WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.170 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.170 --> 00:00:02.010 align:middle line:90% "Sound Machine." 00:00:02.010 --> 00:00:04.830 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.830 --> 00:00:07.920 align:middle line:84% When the manchild says, "you're not listening," 00:00:07.920 --> 00:00:09.930 align:middle line:90% I am not listening. 00:00:09.930 --> 00:00:13.290 align:middle line:84% Another time, when the manchild says, "you're not listening," 00:00:13.290 --> 00:00:14.520 align:middle line:90% I am. 00:00:14.520 --> 00:00:16.800 align:middle line:84% But it isn't the right kind of listening. 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:19.680 align:middle line:84% It isn't a listening that feels to the manchild 00:00:19.680 --> 00:00:20.970 align:middle line:90% like I am listening. 00:00:20.970 --> 00:00:25.950 align:middle line:84% He does not, as the saying goes, "feel heard." 00:00:25.950 --> 00:00:30.090 align:middle line:84% When I ask the manchild to stop doing X, he does it again, 00:00:30.090 --> 00:00:32.850 align:middle line:84% some kind of clicking, or ripping, or fidgeting, 00:00:32.850 --> 00:00:34.950 align:middle line:84% a certain kind of language, or patting 00:00:34.950 --> 00:00:37.770 align:middle line:84% the head of baby manchild, or one of the many things baby 00:00:37.770 --> 00:00:39.480 align:middle line:84% manchild does not like the manchild 00:00:39.480 --> 00:00:45.090 align:middle line:84% to do that the manchild does over and over and over. 00:00:45.090 --> 00:00:47.520 align:middle line:90% Stop, I say. 00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:50.520 align:middle line:90% The manchild does it again. 00:00:50.520 --> 00:00:54.330 align:middle line:84% The way he looks at me when he does X again 00:00:54.330 --> 00:00:57.660 align:middle line:90% is called not listening. 00:00:57.660 --> 00:01:02.220 align:middle line:84% It is also how I know he heard me. 00:01:02.220 --> 00:01:06.660 align:middle line:84% Writing is a way of paying attention, I tell the students. 00:01:06.660 --> 00:01:09.900 align:middle line:84% They continue doing X, which in this case, 00:01:09.900 --> 00:01:12.330 align:middle line:84% is looking down at their notebooks, which in this case, 00:01:12.330 --> 00:01:16.560 align:middle line:84% tells me nothing about whether or not they're listening. 00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:20.850 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, when the manchild speaks, I listen my brains out. 00:01:20.850 --> 00:01:23.460 align:middle line:90% I listen with my whole heart. 00:01:23.460 --> 00:01:25.110 align:middle line:90% But it is not enough. 00:01:25.110 --> 00:01:27.810 align:middle line:84% I am the wire monkey mother with a bottle 00:01:27.810 --> 00:01:31.380 align:middle line:84% when he needs something soft and cloth-covered. 00:01:31.380 --> 00:01:35.550 align:middle line:84% "You're not listening," says the manchild again, 00:01:35.550 --> 00:01:38.610 align:middle line:84% sometimes just like that in lowercase, but more often 00:01:38.610 --> 00:01:41.760 align:middle line:90% with cursing and door-slamming. 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:45.870 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, I listen as if my life depends upon it. 00:01:45.870 --> 00:01:49.470 align:middle line:84% But all I hear is the silence after the door slamming, 00:01:49.470 --> 00:01:54.210 align:middle line:84% which is the sound of the manchild not feeling heard. 00:01:54.210 --> 00:01:56.190 align:middle line:90% Actually, it is not silence. 00:01:56.190 --> 00:01:58.860 align:middle line:84% It is a muffled tumult in the other room. 00:01:58.860 --> 00:02:01.770 align:middle line:84% It is the sound of not wanting to go after him. 00:02:01.770 --> 00:02:04.590 align:middle line:84% It is the sound of my body crossing the room, 00:02:04.590 --> 00:02:07.410 align:middle line:90% my hand on the doorknob. 