WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.112 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.112 --> 00:00:02.320 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to read you the title poem from Victims 00:00:02.320 --> 00:00:03.330 align:middle line:90% of the Last Dance Craze. 00:00:03.330 --> 00:00:07.860 align:middle line:84% And the catalyst for this poem was playing, what if? 00:00:07.860 --> 00:00:10.260 align:middle line:84% And it was one of my last big what if poems. 00:00:10.260 --> 00:00:13.290 align:middle line:84% That first book, Kartunes, had a lot of me just 00:00:13.290 --> 00:00:15.480 align:middle line:90% trying to play what if. 00:00:15.480 --> 00:00:17.310 align:middle line:90% There was two big themes in it. 00:00:17.310 --> 00:00:17.890 align:middle line:90% That was one. 00:00:17.890 --> 00:00:19.890 align:middle line:84% The other one was talking about my family, which 00:00:19.890 --> 00:00:25.132 align:middle line:84% is one of the guarantees that I always give to young writers. 00:00:25.132 --> 00:00:26.340 align:middle line:90% I always give this challenge. 00:00:26.340 --> 00:00:27.980 align:middle line:90% And someone can send me a book-- 00:00:27.980 --> 00:00:30.060 align:middle line:84% it's care of Stony Brook if you can find this, 00:00:30.060 --> 00:00:32.580 align:middle line:84% if next time you go into a bookstore, 00:00:32.580 --> 00:00:37.200 align:middle line:84% and you look for a poet's first book, 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:39.010 align:middle line:84% I can guarantee you somewhere in the book, 00:00:39.010 --> 00:00:41.730 align:middle line:84% you will find a poem about their family. 00:00:41.730 --> 00:00:42.690 align:middle line:90% One way or another. 00:00:42.690 --> 00:00:45.135 align:middle line:84% And I have never seen this not to fail. 00:00:45.135 --> 00:00:47.010 align:middle line:84% And if you can find that book, send it to me. 00:00:47.010 --> 00:00:48.640 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:50.000 align:middle line:90% And so, those are two themes. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:51.583 align:middle line:84% And this is my last-- this is probably 00:00:51.583 --> 00:00:53.010 align:middle line:90% my last big great what if poem. 00:00:53.010 --> 00:00:55.290 align:middle line:84% And the idea from this was kind of imagining 00:00:55.290 --> 00:00:57.780 align:middle line:84% what would happen if a dance step hit 00:00:57.780 --> 00:00:59.490 align:middle line:90% and was sort of like a virus. 00:00:59.490 --> 00:01:01.320 align:middle line:90% Once you got infected with it-- 00:01:01.320 --> 00:01:02.220 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:02.220 --> 00:01:04.950 align:middle line:84% --what would happen was that you started 00:01:04.950 --> 00:01:08.190 align:middle line:84% to reveal your true self-- the self that you 00:01:08.190 --> 00:01:11.730 align:middle line:84% don't show to everybody else-- your deeper self. 00:01:11.730 --> 00:01:15.050 align:middle line:84% And the analogy I like to use for this is Emily Dickinson. 00:01:15.050 --> 00:01:16.800 align:middle line:84% You try to give it kind of an idea of what 00:01:16.800 --> 00:01:19.980 align:middle line:84% I mean when I say your deeper self, your true self. 00:01:19.980 --> 00:01:22.380 align:middle line:84% Emily Dickinson, who spent most of her life 00:01:22.380 --> 00:01:27.450 align:middle line:84% in this kind of isolation [LAUGHS] and in her house, 00:01:27.450 --> 00:01:30.943 align:middle line:84% basically was just living the real life of poems. 00:01:30.943 --> 00:01:32.610 align:middle line:84% She'd wait till her family went to sleep 00:01:32.610 --> 00:01:33.652 align:middle line:90% and everything was quiet. 