WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.733 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.733 --> 00:00:01.650 align:middle line:90% So I'm going to read-- 00:00:01.650 --> 00:00:06.250 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.250 --> 00:00:08.320 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read four sections from, 00:00:08.320 --> 00:00:11.020 align:middle line:84% I guess, like a book-length type thing 00:00:11.020 --> 00:00:13.210 align:middle line:90% that I've been working on. 00:00:13.210 --> 00:00:15.380 align:middle line:84% That's still very much a work in progress. 00:00:15.380 --> 00:00:17.350 align:middle line:84% It's called "The Kill Floor" and it 00:00:17.350 --> 00:00:20.350 align:middle line:84% follows the lives of nine different people who 00:00:20.350 --> 00:00:23.950 align:middle line:84% work in a slaughterhouse, and uses the architecture of a kill 00:00:23.950 --> 00:00:28.900 align:middle line:84% floor which kind of conceals and sanitizes 00:00:28.900 --> 00:00:34.030 align:middle line:84% labor, as well as just the lives in the memories of the workers. 00:00:34.030 --> 00:00:38.140 align:middle line:84% It sort of interrogates the different proximities 00:00:38.140 --> 00:00:40.510 align:middle line:84% of harmfulness like institutional, 00:00:40.510 --> 00:00:45.880 align:middle line:84% social, personal, as well as the capacity for humanization 00:00:45.880 --> 00:00:49.960 align:middle line:84% among the dehumanization that saturates our communities 00:00:49.960 --> 00:00:52.450 align:middle line:90% in that community. 00:00:52.450 --> 00:00:55.720 align:middle line:84% What I'm reading from is just from a character named Lenny. 00:00:55.720 --> 00:00:58.660 align:middle line:84% He's an indexer and a hand knocker, 00:00:58.660 --> 00:01:03.010 align:middle line:84% which means that he spaces the cattle on the racks 00:01:03.010 --> 00:01:06.400 align:middle line:90% and has other duties as well. 00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:09.910 align:middle line:84% But Lenny's labor-- there's Lenny's labor, 00:01:09.910 --> 00:01:12.130 align:middle line:84% and then there's who Lenny is, and this poem 00:01:12.130 --> 00:01:15.280 align:middle line:84% spends a lot of time in his childhood, 00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:19.900 align:middle line:84% thinking about his brothers and his mother, anything else 00:01:19.900 --> 00:01:21.480 align:middle line:90% you need to know? 00:01:21.480 --> 00:01:28.570 align:middle line:84% Lenny's deeply Catholic, and he has a collection of holy cards. 00:01:28.570 --> 00:01:32.080 align:middle line:90% His wife is named Helen. 00:01:32.080 --> 00:01:33.020 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:01:33.020 --> 00:01:34.270 align:middle line:90% This is from "The Kill Floor." 00:01:34.270 --> 00:01:38.710 align:middle line:90% 00:01:38.710 --> 00:01:41.650 align:middle line:84% And when it drops like a magician's failed 00:01:41.650 --> 00:01:47.080 align:middle line:84% reveal, the tablecloth clumsy, ruins the good china with it, 00:01:47.080 --> 00:01:49.990 align:middle line:84% the skin crumples wildly, bouncing 00:01:49.990 --> 00:01:54.070 align:middle line:84% lively, like a kid's rubber ball against kitchen tile. 00:01:54.070 --> 00:01:57.790 align:middle line:84% The whole damn scaffold shudders, the gambrel steel 00:01:57.790 --> 00:01:59.440 align:middle line:90% alarming in its cold. 00:01:59.440 --> 00:02:01.930 align:middle line:90% Its quake, a thoughtless reflex. 00:02:01.930 --> 00:02:04.690 align:middle line:84% My twine already tying up the ankles-- 00:02:04.690 --> 00:02:06.220 align:middle line:90% are they ankles? 00:02:06.220 --> 00:02:08.500 align:middle line:90% In a triple knot. 00:02:08.500 --> 00:02:11.470 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, by mistake, I touch a hoof 00:02:11.470 --> 00:02:13.900 align:middle line:84% instead of the metal guiding track. 00:02:13.900 --> 00:02:17.380 align:middle line:84% It's always smooth before I send it down. 00:02:17.380 --> 00:02:21.640 align:middle line:84% I want to draw it close, press my forehead to its flimsy hawk, 00:02:21.640 --> 00:02:25.090 align:middle line:84% and sway with the only song I ever really learned by heart. 00:02:25.090 --> 00:02:29.110 align:middle line:84% If I could only touch the hem of his garment. 00:02:29.110 --> 00:02:34.240 align:middle line:84% But Stan sends down the next batch from the knocking box. 00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:35.530 align:middle line:90% Dress, we call it. 00:02:35.530 --> 00:02:39.280 align:middle line:84% Stripping the sheep, a simple un-creation. 00:02:39.280 --> 00:02:41.230 align:middle line:90% They resemble any inside-- 00:02:41.230 --> 00:02:43.540 align:middle line:90% featureless and half formed. 00:02:43.540 --> 00:02:48.610 align:middle line:84% The tongue truly still a tongue in any mouth or maw. 00:02:48.610 --> 00:02:52.060 align:middle line:84% Blameless, our aprons stippled with blood, 00:02:52.060 --> 00:02:55.690 align:middle line:84% a nudge from the head like a metronome, beating, 00:02:55.690 --> 00:03:02.310 align:middle line:84% beating, just above our knees, our stomachs, if they're young. 00:03:02.310 --> 00:03:05.370 align:middle line:84% I'd watch mom clutch her rosary, her prayer 00:03:05.370 --> 00:03:07.260 align:middle line:90% a delicate procedure. 00:03:07.260 --> 00:03:10.680 align:middle line:84% The joyful mysteries on Monday, whole afternoons 00:03:10.680 --> 00:03:12.870 align:middle line:90% hung on her final hallelujah. 00:03:12.870 --> 00:03:15.960 align:middle line:84% The beads bandaging her palm until her whole hand 00:03:15.960 --> 00:03:19.800 align:middle line:84% would loosen, and she'd eye the jangling strands, sort 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:23.890 align:middle line:84% their rattle for God's utterance. 00:03:23.890 --> 00:03:25.570 align:middle line:84% There's this sound when a skull has 00:03:25.570 --> 00:03:29.590 align:middle line:84% been saw shaved open that Freddy likes to joke about at lunch. 00:03:29.590 --> 00:03:32.410 align:middle line:84% It's just like sanding down a coffee table. 00:03:32.410 --> 00:03:35.110 align:middle line:84% Feels unnatural at first, but go with the grain 00:03:35.110 --> 00:03:36.790 align:middle line:90% and you get the hang of it. 00:03:36.790 --> 00:03:39.220 align:middle line:84% Between two big bites, Freddy crushes 00:03:39.220 --> 00:03:42.940 align:middle line:84% his soda can or does the crossword in felt-tipped pen. 00:03:42.940 --> 00:03:46.410 align:middle line:84% Most days, I don't even eat until I'm home. 00:03:46.410 --> 00:03:47.000 align:middle line:90%