00:02:07.410 --> 00:02:10.289 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, it is I who slam the door, 00:02:10.289 --> 00:02:14.100 align:middle line:84% and then lie in bed listening to the sound of my own breathing, 00:02:14.100 --> 00:02:16.820 align:middle line:90% and then my crying. 00:02:16.820 --> 00:02:20.750 align:middle line:84% When the husband says, "It's hard to teach him not 00:02:20.750 --> 00:02:28.010 align:middle line:84% to slam the door when you slam the door," I think, how true. 00:02:28.010 --> 00:02:30.650 align:middle line:84% And I listen to the sound of myself 00:02:30.650 --> 00:02:35.330 align:middle line:84% not slapping him across the face. 00:02:35.330 --> 00:02:37.910 align:middle line:84% That is the sound of my own breathing 00:02:37.910 --> 00:02:41.660 align:middle line:84% and the sound of the stare between us. 00:02:41.660 --> 00:02:43.160 align:middle line:90% "Do you have any questions?" 00:02:43.160 --> 00:02:44.090 align:middle line:90% I ask the students. 00:02:44.090 --> 00:02:46.070 align:middle line:84% "How are your dream journals going? 00:02:46.070 --> 00:02:49.610 align:middle line:90% How about the automatic writing? 00:02:49.610 --> 00:02:52.730 align:middle line:84% Well," I say, "I guess, this is the part of class 00:02:52.730 --> 00:02:56.870 align:middle line:84% when I ask questions and no one responds." 00:02:56.870 --> 00:03:02.330 align:middle line:84% "OK," I say, "then we're all in agreement. 00:03:02.330 --> 00:03:05.120 align:middle line:90% All righty," I say. 00:03:05.120 --> 00:03:10.250 align:middle line:84% "I can't believe I just said all righty," I say. 00:03:10.250 --> 00:03:13.280 align:middle line:84% Can you hear the sound of the white plate breaking 00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:13.880 align:middle line:90% in the sink? 00:03:13.880 --> 00:03:17.030 align:middle line:84% Can you hear the sound of my widened eyes or the text 00:03:17.030 --> 00:03:21.110 align:middle line:84% I send to my friend saying, "I have just become a person who 00:03:21.110 --> 00:03:24.680 align:middle line:90% breaks plates in the sink"? 00:03:24.680 --> 00:03:26.750 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, when the manchild speaks, 00:03:26.750 --> 00:03:29.600 align:middle line:84% I am listening to the sound of wanting to be elsewhere 00:03:29.600 --> 00:03:33.680 align:middle line:84% and the sound of myself thinking, stay, listen, 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:36.020 align:middle line:84% which sounds like the sound of the sound machine 00:03:36.020 --> 00:03:39.260 align:middle line:84% over the husband snoring, or, perhaps, the sound of snoring 00:03:39.260 --> 00:03:42.090 align:middle line:84% over the sound machine, which is to say two sounds at once, 00:03:42.090 --> 00:03:44.030 align:middle line:84% which is to say, hard to make sense of, 00:03:44.030 --> 00:03:45.530 align:middle line:84% which is to say effortful, which is 00:03:45.530 --> 00:03:48.440 align:middle line:84% to say a kind of listening that is unsatisfying 00:03:48.440 --> 00:03:50.840 align:middle line:90% to the manchild. 00:03:50.840 --> 00:03:53.930 align:middle line:84% Perhaps, he wants my listening to look effortless, 00:03:53.930 --> 00:03:56.870 align:middle line:90% which looks to him like love. 00:03:56.870 --> 00:04:01.760 align:middle line:84% Or perhaps, he wants more effort. 00:04:01.760 --> 00:04:05.120 align:middle line:84% On the subway, two women scream at each other. 00:04:05.120 --> 00:04:09.530 align:middle line:84% One says, "There's no more room, take the next train." 