WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.020 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.020 --> 00:00:04.260 align:middle line:84%
The current state poet of
New York, Jean Valentine

00:00:04.260 --> 00:00:07.410 align:middle line:84%
has lived most of her
life in New York City.

00:00:07.410 --> 00:00:11.100 align:middle line:84%
She won the Yale Series Younger
Poets award for her first book,

00:00:11.100 --> 00:00:14.250 align:middle line:90%
"Dream Barker" in 1965.

00:00:14.250 --> 00:00:17.730 align:middle line:84%
And in 2004, she garnered
the National Book Award,

00:00:17.730 --> 00:00:21.120 align:middle line:84%
for "Door in the Mountain:
New and Collected Poems."

00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:24.900 align:middle line:84%
Her most recent book from
Wesleyan is "Little Boat."

00:00:24.900 --> 00:00:28.200 align:middle line:84%
She's the author of eight
other books and numerous awards

00:00:28.200 --> 00:00:31.080 align:middle line:84%
and prizes that you can read
about in the events guide.

00:00:31.080 --> 00:00:34.110 align:middle line:90%


00:00:34.110 --> 00:00:39.480 align:middle line:84%
If hinges are the physics that
interest Catherine Barnett,

00:00:39.480 --> 00:00:44.430 align:middle line:84%
then Jean Valentine's poems
may be said to swerve.

00:00:44.430 --> 00:00:46.620 align:middle line:84%
I'm borrowing from a
Brenda Hillman essay

00:00:46.620 --> 00:00:51.240 align:middle line:84%
on Valentine in which she
says, "Lucretius writes

00:00:51.240 --> 00:00:53.550 align:middle line:84%
that the swerve is
what keeps atoms

00:00:53.550 --> 00:00:56.070 align:middle line:90%
from bumping into each other.

00:00:56.070 --> 00:00:58.200 align:middle line:84%
Just as they're about
to make a mistake

00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:02.670 align:middle line:84%
and strike another atom,
they deliberately swerve."

00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:07.170 align:middle line:84%
This is rather like the end
of Jean Valentine's poems,

00:01:07.170 --> 00:01:11.550 align:middle line:84%
that a sound that
is allergic to logic

00:01:11.550 --> 00:01:14.220 align:middle line:84%
swerves in the swerve
of avoidance that

00:01:14.220 --> 00:01:17.490 align:middle line:90%
makes reality possible.

00:01:17.490 --> 00:01:20.040 align:middle line:84%
Valentine's swerve
to avoid logic

00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:25.230 align:middle line:84%
propels the reader into
unseen, unsayable spaces,

00:01:25.230 --> 00:01:28.500 align:middle line:84%
often apprehended
through mystery of dream.

00:01:28.500 --> 00:01:32.400 align:middle line:84%
Her poems are paired to
particulars and resonate

00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:36.660 align:middle line:84%
with after images that
warrant our close attention.

00:01:36.660 --> 00:01:39.450 align:middle line:84%
The realities that
she makes possible

00:01:39.450 --> 00:01:42.810 align:middle line:84%
gather energy in the
void between things,

00:01:42.810 --> 00:01:50.130 align:middle line:84%
in what is being kept secret,
what is not being said.

00:01:50.130 --> 00:01:53.970 align:middle line:84%
Something like the truth
might be glimpsed here.

00:01:53.970 --> 00:01:58.350 align:middle line:84%
And somehow although you may
not always know where you are

00:01:58.350 --> 00:02:01.290 align:middle line:84%
or what you think,
you find yourself

00:02:01.290 --> 00:02:05.070 align:middle line:90%
immersed in total belief."

00:02:05.070 --> 00:02:08.490 align:middle line:84%
CD Wright says that
Jean Valentine carries

00:02:08.490 --> 00:02:11.520 align:middle line:90%
the world in her arm bones.

00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:13.080 align:middle line:90%
I'm going to say that again.

00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:16.590 align:middle line:84%
She carries the world
in her arm bones.

00:02:16.590 --> 00:02:21.270 align:middle line:84%
She takes the fracture line
of everyone's contention

00:02:21.270 --> 00:02:23.940 align:middle line:90%
and wills it to mend.

00:02:23.940 --> 00:02:28.110 align:middle line:84%
"It is not consolation the
poems offer," she says,

00:02:28.110 --> 00:02:33.000 align:middle line:84%
"but courage, a
little human courage."

00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:36.480 align:middle line:84%
Maybe this is how
the light gets in.

00:02:36.480 --> 00:02:39.210 align:middle line:84%
Please welcome our luminous
guest, Jean Valentine.

00:02:39.210 --> 00:02:42.860 align:middle line:90%
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]

00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:46.000 align:middle line:90%