WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.120 align:middle line:84% She said in the poem about abortion, 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:06.210 align:middle line:84% why did I say at the end, "dear thing, dear thing"? 00:00:06.210 --> 00:00:11.500 align:middle line:90% 00:00:11.500 --> 00:00:12.400 align:middle line:90% For two reasons. 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:15.790 align:middle line:84% Because I wanted to express an affection for what 00:00:15.790 --> 00:00:18.380 align:middle line:90% had happened to her. 00:00:18.380 --> 00:00:23.230 align:middle line:84% And I actually consciously used the phrase "thing" 00:00:23.230 --> 00:00:27.490 align:middle line:84% to make clear that for people who are anti-abortion, 00:00:27.490 --> 00:00:30.560 align:middle line:90% women are basically things. 00:00:30.560 --> 00:00:33.580 align:middle line:84% And so I wanted it to be a pun in a sense 00:00:33.580 --> 00:00:37.960 align:middle line:84% saying, "dear thing," which is an expression of endearment. 00:00:37.960 --> 00:00:41.560 align:middle line:84% And I use that way of saying it to catch because the whole poem 00:00:41.560 --> 00:00:45.140 align:middle line:90% is about that, of course. 00:00:45.140 --> 00:00:49.770 align:middle line:84% I think that when a man reaches a certain age-- 00:00:49.770 --> 00:00:51.570 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:51.570 --> 00:00:56.070 align:middle line:84% --his acuity, his sensitivity to music rises. 00:00:56.070 --> 00:01:04.950 align:middle line:84% I think that his desire to move beyond what he's already 00:01:04.950 --> 00:01:08.010 align:middle line:90% accomplished is keen. 00:01:08.010 --> 00:01:11.100 align:middle line:84% And so he's reaching through music to heights 00:01:11.100 --> 00:01:14.484 align:middle line:84% that he couldn't have imagined when he was a younger person. 00:01:14.484 --> 00:01:15.438 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:01:15.438 --> 00:01:17.323 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:01:17.323 --> 00:01:17.823 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:01:17.823 --> 00:01:18.777 align:middle line:90% You're welcome. 00:01:18.777 --> 00:01:23.960 align:middle line:90% 00:01:23.960 --> 00:01:26.643 align:middle line:90% We've got one more. 00:01:26.643 --> 00:01:28.060 align:middle line:84% This is for either or both of you. 00:01:28.060 --> 00:01:30.610 align:middle line:84% When you put together a collection of poetry, 00:01:30.610 --> 00:01:33.210 align:middle line:90% how do the poems come together? 00:01:33.210 --> 00:01:35.980 align:middle line:84% Do you choose a title poem and then build the collection 00:01:35.980 --> 00:01:37.330 align:middle line:90% around that? 00:01:37.330 --> 00:01:41.820 align:middle line:84% Do all the poems come from the same era of your writing? 00:01:41.820 --> 00:01:43.960 align:middle line:90% You can answer that one too. 00:01:43.960 --> 00:01:46.810 align:middle line:84% I'll just tell you that many poets use different techniques. 00:01:46.810 --> 00:01:49.090 align:middle line:84% Some people write in sequence and they 00:01:49.090 --> 00:01:51.670 align:middle line:84% know that their writing, particularly, a narrative, 00:01:51.670 --> 00:01:54.160 align:middle line:84% and that the poems have to fit into a sequence. 00:01:54.160 --> 00:01:55.300 align:middle line:90% I've never done that. 00:01:55.300 --> 00:01:57.850 align:middle line:84% There are other poets who are absolutely compulsive, 00:01:57.850 --> 00:01:58.905 align:middle line:90% like Norman Dubie. 00:01:58.905 --> 00:02:00.280 align:middle line:84% I used to have an office near his 00:02:00.280 --> 00:02:01.510 align:middle line:84% and he'd slip a poem under the door. 00:02:01.510 --> 00:02:02.950 align:middle line:84% And it would say on top, this will 00:02:02.950 --> 00:02:05.242 align:middle line:84% be the second poem in the third section of my new book. 00:02:05.242 --> 00:02:07.090 align:middle line:84% He absolutely knew where things went. 00:02:07.090 --> 00:02:10.090 align:middle line:84% My mind doesn't work that way, either. 