00:04:09.530 --> 00:04:11.270 align:middle line:84% The other says, "You're taking up 00:04:11.270 --> 00:04:15.830 align:middle line:84% more than one space," and presses into the crowded car. 00:04:15.830 --> 00:04:19.250 align:middle line:84% Everyone is listening intently to something on his headphones, 00:04:19.250 --> 00:04:21.140 align:middle line:84% or has her eyes closed, or pretends 00:04:21.140 --> 00:04:24.500 align:middle line:84% to be completely unaware of the two women, inches 00:04:24.500 --> 00:04:26.720 align:middle line:90% apart, screaming. 00:04:26.720 --> 00:04:28.790 align:middle line:90% "Stop screaming!" 00:04:28.790 --> 00:04:32.150 align:middle line:84% I scream above their screaming when I can no longer stand it. 00:04:32.150 --> 00:04:34.190 align:middle line:84% "Don't talk to each other that way," 00:04:34.190 --> 00:04:38.000 align:middle line:84% I scream, my voice barely audible over there cursing. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:41.180 align:middle line:90% No one meets my eye. 00:04:41.180 --> 00:04:42.410 align:middle line:90% "Trash!" 00:04:42.410 --> 00:04:43.640 align:middle line:90% one yells. 00:04:43.640 --> 00:04:46.580 align:middle line:84% "Get the fuck out of my face," the other yells. 00:04:46.580 --> 00:04:47.960 align:middle line:90% "Stop shouting!" 00:04:47.960 --> 00:04:49.490 align:middle line:90% I shout. 00:04:49.490 --> 00:04:52.490 align:middle line:90% No one hears me. 00:04:52.490 --> 00:04:56.300 align:middle line:84% The poem is what I listen to when listening to the city 00:04:56.300 --> 00:04:57.650 align:middle line:90% is too much. 00:04:57.650 --> 00:05:01.820 align:middle line:84% The poem is a way of not paying attention, of paying attention 00:05:01.820 --> 00:05:03.710 align:middle line:90% to the poem instead of. 00:05:03.710 --> 00:05:06.904 align:middle line:90% The poem is a sound machine. 00:05:06.904 --> 00:05:11.510 align:middle line:84% "Uh-huh," I say to baby manchild as I walk him to school. 00:05:11.510 --> 00:05:13.970 align:middle line:84% He is either talking about Ellen DeGeneres 00:05:13.970 --> 00:05:16.190 align:middle line:90% or professional soccer. 00:05:16.190 --> 00:05:17.810 align:middle line:90% I am not listening. 00:05:17.810 --> 00:05:20.690 align:middle line:84% "Sure," I say, "OK," I say, "Uh-huh." 00:05:20.690 --> 00:05:22.850 align:middle line:90% I am not listening. 00:05:22.850 --> 00:05:25.190 align:middle line:90% I am still not listening. 00:05:25.190 --> 00:05:26.630 align:middle line:90% Actually, I am listening. 00:05:26.630 --> 00:05:29.960 align:middle line:90% I am just not listening to him. 00:05:29.960 --> 00:05:32.900 align:middle line:84% On the Listserv, which is everywhere and always, 00:05:32.900 --> 00:05:35.450 align:middle line:90% I am accused of conflation. 00:05:35.450 --> 00:05:39.110 align:middle line:84% I am asked to be quiet, to listen. 00:05:39.110 --> 00:05:42.140 align:middle line:84% I am asked to read the offered links more carefully 00:05:42.140 --> 00:05:45.320 align:middle line:84% and to think about my behavior and the way in which asking 00:05:45.320 --> 00:05:48.710 align:middle line:84% the questions I've asked has caused people of color 00:05:48.710 --> 00:05:52.160 align:middle line:84% to perform labor on my behalf, such as having to explain 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:54.800 align:middle line:84% racism to me, which is exhausting for them 00:05:54.800 --> 00:05:57.770 align:middle line:90% and a white violence on my part. 00:05:57.770 --> 00:06:00.860 align:middle line:84% I am asked not to conflate race and gender. 00:06:00.860 --> 00:06:03.110 align:middle line:84% I am asked not to conflate the confessional 00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:04.430 align:middle line:90% with appropriation. 00:06:04.430 --> 00:06:07.790 align:middle line:84% I am asked not to conflate the personal with the conceptual. 