WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.490 align:middle line:84% I'd like to read one more poem which 00:00:05.490 --> 00:00:14.550 align:middle line:84% has the same role of redeeming the despised. 00:00:14.550 --> 00:00:17.910 align:middle line:84% And this poem is formally unusual 00:00:17.910 --> 00:00:23.130 align:middle line:84% because it has a footnote, which itself is in verse. 00:00:23.130 --> 00:00:26.430 align:middle line:90% 00:00:26.430 --> 00:00:28.455 align:middle line:90% And it's called "Holy Shit." 00:00:28.455 --> 00:00:33.090 align:middle line:90% 00:00:33.090 --> 00:00:38.570 align:middle line:90% And it goes as follows. 00:00:38.570 --> 00:00:41.780 align:middle line:84% "I know we like to think we're immortal. 00:00:41.780 --> 00:00:45.710 align:middle line:84% And if the gods don't shit, why should we? 00:00:45.710 --> 00:00:48.380 align:middle line:84% And it sounds, somehow, healthy to stop 00:00:48.380 --> 00:00:54.140 align:middle line:84% shitting, to sever the chain of linked turds mooring us 00:00:54.140 --> 00:00:59.810 align:middle line:84% to some cesspool, such as the one Martin Luther, after six 00:00:59.810 --> 00:01:03.770 align:middle line:84% days of clogged bowels, was squatting over 00:01:03.770 --> 00:01:06.920 align:middle line:84% when the doctrine of justification by faith 00:01:06.920 --> 00:01:11.840 align:middle line:84% came to him, or the dungeon of excrement 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:15.500 align:middle line:90% that Dante glommed onto. 00:01:15.500 --> 00:01:19.130 align:middle line:84% Right now, a horse bun is turning light golden 00:01:19.130 --> 00:01:23.120 align:middle line:84% in a field in Ohio, in the October sun. 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:27.650 align:middle line:84% And in a Vermont pasture, a wrinkled cow flap 00:01:27.650 --> 00:01:30.390 align:middle line:90% blooms pinkish. 00:01:30.390 --> 00:01:34.170 align:middle line:84% Last night, you took what you liked from a carrot. 00:01:34.170 --> 00:01:37.560 align:middle line:90% Today, you give back the rest. 00:01:37.560 --> 00:01:40.710 align:middle line:84% Of course, there could be a stink, 00:01:40.710 --> 00:01:43.560 align:middle line:84% like the updrafts that made Vergil 00:01:43.560 --> 00:01:47.610 align:middle line:84% gag while pushing and pulling Dante down 00:01:47.610 --> 00:01:52.750 align:middle line:84% through the bowels of hell, or that smote Strephon, when 00:01:52.750 --> 00:01:56.020 align:middle line:84% he discovered his beloved's chamber pot, 00:01:56.020 --> 00:01:59.280 align:middle line:90% and slowly realized Celia-- 00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:02.080 align:middle line:90% Celia-- Celia shits. 00:02:02.080 --> 00:02:05.020 align:middle line:90% 00:02:05.020 --> 00:02:10.990 align:middle line:84% But think, but think, the matter you press out of your anus, 00:02:10.990 --> 00:02:14.140 align:middle line:84% your mother and father were glad enough once 00:02:14.140 --> 00:02:17.920 align:middle line:84% to wipe from your little tidy buttocks. 00:02:17.920 --> 00:02:22.180 align:middle line:84% And this Sunday, in stadiums all over the country, 00:02:22.180 --> 00:02:26.740 align:middle line:84% many thousands will congregate to watch re-enactments 00:02:26.740 --> 00:02:32.530 align:middle line:84% of the Lutheran epiphany, when the liberating angel plucks 00:02:32.530 --> 00:02:37.480 align:middle line:84% turd after turd out of the upturned rear end of the cast 00:02:37.480 --> 00:02:46.830 align:middle line:84% of Martin Luther and drops back and hurls each Protestant lump 00:02:46.830 --> 00:02:52.360 align:middle line:84% far down field in the maneuver known as Schwarzkopf's Hail 00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:52.860 align:middle line:90% Mary. 00:02:52.860 --> 00:02:57.180 align:middle line:90% 00:02:57.180 --> 00:03:03.750 align:middle line:84% The child Genet would roost for hours each day in the silken 00:03:03.750 --> 00:03:07.950 align:middle line:84% peace of the outhouse, thinking of it as a confessional 00:03:07.950 --> 00:03:13.680 align:middle line:84% where we bear our most intimate parts, steeping his imagination 00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:16.890 align:middle line:90% in its odor and darkness. 