WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.830 align:middle line:84%
Another poem someone
asked me to read.

00:00:01.830 --> 00:00:04.815 align:middle line:84%
This too in its way
is about writing.

00:00:04.815 --> 00:00:08.610 align:middle line:90%


00:00:08.610 --> 00:00:10.110 align:middle line:84%
When I first started
teaching, I had

00:00:10.110 --> 00:00:13.170 align:middle line:84%
a job at a small Catholic
college in Oregon.

00:00:13.170 --> 00:00:17.760 align:middle line:84%
And I was the only person
in the English department

00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:19.920 align:middle line:90%
who was teaching a night class.

00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:22.260 align:middle line:84%
When I walked into my first
creative writing class,

00:00:22.260 --> 00:00:27.750 align:middle line:84%
there were a line of young women
sitting in the first row who

00:00:27.750 --> 00:00:34.320 align:middle line:84%
didn't have that either ultra
ultrasensitive or arrogant look

00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:37.950 align:middle line:90%
of a creative writing student.

00:00:37.950 --> 00:00:42.160 align:middle line:84%
They were kind of giggling
and having a good time.

00:00:42.160 --> 00:00:45.330 align:middle line:84%
So I found out later on
that they were all students

00:00:45.330 --> 00:00:46.430 align:middle line:90%
in the nursing school.

00:00:46.430 --> 00:00:53.730 align:middle line:84%
And they had to look
at a body in trouble.

00:00:53.730 --> 00:00:59.982 align:middle line:90%


00:00:59.982 --> 00:01:02.190 align:middle line:84%
No, they were doing their
residencies during the day.

00:01:02.190 --> 00:01:03.815 align:middle line:84%
And they had to take
an English course.

00:01:03.815 --> 00:01:07.320 align:middle line:84%
And mine was the only
one that met at night.

00:01:07.320 --> 00:01:12.990 align:middle line:84%
And out of a perverse sense, I
assigned as a first assignment

00:01:12.990 --> 00:01:15.210 align:middle line:84%
in the course, I
assigned to write

00:01:15.210 --> 00:01:17.280 align:middle line:84%
a poem about their own
deaths putting aside

00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:19.150 align:middle line:84%
all religious
convictions or whatever,

00:01:19.150 --> 00:01:22.390 align:middle line:84%
try to get right to the heart of
it, right to the cadaver of it,

00:01:22.390 --> 00:01:22.890 align:middle line:90%
right?

00:01:22.890 --> 00:01:26.010 align:middle line:90%


00:01:26.010 --> 00:01:28.590 align:middle line:90%
This poem is about that.

00:01:28.590 --> 00:01:30.720 align:middle line:90%
Creative writing.

00:01:30.720 --> 00:01:34.380 align:middle line:84%
The heart is a violent
muscle that opens and shuts.

00:01:34.380 --> 00:01:36.060 align:middle line:90%
The subject is death.

00:01:36.060 --> 00:01:38.880 align:middle line:84%
The subject is also
laughter, the bravery

00:01:38.880 --> 00:01:41.460 align:middle line:90%
of girls, nine in a row.

00:01:41.460 --> 00:01:43.380 align:middle line:90%
In each face, a hole opens.

00:01:43.380 --> 00:01:48.690 align:middle line:84%
Nine tiny stars of nervousness
spin languidly out.

00:01:48.690 --> 00:01:50.610 align:middle line:90%
Sweethearts, death is blind.

00:01:50.610 --> 00:01:52.860 align:middle line:84%
He'll run up and
down your body's.

00:01:52.860 --> 00:01:55.200 align:middle line:84%
Death with a dog's
face goes running

00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:56.610 align:middle line:90%
through the women's door.

00:01:56.610 --> 00:01:59.280 align:middle line:84%
He has neither
breasts nor jewelry.

00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:02.370 align:middle line:84%
The counselors run in his
shadow shouting, here,

00:02:02.370 --> 00:02:05.370 align:middle line:90%
we're all Christians here.

00:02:05.370 --> 00:02:08.729 align:middle line:84%
In the old country,
everybody was Jewish.

00:02:08.729 --> 00:02:12.360 align:middle line:84%
Everybody had the smell of
clothes soaked in a hot tub.

00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:15.960 align:middle line:84%
And they learned to lament
the fallen, the falling,

00:02:15.960 --> 00:02:18.300 align:middle line:90%
the about to be born.

00:02:18.300 --> 00:02:22.560 align:middle line:84%
Birth was painful a long
vibration like the intake

00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:25.290 align:middle line:90%
of breath after laughter.

00:02:25.290 --> 00:02:26.730 align:middle line:90%
I don't want to trouble you.

00:02:26.730 --> 00:02:28.440 align:middle line:90%
You're entering history.

00:02:28.440 --> 00:02:32.730 align:middle line:84%
Your flesh is the moon's
gradual and broken.

00:02:32.730 --> 00:02:34.740 align:middle line:90%
Those boys are no consolation.

00:02:34.740 --> 00:02:37.680 align:middle line:84%
They'll circle you in
inscrutable calligraphy

00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:40.290 align:middle line:90%
with no place to land.

00:02:40.290 --> 00:02:44.220 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to think about
death until my mouth runs.

00:02:44.220 --> 00:02:48.630 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to look at death with
a face terrible as his own.

00:02:48.630 --> 00:02:50.390 align:middle line:90%
I don't want to scare you.

00:02:50.390 --> 00:02:55.080 align:middle line:84%
After death, there are two
alternatives both heartless,

00:02:55.080 --> 00:02:58.500 align:middle line:90%
memory and forgetfulness.

00:02:58.500 --> 00:02:59.000 align:middle line:90%