00:06:07.790 --> 00:06:10.610 align:middle line:84% I am asked to understand that I will never understand, 00:06:10.610 --> 00:06:13.580 align:middle line:84% can never understand what it is like to be other than who 00:06:13.580 --> 00:06:15.440 align:middle line:90% and what I am. 00:06:15.440 --> 00:06:17.720 align:middle line:84% I am asked to examine my privilege, 00:06:17.720 --> 00:06:21.020 align:middle line:84% but quietly, and maybe, think about why white people feel 00:06:21.020 --> 00:06:23.120 align:middle line:84% the need to take up all the space, 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:27.230 align:middle line:84% why white people like me talk so much, use so many words. 00:06:27.230 --> 00:06:30.710 align:middle line:84% I am asked to listen more and talk less. 00:06:30.710 --> 00:06:34.400 align:middle line:84% I am asked to consider intersectionality. 00:06:34.400 --> 00:06:38.450 align:middle line:84% "You're not listening," says the manchild 00:06:38.450 --> 00:06:42.740 align:middle line:84% when he finds me reading and rereading the links. 00:06:42.740 --> 00:06:46.460 align:middle line:84% On the subway, some manchildren are jostling, and joking, 00:06:46.460 --> 00:06:50.540 align:middle line:84% and using language I don't want baby manchild to hear. 00:06:50.540 --> 00:06:53.210 align:middle line:84% I am trying to read to him but he isn't listening. 00:06:53.210 --> 00:06:55.250 align:middle line:84% He is listening to the manchildren, 00:06:55.250 --> 00:06:58.070 align:middle line:90% to the sound of his future. 00:06:58.070 --> 00:07:02.690 align:middle line:84% No, not his future, for he will likely never 00:07:02.690 --> 00:07:05.270 align:middle line:90% speak like these manchildren. 00:07:05.270 --> 00:07:08.450 align:middle line:84% He is listening to the sound of his whiteness, 00:07:08.450 --> 00:07:13.400 align:middle line:84% which maybe, for once, is the sound of listening. 00:07:13.400 --> 00:07:15.860 align:middle line:84% I want to ask the Listserv about the difference 00:07:15.860 --> 00:07:18.320 align:middle line:84% between conflation and intersectionality. 00:07:18.320 --> 00:07:20.630 align:middle line:84% But I do not know how to ask this question 00:07:20.630 --> 00:07:23.210 align:middle line:84% while being quiet, which I have been asked to be. 00:07:23.210 --> 00:07:26.180 align:middle line:84% I do not know how to listen more visibly, especially 00:07:26.180 --> 00:07:28.970 align:middle line:84% on a Listserv where no one can see me reading and rereading 00:07:28.970 --> 00:07:32.060 align:middle line:84% the links, and being quiet, and sitting as still as possible, 00:07:32.060 --> 00:07:33.830 align:middle line:84% even ignoring my children and waiting 00:07:33.830 --> 00:07:37.820 align:middle line:84% for someone to post something new for me to listen to. 00:07:37.820 --> 00:07:41.780 align:middle line:84% Somewhere on the Listserv, a door slamming. 00:07:41.780 --> 00:07:46.190 align:middle line:84% More than once, I reread the links. 00:07:46.190 --> 00:07:50.120 align:middle line:84% The links tell me I am suffering from white fragility. 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:52.850 align:middle line:90% The links say I should listen. 00:07:52.850 --> 00:07:54.110 align:middle line:90% "Can you hear me?" 00:07:54.110 --> 00:07:56.270 align:middle line:84% my friend asks while reading a new poem 00:07:56.270 --> 00:07:58.100 align:middle line:84% while I sit on the steps of a brownstone 00:07:58.100 --> 00:08:00.500 align:middle line:84% and shield the microphone from the sounds of the city. 00:08:00.500 --> 00:08:03.120 align:middle line:90% "Yes," I say, "I can hear you." 00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:05.210 align:middle line:84% "I lost you in the elevator," I say 00:08:05.210 --> 00:08:08.510 align:middle line:84% to