WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.400 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.400 --> 00:00:07.010 align:middle line:84% So I got a lot of gender imagery connected 00:00:07.010 --> 00:00:08.700 align:middle line:90% with water and bodies of water. 00:00:08.700 --> 00:00:10.890 align:middle line:84% And I'm getting a lot of, like, fluidity with that. 00:00:10.890 --> 00:00:13.840 align:middle line:84% But I was wondering if you could expand upon that a little bit 00:00:13.840 --> 00:00:15.370 align:middle line:90% more-- 00:00:15.370 --> 00:00:20.410 align:middle line:84% about why you connected gender to water, and water to memory. 00:00:20.410 --> 00:00:23.760 align:middle line:90% 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:25.780 align:middle line:90% I just finished this poem. 00:00:25.780 --> 00:00:28.080 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:28.080 --> 00:00:30.840 align:middle line:84% This is the kind of question I could answer, like, 00:00:30.840 --> 00:00:33.220 align:middle line:84% three months from now when I've had time 00:00:33.220 --> 00:00:35.470 align:middle line:84% to think about-- well, I mean, as you noticed 00:00:35.470 --> 00:00:41.390 align:middle line:84% from all of the poems I read, water is central to this book. 00:00:41.390 --> 00:00:46.950 align:middle line:84% The first poem in the book is actually about two oil spills-- 00:00:46.950 --> 00:00:50.880 align:middle line:84% one that I witnessed in the San Francisco Bay, the Cosco Busan 00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:54.510 align:middle line:84% oil spill in 2007, and then the Deep Water Horizon spill. 00:00:54.510 --> 00:00:57.200 align:middle line:84% Because I'm from Alabama, and so it 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:02.660 align:middle line:84% affected a lot of people that I know, and relatives. 00:01:02.660 --> 00:01:05.910 align:middle line:84% So the book starts in a place of kind of water in a crisis, 00:01:05.910 --> 00:01:08.635 align:middle line:84% and then I think I've stayed with that. 00:01:08.635 --> 00:01:12.700 align:middle line:90% 00:01:12.700 --> 00:01:16.690 align:middle line:84% I mean, we don't exist without water, period. 00:01:16.690 --> 00:01:20.750 align:middle line:84% I mean, that, to me, is so crucial. 00:01:20.750 --> 00:01:25.080 align:middle line:84% And many industries also don't exist without water, either. 00:01:25.080 --> 00:01:27.490 align:middle line:84% And life doesn't exist without water, I mean, period. 00:01:27.490 --> 00:01:30.690 align:middle line:84% So it's the thing that fills all of it-- 00:01:30.690 --> 00:01:32.950 align:middle line:90% all of us. 00:01:32.950 --> 00:01:36.290 align:middle line:84% And also, I think on, like, some other elements that 00:01:36.290 --> 00:01:39.460 align:middle line:84% also fill many things, it's also the thing 00:01:39.460 --> 00:01:43.410 align:middle line:84% that spills over between us pretty readily 00:01:43.410 --> 00:01:47.190 align:middle line:84% and can travel from body to body, 00:01:47.190 --> 00:01:50.700 align:middle line:84% and industry to body, and back again in these ways 00:01:50.700 --> 00:01:53.510 align:middle line:84% that again follow capital, but also follow 00:01:53.510 --> 00:01:55.160 align:middle line:90% the logic of watersheds. 00:01:55.160 --> 00:01:58.090 align:middle line:84% And I feel like it's this sort of combination 00:01:58.090 --> 00:02:04.210 align:middle line:84% of how capital takes advantage, sometimes, of the systems that 00:02:04.210 --> 00:02:05.620 align:middle line:90% were already. 00:02:05.620 --> 00:02:10.050 align:middle line:84% And pollutions or toxins sort of hook into that, but also hook 00:02:10.050 --> 00:02:14.610 align:middle line:84% into our bodies because of our connection to both industry. 00:02:14.610 --> 00:02:18.360 align:middle line:84% Like, we're a node in between, sort of, 00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:21.320 align:middle line:84% a watershed system and industrial systems-- 00:02:21.320 --> 00:02:24.410 align:middle line:84% especially where I live, which is like a huge sort 00:02:24.410 --> 00:02:26.290 align:middle line:90% of industrial corridor. 