WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.940 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.940 --> 00:00:01.440 align:middle line:90% Welcome. 00:00:01.440 --> 00:00:02.815 align:middle line:84% Thank you for being here tonight. 00:00:02.815 --> 00:00:04.740 align:middle line:84% I'm Frances Sjoberg, the literary director 00:00:04.740 --> 00:00:06.210 align:middle line:90% of the Poetry Center. 00:00:06.210 --> 00:00:08.220 align:middle line:84% And I would especially like to say thank you 00:00:08.220 --> 00:00:11.340 align:middle line:84% to all of our speakers who have come from near and far 00:00:11.340 --> 00:00:13.740 align:middle line:84% to help us pay tribute to Jon tonight. 00:00:13.740 --> 00:00:16.420 align:middle line:84% And I'd like to thank you for being here. 00:00:16.420 --> 00:00:20.060 align:middle line:84% Jon was, as you all know, a fantastic poet 00:00:20.060 --> 00:00:22.920 align:middle line:84% an excellent teacher, and it was a great privilege 00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:26.190 align:middle line:84% to have him here at the University of Arizona. 00:00:26.190 --> 00:00:29.700 align:middle line:84% Steve Orlen will do the welcome, and will introduce 00:00:29.700 --> 00:00:31.380 align:middle line:90% the program for you tonight. 00:00:31.380 --> 00:00:33.330 align:middle line:84% I just want to let a couple of things, 00:00:33.330 --> 00:00:36.480 align:middle line:84% that books are available for sale in the lobby at a discount 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:38.100 align:middle line:90% from the U of A bookstores. 00:00:38.100 --> 00:00:42.510 align:middle line:84% And the authors will remain on the stage after the tribute, 00:00:42.510 --> 00:00:45.750 align:middle line:84% and you can come up through the stairs on the side over there, 00:00:45.750 --> 00:00:50.670 align:middle line:84% to have your book signed or to speak to the speakers. 00:00:50.670 --> 00:00:53.910 align:middle line:84% We also have broadsides, a poem of Jon's, 00:00:53.910 --> 00:00:55.230 align:middle line:90% available in the lobby. 00:00:55.230 --> 00:00:57.630 align:middle line:84% So please take one of those on your way out. 00:00:57.630 --> 00:01:00.210 align:middle line:84% There's a guest book, also, so please feel 00:01:00.210 --> 00:01:01.410 align:middle line:90% free to sign the guest book. 00:01:01.410 --> 00:01:03.510 align:middle line:84% And if you include your email address, 00:01:03.510 --> 00:01:08.460 align:middle line:84% we'll let you know when audio stream of this tribute 00:01:08.460 --> 00:01:10.170 align:middle line:90% will be available on the web. 00:01:10.170 --> 00:01:12.660 align:middle line:84% And now, if you'll help me welcome Steve Orlen. 00:01:12.660 --> 00:01:15.040 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:20.280 align:middle line:90% 00:01:20.280 --> 00:01:21.820 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:01:21.820 --> 00:01:25.170 align:middle line:84% I'm honored to welcome you to meet some of the friends 00:01:25.170 --> 00:01:28.410 align:middle line:84% and former students of Jon Anderson. 00:01:28.410 --> 00:01:29.820 align:middle line:90% How does one mourn a hermit? 00:01:29.820 --> 00:01:30.900 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:30.900 --> 00:01:36.630 align:middle line:84% Many here who loved him found him a reluctant correspondent 00:01:36.630 --> 00:01:39.430 align:middle line:84% and hadn't spoken with him for years. 