another friend whose mother is just home from the hospital 00:08:08.510 --> 00:08:11.360 align:middle line:84% and lives two blocks away from me, and is very private, 00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:14.090 align:middle line:84% and no, there's nothing I can do. 00:08:14.090 --> 00:08:16.730 align:middle line:84% When I ask if there is anything I can do for my friend who 00:08:16.730 --> 00:08:18.710 align:middle line:84% lives far from me and far from her mother 00:08:18.710 --> 00:08:23.480 align:middle line:84% just home from the hospital, my friend says, "Yeah, shoot me." 00:08:23.480 --> 00:08:26.270 align:middle line:84% I call a third friend and read her this poem. 00:08:26.270 --> 00:08:28.940 align:middle line:84% She says, "Take out the parts about the Listserv. 00:08:28.940 --> 00:08:32.809 align:middle line:84% Only the people on the Listserv will understand those parts." 00:08:32.809 --> 00:08:36.080 align:middle line:84% "Don't you know," I joke, "that this poem is only for you? 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:38.510 align:middle line:84% No one will care about any parts." 00:08:38.510 --> 00:08:41.210 align:middle line:84% "Also," she says, "people might think that manchild and baby 00:08:41.210 --> 00:08:43.460 align:middle line:84% manchild are the same person unless you mention them 00:08:43.460 --> 00:08:44.600 align:middle line:90% both at the very beginning. 00:08:44.600 --> 00:08:47.120 align:middle line:90% And," she says, "it's too long." 00:08:47.120 --> 00:08:50.300 align:middle line:90% I make it longer. 00:08:50.300 --> 00:08:53.150 align:middle line:84% "I'm leaving," the husband texts. 00:08:53.150 --> 00:08:56.750 align:middle line:84% In this context, it means he's coming home. 00:08:56.750 --> 00:09:00.020 align:middle line:84% "I'm going to bed," I respond, which in a way, 00:09:00.020 --> 00:09:02.720 align:middle line:90% means I'm leaving. 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:05.210 align:middle line:90% The poem is a sound machine. 00:09:05.210 --> 00:09:08.120 align:middle line:84% Whatever the family says, they say over the sound 00:09:08.120 --> 00:09:10.700 align:middle line:90% of the sound machine. 00:09:10.700 --> 00:09:13.550 align:middle line:84% When baby manchild mentions Ellen DeGeneres 00:09:13.550 --> 00:09:17.060 align:middle line:84% or professional soccer as we walk to school, I am relieved. 00:09:17.060 --> 00:09:19.400 align:middle line:84% Because this means I can think about other things 00:09:19.400 --> 00:09:21.620 align:middle line:84% and let his barely audible voice bleed 00:09:21.620 --> 00:09:24.410 align:middle line:84% into the city's ever-encroaching surround sound. 00:09:24.410 --> 00:09:26.630 align:middle line:84% And in this way, I am listening, but this time, 00:09:26.630 --> 00:09:27.590 align:middle line:90% to my own thoughts. 00:09:27.590 --> 00:09:32.300 align:middle line:84% Surely, I am allowed from time to time such a luxury, 00:09:32.300 --> 00:09:34.280 align:middle line:90% am I not? 00:09:34.280 --> 00:09:38.690 align:middle line:84% My thoughts, I'm thinking, are associational and interrupted 00:09:38.690 --> 00:09:39.950 align:middle line:90% just like my writing. 00:09:39.950 --> 00:09:42.150 align:middle line:84% And I am probably thinking about my writing 00:09:42.150 --> 00:09:44.250 align:middle line:84% and about how a novelist friend once 00:09:44.250 --> 00:09:46.740 align:middle line:84% told me the secret was not to allow children 00:09:46.740 --> 00:09:48.420 align:middle line:90% to steal your muse time. 00:09:48.420 --> 00:09:50.820 align:middle line:84% She thought about her novels while watching her kids 00:09:50.820 --> 00:09:52.710 align:middle line:84% in the sandbox, while giving them baths, 00:09:52.710 --> 00:09:54.030 align:middle line:90% while putting them to sleep. 