00:02:26.290 --> 00:02:32.860 align:middle line:84% And I also think for me I guess I'm 00:02:32.860 --> 00:02:34.980 align:middle line:84% thinking through this idea of engendering, 00:02:34.980 --> 00:02:39.140 align:middle line:84% or generativity, and sort of, like, 00:02:39.140 --> 00:02:42.750 align:middle line:84% what it means to flourish and engender life, and generate 00:02:42.750 --> 00:02:47.080 align:middle line:84% life, which again is impossible without water. 00:02:47.080 --> 00:02:55.160 align:middle line:84% And for most life it's not even possible without fucking. 00:02:55.160 --> 00:02:59.420 align:middle line:90% And so there's that, too. 00:02:59.420 --> 00:03:03.160 align:middle line:84% I mean, obviously the poem started with that line-- 00:03:03.160 --> 00:03:04.990 align:middle line:90% today's gender is rain. 00:03:04.990 --> 00:03:07.250 align:middle line:90% Do I know what that means? 00:03:07.250 --> 00:03:11.530 align:middle line:84% Absolutely not, except that I love that line, 00:03:11.530 --> 00:03:14.700 align:middle line:84% and I love that idea, and it guided the poem. 00:03:14.700 --> 00:03:21.280 align:middle line:84% Like, the idea of water being a gender. 00:03:21.280 --> 00:03:23.580 align:middle line:84% And I think to me, I tried ultimately, 00:03:23.580 --> 00:03:25.870 align:middle line:84% and in maybe an overly intellectually way, 00:03:25.870 --> 00:03:29.830 align:middle line:84% to connect it to the in which I do think all of us 00:03:29.830 --> 00:03:32.270 align:middle line:84% have developed genders and relationship 00:03:32.270 --> 00:03:34.020 align:middle line:90% to the anthropocene. 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:36.310 align:middle line:84% That it's impossible, given how medicalized, 00:03:36.310 --> 00:03:40.780 align:middle line:84% let's say, women's reproductive health is, and how, let's say, 00:03:40.780 --> 00:03:43.820 align:middle line:84% the rise of plastics and the rise of pharmaceuticals 00:03:43.820 --> 00:03:47.010 align:middle line:84% is then tied to the great acceleration, right? 00:03:47.010 --> 00:03:48.870 align:middle line:84% Like, post-war great acceleration, 00:03:48.870 --> 00:03:52.230 align:middle line:84% which is when the birth control pill was developed. 00:03:52.230 --> 00:03:54.330 align:middle line:84% So one of the things I'm super interested in 00:03:54.330 --> 00:03:57.400 align:middle line:84% is the rise of sort of, like, gay rights, 00:03:57.400 --> 00:04:00.620 align:middle line:84% women's lib in the wake of the great acceleration 00:04:00.620 --> 00:04:02.590 align:middle line:90% of the great war. 00:04:02.590 --> 00:04:05.990 align:middle line:84% That's not something I wanted to rhetoricize in that poem, 00:04:05.990 --> 00:04:08.700 align:middle line:84% but I think it's impossible to think through, 00:04:08.700 --> 00:04:12.970 align:middle line:84% let's say, for me, like being a gay man without thinking 00:04:12.970 --> 00:04:19.070 align:middle line:84% about anti-retrovirals and many gay men's dependence 00:04:19.070 --> 00:04:22.620 align:middle line:84% on the pharmaceutical industry for a healthy body, 00:04:22.620 --> 00:04:24.865 align:middle line:90% a healthy sex life, et cetera. 00:04:24.865 --> 00:04:27.240 align:middle line:84% And the way that that's very typical of the anthropocene, 00:04:27.240 --> 00:04:27.740 align:middle line:90% actually. 00:04:27.740 --> 00:04:30.050 align:middle line:84% That, to me, is an anthropocenic gender in the same way 00:04:30.050 --> 00:04:33.760 align:middle line:84% that someone who does idea, or does-- and this is no judgment. 