WEBVTT

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How important is nature in
your life and in your writing?

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It's funny, I don't think
of nature as being something

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that one goes into separate
from one's own life,

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if that makes sense.

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Someone asked today about
the birds in my poems,

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and I've been thinking
a lot about why

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are their birds in
so many of my poems.

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And I'm hoping it's not
because it's a poetic cliché.

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I think it's because it's
the wilderness that we

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see every day.

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That's really the
only wild animal

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that, no matter where
you live, you see them.

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It's incredibly important.

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I mean, if I'm stuck, that's
where I'll take a walk, or sit.

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I have sort of an office
where it's just all windows,

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and I can get an idea
just looking at a tree,

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or watching the way
the wind's moving,

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or listening to something.

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Taking a long drive and
sort of watching landscape

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kind of scroll by, like film.

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So it's really important.

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I think that's where most of my
sense of metaphor comes from,

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is seeing things in the
natural world and reflecting

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that back to something in the
made world, or vice versa.

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Yeah, I can't imagine
writing poems in a cubicle,

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in other words.

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I really need a window
to write a poem.

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Thank you for your nice--

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very nice poems.

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I'm curious to know how
old your children are now,

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and if you still
find them inspiring?

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Well, they have their moments.

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They are now six,
and my daughter

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will be 10 in about two weeks.

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So kindergarten, fourth grade.

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Yes, they're still
really inspiring.

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My oldest is getting
to the age now

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where I'm probably going to have
to start running things by her

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if I want to use them in poems.

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And my son is at
an age now where

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he wants to know why everything
he says isn't in poems.

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He said something two
years ago, and he still

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asks why it's not in a poem yet.

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We were walking after dropping
his sister off at school,

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and he was still home with me.

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He was four.

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And we saw a squirrel jump
from a tree to a power line

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to a roof, doing that
sort of network thing

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that squirrels do,
and he said, it's

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like a secret
sidewalk in the sky.

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And I said, oh buddy,
that's a simile.

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And you actually used like,
alliteration, and that's great.

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And he looked at me and
he said, is that a poem?

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And I said, well,
it's not a poem,

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but it could turn into a poem.

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It's a great idea.

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And I swear to you, two
years later, he's still like,

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have you written
that squirrel poem?

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It's like, dance, monkey.

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Right, you know?

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So right now, they're pleased
to see themselves in the poems.

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I think it makes them
feel like their ideas are

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important and have
value, and I love that.

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I mean, even when
my son was three,

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he carried a writer's notebook
to preschool in his backpack.

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And he couldn't write,
but he sees me do it.

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And when his preschool
teacher asked him

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why he had a Moleskine,
he said, well, you never

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know when you might get an idea,
and you need to write it down

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before you forget.

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Age three.

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So I feel like the
indoctrination is happening.

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But I do realize, too,
that at a certain point,

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their stories and ideas will
be their own, and not my--

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not kindling for my fire.

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So I'm hoping to be
sensitive about that

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as they get older and want
to write their own poems

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or stories.

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OK.

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I'm so excited.

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Thank you very much
for your reading.

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And your poems are beautiful.

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Thank you.

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Really beautiful, they
touch me very much.

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I'm curious to know, when is
your favorite time to write?

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And, with two young
children, how you manage it?

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My favorite time to
write is whenever

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they will leave me alone.

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Really, early morning and
late night are my best times.

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And I think that
might have something

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to do with that
sort of fuzzy space

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that's sort of like
you're coming out of sleep

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and out of dreaming, and
your mind, like the edges,

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are still a little soft.

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So, early morning
is good for me.

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And then late night,
because you're

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sort of going toward
those sort of soft spaces.

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But once I hit
like, a hard line,

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and I've had a couple of
cups of coffee and I'm awake,

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then I'm doing work
for clients, typically.

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I'm a freelance writer, so
I try to spend my afternoons

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doing work for other people.