00:01:33.652 --> 00:01:36.210 align:middle line:84% And she usually wrote at night, if I remember correctly. 00:01:36.210 --> 00:01:38.760 align:middle line:84% That's where she said she lived her real life-- 00:01:38.760 --> 00:01:42.014 align:middle line:84% writing poems, her deeper self, true self. 00:01:42.014 --> 00:01:44.640 align:middle line:84% That's what it's hopefully tapping into. 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.070 align:middle line:84% This is called-- this is "Victims of the Latest Dance 00:01:47.070 --> 00:01:49.360 align:middle line:90% Craze." 00:01:49.360 --> 00:01:53.110 align:middle line:84% "The streamers choking the main arteries downtown. 00:01:53.110 --> 00:01:55.960 align:middle line:84% The brass band-- led by a child from the home 00:01:55.960 --> 00:01:57.910 align:middle line:90% for the handicapped. 00:01:57.910 --> 00:02:00.370 align:middle line:90% The old men showing their hair-- 00:02:00.370 --> 00:02:02.030 align:middle line:90% what's left of it. 00:02:02.030 --> 00:02:04.840 align:middle line:84% The buttons of their shirts popping in time 00:02:04.840 --> 00:02:09.039 align:middle line:84% to the salsa flooding out of their portable headphones. 00:02:09.039 --> 00:02:13.000 align:middle line:84% And mothers letting their babies be held by strangers. 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:16.300 align:middle line:84% And the bus drivers taping over their fare boxes 00:02:16.300 --> 00:02:18.660 align:middle line:90% and willing to give directions. 00:02:18.660 --> 00:02:19.420 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:19.420 --> 00:02:22.450 align:middle line:84% Is there any reason to mention all the drinks are 00:02:22.450 --> 00:02:23.560 align:middle line:90% on the house? 00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:27.580 align:middle line:84% Thick adolescent boys dismantle their BB guns. 00:02:27.580 --> 00:02:29.380 align:middle line:90% Here is the world-- 00:02:29.380 --> 00:02:32.050 align:middle line:84% what's left of it-- in brilliant motion. 00:02:32.050 --> 00:02:37.510 align:middle line:84% The oil slick at the curb danced into 1,000 splintered steps. 00:02:37.510 --> 00:02:42.110 align:middle line:84% The bag ladies toss off their garments to reveal wings. 00:02:42.110 --> 00:02:44.330 align:middle line:90% This dance you do draws the cop. 00:02:44.330 --> 00:02:45.740 align:middle line:90% What do you call it? 00:02:45.740 --> 00:02:48.140 align:middle line:90% We call that scalding the air. 00:02:48.140 --> 00:02:50.900 align:middle line:84% We call it dying with your shoes on. 00:02:50.900 --> 00:02:53.750 align:middle line:84% And across the street, the bodies of trance 00:02:53.750 --> 00:02:56.660 align:middle line:90% stumble in a sober language. 00:02:56.660 --> 00:02:59.930 align:middle line:84% And across the street, shy young girls step 00:02:59.930 --> 00:03:02.060 align:middle line:84% behind their nameless boyfriends, 00:03:02.060 --> 00:03:04.010 align:middle line:90% twirling their skirts. 00:03:04.010 --> 00:03:06.350 align:middle line:84% And under an archway, a delivery boy 00:03:06.350 --> 00:03:09.110 align:middle line:84% discovers his body has learned to speak. 00:03:09.110 --> 00:03:12.500 align:middle line:84% And what does this street look like if not a runway-- 00:03:12.500 --> 00:03:15.920 align:middle line:90% a polished wood floor? 00:03:15.920 --> 00:03:20.000 align:middle line:84% From the air, insects drawn by the sweat, alight when 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:22.730 align:middle line:90% possible on the blur of torsos. 00:03:22.730 --> 00:03:25.730 align:middle line:84% It is the ride of their tiny lives. 