WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.660 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.660 --> 00:00:04.830 align:middle line:84% Thank you, Barbara, for that beautiful, enormously generous 00:00:04.830 --> 00:00:05.920 align:middle line:90% introduction. 00:00:05.920 --> 00:00:10.260 align:middle line:84% And thank you Gail for this series and all 00:00:10.260 --> 00:00:12.360 align:middle line:84% of the staff at the Poetry Center. 00:00:12.360 --> 00:00:14.880 align:middle line:84% A series like this takes a whole lot of people to put on, 00:00:14.880 --> 00:00:17.340 align:middle line:84% and we have one of the best in the country 00:00:17.340 --> 00:00:19.470 align:middle line:84% because we have the best people in the country 00:00:19.470 --> 00:00:21.510 align:middle line:90% to put it together. 00:00:21.510 --> 00:00:25.710 align:middle line:84% I feel very lucky to be here and to be reading again 00:00:25.710 --> 00:00:27.340 align:middle line:90% after a number of years. 00:00:27.340 --> 00:00:29.400 align:middle line:84% And I'm delighted to read with Ander. 00:00:29.400 --> 00:00:32.490 align:middle line:84% I heard him read a year ago when he 00:00:32.490 --> 00:00:35.580 align:middle line:84% was among the finalist candidates for the position 00:00:35.580 --> 00:00:37.230 align:middle line:90% which he now holds. 00:00:37.230 --> 00:00:40.680 align:middle line:90% And it was a terrific reading. 00:00:40.680 --> 00:00:46.020 align:middle line:84% I seem to remember a funeral of Gerald Ford and karaoke, 00:00:46.020 --> 00:00:49.200 align:middle line:84% and a lot of things came together in a magical way. 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:52.590 align:middle line:84% So you'll hear from him in a few minutes. 00:00:52.590 --> 00:00:55.140 align:middle line:84% I'm going to start out by reading a few poems 00:00:55.140 --> 00:00:59.880 align:middle line:84% from a series that led me into the work of remanence, which 00:00:59.880 --> 00:01:00.870 align:middle line:90% is a new book. 00:01:00.870 --> 00:01:03.750 align:middle line:90% 00:01:03.750 --> 00:01:08.130 align:middle line:84% I had taught a forms course some years ago, 00:01:08.130 --> 00:01:11.460 align:middle line:84% and we always conclude, in the syllabus that I teach, 00:01:11.460 --> 00:01:14.610 align:middle line:84% by writing sonnets the last few weeks. 00:01:14.610 --> 00:01:16.920 align:middle line:84% And I always fall in love with the compression 00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:19.380 align:middle line:90% and the shapes available. 00:01:19.380 --> 00:01:21.480 align:middle line:84% But I don't often have the nerve to spend 00:01:21.480 --> 00:01:22.800 align:middle line:90% a lot of time writing sonnets. 00:01:22.800 --> 00:01:25.800 align:middle line:84% So this time I decided I would write 00:01:25.800 --> 00:01:30.390 align:middle line:84% a series for a year or a year and a half of 15 line poems. 00:01:30.390 --> 00:01:32.850 align:middle line:84% I would see what I could do within that shape, 00:01:32.850 --> 00:01:34.590 align:middle line:90% that distance. 00:01:34.590 --> 00:01:37.240 align:middle line:84% I tried to keep them seamless and continuous. 00:01:37.240 --> 00:01:39.990 align:middle line:90% 00:01:39.990 --> 00:01:43.390 align:middle line:84% I tried to go far from beginning to end. 00:01:43.390 --> 00:01:46.650 align:middle line:84% And I didn't title them because I 00:01:46.650 --> 00:01:50.820 align:middle line:84% thought it might be interesting for a reader or listener 00:01:50.820 --> 00:01:53.400 align:middle line:84% to follow the trajectory I followed in discovering 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:54.570 align:middle line:90% what the poems were about. 00:01:54.570 --> 00:01:55.465 align:middle line:90% Ouch. 00:01:55.465 --> 00:01:57.720 align:middle line:90% Oh, I could use that. 00:01:57.720 --> 00:02:01.110 align:middle line:84% So let me read a few of these first. 00:02:01.110 --> 00:02:01.985 align:middle line:90% And they're untitled. 00:02:01.985 --> 00:02:05.970 align:middle line:90% 00:02:05.970 --> 00:02:10.530 align:middle line:84% "In Homer's time, psyche could mean many things-- 00:02:10.530 --> 00:02:15.150 align:middle line:84% self, underworld ghost, butterfly. 00:02:15.150 --> 00:02:19.440 align:middle line:84% Today, I think of them in flocks, selves, ghosts, 00:02:19.440 --> 00:02:23.550 align:middle line:84% butterflies, and of those blue nights in Corsica, 00:02:23.550 --> 00:02:27.060 align:middle line:84% a lovely rhythmic phrase, but so-called 00:02:27.060 --> 00:02:29.640 align:middle line:84% because of homemade bombs that lit the night 00:02:29.640 --> 00:02:33.780 align:middle line:90% sky in a time of resistance. 00:02:33.780 --> 00:02:36.150 align:middle line:84% In that inevitable colorful sparks 00:02:36.150 --> 00:02:41.760 align:middle line:84% at the collision of words and circumstance such as I'm 00:02:41.760 --> 00:02:45.030 align:middle line:84% thinking now of you what passes between a man 00:02:45.030 --> 00:02:47.880 align:middle line:90% in love and the one-- 00:02:47.880 --> 00:02:50.070 align:middle line:90% But I have to stop. 00:02:50.070 --> 00:02:52.440 align:middle line:84% Today, I think of them in flocks because 00:02:52.440 --> 00:02:56.670 align:middle line:84% of the pale schoolchildren laid in rows on grass whose 00:02:56.670 --> 00:03:01.470 align:middle line:84% particulars it would only make them beautiful to name them. 00:03:01.470 --> 00:03:03.030 align:middle line:90% Efface me. 00:03:03.030 --> 00:03:05.540 align:middle line:90% Efface all of us.