00:01:39.430 --> 00:01:41.220 align:middle line:84% But at his death, found that they still 00:01:41.220 --> 00:01:43.860 align:middle line:84% held a place for him and their hearts, 00:01:43.860 --> 00:01:46.770 align:middle line:84% for what they learned from his forgiving and encouraging 00:01:46.770 --> 00:01:51.120 align:middle line:84% presence as a teacher, and a pal, and from his poems, 00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:54.030 align:middle line:84% and from some of his wisdom about poetry 00:01:54.030 --> 00:01:57.543 align:middle line:90% and the inner life of the poet. 00:01:57.543 --> 00:01:59.710 align:middle line:84% Some people will give you the shirts off their backs 00:01:59.710 --> 00:02:02.920 align:middle line:84% and, before you put it on, ask you 00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:06.880 align:middle line:84% to travel several thousand miles on your own dime 00:02:06.880 --> 00:02:09.940 align:middle line:84% to pay tribute to a poet who, if he were here, 00:02:09.940 --> 00:02:12.400 align:middle line:84% would feel terribly uncomfortable 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:15.430 align:middle line:90% and ask where the television is. 00:02:15.430 --> 00:02:17.530 align:middle line:84% That man was Michael Collier, who is back here. 00:02:17.530 --> 00:02:20.470 align:middle line:84% Someone somewhere who thought this up and called David 00:02:20.470 --> 00:02:24.700 align:middle line:84% Rivard and sparked interest across the telephone wires. 00:02:24.700 --> 00:02:26.410 align:middle line:90% And here we are. 00:02:26.410 --> 00:02:30.400 align:middle line:84% I'd also like to thank Frances and Gail, and the workers 00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:35.020 align:middle line:84% at the Poetry Center, for managing this entire evening. 00:02:35.020 --> 00:02:40.600 align:middle line:84% This occasion is as much for us as it is for you. 00:02:40.600 --> 00:02:44.510 align:middle line:84% I promise you that this will be a long evening. 00:02:44.510 --> 00:02:47.290 align:middle line:84% And if you have to pee or get bored or tired, 00:02:47.290 --> 00:02:48.880 align:middle line:84% or have somewhere else to be, don't 00:02:48.880 --> 00:02:51.910 align:middle line:84% feel embarrassed about taking your leave. 00:02:51.910 --> 00:02:55.785 align:middle line:84% Jon would want you to feel comfortable. 00:02:55.785 --> 00:02:57.160 align:middle line:84% I also promise that you will hear 00:02:57.160 --> 00:03:01.810 align:middle line:84% some unique, knockout lyric and meditative poems read by some 00:03:01.810 --> 00:03:04.930 align:middle line:90% of the best poets in America. 00:03:04.930 --> 00:03:08.365 align:middle line:84% I'm now going to read you a list, which many of you have. 00:03:08.365 --> 00:03:11.770 align:middle line:90% 00:03:11.770 --> 00:03:15.640 align:middle line:84% The first reader will be Deborah Bernhardt, followed 00:03:15.640 --> 00:03:22.690 align:middle line:84% by Stuart Dischell, Rich Lyons, Gibb Windahl, Kevin Lanoue, 00:03:22.690 --> 00:03:25.600 align:middle line:84% Hank Combellick, Richard Siken, this 00:03:25.600 --> 00:03:29.920 align:middle line:84% is like the great softball team of history. 00:03:29.920 --> 00:03:31.120 align:middle line:90% Which we used to play. 00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:36.970 align:middle line:84% Jet Guido, Annie Guido, Bill Olsen, Nancy Eimers, 00:03:36.970 --> 00:03:42.430 align:middle line:84% David Rivard, Boyer Rickel, George Shelton, Bruce Cohen, 00:03:42.430 --> 00:03:44.230 align:middle line:90% Debra Gregerman. 00:03:44.230 --> 00:03:49.780 align:middle line:84% And a name that was left out by mistake, Loren Goodman. 00:03:49.780 --> 00:03:53.500 align:middle line:84% Bodi wasn't able to come down from Flagstaff. 00:03:53.500 --> 00:03:56.680 align:middle line:84% And finally, Michael Collier will read, 00:03:56.680 --> 00:03:59.570 align:middle line:90% and give some closing comments. 00:03:59.570 --> 00:04:01.870 align:middle line:90% So enjoy. 00:04:01.870 --> 00:04:04.365 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:04.365 --> 00:04:14.360 align:middle line:90% 00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:17.209 align:middle line:84% Last time I was here, Jon was here too. 00:04:17.209 --> 00:04:20.240 align:middle line:84% Later he said, I shouldn't start with a poem 00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:22.070 align:middle line:90% that's six minutes long. 00:04:22.070 --> 00:04:26.600 align:middle line:84% So I learned that one year ago from him. 