00:09:54.030 --> 00:09:55.980 align:middle line:84% "Don't waste time wondering whether you 00:09:55.980 --> 00:10:00.510 align:middle line:84% have Cheerios in the pantry," she said to me years ago. 00:10:00.510 --> 00:10:03.390 align:middle line:84% The relaying of this writerly advice to you 00:10:03.390 --> 00:10:05.730 align:middle line:84% is the length of time in real time 00:10:05.730 --> 00:10:09.360 align:middle line:84% it takes for baby manchild to yank my arm. 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:14.940 align:middle line:84% His narrowed eyes and the line of his mouth accuse me. 00:10:14.940 --> 00:10:18.060 align:middle line:84% Goodbye, I write to the Listserv. 00:10:18.060 --> 00:10:20.370 align:middle line:84% It turns out, I am not so good at listening. 00:10:20.370 --> 00:10:23.200 align:middle line:90% And I am tired of being wrong. 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:25.440 align:middle line:84% I sit and listen to the virtual wall 00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:27.690 align:middle line:90% between their posts and me. 00:10:27.690 --> 00:10:31.170 align:middle line:84% I have turned off the Listserv, which is everywhere and always, 00:10:31.170 --> 00:10:35.700 align:middle line:84% but all the other sound machines are whirring and whirring. 00:10:35.700 --> 00:10:38.580 align:middle line:84% The city is nothing if not conflation. 00:10:38.580 --> 00:10:43.860 align:middle line:84% And believe me, this city is not nothing. 00:10:43.860 --> 00:10:47.130 align:middle line:84% When I read to baby manchild, I listen to myself 00:10:47.130 --> 00:10:48.840 align:middle line:90% reading to baby manchild. 00:10:48.840 --> 00:10:51.690 align:middle line:84% Usually it sounds like childhood. 00:10:51.690 --> 00:10:54.900 align:middle line:84% It sounds like the sound of a child listening to his mother 00:10:54.900 --> 00:10:56.100 align:middle line:90% reading. 00:10:56.100 --> 00:10:59.280 align:middle line:84% But actually, it is the sound of two people listening 00:10:59.280 --> 00:11:03.300 align:middle line:84% to a woman who long ago was writing to someone or no one. 00:11:03.300 --> 00:11:05.880 align:middle line:90% How was she to know? 00:11:05.880 --> 00:11:09.160 align:middle line:90% The book requires explanation. 00:11:09.160 --> 00:11:11.520 align:middle line:84% So we stop listening to the mother, me, 00:11:11.520 --> 00:11:13.530 align:middle line:84% reading and listen to the mother, me, 00:11:13.530 --> 00:11:19.590 align:middle line:84% explaining, such as rape, also racism, Hitler, 00:11:19.590 --> 00:11:22.890 align:middle line:84% violence against children, and what Atticus means 00:11:22.890 --> 00:11:26.100 align:middle line:84% when he says, "There's nothing more sickening to me 00:11:26.100 --> 00:11:28.590 align:middle line:84% than a low grade white man who'll take advantage 00:11:28.590 --> 00:11:30.150 align:middle line:90% of a Negro's ignorance. 00:11:30.150 --> 00:11:33.030 align:middle line:84% Don't fool yourself, it's all adding up. 00:11:33.030 --> 00:11:37.570 align:middle line:84% And one of these days, we're going to pay the bill for it." 00:11:37.570 --> 00:11:41.770 align:middle line:90% Perhaps, all I am is conflation. 00:11:41.770 --> 00:11:42.850 align:middle line:90% What then? 00:11:42.850 --> 00:11:44.650 align:middle line:90% I would like to ask. 00:11:44.650 --> 00:11:49.630 align:middle line:84% But I can't ask the Listserv, because I've signed off. 00:11:49.630 --> 00:11:51.760 align:middle line:84% When I finish explaining everything 00:11:51.760 --> 00:11:55.540 align:middle line:84% in the world to baby manchild, and have sat, and held his hand 00:11:55.540 --> 00:11:56.950 align:middle line:90% until he's fallen asleep-- 00:11:56.950 --> 00:11:59.860 align:middle line:84% because it's hard to fall asleep when