00:04:33.760 --> 00:04:35.893 align:middle line:84% This is, like, how our genders work, you know? 00:04:35.893 --> 00:04:37.310 align:middle line:84% You take birth control, and you do 00:04:37.310 --> 00:04:40.390 align:middle line:84% things to exercise choice, which is one 00:04:40.390 --> 00:04:42.850 align:middle line:90% of the great things we have. 00:04:42.850 --> 00:04:44.990 align:middle line:84% You know, I'm grateful for my boyfriend who 00:04:44.990 --> 00:04:47.860 align:middle line:84% can take anti-retrovirals and be alive, you know? 00:04:47.860 --> 00:04:52.840 align:middle line:84% But at the same time, we're dependent on these systems that 00:04:52.840 --> 00:04:57.680 align:middle line:84% are brutally capital, and also do a lot of sort 00:04:57.680 --> 00:04:59.110 align:middle line:90% of environmental harm. 00:04:59.110 --> 00:05:00.810 align:middle line:84% So I'm interested in that relation, 00:05:00.810 --> 00:05:04.000 align:middle line:84% and that sexuality is one of those places-- like water-- 00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:07.620 align:middle line:84% where these things sort of meet and articulate the anthropocene 00:05:07.620 --> 00:05:08.775 align:middle line:90% in a really visible way. 00:05:08.775 --> 00:05:09.650 align:middle line:90% Does that make sense? 00:05:09.650 --> 00:05:10.380 align:middle line:90% Just to answer? 00:05:10.380 --> 00:05:10.880 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:05:10.880 --> 00:05:13.250 align:middle line:84% I don't think you need six months. 00:05:13.250 --> 00:05:15.430 align:middle line:90% I think you got it now. 00:05:15.430 --> 00:05:19.210 align:middle line:84% Thanks for asking that, because maybe now I feel like, oh yeah, 00:05:19.210 --> 00:05:20.000 align:middle line:90% I know. 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:22.000 align:middle line:90% I can finish this book. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:23.020 align:middle line:90% I'm great. 00:05:23.020 --> 00:05:23.830 align:middle line:90% But yeah, no. 00:05:23.830 --> 00:05:24.810 align:middle line:90% OK, but thank you. 00:05:24.810 --> 00:05:25.310 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:05:25.310 --> 00:05:26.393 align:middle line:90% I'm glad that was helpful. 00:05:26.393 --> 00:05:31.690 align:middle line:90% 00:05:31.690 --> 00:05:35.990 align:middle line:84% So I've also lived in a number of states and biomes, 00:05:35.990 --> 00:05:39.020 align:middle line:84% and something I've run into on a personal spot 00:05:39.020 --> 00:05:41.960 align:middle line:84% is I remember plants and the soil types 00:05:41.960 --> 00:05:44.460 align:middle line:90% in places they don't exist. 00:05:44.460 --> 00:05:47.990 align:middle line:84% I remember going up to the top of the hill and finding clay. 00:05:47.990 --> 00:05:50.220 align:middle line:84% No, it wasn't there, because the Ozarks don't 00:05:50.220 --> 00:05:53.040 align:middle line:90% have clay-- not where I was. 00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:54.820 align:middle line:84% How did that factor into your writing 00:05:54.820 --> 00:05:57.950 align:middle line:84% on this, living in so many different places? 00:05:57.950 --> 00:06:01.070 align:middle line:84% You know, the thing that helps is that I write on foot. 00:06:01.070 --> 00:06:04.630 align:middle line:84% And so that when I'm writing the details, 00:06:04.630 --> 00:06:06.650 align:middle line:84% or even if I don't know what that is, like, 00:06:06.650 --> 00:06:08.960 align:middle line:84% I'll smear soil into the notebook. 00:06:08.960 --> 00:06:11.130 align:middle line:90% Or I'll do things that, like-- 00:06:11.130 --> 00:06:15.720 align:middle line:84% I try not to pull up plants because that's mean, 00:06:15.720 --> 00:06:21.320 align:middle line:84% especially because you don't know whether it's rare or not. 00:06:21.320 --> 00:06:25.720 align:middle line:84% So I try to identify plants with guidebooks and things. 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:28.100 align:middle line:84% But yeah, it helps with drafting on foot. 00:06:28.100 --> 00:06:31.120 align:middle line:84% Is that, you know, those details are there. 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:32.990 align:middle line:90% Or they're places I can return. 