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But those sort of
like, liminal times

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are the times I write best.

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Although, with small
children, as you said,

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I have learned to
write whenever I can.

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So sometimes it's in the car,
on the back of a bank receipt.

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Or, if I'm walking the
dog, talking into my iPhone

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and recording an idea
so I don't lose it.

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Or, on a road trip, scrawling,
sort of not really looking

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at what I'm doing on a legal
pad in the passenger seat

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so I don't lose something.

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Or, if I get really on
a wild tear, saying,

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who wants to watch Moana again?

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And I can buy myself 90 minutes
while they watch a movie

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and have popcorn.

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And I'm a hero, but I'm
also getting something done.

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So yeah, they're
still young enough

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that-- my daughter is old enough
that she can keep herself busy,

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and she's fine just reading
a book while I work.

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But my little guy
is still pretty--

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needs me to be there
doing everything,

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so Moana really
saves me sometimes.

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Hi.

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Hi.

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Thank you.

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I was wondering, we have this
debate in my poetry workshop,

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where sometimes there are
poems that come to you,

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and they feel like gifts.

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It's like, you write them
down, and you didn't write it.

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It just wrote itself.

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It never-- I mean, it
hardly ever happens,

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but I find that I
have a lot of poems

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that I've been working
on for so long,

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and I don't know when
to just get rid of them.

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I mean--

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Don't get rid of them.

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But I wondered--
wondered about that.

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How long-- like, what do you
do with those problem children?

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I just have them in a folder.

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I mean, I am not like you.

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I don't have more good
poems than bad poems.

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Billy Collins says they're
like every single writer has

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200 bad poems in them.

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And I think--

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Oh, I have a lot more than that.

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I have-- I know.

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I mean, maybe if you're
Billy Collins, you do.

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Yeah.

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I'm going to skew that average.

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Yeah, I write a
lot of bad poems.

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Or rather, I write a lot
of poems that start out

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bad, and either they--

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I put them aside and
trust my future self

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to better deal with
them, or I put them aside

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and I never come back to them.

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Or I'm able to sort of salvage
one important piece of that

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poem.

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It's sort of like
this book is salvaged

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from two really big things.

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Well, poems are the same.

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I mean, every once in a
while, I may write 30 lines,

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and maybe only two
of them get sort of

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carried forward into a thing
that becomes a real poem.

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Or the poem you like
the best isn't the one

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that everybody else likes.

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That's the other
weird thing, is--

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Oh, that's the truth.

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I think I have a really good
poem, and nobody ever thinks.

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I have only had one
gift poem in my life.

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A poem that I sat down and wrote
in one sitting, and it's "Good

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Bones."

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Which is hilarious to me.

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And I have one called "Bones."

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Yeah, I mean--
and so, my feeling

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is, if you write a
poem in one sitting,

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you should like,
not trust that poem.

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That's how I feel about it.

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Be very suspicious of that poem.

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Set that side of--

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set that one aside and
share it with other people,

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because I don't
really work like that.

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I tend to work in
little increments.

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I'll write something down, and
then that'll sit for a while,

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and then I'll write
something else.

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And I'll think, maybe these
two things can live together.

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Maybe-- actually, all
three of these things,

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and actually maybe this
draft over here that has been

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languishing for two years, maybe
I just created the pieces that

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this thing needs to--

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I never even knew what this
poem wanted to be about,

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and now it gets to live
with these other things

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and become this secret thing.

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So I wouldn't ever
throw anything away.

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I would set it aside,
because you never

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know when you might
be able to come back.

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And that thing you thought
of three years ago,

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and had no idea maybe what
purpose it might serve,

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and it's still there.

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Thank goodness for
flash drives, right?

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We can keep this stuff.

00:10:17.155 --> 00:10:20.600 align:middle line:90%


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OK, I think we'll just
close it off there.

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Sure.

00:10:23.780 --> 00:10:25.743 align:middle line:90%
Save your voice.

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