WEBVTT

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I'll tell you my very
best moment in a Q and A.

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I was reading with CK Williams
because of Gail Browne.

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Where are you Gail?

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Over here.

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OK.

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Because Gail arranged it--
and of course at the Q and A

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all the questions were for CK
Williams because he's famous.

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And somebody said, why did
it take you 30 years to write

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about your lover's abortion?

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And he turned to me and said,
would you like to answer that?

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Great.

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So I did.

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You did?

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Good for you.

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Good for you.

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It's so exciting to
have you both here.

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And you're both here
behind these new books

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that are selected poems.

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And I wonder if you
could talk a little bit

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about a lifetime of work that
condenses into selected poems

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and how you think about that
process of creating those books

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and what stays and what doesn't
stay and how that might happen.

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That's a hard question.

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I'm not taking it.

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You start.

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I'll let you answer.

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Go ahead.

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I'll just say that it was a
really interesting process

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to revisit all that
work from the time.

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The oldest poem in
that book I wrote

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when I was an undergraduate
here in the '70s.

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And the newest
one was brand new.

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And it was really fun to go
back and see which ones still

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seemed to me to bear
consequence in a reader's life

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and to see which ones fit
together to make a reasonably

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cohesive volume because those
were the two things I wanted

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one of the poems to
matter to the reader.

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But I also wanted the book
to make some kind of sense.

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And then I had it
just about done,

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and my publisher said, well,
let's include some selections

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from the prose as well.

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I said, OK.

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So the book got fatter.

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And then they said, can we
put in Kesler's conversation

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with you?

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So the book got fatter.

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And so it's really
nice after having

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years and years of skinny
books to have a fat book.

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I'm not going to say anything.

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I think Peggy really
answered that question

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the same way I would.

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But I do want to say
that one thing that's

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distinctive about both of
our new and selected poems

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is that they both
are ekphrastic.

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They both contain a series
of ekphrastic poems.

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So for those of you who
don't know what that is,

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that's poems based on
visual works of art.

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And as you know, because
Peggy's mentioned that,

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she worked with an
artist in Alaska

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and had this dialogue
and this conversation.

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Teresa, will you hold
up my book a second?

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Or it's right there.

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That's a painting by my mother,
artist Baila Goldenthal.

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And she did a series of
paintings called Weavers.

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And I wrote a series of poems
based on my mother's Weavers

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paintings.

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They're very medieval looking.

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They're very
interesting paintings.

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And, Joshua, do you
have any of those?

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You have a couple
of them, my nephew.

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So I think that's
something interesting

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for us both is to have included
visual art in our books

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as well.

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And so that made
the whole process

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more interesting in
some ways because we

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brought in another voice,
really the artist's voice.

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So there's a whole
different consideration.

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Actually, I'm glad
you mentioned the--

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Yeah, I can project
that's right.

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I'm glad you mentioned the
dialogue between the visual

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and the poetic
because it really is

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for both of your
books a stunning part,

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beautifully produced
and very, very striking.

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I wonder if you could talk a
little bit about where that

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took you and what it enabled
you to say that you might not

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have said or to think what
you might not have thought.

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No.

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You go first.

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I like your response too.

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We could be sisters the way
we do the sibling thing.

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Yes.

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When I approached my
mother and asked her

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if she minded if I could
write poems in response

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to her paintings, she
said absolutely fine.

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But I don't want to discuss
them with you at all.

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So it's going to be completely
your response to them.

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And I will respect that.

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And that was kind
of daunting to me

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because I would have preferred
some kind of dialogue,

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like tell me kind
of what you think.

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No, she did not want to have
anything to do with my response

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to them.

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So in a way, I felt like
as any writer or poet will.

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And I hope some of
you who are here

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will be in my
workshop on Saturday

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because it's about
acrostic poetry.

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It's about what happens when
you look at a work of art

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and respond to it in poetry.

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And it becomes very personal.

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And I think what you're
doing, or what I was doing--

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not only are you interpreting
that work of art,

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but you're dancing with it.

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You're interacting with it.

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And you're in a way trying
to read the mind of the--

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I mean, trying to get into the
mind of the artist in some way.

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You bring yourself to that work.

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But I think you're also trying
to draw out of that work what

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the artist is trying to say.

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So it's a really interesting
process, I think.

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I don't know if I'm answering
your question, Cynthia.

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But that's what it was for me.

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For me and Kes, a
large part of it

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was play and just looking
at what someone had done.

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And we didn't either one
of us see the whole thing

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together until the exhibit
happened at the very end.

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And I printed up the poems--

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And you can do this
--printed the poems on metal.

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And they were hanging
beside the painting.

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OK.

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But most of the time when
we were working together,

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I was looking at all these
images on an 11-inch MacBook

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Air.

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And the paintings
are like 4 feet

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by 5 feet and highly textured.

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And so I'm getting
just a glimpse of them.

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But then when I saw them in
person in the had a show,

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and I got to go sit-in front
of some of the paintings,

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I was working at that
point with the whole body

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of what we were doing.

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And he was working
with the whole body

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of what we were doing.

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It's great fun.

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So I just recommend that you
do this when you get a chance

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or create the opportunity
for yourselves

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because your imagination
and your mind

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goes places it wouldn't usually.

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Absolutely.

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Thank you for the
wonderful reading.

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I know you're friends.

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And you've been giving
readings together

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now for over a year,
maybe even longer.

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And I just wondered if
you would have anything

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to say about this process
of reading together

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because it seems rather
unusual for two wonderful poets

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to spend a sustained
amount of time

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doing this kind of process.

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I have to speak my gratitude
because when these books were

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coming out at the same
time, Maurya and I set up

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many, many, many
events together.

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And then I couldn't come.

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My husband got sick.

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And Maurya valiantly
went to all of them solo.

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And she read some of my
poems as well as her own.

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So thanks, Maurya.

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This is the first time we've
gotten to read together.

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And I have to add--

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I so missed Peggy.

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I mean, we had spent a lot of
time setting up these readings.

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And you know that, Wendy, right?

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And so I brought along that
industrial strength selected

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poems of Peggy's
that I carried very

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heavy in my little
suitcase going to Seattle.

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And I read her poem.

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So I would read as
if Peggy were with me

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because I loved the book.

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And I so hated that
Peggy wasn't there.

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And what's interesting is I
always started with "Kiss."

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And I always ended with
"Parenthood Unplanned."

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And I didn't know that.

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And I'm just telling her
that now because it's true.

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Oh, I know.

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So there you go.

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So Wendy it was almost
like having Peggy with me.

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But she wasn't.

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But I had read my favorite
poems, the most powerful poems.

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It's funny that I actually
thought Peggy had been there

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all this time.

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Yeah, so this is the
first time in a year,

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almost a year since
the books came out.

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Anyway you guys have been
sitting here a long time.

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You must be tired, I think.

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So thank you.

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Thank you.

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