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:29.900 align:middle line:84% And you know, he used to say, what 00:04:29.900 --> 00:04:31.280 align:middle line:90% are the delights in a poem? 00:04:31.280 --> 00:04:33.110 align:middle line:84% And I once wrote a poem called "Looking 00:04:33.110 --> 00:04:35.420 align:middle line:84% for Delights," which is after the poem, 00:04:35.420 --> 00:04:36.680 align:middle line:90% "Looking for Jonathan." 00:04:36.680 --> 00:04:42.920 align:middle line:84% And that's a poem that taught me a lot about how to make a poem. 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:44.180 align:middle line:90% "Looking for Jonathan." 00:04:44.180 --> 00:04:47.090 align:middle line:90% 00:04:47.090 --> 00:04:50.510 align:middle line:84% Before sunrise, the sky whitened. 00:04:50.510 --> 00:04:56.450 align:middle line:84% I said to myself, whatever troubles you, leave it. 00:04:56.450 --> 00:04:58.790 align:middle line:84% Then we're speeding into the fields. 00:04:58.790 --> 00:05:03.020 align:middle line:84% Corn, white houses, buses at daybreak, 00:05:03.020 --> 00:05:06.950 align:middle line:84% the same eyes we've brought along before. 00:05:06.950 --> 00:05:10.490 align:middle line:84% But the yellow light looked in at us. 00:05:10.490 --> 00:05:14.750 align:middle line:90% That discomfiture, give it here. 00:05:14.750 --> 00:05:18.500 align:middle line:84% Oh, I knew what had been planned, but where, 00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:21.440 align:middle line:90% and in whose name? 00:05:21.440 --> 00:05:22.820 align:middle line:90% Nonfiction. 00:05:22.820 --> 00:05:29.270 align:middle line:84% Happiest man ran alongside then right-angled, "see you," 00:05:29.270 --> 00:05:31.520 align:middle line:90% into the white woods. 00:05:31.520 --> 00:05:35.660 align:middle line:90% We followed, of course, on foot. 00:05:35.660 --> 00:05:39.260 align:middle line:84% There, various women, some I knew or had known, 00:05:39.260 --> 00:05:42.740 align:middle line:84% were dancing, filling a clearing. 00:05:42.740 --> 00:05:44.210 align:middle line:90% The pond. 00:05:44.210 --> 00:05:49.010 align:middle line:84% We swam in the old way, lit the green leaves to grow warm. 00:05:49.010 --> 00:05:53.240 align:middle line:90% Our smoke rose into the sun. 00:05:53.240 --> 00:05:56.810 align:middle line:84% When I saw America, she had danced all night. 00:05:56.810 --> 00:06:00.860 align:middle line:84% She was chalk white, leaning on her husband's arm. 00:06:00.860 --> 00:06:05.330 align:middle line:84% I could see the orange hometown coming. 00:06:05.330 --> 00:06:09.230 align:middle line:84% I leaned honestly into my own reflection. 00:06:09.230 --> 00:06:13.238 align:middle line:90% I had no more stories of God. 00:06:13.238 --> 00:06:16.154 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:06:16.154 --> 00:06:24.440 align:middle line:90% 00:06:24.440 --> 00:06:25.550 align:middle line:90% How's everybody tonight? 00:06:25.550 --> 00:06:29.540 align:middle line:90% 00:06:29.540 --> 00:06:33.080 align:middle line:84% Jon came to us in Iowa City in 1976, 00:06:33.080 --> 00:06:35.300 align:middle line:90% the year before he came to you. 00:06:35.300 --> 00:06:37.070 align:middle line:84% I had met him some months before. 00:06:37.070 --> 00:06:40.670 align:middle line:84% I left Yellow Springs, where he was visiting my poetry 00:06:40.670 --> 00:06:42.890 align:middle line:90% professor, Ira Sadoff. 