00:06:32.990 --> 00:06:34.730 align:middle line:84% So I'm like, what was that thing? 00:06:34.730 --> 00:06:35.620 align:middle line:90% What was that tree? 00:06:35.620 --> 00:06:37.700 align:middle line:84% Like, I try not to just say, tree, you know? 00:06:37.700 --> 00:06:39.400 align:middle line:90% Like, I try to be-- 00:06:39.400 --> 00:06:43.060 align:middle line:84% even though they're empirical names that that organism does 00:06:43.060 --> 00:06:44.940 align:middle line:90% not give two shits about. 00:06:44.940 --> 00:06:49.260 align:middle line:84% It's not going to be like, I'm a maple. 00:06:49.260 --> 00:06:53.790 align:middle line:84% I still try to understand through the technical tools 00:06:53.790 --> 00:06:54.540 align:middle line:90% we have. 00:06:54.540 --> 00:06:57.060 align:middle line:90% Like, what is that being? 00:06:57.060 --> 00:06:58.970 align:middle line:90% How does it reproduce? 00:06:58.970 --> 00:07:00.720 align:middle line:90% How does it function? 00:07:00.720 --> 00:07:08.870 align:middle line:84% What is its role in this biome, or ecotone, or wherever I am. 00:07:08.870 --> 00:07:10.620 align:middle line:84% So yeah, writing on foot is what helps, 00:07:10.620 --> 00:07:12.220 align:middle line:84% and keeping the notebook with me, 00:07:12.220 --> 00:07:16.517 align:middle line:84% and being able to record the data while it happens. 00:07:16.517 --> 00:07:18.100 align:middle line:84% And you'll notice they're very-- like, 00:07:18.100 --> 00:07:19.590 align:middle line:90% these poems are very present. 00:07:19.590 --> 00:07:20.620 align:middle line:90% There's no past. 00:07:20.620 --> 00:07:23.240 align:middle line:84% There's not a lot of past tense in them. 00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:25.810 align:middle line:84% And so I'm also trying to keep it in present relation, 00:07:25.810 --> 00:07:30.140 align:middle line:84% because I associate that sort of past tense, dreamy, imaginative 00:07:30.140 --> 00:07:34.950 align:middle line:84% space with a kind of beautiful romanticism 00:07:34.950 --> 00:07:37.830 align:middle line:84% that I'm maybe trying to encounter in myself-- 00:07:37.830 --> 00:07:40.800 align:middle line:84% you know, my own tendency toward beauty and idealization, 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:45.520 align:middle line:84% and sort of trying to keep things there. 00:07:45.520 --> 00:07:46.830 align:middle line:90% Does that makes sense? 00:07:46.830 --> 00:07:48.960 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:07:48.960 --> 00:07:49.590 align:middle line:90% Hi, Brian. 00:07:49.590 --> 00:07:50.090 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:07:50.090 --> 00:07:52.310 align:middle line:90% I'm glad to be here. 00:07:52.310 --> 00:07:54.215 align:middle line:90% Hi, thank you for the reading. 00:07:54.215 --> 00:07:56.090 align:middle line:84% This is kind of a follow-up to that question. 00:07:56.090 --> 00:07:58.530 align:middle line:84% You started to sort of answer my question 00:07:58.530 --> 00:08:00.020 align:middle line:90% as I got the microphone. 00:08:00.020 --> 00:08:01.920 align:middle line:84% But I am interested in this process 00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:06.120 align:middle line:84% of walking poems, or writing on foot. 00:08:06.120 --> 00:08:09.680 align:middle line:84% So is there-- like, do you have a procedure to it? 00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:14.100 align:middle line:84% Do you follow one particular route thinking of that 00:08:14.100 --> 00:08:17.440 align:middle line:84% as being a poem, or is it much more free-form than that? 00:08:17.440 --> 00:08:19.390 align:middle line:84% If you could just speak a little bit. 00:08:19.390 --> 00:08:20.220 align:middle line:90% That's great. 00:08:20.220 --> 00:08:25.590 align:middle line:84% It really depends on the space, on the site itself. 00:08:25.590 --> 00:08:33.530 align:middle line:84% So in Companion Grasses, like, a lot of those poems 00:08:33.530 --> 00:08:37.799 align:middle line:84% are places that I could return to again and again. 