00:03:16.890 --> 00:03:22.830 align:middle line:84% Though I myself have never sat reading poetry in outhouses 00:03:22.830 --> 00:03:27.360 align:middle line:84% or composed it while drinking in the family 00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:32.610 align:middle line:84% perfumes on the birch log laid across the open shitting 00:03:32.610 --> 00:03:37.200 align:middle line:84% pit in Freedom, New Hampshire, nevertheless, it 00:03:37.200 --> 00:03:43.860 align:middle line:84% seems to me that I confuse the knob of transfigured Earth 00:03:43.860 --> 00:03:48.600 align:middle line:84% that the alimentary canal shapes as it squeezes it 00:03:48.600 --> 00:03:56.460 align:middle line:84% out its bottom opening with the poem which it shapes out 00:03:56.460 --> 00:03:58.600 align:middle line:90% of its top. 00:03:58.600 --> 00:04:05.170 align:middle line:84% For I can never get near the 3500 stacks in libraries 00:04:05.170 --> 00:04:08.110 align:middle line:84% or the poetry shelf in bookstores 00:04:08.110 --> 00:04:10.150 align:middle line:90% without having to shit." 00:04:10.150 --> 00:04:14.560 align:middle line:90% 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:16.519 align:middle line:84% I got to work on that passage there. 00:04:16.519 --> 00:04:20.440 align:middle line:90% 00:04:20.440 --> 00:04:24.040 align:middle line:84% "When the white-tailed deer pauses and drops her quarter 00:04:24.040 --> 00:04:29.620 align:middle line:84% notes the size and color of Nicoise olives onto the snow. 00:04:29.620 --> 00:04:33.430 align:middle line:84% She doesn't need to sing them, being free, 00:04:33.430 --> 00:04:37.900 align:middle line:84% whereas the canary who, with her gizzards, sands off the husk 00:04:37.900 --> 00:04:41.470 align:middle line:84% and sleets it to the cage floor, must 00:04:41.470 --> 00:04:47.230 align:middle line:84% chill trill the entire kernel of each seed into song. 00:04:47.230 --> 00:04:49.120 align:middle line:90% My father gave a grunt. 00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:53.230 align:middle line:84% I heard him on the horseshoe of the toilet seat. 00:04:53.230 --> 00:04:56.380 align:middle line:84% I thought one of the great stallions of the night 00:04:56.380 --> 00:04:59.140 align:middle line:84% had just kicked him in the rear end, 00:04:59.140 --> 00:05:03.610 align:middle line:84% knocking a turd out of him into the still water under him, 00:05:03.610 --> 00:05:07.930 align:middle line:84% causing its surface, thin as a sheet of brow skin, 00:05:07.930 --> 00:05:11.390 align:middle line:90% to worry all over. 00:05:11.390 --> 00:05:16.460 align:middle line:84% 35,000 feet up there somewhere, a fountain pen 00:05:16.460 --> 00:05:22.250 align:middle line:84% turistas into a shirt pocket, a purplish black gush that 00:05:22.250 --> 00:05:28.730 align:middle line:84% now will never become a great elemental word such as fire, 00:05:28.730 --> 00:05:33.900 align:middle line:90% night, wind, or shit." 00:05:33.900 --> 00:05:37.380 align:middle line:90% Asterisk on shit and a footnote. 00:05:37.380 --> 00:05:41.970 align:middle line:84% "Shit has the asterisk attached to identify it as an indecent 00:05:41.970 --> 00:05:47.010 align:middle line:84% word, which the newspapers that drooled over the smart weapons 00:05:47.010 --> 00:05:51.540 align:middle line:84% of the Gulf War that killed so far away you never see 00:05:51.540 --> 00:05:55.140 align:middle line:84% a corpse, as if you could take a shit without seeing 00:05:55.140 --> 00:05:58.840 align:middle line:84% and smelling anything, won't print, 00:05:58.840 --> 00:06:03.520 align:middle line:84% even though it has an ancient lineage in the Indo-European 00:06:03.520 --> 00:06:05.320 align:middle line:90% skate-- 00:06:05.320 --> 00:06:09.520 align:middle line:84% to split, to separate, to drop, and remains 00:06:09.520 --> 00:06:14.110 align:middle line:84% one of our most common words, outranking in frequency of use 00:06:14.110 --> 00:06:19.480 align:middle line:84% all the expletives, even the divine three, God, Christ, 00:06:19.480 --> 00:06:21.490 align:middle line:90% and fuck." 00:06:21.490 --> 00:06:22.435 align:middle line:90% Back to the text. 00:06:22.435 --> 00:06:26.020 align:middle line:90% 00:06:26.020 --> 00:06:31.030 align:middle line:84% "Coming home, she said, yes, there's 00:06:31.030 --> 00:06:34.870 align:middle line:84% the bag and the fuss and the mess. 00:06:34.870 --> 00:06:36.910 align:middle line:90% But you know what I hate most? 00:06:36.910 --> 00:06:41.140 align:middle line:84% It's that I'll never sit