WEBVTT

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Thank you.

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First of all, that was amazing.

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So where do you
get the inspiration

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to write from a different point
of view, like for instance,

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the astronaut or someone
in a different village?

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Something that you
didn't experience,

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but something that you can
tap into and make someone

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listen to and imagine
being there as well.

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Well, we always feel
this separation,

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I think, from other
people's experiences.

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So-- or other
creatures' experiencs.

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It's so hard to have any
sense of what it's really

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like in someone else's head.

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But poetry gives us that
opportunity to make the attempt

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and try.

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And so it's just trying to
bring your sensory mechanism

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into the experience, I think.

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Imagine what he
might be feeling.

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With the astronaut,
I mean, I read

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a lot about what
those astronauts said.

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I followed-- which one
was up there, Scott?

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Yes, Scott.

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I followed Scott's
Twitter feed every day.

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I wrote about it in an essay.

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He took these amazing pictures.

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He really understands the
aesthetics of the planet.

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So I followed his blog for the
whole time he was up there.

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And I also read what
Mark Kelly said.

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Mark went to see his brother
blast off in Kazakhstan.

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And so some of that is
absolutely transcribed,

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with a little poetic
license, from how

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Mark described what it feels
like to be in that lift off.

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And so research, imagination,
and just taking a chance.

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Hello.

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In your introduction, we learned
that your love of animals.

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And over the course of your
writing career, very curious

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as to how you--

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what are some strategies for
tempering those nostalgias,

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those special feelings
that come in that being

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our human-animal relationality.

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And what does that look like?

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Does it look like an
expulsion, a suppression,

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As an explosion?

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Like expelling.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Like en econ, an exorcism.

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What do you do to temper
those special feelings

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towards animals?

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Well, A, I want to have
special feelings about animals.

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But I don't want them to be
sentimental and cheeseball

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feelings.

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Like these little
pet stores that

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sell these kitchy, cutesy
everything is so cute,

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everything is so cute.

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Well, they're out there
killing each other.

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Come on, folks.

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Let's get real.

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So I am writing in resistance
to the excessive cuteness

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and piety in which animal
lives, I think, get rendered.

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But I do want to convey
that there is a richness

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and depth of experience
in contemplating

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the terms of existence for
species other than our own.

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And it's a way of our--

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well, we're looking
for many ways

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to get out of being
self-absorbed and narcissistic.

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And one way is to look at the
situation of animals right now.

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I do a lot of research.

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I do a lot of
scientific research.

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I do a lot of field observation.

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And I don't know if that
answers your question.

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But I am trying to--

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there's a sentimental
depiction of animals

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that's everywhere in the
cutesy cards and whatnot.

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And then there's the
excessively pious experience

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of an animal, where a nature
writer sees an animal,

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and suddenly they're
at one with God.

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I mean, I'm very excited
when I see an animal,

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but it doesn't change
my theology at all.

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It's this.

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I want to know what it was
like for this animal to be

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hunted by our deep ancestors.

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I want to know about
that relationality.

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There are many rich
relationalities

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between animals and people
throughout our entire history,

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going back to our
very earliest art.

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There's a poem in
there I didn't read

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about the paintings in Chauvet.

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And I think the complexity
and richness and nuance

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of the human-animal
experiences is not

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very well captured by much
of the media that we have.

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Even the nature
shows-- which I love.

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I mean I'm crazy for them.

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But some people
call them eco porn,

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because it's kind of like,
well then, if I go on a safari,

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am I going to see a
lion like this close?

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And am I going to see
him rip the prey apart?

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They lead us to expect a
kind of physical intimacy

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with animals that
we're unlikely to have,

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and maybe we
shouldn't ask to have,

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because we ought to
leave them a little space

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to be their own selves,
in their own habitats.

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I don't know if that
answers your question,

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but there's a stab, and
start, a stab and a start.

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We're always writing
in resistance

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to what others have written,
and say, that's not right,

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I can't stand that.

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So there's always a
little bit of anger.

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Come on.

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I have a follow up.

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I'm over here now.

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Over to you right.

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Other way.

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This way.

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Hi.

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So I wonder if you
could talk about--

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I feel like that
John Berger quotation

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that you had as the epigraph
is such a perfect epigraph

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for that poem.

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And I wonder if part of what
you were just talking about has

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to do with visuality, and
if that's-- if you can talk

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a little bit about that
relationship between what you

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can see and what you cannot
see and how that maybe relates

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to your politics.

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Or maybe we'll zoom
back a little bit--

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No, yeah.

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That's fine.

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OK.

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Great.

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Go with that.

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So, Lincoln, my
grandson, said-- we

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were laughing about
the experience,

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because here we were, these
privileged white Americans down

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there in the Galapagos.

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We felt a little better,
because the tourists on our boat

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were from all over the world.

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That made us feel like, well,
it's not just the Americans.

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The Kiwis and the Australians
and the Italians and Brits

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were all on the boat with us.

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But we had a hard time
just-- and Lincoln

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had this wonderful way of
saying this in an email to me--

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he said, I just
kept asking myself,

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why can't I just look
at something and say,

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God, that's beautiful.

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But I'm critiquing my
capitalistic presence.

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I'm critiquing what am
I doing in this habitat.

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I mean, our position, our
postcolonial position,

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our climate change
position is always

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to understand that our
presence has an impact,

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and it's not utterly benign.

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So our joy in the
presence of visual beauty

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is always a little
bit-- and I think

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it should be-- always
a little bit modulated

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by not only what we
don't know, but things

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we know that come
from the larger

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context of the planetary story.

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It's not that we
shouldn't try to have

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the experience of treasuring
the visual beauty of the world,

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because it's soul
nourishing, right?

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It's inspiring.

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It's energizing.

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But I do think that
nature and animals offer

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a whole range of virtues
and terrors beyond beauty.

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And they also
provide opportunities

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for all of the whole array of
human emotions to be triggered.

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Animals can make me happy sad,
angry, fearful, disgusted,

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filled with surprise.

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All of that is part of
the animal relationship.

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We shouldn't just
be, oh, so pretty.

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I'm so happy now.

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I have somewhat of a-- it's
a bit of a silly question--

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but a lot of your poems seem
to have to do with energy.

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Primordial Soup, it's the energy
required for genesis of life.

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In Iguanas Basking in the Sun,
collecting energy from the sun.

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And the energy required to
get a spaceship into space.

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I was just wondering if you
had a favorite manifestation

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of energy.

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[LAUGHTER]

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The poem.

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[LAUGHTER]

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[APPLAUSE]

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Charles Olson essay
on projective verse.

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[INAUDIBLE] The poem
is as an instrument

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for the transfer of energy
from the writer to the reader.

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And that the energy
must keep moving

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on line by line in standard.

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Does anybody got the Olson
quote better than me?

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Pretty close, huh?

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End of the poem.

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And the solar panels
that I'm putting

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on my roof in two weeks.

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[LAUGHTER]

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We probably got time for
one more transfer of energy

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if there's a question.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Or we can wrap it up there.

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That was so wonderful, Alison.

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Thank you so much.

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[APPLAUSE]

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