00:08:37.799 --> 00:08:42.380 align:middle line:84% Though Tall Flatsedge Notebook, which your class read, like, 00:08:42.380 --> 00:08:44.230 align:middle line:90% that was one hike, period. 00:08:44.230 --> 00:08:49.360 align:middle line:90% And so I wrote in one draft. 00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:54.640 align:middle line:84% But largely how it goes is that the draft is more skeletal. 00:08:54.640 --> 00:08:57.900 align:middle line:84% Like, I don't know everything about a site while I'm there, 00:08:57.900 --> 00:08:58.540 align:middle line:90% you know? 00:08:58.540 --> 00:09:00.620 align:middle line:84% So that if I can't go back and try and do 00:09:00.620 --> 00:09:04.180 align:middle line:84% research that explains what some of my notes say, I'm like, 00:09:04.180 --> 00:09:05.480 align:middle line:90% what was that thing? 00:09:05.480 --> 00:09:09.600 align:middle line:84% And then, I'm like, oh, because California still 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:11.260 align:middle line:90% fetishizes itself. 00:09:11.260 --> 00:09:13.380 align:middle line:84% You go to some dinky place, and they're like, 00:09:13.380 --> 00:09:16.130 align:middle line:84% here's the 400-page, color-plated, beautiful thing. 00:09:16.130 --> 00:09:19.250 align:middle line:84% And there are like, 10 species that live there. 00:09:19.250 --> 00:09:22.100 align:middle line:84% So you can totally find whatever it 00:09:22.100 --> 00:09:25.730 align:middle line:84% was that you saw, because it's so well documented. 00:09:25.730 --> 00:09:29.300 align:middle line:84% Whereas in Pennsylvania, they're like, it's a fox, 00:09:29.300 --> 00:09:30.080 align:middle line:90% or it's a hound. 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:33.590 align:middle line:90% Like, don't get excited. 00:09:33.590 --> 00:09:38.780 align:middle line:84% So I was able to retro-fill some species 00:09:38.780 --> 00:09:41.920 align:middle line:90% identification that way. 00:09:41.920 --> 00:09:45.210 align:middle line:84% But a lot of places I was able to visit multiple times, 00:09:45.210 --> 00:09:47.830 align:middle line:90% or hike in many-- 00:09:47.830 --> 00:09:51.590 align:middle line:84% so the penultimate poem in that book, 00:09:51.590 --> 00:09:55.010 align:middle line:84% the really long one, "To Begin With Desire," that is like, 00:09:55.010 --> 00:09:57.450 align:middle line:84% it pretends like it's one hike but it's actually, 00:09:57.450 --> 00:10:00.990 align:middle line:84% like, 10, all kind of palimpsested 00:10:00.990 --> 00:10:02.380 align:middle line:90% on top of each other. 00:10:02.380 --> 00:10:05.840 align:middle line:84% So it really depends on my access to it, 00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:10.060 align:middle line:84% whether I feel like the walk was complete-- 00:10:10.060 --> 00:10:12.810 align:middle line:90% the poem walk was complete. 00:10:12.810 --> 00:10:13.650 align:middle line:90% Often, it isn't. 00:10:13.650 --> 00:10:16.550 align:middle line:84% So often there are sort of, like, several 00:10:16.550 --> 00:10:21.040 align:middle line:84% walks inside of one, though sometimes it's just one. 00:10:21.040 --> 00:10:25.050 align:middle line:90% And it felt like whenever that-- 00:10:25.050 --> 00:10:27.510 align:middle line:84% it's like an open parentheses, and then it closes. 00:10:27.510 --> 00:10:31.490 align:middle line:84% And sometimes that parentheses remains open for reasons 00:10:31.490 --> 00:10:33.250 align:middle line:84% I don't understand and I have to go back. 00:10:33.250 --> 00:10:35.120 align:middle line:90% But other times it's very-- 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:38.070 align:middle line:84% you know, I hear the-- what does Jorie Graham say? 00:10:38.070 --> 00:10:39.050 align:middle line:90% The click of beauty. 00:10:39.050 --> 00:10:43.410 align:middle line:84% You know, beauty clicks shut, and they hear it enough. 