down ever again and take 00:06:41.140 --> 00:06:43.090 align:middle line:90% a good shit. 00:06:43.090 --> 00:06:46.330 align:middle line:84% After five years in captivity, the ex-hostage 00:06:46.330 --> 00:06:48.040 align:middle line:90% said they don't say it. 00:06:48.040 --> 00:06:51.010 align:middle line:84% But one of the great joys of being free 00:06:51.010 --> 00:06:56.740 align:middle line:84% is you can go to the bathroom when you want. 00:06:56.740 --> 00:07:00.430 align:middle line:84% On the kitchen shelf, a mouse puts turd seeds 00:07:00.430 --> 00:07:03.550 align:middle line:84% at the foot of a box of rolled oats. 00:07:03.550 --> 00:07:07.570 align:middle line:84% A black bear who swats down the apples of the lower 00:07:07.570 --> 00:07:11.170 align:middle line:84% branches of three trees almost immediately 00:07:11.170 --> 00:07:16.300 align:middle line:84% begins producing long, thick cylinders of barely altered 00:07:16.300 --> 00:07:17.920 align:middle line:90% apple chompings. 00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:23.140 align:middle line:84% A little apple nectar removed, a little bear nectar added, 00:07:23.140 --> 00:07:27.700 align:middle line:84% as if you could serve them up in the great restaurants of Paris 00:07:27.700 --> 00:07:31.696 align:middle line:84% and Lyon as compote des pommes des Dieux. 00:07:31.696 --> 00:07:35.680 align:middle line:90% 00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:38.680 align:middle line:84% We eat shit anyway, one way or another. 00:07:38.680 --> 00:07:42.365 align:middle line:84% What did you think the shapes of Baby Ruth's and Mounds bars 00:07:42.365 --> 00:07:42.865 align:middle line:90% meant? 00:07:42.865 --> 00:07:45.690 align:middle line:90% 00:07:45.690 --> 00:07:49.890 align:middle line:84% And consider the andouille and the boudins noirs. 00:07:49.890 --> 00:07:54.510 align:middle line:84% And as for bouef, those castrated creatures 00:07:54.510 --> 00:07:56.910 align:middle line:84% whom we have stripped of all purpose 00:07:56.910 --> 00:08:02.400 align:middle line:84% except to separate grass and do shit and flesh that soon will 00:08:02.400 --> 00:08:06.390 align:middle line:84% be shit, don't those unmoving lumps dumped 00:08:06.390 --> 00:08:10.410 align:middle line:84% around in the field almost look themselves 00:08:10.410 --> 00:08:14.130 align:middle line:84% like the shit of some big something? 00:08:14.130 --> 00:08:17.100 align:middle line:84% Of course, as Olaf said, there is 00:08:17.100 --> 00:08:21.660 align:middle line:84% some shit I will not eat, such as--" sorry. 00:08:21.660 --> 00:08:23.790 align:middle line:84% "There is some S-period I will not 00:08:23.790 --> 00:08:27.390 align:middle line:84% eat, such as the S-period of getting 00:08:27.390 --> 00:08:30.930 align:middle line:84% a bunch of rich countries to gang up and bomb the shit out 00:08:30.930 --> 00:08:34.230 align:middle line:84% of a small country, possibly to some good end, 00:08:34.230 --> 00:08:37.830 align:middle line:84% but probably, mostly for the thrill of belonging 00:08:37.830 --> 00:08:42.870 align:middle line:84% to a people who don't die, who come out of the sky like gods 00:08:42.870 --> 00:08:47.900 align:middle line:84% and shit not shit but bombs on people who shit. 00:08:47.900 --> 00:08:51.500 align:middle line:84% A man in a lifeboat lived for seven days 00:08:51.500 --> 00:08:54.590 align:middle line:84% by sucking the anus of a cuttlefish, which 00:08:54.590 --> 00:08:58.700 align:middle line:84% he fed with seawater, and which he did not eat until he 00:08:58.700 --> 00:09:01.730 align:middle line:90% had spotted Cape Hatteras. 00:09:01.730 --> 00:09:05.150 align:middle line:84% We don't have any idea what life is, 00:09:05.150 --> 00:09:09.650 align:middle line:84% but we know all who live die, and in the meantime, 00:09:09.650 --> 00:09:12.830 align:middle line:84% work, sleep, mate, eat, and shit. 00:09:12.830 --> 00:09:17.750 align:middle line:84% So let others kneel and pray for whatever 00:09:17.750 --> 00:09:21.920 align:middle line:84% they call victory, in whatever war they have going. 00:09:21.920 --> 00:09:25.760 align:middle line:84% For us, let us sit, bent forward slightly, 00:09:25.760 --> 00:09:31.940 align:middle line:84% and be opened a moment as the Earth passes through us." 00:09:31.940 --> 00:09:35.290 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:09:35.290 --> 00:09:53.000 align:middle line:90%