WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.810 align:middle line:90% It's great to be here. 00:00:01.810 --> 00:00:05.970 align:middle line:84% Thank you so much, Alison and the Poetry Center, 00:00:05.970 --> 00:00:07.380 align:middle line:90% for inviting me. 00:00:07.380 --> 00:00:10.380 align:middle line:84% And I've gotten to meet some wonderful people, 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:16.200 align:middle line:84% and an old friend came to have dinner with us tonight. 00:00:16.200 --> 00:00:17.910 align:middle line:90% So I just came in. 00:00:17.910 --> 00:00:20.520 align:middle line:90% Thought I'd come in. 00:00:20.520 --> 00:00:22.440 align:middle line:90% Who made me these earrings. 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:24.970 align:middle line:90% [CHUCKLES] 00:00:24.970 --> 00:00:34.630 align:middle line:84% So Jane Miller and Alison Deming put me at ease by saying, 00:00:34.630 --> 00:00:37.390 align:middle line:84% read what you love, and that people here 00:00:37.390 --> 00:00:41.590 align:middle line:90% are a very relaxed audience. 00:00:41.590 --> 00:00:42.850 align:middle line:90% You're laughing about that. 00:00:42.850 --> 00:00:44.050 align:middle line:90% [CHUCKLES] It's not true. 00:00:44.050 --> 00:00:46.360 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] They're killers. 00:00:46.360 --> 00:00:47.960 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:48.460 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:48.460 --> 00:00:51.340 align:middle line:90% 00:00:51.340 --> 00:00:55.535 align:middle line:84% I have to talk about maybe the process 00:00:55.535 --> 00:00:59.680 align:middle line:84% I've embarked on at this period in my life at 50 years old. 00:00:59.680 --> 00:01:03.260 align:middle line:90% 00:01:03.260 --> 00:01:07.880 align:middle line:84% And it's probably a process that has 00:01:07.880 --> 00:01:12.580 align:middle line:84% been, oh, well with me for a long time, 00:01:12.580 --> 00:01:15.390 align:middle line:90% but I'm conscious of it now. 00:01:15.390 --> 00:01:18.330 align:middle line:84% The Empress of the Death House, I 00:01:18.330 --> 00:01:20.220 align:middle line:84% was just talking to a group of students 00:01:20.220 --> 00:01:23.670 align:middle line:84% I worked with this morning about the book. 00:01:23.670 --> 00:01:27.100 align:middle line:84% My grandmother is the empress of the death house. 00:01:27.100 --> 00:01:29.850 align:middle line:84% My grandmother and grandfather owned a funeral home 00:01:29.850 --> 00:01:36.550 align:middle line:84% in Detroit, Michigan, and it was a real growing up experience. 00:01:36.550 --> 00:01:39.440 align:middle line:90% 00:01:39.440 --> 00:01:44.690 align:middle line:84% I was very friendly with the dead bodies. 00:01:44.690 --> 00:01:50.090 align:middle line:84% I mean, only a poet may be, I don't know. 00:01:50.090 --> 00:01:51.920 align:middle line:84% And I asked my mother years later, 00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:55.610 align:middle line:84% why did you let me go down and be with the dead bodies 00:01:55.610 --> 00:01:57.590 align:middle line:90% all the time? 00:01:57.590 --> 00:01:59.810 align:middle line:84% And she said, well, we were just so glad that you 00:01:59.810 --> 00:02:03.560 align:middle line:90% weren't afraid of dead bodies. 