00:10:43.410 --> 00:10:46.180 align:middle line:84% And then I sometimes try to not do that. 00:10:46.180 --> 00:10:51.460 align:middle line:84% But obviously, I like closure in some ways. 00:10:51.460 --> 00:10:53.430 align:middle line:90% But yeah, no sort of set. 00:10:53.430 --> 00:10:56.600 align:middle line:84% It's kind of like, I mean, I have general procedure, 00:10:56.600 --> 00:10:57.770 align:middle line:90% But it's super variable. 00:10:57.770 --> 00:11:02.990 align:middle line:90% 00:11:02.990 --> 00:11:03.750 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:11:03.750 --> 00:11:06.970 align:middle line:90% Thanks for the reading. 00:11:06.970 --> 00:11:11.080 align:middle line:84% I was wondering, you were saying you were sick for so long. 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:13.420 align:middle line:84% What was your biggest takeaway from that? 00:11:13.420 --> 00:11:15.120 align:middle line:90% What did you learn the most? 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:16.550 align:middle line:90% I mean, I'm sure a lot. 00:11:16.550 --> 00:11:19.230 align:middle line:84% There's more poems written on that. 00:11:19.230 --> 00:11:21.620 align:middle line:84% But, I mean, being sick for so long must 00:11:21.620 --> 00:11:23.300 align:middle line:90% have been so life-changing. 00:11:23.300 --> 00:11:26.870 align:middle line:90% I can't even comprehend that. 00:11:26.870 --> 00:11:29.240 align:middle line:84% Well, there's a book over there that I 00:11:29.240 --> 00:11:32.360 align:middle line:90% wrote that's, like, 100 pages. 00:11:32.360 --> 00:11:34.960 align:middle line:90% That would be the takeaway. 00:11:34.960 --> 00:11:36.480 align:middle line:90% But actually, no. 00:11:36.480 --> 00:11:37.520 align:middle line:90% That's a good-- 00:11:37.520 --> 00:11:46.200 align:middle line:84% I mean, I could probably have a bullet pointed list. 00:11:46.200 --> 00:11:52.110 align:middle line:84% But I think the sense is really that things 00:11:52.110 --> 00:11:55.120 align:middle line:84% that disability activists and Buddhists know 00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:56.890 align:middle line:90% is that health is temporary. 00:11:56.890 --> 00:12:00.390 align:middle line:84% You know, we're all temporarily able-bodied. 00:12:00.390 --> 00:12:02.830 align:middle line:84% And we're lucky to be able-bodied for as long 00:12:02.830 --> 00:12:06.300 align:middle line:84% as we are, but that all of us are only on borrowed time, 00:12:06.300 --> 00:12:11.230 align:middle line:84% both in terms of mortality, but also in terms of health. 00:12:11.230 --> 00:12:15.322 align:middle line:84% And I don't say it in one of the poems, 00:12:15.322 --> 00:12:17.530 align:middle line:84% but the doctors appointment I had where they're like, 00:12:17.530 --> 00:12:19.110 align:middle line:84% you still have some cartilage left. 00:12:19.110 --> 00:12:20.990 align:middle line:84% You know, like, it is true that I 00:12:20.990 --> 00:12:22.510 align:middle line:84% won't be able to walk at some point, 00:12:22.510 --> 00:12:24.710 align:middle line:84% or that I will need a wheelchair. 00:12:24.710 --> 00:12:27.620 align:middle line:84% And I didn't want that to be the poem, because again, 00:12:27.620 --> 00:12:31.030 align:middle line:84% that's my own personal drama that I felt like would-- 00:12:31.030 --> 00:12:33.300 align:middle line:90% like, the bats are dying. 00:12:33.300 --> 00:12:40.000 align:middle line:84% I just will not be comfortable, and then I'll die. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:43.940 align:middle line:84% But so to me I think it has to do with that sense of kind 00:12:43.940 --> 00:12:49.940 align:middle line:84% of coming both to a sense of impermanence in a very 00:12:49.940 --> 00:12:52.400 align:middle line:84% real sense, but also I think this 00:12:52.400 --> 00:12:57.100 align:middle line:84% is the key of kind of not taking it personally. 