00:03:25.730 --> 00:03:30.920 align:middle line:84% The wind that burns their wings, the heaving oblivious flesh, 00:03:30.920 --> 00:03:34.040 align:middle line:84% mountains stuffed with panic, an ocean 00:03:34.040 --> 00:03:35.780 align:middle line:90% that can't make up its mind-- 00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:40.130 align:middle line:84% they drop away with a scorched taste of vertigo. 00:03:40.130 --> 00:03:42.920 align:middle line:84% And under a swinging light bulb, some children 00:03:42.920 --> 00:03:45.830 align:middle line:84% invent a game with a shadow the bulb makes 00:03:45.830 --> 00:03:47.720 align:middle line:90% and the beat of their hearts. 00:03:47.720 --> 00:03:50.270 align:middle line:90% They call it dust in the mouth. 00:03:50.270 --> 00:03:52.910 align:middle line:84% They call it horse with no rider. 00:03:52.910 --> 00:03:56.220 align:middle line:84% They call it school with empty books. 00:03:56.220 --> 00:03:58.920 align:middle line:84% In the next room, their mother throws her dress away 00:03:58.920 --> 00:04:00.180 align:middle line:90% to chance. 00:04:00.180 --> 00:04:04.440 align:middle line:84% It drops to the floor, like a brush sighs across a drum head. 00:04:04.440 --> 00:04:07.860 align:middle line:84% And when she takes her lover, what are they thinking of, 00:04:07.860 --> 00:04:10.680 align:middle line:84% if not a ballroom filled with mirrors? 00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:14.750 align:middle line:84% A world where no one has the right to stumble. 00:04:14.750 --> 00:04:18.110 align:middle line:84% In a parking lot, an old man says this. 00:04:18.110 --> 00:04:20.149 align:middle line:90% I am a ghost dance. 00:04:20.149 --> 00:04:24.470 align:middle line:84% I remember the way my hair felt, damp with sweat and wind. 00:04:24.470 --> 00:04:27.920 align:middle line:84% When the wind kisses the leaves, I am dancing. 00:04:27.920 --> 00:04:31.940 align:middle line:84% When the subway hits the third rail, I am dancing. 00:04:31.940 --> 00:04:36.530 align:middle line:84% When the barrel goes over Niagara Falls, I am dancing. 00:04:36.530 --> 00:04:39.590 align:middle line:84% Oh, jazz has come from heaven, he says. 00:04:39.590 --> 00:04:44.420 align:middle line:84% And at the Z, he jumps, arching his back like a heron's neck, 00:04:44.420 --> 00:04:48.320 align:middle line:84% and stands suddenly revealed as a balanced demon-- 00:04:48.320 --> 00:04:50.990 align:middle line:90% a home for Stetson hats. 00:04:50.990 --> 00:04:53.270 align:middle line:90% We have all caught the itch. 00:04:53.270 --> 00:04:56.420 align:middle line:84% The neon artist wiring up his legs. 00:04:56.420 --> 00:04:58.670 align:middle line:84% The tourist couple recording the twist 00:04:58.670 --> 00:05:00.710 align:middle line:90% on their Instamatic camera. 00:05:00.710 --> 00:05:04.760 align:middle line:84% And in a factory, a janitor answers his broom for a waltz. 00:05:04.760 --> 00:05:06.620 align:middle line:84% And he grasps it like a woman, he'd 00:05:06.620 --> 00:05:08.870 align:middle line:84% have to live another life to meet. 00:05:08.870 --> 00:05:13.130 align:middle line:84% And he spins around the dustbin and machines and thinks, 00:05:13.130 --> 00:05:15.320 align:middle line:90% is everybody happy? 00:05:15.320 --> 00:05:18.830 align:middle line:84% And he spins out the side door, avoiding the cracks 00:05:18.830 --> 00:05:19.970 align:middle line:90% in the sidewalk. 00:05:19.970 --> 00:05:22.160 align:middle line:84% Grinning as if he'd just received 00:05:22.160 --> 00:05:25.230 align:middle line:90% the deepest kiss in the world." 00:05:25.230 --> 00:05:27.170 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:27.170 --> 00:05:32.520 align:middle line:90% 00:05:32.520 --> 00:05:34.070 align:middle line:90% Thanks.