00:02:03.560 --> 00:02:05.900 align:middle line:84% And of course, little did she know, 00:02:05.900 --> 00:02:11.060 align:middle line:84% but that isn't exactly what was going on inside of me. 00:02:11.060 --> 00:02:14.900 align:middle line:84% I used to pray for them, and I used 00:02:14.900 --> 00:02:18.690 align:middle line:90% to touch the hands and the arms. 00:02:18.690 --> 00:02:21.530 align:middle line:84% As early as three, four, or five years old, 00:02:21.530 --> 00:02:29.930 align:middle line:84% death became a very encompassing subject for me. 00:02:29.930 --> 00:02:35.850 align:middle line:84% So the book The Empress of the Death House-- 00:02:35.850 --> 00:02:38.970 align:middle line:84% one of the things it's about is my grandmother 00:02:38.970 --> 00:02:43.830 align:middle line:84% is one of the figures in this book, who seems larger 00:02:43.830 --> 00:02:46.780 align:middle line:90% than death on the one hand. 00:02:46.780 --> 00:02:49.230 align:middle line:84% She died when I was seven years old, however. 00:02:49.230 --> 00:02:52.780 align:middle line:90% 00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:54.730 align:middle line:84% Just as I was talking to a class this morning, 00:02:54.730 --> 00:02:57.820 align:middle line:84% I wondered if somehow I'm looking 00:02:57.820 --> 00:03:04.270 align:middle line:84% to call forth images of strong women 00:03:04.270 --> 00:03:09.670 align:middle line:84% to sort of be my protector and to say, write your work, 00:03:09.670 --> 00:03:13.300 align:middle line:84% do your work, as I felt she was this strong presence 00:03:13.300 --> 00:03:13.840 align:middle line:90% in my life. 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:16.460 align:middle line:90% 00:03:16.460 --> 00:03:21.590 align:middle line:84% So this poem is called "The Empress of the Death House". 00:03:21.590 --> 00:03:23.720 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to read from all three 00:03:23.720 --> 00:03:26.450 align:middle line:90% of my books and some new poems. 00:03:26.450 --> 00:03:27.515 align:middle line:90% This is my first book. 00:03:27.515 --> 00:03:31.340 align:middle line:90% 00:03:31.340 --> 00:03:35.900 align:middle line:84% "My grandmother haunted the halls above Webster's Funeral 00:03:35.900 --> 00:03:40.300 align:middle line:90% Home like a red-gowned ghost. 00:03:40.300 --> 00:03:46.420 align:middle line:84% Till dawn, I'd see her spectral form, hena hair blown back, 00:03:46.420 --> 00:03:49.180 align:middle line:90% green eyes tameless. 00:03:49.180 --> 00:03:51.700 align:middle line:90% She was proud. 00:03:51.700 --> 00:03:55.780 align:middle line:90% Like God, I swore I'd love her. 00:03:55.780 --> 00:04:00.520 align:middle line:84% At night, we whispered how we hated mother and wished 00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:03.850 align:middle line:90% that I could live with her. 00:04:03.850 --> 00:04:07.720 align:middle line:84% In the morning while she slept, I'd 00:04:07.720 --> 00:04:13.400 align:middle line:84% pluck costume diamonds from a heart-shaped chest, 00:04:13.400 --> 00:04:18.570 align:middle line:84% try her tortoise combs and hairpins in my hair. 00:04:18.570 --> 00:04:23.030 align:middle line:84% She'd wake and take me to her bed. 00:04:23.030 --> 00:04:28.460 align:middle line:84% Maroon quilted eiderdowned, I drowned, 00:04:28.460 --> 00:04:32.760 align:middle line:90% rocking on her wasted breast. 00:04:32.760 --> 00:04:35.780 align:middle line:84% She'd tell me how she nursed my father 00:04:35.780 --> 00:04:39.200 align:middle line:90% till he was old enough to ask. 00:04:39.200 --> 00:04:45.780 align:middle line:84% Then she'd draw me to her, ask me if she still had milk. 00:04:45.780 --> 00:04:50.550 align:middle line:90% Yes, I said, yes. 00:04:50.550 --> 00:04:58.950 align:middle line:84% Feeding on the sapless lie, even now, the taste of emptiness 00:04:58.950 --> 00:05:01.500 align:middle line:90% waits my mouth." 00:05:01.500 --> 00:05:02.000 align:middle line:90%