00:06:42.890 --> 00:06:44.840 align:middle line:84% He told me when I got to Iowa City, 00:06:44.840 --> 00:06:48.710 align:middle line:84% I should introduce myself to another former student, Michael 00:06:48.710 --> 00:06:52.040 align:middle line:84% Stefanko from Ohio University, where Jon had taught 00:06:52.040 --> 00:06:54.450 align:middle line:84% and become best friends with him. 00:06:54.450 --> 00:06:56.930 align:middle line:90% Which is exactly what I did. 00:06:56.930 --> 00:06:59.240 align:middle line:84% Of the many gifts he gave me as a teacher, 00:06:59.240 --> 00:07:02.330 align:middle line:84% the friendship of other poets was the most enduring, 00:07:02.330 --> 00:07:05.060 align:middle line:84% and I believe something he himself had also 00:07:05.060 --> 00:07:08.210 align:middle line:90% learned from Steve Orlen here. 00:07:08.210 --> 00:07:10.370 align:middle line:90% Jon was uncanny in many ways. 00:07:10.370 --> 00:07:13.880 align:middle line:84% He had the ability, at times, to look into people's psyches 00:07:13.880 --> 00:07:16.460 align:middle line:84% and find their strengths and weaknesses. 00:07:16.460 --> 00:07:20.030 align:middle line:84% He pegged right away my relationship with my father, 00:07:20.030 --> 00:07:23.570 align:middle line:84% after I told him the leather coat I wore had been his. 00:07:23.570 --> 00:07:27.410 align:middle line:84% For months afterwards, when I would say particular things 00:07:27.410 --> 00:07:30.590 align:middle line:84% in and out of class, Jon would respond, that's 00:07:30.590 --> 00:07:32.180 align:middle line:90% your father talking, Stuart. 00:07:32.180 --> 00:07:33.710 align:middle line:90% Not you. 00:07:33.710 --> 00:07:35.840 align:middle line:90% And he would be right. 00:07:35.840 --> 00:07:38.030 align:middle line:84% Then there was a marvelous, crazy Jon, 00:07:38.030 --> 00:07:40.850 align:middle line:84% driving his Toyota station wagon full of students 00:07:40.850 --> 00:07:44.330 align:middle line:84% into the cemetery, and diverting over the graves, our heads 00:07:44.330 --> 00:07:46.970 align:middle line:84% bumping on the roof in the middle of the night, 00:07:46.970 --> 00:07:49.590 align:middle line:84% him shouting to the dead, you have no rights. 00:07:49.590 --> 00:07:51.620 align:middle line:90% The dead have no rights. 00:07:51.620 --> 00:07:54.200 align:middle line:84% Jon spending his NEA grant putting us up 00:07:54.200 --> 00:07:57.950 align:middle line:84% on the pinball machine, or constructing grommets-- 00:07:57.950 --> 00:08:02.300 align:middle line:84% little troll like creatures made of Silly Putty and body hair, 00:08:02.300 --> 00:08:04.100 align:middle line:90% I won't say from where. 00:08:04.100 --> 00:08:07.340 align:middle line:84% The many late nights he would sense me drifting into sleep 00:08:07.340 --> 00:08:10.370 align:middle line:84% and say, the thing I like best about your new poem 00:08:10.370 --> 00:08:14.690 align:middle line:84% is which, of course, would wake me right up. 00:08:14.690 --> 00:08:17.810 align:middle line:84% And I can still hear Jon, his head full of samurai 00:08:17.810 --> 00:08:22.190 align:middle line:84% movies and Saturday Night Live, speaking to me in Japanese. 00:08:22.190 --> 00:08:26.690 align:middle line:84% Saying, oh, Stuart, I want you to be better poet than master. 00:08:26.690 --> 00:08:29.300 align:middle line:84% Master teach you everything he know. 00:08:29.300 --> 00:08:32.870 align:middle line:84% You go out in world, having forged your sword here 00:08:32.870 --> 00:08:34.610 align:middle line:90% in master's temple. 00:08:34.610 --> 00:08:36.500 align:middle line:90% And he was right. 00:08:36.500 --> 00:08:38.414 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Jon. 00:08:38.414 --> 00:08:41.276 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:08:41.276 --> 00:08:45.580 align:middle line:90% 00:08:45.580 --> 00:08:47.590 align:middle line:90% "Years." 00:08:47.590 --> 00:08:53.230 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, in weariness, I stop, because I've been lucky. 