one's mother has just 00:11:59.860 --> 00:12:01.750 align:middle line:84% explained the worst of everything-- 00:12:01.750 --> 00:12:04.660 align:middle line:84% I tiptoe from the room, knowing that all this time 00:12:04.660 --> 00:12:07.360 align:middle line:84% that I have not been listening to the manchild who 00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:09.460 align:middle line:84% has been waiting for me to come and listen, 00:12:09.460 --> 00:12:11.840 align:middle line:84% waiting to tell me that I am not listening, 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:15.760 align:middle line:84% which is sometimes all he has to say. 00:12:15.760 --> 00:12:19.940 align:middle line:84% Perhaps, thinking is the sound machine. 00:12:19.940 --> 00:12:23.440 align:middle line:90% The city is full of them. 00:12:23.440 --> 00:12:25.810 align:middle line:84% When the husband and I speak to each other, 00:12:25.810 --> 00:12:29.620 align:middle line:84% we hear things that the other did not say. 00:12:29.620 --> 00:12:32.920 align:middle line:84% This may be because we are not listening, 00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:38.650 align:middle line:84% or, perhaps, we are listening too much, or listening wrongly. 00:12:38.650 --> 00:12:42.880 align:middle line:84% We break each other like plates in the sink. 00:12:42.880 --> 00:12:45.640 align:middle line:84% Other times, the breaking is like forgetting to water 00:12:45.640 --> 00:12:48.550 align:middle line:90% a plant for months at a time. 00:12:48.550 --> 00:12:49.540 align:middle line:90% "What?" 00:12:49.540 --> 00:12:52.180 align:middle line:84% he says when I have said nothing. 00:12:52.180 --> 00:12:53.800 align:middle line:90% "What?" 00:12:53.800 --> 00:12:57.160 align:middle line:90% "I didn't say anything," I say. 00:12:57.160 --> 00:12:59.890 align:middle line:84% Perhaps, my face is the face of a person who is 00:12:59.890 --> 00:13:02.080 align:middle line:90% listening or trying to listen. 00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:04.450 align:middle line:90% Perhaps, this is the problem. 00:13:04.450 --> 00:13:08.110 align:middle line:84% Everything we say sounds like disappointment. 00:13:08.110 --> 00:13:11.740 align:middle line:84% And our silence is over full of sorrow. 00:13:11.740 --> 00:13:16.450 align:middle line:84% "I'm sorry," I say when a woman bumps me on the subway. 00:13:16.450 --> 00:13:21.310 align:middle line:84% She looks at me with a diamond hard rage. 00:13:21.310 --> 00:13:24.490 align:middle line:84% "So," I say to the class, "can anyone 00:13:24.490 --> 00:13:28.900 align:middle line:84% tell me what are some effects of addressing something or someone 00:13:28.900 --> 00:13:32.640 align:middle line:90% inanimate or absent in a poem? 00:13:32.640 --> 00:13:35.240 align:middle line:90% It's called apostrophe," I say. 00:13:35.240 --> 00:13:38.330 align:middle line:84% The poet brings the unreal closer into the real. 00:13:38.330 --> 00:13:42.860 align:middle line:84% But the poem itself becomes a fictive space. 00:13:42.860 --> 00:13:46.160 align:middle line:84% During quiet writing, I put them in this poem 00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:51.080 align:middle line:84% where they respond as readily as they do in real life. 00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:54.800 align:middle line:84% "Goodness," my friend says when an emergency vehicle 00:13:54.800 --> 00:13:57.740 align:middle line:84% passes by while I'm sitting on the steps of a brownstone 00:13:57.740 --> 00:14:01.730 align:middle line:84% while she's reading me her new long poem over the phone. 