00:12:57.100 --> 00:12:58.700 align:middle line:84% It's one of the things I really admire 00:12:58.700 --> 00:13:01.710 align:middle line:84% about Robinson Jeffers, especially the later work, 00:13:01.710 --> 00:13:02.690 align:middle line:90% is this sort of-- 00:13:02.690 --> 00:13:05.860 align:middle line:84% I mean, he sees it as a kind of impersonal, slightly 00:13:05.860 --> 00:13:08.040 align:middle line:90% cruel process. 00:13:08.040 --> 00:13:10.200 align:middle line:90% But he's super Judeo-Christian. 00:13:10.200 --> 00:13:14.360 align:middle line:84% And I see him from a less Judeo-Christian point of view, 00:13:14.360 --> 00:13:17.260 align:middle line:84% is that like, aging and mortality 00:13:17.260 --> 00:13:19.710 align:middle line:90% and the body's infirmities-- 00:13:19.710 --> 00:13:21.400 align:middle line:84% they actually really aren't personal. 00:13:21.400 --> 00:13:23.020 align:middle line:90% We experience them as personal. 00:13:23.020 --> 00:13:25.630 align:middle line:84% But it's a process everything goes through. 00:13:25.630 --> 00:13:30.090 align:middle line:84% So again, one of the things that we share with other creatures. 00:13:30.090 --> 00:13:33.750 align:middle line:84% And that's where our deepest creaturliness is, 00:13:33.750 --> 00:13:37.700 align:middle line:84% is in our vulnerability that way, physically. 00:13:37.700 --> 00:13:42.100 align:middle line:84% So that's, I think, my biggest takeaway is 00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:46.400 align:middle line:84% like, I have to enjoy the connection with my body 00:13:46.400 --> 00:13:49.320 align:middle line:84% and the connections I can experience with the world 00:13:49.320 --> 00:13:51.590 align:middle line:84% through my body, and the knowledge I can 00:13:51.590 --> 00:13:52.950 align:middle line:90% gain through that, while I can. 00:13:52.950 --> 00:13:56.170 align:middle line:90% Does that make sense? 00:13:56.170 --> 00:13:58.700 align:middle line:84% So I feel like that pressure is in these poems, 00:13:58.700 --> 00:14:02.330 align:middle line:84% even if I'm not narrativizing it through, 00:14:02.330 --> 00:14:03.430 align:middle line:90% necessarily, that lens. 00:14:03.430 --> 00:14:06.380 align:middle line:84% I feel like it's what I return to this work 00:14:06.380 --> 00:14:12.850 align:middle line:84% with an intensified sense of a commitment to recording 00:14:12.850 --> 00:14:16.700 align:middle line:84% the somatic life, and what that enabled-- 00:14:16.700 --> 00:14:20.200 align:middle line:84% the connections, and again, the intercorporeality 00:14:20.200 --> 00:14:21.700 align:middle line:90% that that allows us to have. 00:14:21.700 --> 00:14:25.370 align:middle line:84% And again, I think it's an overlooked knowledge 00:14:25.370 --> 00:14:29.430 align:middle line:84% that empiricism does not value what comes in through those. 00:14:29.430 --> 00:14:32.840 align:middle line:84% And again, we find that a highly gendered position. 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:35.990 align:middle line:84% And so I'm trying undo that in my own way. 00:14:35.990 --> 00:14:41.170 align:middle line:84% But I think that's what illness- I think I was already 00:14:41.170 --> 00:14:43.240 align:middle line:84% think about those things, but I think it made it 00:14:43.240 --> 00:14:44.320 align:middle line:90% a higher priority maybe. 00:14:44.320 --> 00:14:47.440 align:middle line:90% Does that answer your question? 00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:50.250 align:middle line:90% Absolutely. 00:14:50.250 --> 00:14:53.530 align:middle line:84% That's probably about as good a place as any to pause it. 00:14:53.530 --> 00:14:55.580 align:middle line:84% And thank you so much for writing us a poem 00:14:55.580 --> 00:14:56.928 align:middle line:90% and for being here. 00:14:56.928 --> 00:14:59.640 align:middle line:90% 00:14:59.640 --> 00:15:00.550 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:15:00.550 --> 00:15:04.430 align:middle line:90% And thank you all for coming. 00:15:04.430 --> 00:15:07.140 align:middle line:84% And there are books for sale, and Brian.