00:02:10.090 --> 00:02:12.700 align:middle line:84% With the new book that I've just put together 00:02:12.700 --> 00:02:15.940 align:middle line:84% that will be coming out next year that's 00:02:15.940 --> 00:02:18.340 align:middle line:84% called Gnawed Bones, it deals a lot 00:02:18.340 --> 00:02:21.560 align:middle line:84% with mortality, many kinds of mortality. 00:02:21.560 --> 00:02:24.040 align:middle line:84% And there's a section that just deals with things 00:02:24.040 --> 00:02:25.270 align:middle line:90% that get away from us. 00:02:25.270 --> 00:02:27.580 align:middle line:84% A section that deals literally with my father's 00:02:27.580 --> 00:02:30.370 align:middle line:90% last days and his death. 00:02:30.370 --> 00:02:32.380 align:middle line:84% A part that deals with the desert. 00:02:32.380 --> 00:02:35.560 align:middle line:84% And then a part that deals with Alaska, so it's geographical 00:02:35.560 --> 00:02:37.863 align:middle line:90% as well as thematic. 00:02:37.863 --> 00:02:39.280 align:middle line:84% But there are many different ways. 00:02:39.280 --> 00:02:42.850 align:middle line:84% I have one friend who just put her poems alphabetically. 00:02:42.850 --> 00:02:45.560 align:middle line:84% So you can organize it in a variety of ways. 00:02:45.560 --> 00:02:49.660 align:middle line:84% I have another friend who made his go from dawn to dusk. 00:02:49.660 --> 00:02:52.130 align:middle line:90% And he organized it by light. 00:02:52.130 --> 00:02:52.630 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:02:52.630 --> 00:02:56.530 align:middle line:90% 00:02:56.530 --> 00:02:57.940 align:middle line:90% I agree. 00:02:57.940 --> 00:03:00.565 align:middle line:90% There's no real particular way. 00:03:00.565 --> 00:03:01.190 align:middle line:90% It's different. 00:03:01.190 --> 00:03:02.410 align:middle line:90% I just sort of gather mine. 00:03:02.410 --> 00:03:04.630 align:middle line:84% I once had a book that had a lot of poems in it, 00:03:04.630 --> 00:03:08.440 align:middle line:84% Flesh and Blood, about 130 poems. 00:03:08.440 --> 00:03:10.490 align:middle line:84% And I had a lot of trouble organizing it. 00:03:10.490 --> 00:03:12.790 align:middle line:84% And at one point, I had a friend of mine, 00:03:12.790 --> 00:03:17.200 align:middle line:84% who's a scientist generate, a sequence of random numbers. 00:03:17.200 --> 00:03:19.660 align:middle line:84% And I numbered the poems and put them in that order, 00:03:19.660 --> 00:03:21.010 align:middle line:90% but it didn't work either. 00:03:21.010 --> 00:03:23.410 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:23.410 --> 00:03:24.835 align:middle line:90% But we will try anything. 00:03:24.835 --> 00:03:28.950 align:middle line:90% 00:03:28.950 --> 00:03:32.230 align:middle line:84% Each of you, when did you write your first poem? 00:03:32.230 --> 00:03:36.520 align:middle line:84% I wrote mine one week after my last required English course 00:03:36.520 --> 00:03:38.320 align:middle line:90% in college. 00:03:38.320 --> 00:03:39.460 align:middle line:90% Seriously. 00:03:39.460 --> 00:03:42.490 align:middle line:84% Yeah, at the end of my sophomore year. 00:03:42.490 --> 00:03:45.460 align:middle line:84% I don't know what the connection between those two things is, 00:03:45.460 --> 00:03:47.960 align:middle line:90% but that's when I wrote it. 00:03:47.960 --> 00:03:50.355 align:middle line:84% And I'm sorry, Gail, we forgot to repeat the questions. 00:03:50.355 --> 00:03:52.480 align:middle line:84% But this one is when did you write your first poem? 00:03:52.480 --> 00:03:55.630 align:middle line:84% And I said poems from the time I was really little 00:03:55.630 --> 00:03:58.898 align:middle line:84% and then wrote them as soon as I could get attention for it. 00:03:58.898 --> 00:04:02.244 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:02.244 --> 00:04:03.200 align:middle line:90% 00:04:03.200 --> 00:04:04.970 align:middle line:90% OK, thank you. 00:04:04.970 --> 00:04:06.140 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much. 00:04:06.140 --> 00:04:07.500 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:07.500 --> 00:04:08.000 align:middle line:90%