00:08:53.230 --> 00:08:56.890 align:middle line:84% I think the future must be quite plain. 00:08:56.890 --> 00:09:00.490 align:middle line:84% Over the trees, the stars are small. 00:09:00.490 --> 00:09:03.520 align:middle line:84% My friends talk quietly, and we have all 00:09:03.520 --> 00:09:06.010 align:middle line:90% come to the same things. 00:09:06.010 --> 00:09:11.800 align:middle line:84% Now if I die, I will inherit a while, their similar bodies. 00:09:11.800 --> 00:09:15.760 align:middle line:84% Now if I listen, someone is telling a story. 00:09:15.760 --> 00:09:17.680 align:middle line:90% The characters mess. 00:09:17.680 --> 00:09:20.710 align:middle line:84% They enchanted each other by speech. 00:09:20.710 --> 00:09:24.430 align:middle line:84% Though the stories they lived were not the same, 00:09:24.430 --> 00:09:27.370 align:middle line:90% many were distracted into love. 00:09:27.370 --> 00:09:32.920 align:middle line:84% Slept and woke alone, a while, serene. 00:09:32.920 --> 00:09:33.580 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Jon. 00:09:33.580 --> 00:09:36.040 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:09:36.040 --> 00:09:43.430 align:middle line:90% 00:09:43.430 --> 00:09:46.010 align:middle line:84% What I learned from Jon and Steve, 00:09:46.010 --> 00:09:47.630 align:middle line:84% that I carry into my own teaching, 00:09:47.630 --> 00:09:53.360 align:middle line:84% is to eliminate any kind of professorial barrier. 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:56.030 align:middle line:84% I think my students would prefer it, but I don't allow it. 00:09:56.030 --> 00:09:58.935 align:middle line:90% 00:09:58.935 --> 00:10:00.060 align:middle line:90% They're getting used to it. 00:10:00.060 --> 00:10:02.990 align:middle line:84% I'm in my 13th year at the school I'm teaching at. 00:10:02.990 --> 00:10:05.960 align:middle line:84% This is probably a 4 minute poem. 00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:07.025 align:middle line:90% "From Its Sepia Level." 00:10:07.025 --> 00:10:09.800 align:middle line:90% 00:10:09.800 --> 00:10:13.190 align:middle line:84% You are of a certain age when the days are interchangeable. 00:10:13.190 --> 00:10:16.730 align:middle line:84% Where formerly you had suffered introspection and emerged, 00:10:16.730 --> 00:10:19.050 align:middle line:84% and where formerly you had married, 00:10:19.050 --> 00:10:21.470 align:middle line:90% living a popular novel. 00:10:21.470 --> 00:10:24.440 align:middle line:84% Now you were calm, though unsure, 00:10:24.440 --> 00:10:27.260 align:middle line:84% believing this calm to be inconsolable. 00:10:27.260 --> 00:10:31.760 align:middle line:84% A long plane of ennui or private joy. 00:10:31.760 --> 00:10:34.160 align:middle line:84% You had turned back momentarily, then. 00:10:34.160 --> 00:10:38.180 align:middle line:84% Though to your surprise, from concern rather than shock, 00:10:38.180 --> 00:10:40.040 align:middle line:84% to settle a few things and acquaint 00:10:40.040 --> 00:10:43.040 align:middle line:90% yourself one last time. 00:10:43.040 --> 00:10:46.850 align:middle line:84% Then, as you embarked as onto a flat field of water. 00:10:46.850 --> 00:10:50.120 align:middle line:84% Stepping lightly off, you remember the foreshadowing. 00:10:50.120 --> 00:10:51.980 align:middle line:84% An image of adults talking quietly 00:10:51.980 --> 00:10:55.550 align:middle line:84% in the backyard and smoking, the evening of pale 00:10:55.550 --> 00:10:59.030 align:middle line:90% haze around their bodies. 00:10:59.030 --> 00:11:03.140 align:middle line:84% Now that image, in its familiarity, takes care of you. 00:11:03.140 --> 00:11:04.580 align:middle line:90% Another surprise. 00:11:04.580 --> 00:11:07.250 align:middle line:90% Courage is not a requirement. 