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What occupies us is a reflection
or a glimpse at the skill

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set that we have.

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But what preoccupies us is an
introduction to who we are.

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And with that in
mind, I would like

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to have Rebecca Seiferle
introduce herself to you

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through a wonderful
essay that she wrote,

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"The poem is not
a closed system."

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I seldom use anthologies
when I teach.

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Instead, I hand out long poems
that reflect my preoccupations.

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Though these are rarely
included in anthologies

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because of their length I think
there are other reasons too.

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The highly polished
individual poem

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has become the goal
for many writers

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in contemporary workshops.

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Prizing the perfected lyric
has led to an emphasis

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upon closure, the strong
and memorable ending.

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To revision as most often
a practice of deleting

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and to the poem as a
self-referential and closed

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system.

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For me though, the vitality
of much modern and postmodern

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poetry is most often
expressed in the sequence,

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an extended form in which
disparate realities,

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personal experience,
cultural threads or texts can

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intersect and flux and ebb
across formal boundaries.

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To include such
works in the canon

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shifts our gaze to poetry as an
intimate and ongoing process,

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a life work as
well as an artwork.

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Catchy, right?

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It's very difficult to argue
that any sequence is perfect

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but in their rawness, their
dangling threads, their knots

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and sprawl, many
sequences resemble

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a living and particular body
imperfect, but loved as it is.

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These words provoke
and engage me.

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Their limitations,
interruptions, failures,

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and birth marks indicate
the hour and place

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of their origins.

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And I love their
complexities, depths

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of feeling and linguistic
and formal beauty.

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And fortunately, she
gives us eight examples

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of what she's referring to in
this concept of the sequence.

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The eight are Migraciones
by Gloria Gervitz,

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The Descent of Alette
by Alice Notley,

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Calamus by Walt Whitman, The
Fascicles of Emily Dickinson

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by Emily Dickinson, Book of
Nightmares by Galway Kinnell,

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Autobiography of
Red by Anne Carson,

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The Great Zoo by Nicolás Guillén
and The Heights of Machu Picchu

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by Pablo Neruda.

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So once again,
Rebecca, thank you

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very much for joining us today.

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Rebecca Seiferle.

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[APPLAUSE]

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