WEBVTT

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Hannah.

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[INAUDIBLE]

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Thank you both so much.

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You both read from or talked
about writing long sequences.

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And we just wondered if you
could each talk about maybe

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one or all of the sequences?

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How do you go
about writing them.

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For you, what's the process
of sustaining a long form?

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[INAUDIBLE]

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[LAUGHTER]

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[INAUDIBLE]

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Well, I'm very much a quick--

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Do you mind talking
into the microphone?

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Oh, thank you.

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Wow.

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That feels very formal.

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I'm very much a one-page poet,
so it's very, very recent

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that I've even
started attempting

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to go beyond one page.

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And basically, what
had happened was

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someone told me, what if I
didn't let the Word document be

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the end of the poem.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And it seems to just be a
very good unit to work in.

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The Word document
[INAUDIBLE] And so, I've

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been trying to push against that
and ignore the Word document's

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page limitations, and actually
write in longhand on paper,

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which I'm not very
accustomed to.

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So, I don't know.

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Very practical, but maybe
don't use a Word document.

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Yeah.

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I had made the semi-joke
earlier in the evening

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that I don't have time to write
a poem that's not very short.

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I write poems on my
lunch break or whatever.

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So in one sense, that's
not entirely true,

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but it's also entirely true.

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But also, I don't know.

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It's just a different
reference, right?

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I like the long elegiac poem.

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That's very nice.

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But there's something
about the short series

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that it's, I don't know.

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It feels so like chamber
music or something.

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It feels very tight, intimate.

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And sometimes, I
want that reference.

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Not always.

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Sometimes you want
the public oration,

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but by and large, I don't
like that, so I don't do that.

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Yeah, I guess it's--

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mm-mm.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So, I'm interested in just the
self-discovery about the inner

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music that--

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I only heard the last
poet, but it just

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seemed like there was this music
in the kind of slowness to it.

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It just is very different, in
my view, than American culture.

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And so, I'm just wondering
about the nurturing

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of that energy in a
day-by-day kind of experience.

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And if it needed to be, or if
it's always been there, or--

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does that make sense?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I often get this feeling,
sometimes, that someone--

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no one here, of
course, no one here.

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It's always another, right?

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Sometimes you get the
feeling that someone's

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talking because they like to
hear themselves talk, right?

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And sometimes, I get that
feeling, too, writing.

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Someone's writing because
they like their words

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and they like words.

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And there's nothing
wrong with that.

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I don't mean to disparage it.

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Words are beautiful.

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It's cool.

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But I also find words very
difficult. They're very hard.

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And finding the right
ones is very difficult.

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Probably choosing all the
wrong words, now, you know.

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And that's what's so
great about a poem,

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in part, is that I can spend
years going back and fixing,

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and saying, no, no, no.

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That's not what I meant.

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And I guess in some ways--

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I can't speak too much
to the particular music

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of American culture, I guess.

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But I think it's tied
in with that, perhaps,

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of the difference
between being distrustful

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of this thing that
you are given,

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whether that's your language,
your body, your land, what

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have you.

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And the pace at
which one takes it.

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Because if you assume that
you're entitled to it,

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then I guess rapid
consumption for the pleasure

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of the consuming--

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but, I don't know.

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That's my impulse-- so yeah.

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Exactly.

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Right.

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I like these things.

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Not to be a meddler or anything,
but if you could say something

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about where your voice
is rooted in writing.

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Where are you starting to
feel and really understand

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your own voice?

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So, the question was
understanding of our own voice.

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Is that right?

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Where it was rooted.

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Where do you feel [INAUDIBLE]

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OK.

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Well, I'm a fairly
new poet, I would say,

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and it's only very
recently that I really

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started thinking
really deliberately

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about the voice of the speaker
and what that might mean.

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And so, I think that--

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yeah.

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I think that a lot of
times, it's very intuitive

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and that works for
a lot of people.

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But I've had to really think
about, really carefully

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and deliberately
separate me, Noah,

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from the speakers in my poem.

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And so, I do a
lot of, right now,

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persona poems where I have
to very, very carefully

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think, OK, what is
the type of diction?

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What is the type of syntax?

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What kind of vocabulary would be
available to this person, that

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maybe isn't in my vocabulary?

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And oftentimes, the poems
that I'm writing right now

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require a lot of research,
and the research ends up

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leading me to the voice.

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So right now, I don't think--
and that's not always true.

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But right now, it's not that
it comes from me, necessarily,

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but that I absorb the
research and the reading

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and then it intermingles with
whatever voice might be me.

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And then that kind
of makes it happen.

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Does that make any sense?

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Yes.

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Maybe not.

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[LAUGHTER]

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[INAUDIBLE]

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Yeah.

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My first response
was to say my lungs,

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but I don't know if
that's very good or not.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Yeah.

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I think, with all three
of the things I read from,

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there are certainly things that
are consistent across them.

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But there's also
the differences.

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And I think for me, the voice
for each particular project

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emerged out of, as the project
came together, what I found

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the limits allowed me to do.

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It's like, I don't know,
minimalist music or something,

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right?

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Like you remove so much, so then
you can pay attention much more

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to a smaller subset of things.

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And I feel like all of this
creation is sort of like that.

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There are these very
formal rules, or not very

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formal rules, or whatever kind
of things get imposed on it.

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At the very least, you're
writing in English,

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you're writing now,
you're writing for a book,

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and whatever.

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But then, more and
more in particular.

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And within that, you find,
ooh, these things suddenly

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seem very surprising in this
poem that maybe in another poem

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would not seem very surprising.

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And that gives me
a lot of pleasure.

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So then I pursue that
and try and figure out

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how to work that in more.

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And I think that's where
I find a particular voice

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for each project.

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And then, whatever is
consistent across that

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is the limitations that
are this fleshy thing.

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And what I find
broader, I guess--

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I was thinking about
more your voice

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as it appears in almost
every thing, because I can

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see [INAUDIBLE] both of you.

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And-- probably, do you think
that your voice is influenced

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still?

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Do you feel that you're really
playing with a whole lot

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of different voices?

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And that you're able just
to play with the moment or--

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Yeah.

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I think we all are, right?

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That's kind of a
cop-out, I know.

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But I go into a job interview,
I talk and act a certain way.

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I sit down with friends, I
talk and act a certain way.

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And I sit down
with other friends,

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and I definitely talk
and act another way.

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And I talk to my mom
a certain way and then

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I stop hanging out with
my mom and I call a friend

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and I'm like, Uh,
my, uh, and whatever.

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And there's all these
different affects.

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That wasn't me
flipping off my mom.

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I love my mother.

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But I would never do that
in her presence [INAUDIBLE]

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Sorry, mom.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But you know what I mean?

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There are all these
different constrictions

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that I'm operating within.

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And it's not like
they're constricting

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on the true me or something.

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At times, maybe I want to say
something that I can't say.

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But also, I find the pleasure
within those conversations.

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I find the jokes that are
funny when I'm with my mom,

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and I laugh at those.

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I enjoy these mom jokes.

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And then when I'm with my
dad, I enjoy his dad jokes.

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So, I think that also
applies to the work as much

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as it applies to my life.

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And the limitations
of each project

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are going to be much more
specific than my whole life,

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but they also apply
to my life, right?

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My identity, my
location, my language.

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Yeah.

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Thank you.

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Thank you both so much.

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Another round of applause
for Jos and Noah.

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[APPLAUSE]