out 00:11:37.820 --> 00:11:42.260 align:middle line:84% of the family, then the knowledge of where that burial 00:11:42.260 --> 00:11:46.310 align:middle line:84% ground is also departs from the knowledge of the family. 00:11:46.310 --> 00:11:49.820 align:middle line:84% So we rediscovered that there were these like eight 00:11:49.820 --> 00:11:52.130 align:middle line:90% graves in this one spot. 00:11:52.130 --> 00:11:54.890 align:middle line:84% And so we were like, whoa, we're going to the woods, 00:11:54.890 --> 00:11:56.600 align:middle line:84% and we're going to find these graves. 00:11:56.600 --> 00:12:00.470 align:middle line:84% But neither one of us knows anything about the woods, 00:12:00.470 --> 00:12:01.280 align:middle line:90% but whatever. 00:12:01.280 --> 00:12:02.420 align:middle line:90% We went. 00:12:02.420 --> 00:12:07.940 align:middle line:84% We figured out how to get to this thicket of, whatever, 00:12:07.940 --> 00:12:11.000 align:middle line:90% forest in the rural Virginia. 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:12.920 align:middle line:84% We were like, we'll just use the GPS. 00:12:12.920 --> 00:12:15.500 align:middle line:90% Phones didn't work. 00:12:15.500 --> 00:12:18.260 align:middle line:84% We were like, well, we'll follow this path. 00:12:18.260 --> 00:12:19.310 align:middle line:90% Path ran out. 00:12:19.310 --> 00:12:23.900 align:middle line:90% 00:12:23.900 --> 00:12:26.210 align:middle line:84% There is a kind of blindness that 00:12:26.210 --> 00:12:29.630 align:middle line:84% comes over you in the woods if you're not a person who 00:12:29.630 --> 00:12:32.090 align:middle line:90% can be in the woods. 00:12:32.090 --> 00:12:35.060 align:middle line:84% They tell you, like, when you're drowning that you can't tell up 00:12:35.060 --> 00:12:36.590 align:middle line:90% from down. 00:12:36.590 --> 00:12:37.970 align:middle line:84% When you're in the woods, and you 00:12:37.970 --> 00:12:41.630 align:middle line:84% have no idea why you're in the woods or where you are, 00:12:41.630 --> 00:12:45.890 align:middle line:84% you start to have this forest blindness where you're 00:12:45.890 --> 00:12:52.430 align:middle line:84% like you lose all sense of direction which is dangerous 00:12:52.430 --> 00:12:54.980 align:middle line:90% if you're actually in the woods. 00:12:54.980 --> 00:12:58.820 align:middle line:84% So it was a super, super stressful situation, 00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:00.500 align:middle line:90% but it was also-- 00:13:00.500 --> 00:13:03.620 align:middle line:84% I also knew that I was stepping into this other realm. 00:13:03.620 --> 00:13:04.790 align:middle line:90% And that if I was-- 00:13:04.790 --> 00:13:07.910 align:middle line:84% I literally was like, if I'm meant to find these graves, 00:13:07.910 --> 00:13:10.700 align:middle line:84% then I will then I'll find them because I 00:13:10.700 --> 00:13:15.680 align:middle line:84% had no other tools and no skills otherwise to find them. 00:13:15.680 --> 00:13:18.860 align:middle line:84% And I didn't-- we weren't able to find them. 00:13:18.860 --> 00:13:21.470 align:middle line:84% And we went again with the Historical Society 00:13:21.470 --> 00:13:24.200 align:middle line:84% lady who had originally found the graveyard, 00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:27.080 align:middle line:84% and she couldn't find them again. 00:13:27.080 --> 00:13:32.950 align:middle line:84% And so it must be that it's been so overgrown even 00:13:32.950 --> 00:13:36.880 align:middle line:84% in the few years that where she first photographed them 00:13:36.880 --> 00:13:39.640 align:middle line:84% that maybe the gravestones have fallen down. 00:13:39.640 --> 00:13:43.330 align:middle line:84% Maybe there's vines and stuff growing over them. 00:13:43.330 --> 00:13:45.400 align:middle line:84% We were probably within like 20 feet of them, 00:13:45.400 --> 00:13:47.200 align:middle line:90% but we couldn't see them. 00:13:47.200 --> 00:13:53.000 align:middle line:84% So you realize you're not in control at that point. 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:55.190 align:middle line:84% You can't just like walk into the woods. 00:13:55.190 --> 00:13:58.610 align:middle line:84% You can't just like hack away the vines and suddenly 00:13:58.610 --> 00:14:00.470 align:middle line:84% the thing that you're looking for is there. 00:14:00.470 --> 00:14:03.230 align:middle line:84% The woods will decide what you're going to do, 00:14:03.230 --> 00:14:06.020 align:middle line:84% or what you're going to get to see. 00:14:06.020 --> 00:14:09.350 align:middle line:84% And they decided that we would have this other experience, 00:14:09.350 --> 00:14:14.960 align:middle line:84% but we wouldn't be finding these particular graves. 00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:20.000 align:middle line:84% I also came away with a very clear sense that it was enough. 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:23.450 align:middle line:84% I don't-- my mother and I don't have to go there a third time. 00:14:23.450 --> 00:14:25.490 align:middle line:84% Like there was this message that I 00:14:25.490 --> 00:14:29.210 align:middle line:84% felt was being given to me where it was like, you did OK. 00:14:29.210 --> 00:14:32.360 align:middle line:84% You didn't find what you wanted to find. 00:14:32.360 --> 00:14:34.500 align:middle line:84% You don't have to come here again. 00:14:34.500 --> 00:14:37.190 align:middle line:84% And I don't know who gave me that message, but it definitely 00:14:37.190 --> 00:14:39.740 align:middle line:84% felt like it was from another place 00:14:39.740 --> 00:14:43.430 align:middle line:84% and not just coming from my own fear of the woods-- 00:14:43.430 --> 00:14:44.550 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:14:44.550 --> 00:14:47.354 align:middle line:90% --which is also very real. 00:14:47.354 --> 00:14:49.610 align:middle line:90% [? Well, ?] thank you, Kiki. 00:14:49.610 --> 00:14:50.480 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:53.830 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:14:53.830 --> 00:14:59.399 align:middle line:90%