00:14:01.730 --> 00:14:04.130 align:middle line:84% "It's too long," the other friend 00:14:04.130 --> 00:14:07.250 align:middle line:84% says when I read her this poem when she's in a hotel, 00:14:07.250 --> 00:14:12.020 align:middle line:84% alone in Philly, when the poem is half as long as it is now. 00:14:12.020 --> 00:14:15.170 align:middle line:84% "Don't go," someone back channels "good luck," 00:14:15.170 --> 00:14:16.250 align:middle line:90% another back channels. 00:14:16.250 --> 00:14:18.530 align:middle line:90% "We'll miss your voice." 00:14:18.530 --> 00:14:22.100 align:middle line:90% My voice is all over the city. 00:14:22.100 --> 00:14:27.770 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, at night, I beg the husband to just be quiet. 00:14:27.770 --> 00:14:30.140 align:middle line:90% I want his weight. 00:14:30.140 --> 00:14:34.210 align:middle line:84% "Tell me," he asks, "just tell me what you want." 00:14:34.210 --> 00:14:37.720 align:middle line:90% What I want is no talking. 00:14:37.720 --> 00:14:39.670 align:middle line:90% I am conflating again. 00:14:39.670 --> 00:14:43.300 align:middle line:84% Husband, manchild, baby manchild, gender, sex, 00:14:43.300 --> 00:14:46.000 align:middle line:90% the personal, Listserv. 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:48.970 align:middle line:84% In the crowded car, I try to step carefully 00:14:48.970 --> 00:14:52.690 align:middle line:84% around a stroller so more people can enter the train. 00:14:52.690 --> 00:14:57.310 align:middle line:84% "Stay there," I say to baby manchild, "hold the pole." 00:14:57.310 --> 00:14:59.110 align:middle line:90% No one helps him. 00:14:59.110 --> 00:15:03.790 align:middle line:84% A woman with a stroller glares at me. 00:15:03.790 --> 00:15:06.580 align:middle line:84% I suspect that sometimes when the manchild says 00:15:06.580 --> 00:15:10.600 align:middle line:84% I am not listening, he is not saying what he wants to say. 00:15:10.600 --> 00:15:14.060 align:middle line:84% He says and says and says, and of course, I am not listening. 00:15:14.060 --> 00:15:16.690 align:middle line:84% Because he wants me to hear something else, something 00:15:16.690 --> 00:15:18.520 align:middle line:90% he is not saying. 00:15:18.520 --> 00:15:21.280 align:middle line:84% The thing he is not saying is underneath the thing 00:15:21.280 --> 00:15:22.030 align:middle line:90% he is saying. 00:15:22.030 --> 00:15:25.840 align:middle line:84% And sometimes, I think I know what this might be. 00:15:25.840 --> 00:15:29.060 align:middle line:84% But other times I think, there is no other thing. 00:15:29.060 --> 00:15:31.480 align:middle line:84% This is just a way of excusing myself 00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:34.000 align:middle line:90% for being a poor listener. 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:37.120 align:middle line:84% Either way, the sound of my own thinking 00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:40.600 align:middle line:84% takes up too much space in this family. 00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:44.410 align:middle line:90% "Stop," I say to manchild. 00:15:44.410 --> 00:15:46.650 align:middle line:90% He keeps going. 00:15:46.650 --> 00:15:48.480 align:middle line:90% Isn't that what I want? 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:52.650 align:middle line:84% Isn't that the way he keeps going a sign of his resilience 00:15:52.650 --> 00:15:55.750 align:middle line:90% and of my maternal success? 00:15:55.750 --> 00:15:59.790 align:middle line:84% "You're not listening," says the manchild. 00:15:59.790 --> 00:16:03.120 align:middle line:84% "Stop talking," says the manchild. 00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:05.880 align:middle line:84% "Stop talking," the world says to me. 00:16:05.880 --> 00:16:08.580 align:middle line:84% "Stop talking," says the part of me 00:16:08.580 --> 00:16:13.490 align:middle line:84% who imagines the world is telling me to stop talking. 00:16:13.490 --> 00:16:15.006 align:middle line:90%