00:11:07.250 --> 00:11:10.040 align:middle line:84% Because this new expense, in this seeming always 00:11:10.040 --> 00:11:12.260 align:middle line:84% to be a living extension of itself, 00:11:12.260 --> 00:11:14.240 align:middle line:90% only requires your presence. 00:11:14.240 --> 00:11:17.990 align:middle line:84% The slight pressure of your body. 00:11:17.990 --> 00:11:21.080 align:middle line:84% But it is not all reassuring, this comfort, 00:11:21.080 --> 00:11:22.970 align:middle line:90% for you to belong to it. 00:11:22.970 --> 00:11:25.220 align:middle line:84% The world and your small love for it 00:11:25.220 --> 00:11:30.320 align:middle line:84% floats like the talk of the adults, and is barely mutable. 00:11:30.320 --> 00:11:32.990 align:middle line:84% Now you will feel a nostalgia for it. 00:11:32.990 --> 00:11:38.120 align:middle line:84% No longer will you consciously alter its events and friendship 00:11:38.120 --> 00:11:40.070 align:middle line:90% and companionship. 00:11:40.070 --> 00:11:43.100 align:middle line:84% Faces of young students which, after the immediate pleasures 00:11:43.100 --> 00:11:46.460 align:middle line:84% of consent, had settled into composure. 00:11:46.460 --> 00:11:48.470 align:middle line:90% Always refreshing your life. 00:11:48.470 --> 00:11:50.600 align:middle line:90% Must change value now. 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:54.500 align:middle line:90% Will be less quick and lovelier. 00:11:54.500 --> 00:11:57.080 align:middle line:84% After a long time, and if you again 00:11:57.080 --> 00:12:00.950 align:middle line:84% become articulate or can listen generously, 00:12:00.950 --> 00:12:04.520 align:middle line:84% it can be given to you to be provident. 00:12:04.520 --> 00:12:08.180 align:middle line:84% Though this is at the mercy of time, among other 00:12:08.180 --> 00:12:11.360 align:middle line:84% dependencies, and is not assured. 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:13.790 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:12:13.790 --> 00:12:22.070 align:middle line:90% 00:12:22.070 --> 00:12:28.040 align:middle line:84% Jon was the most anarchic personality of anyone 00:12:28.040 --> 00:12:29.660 align:middle line:90% I've ever known who had a job. 00:12:29.660 --> 00:12:33.080 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:12:33.080 --> 00:12:36.980 align:middle line:84% The most amazing thing he ever told me about poetry 00:12:36.980 --> 00:12:42.230 align:middle line:84% was the fact that he had written every one of his poems 00:12:42.230 --> 00:12:44.270 align:middle line:90% in one go. 00:12:44.270 --> 00:12:49.040 align:middle line:84% Unlike most of us mortals, you take notes and accumulate 00:12:49.040 --> 00:12:50.090 align:middle line:90% and gather. 00:12:50.090 --> 00:12:55.220 align:middle line:84% He would just write and force it on through till it was done. 00:12:55.220 --> 00:13:00.350 align:middle line:84% And truly, he dragged through the rain on Mozart's grave. 00:13:00.350 --> 00:13:02.250 align:middle line:84% This poem is "The Secret of Poetry." 00:13:02.250 --> 00:13:04.170 align:middle line:90% It's a poem I teach frequently. 00:13:04.170 --> 00:13:11.690 align:middle line:84% And the last line is something he truly lived. 00:13:11.690 --> 00:13:14.840 align:middle line:84% When I was lonely, I thought of death. 00:13:14.840 --> 00:13:18.090 align:middle line:84% When I thought of death, I was lonely. 00:13:18.090 --> 00:13:20.990 align:middle line:84% I suppose this air will continue. 00:13:20.990 --> 00:13:25.490 align:middle line:84% I shall enter each gray morning delighted by frost, 00:13:25.490 --> 00:13:26.810 align:middle line:90% which is death. 00:13:26.810 --> 00:13:30.680 align:middle line:84% And the trees that stand alone, and mist. 00:13:30.680 --> 00:13:33.770 align:middle line:84% When I met my wife, I was lonely. 00:13:33.770 --> 00:13:37.190 align:middle line:90% Our child in her body is lonely. 00:13:37.190 --> 00:13:41.240 align:middle line:84% I suppose this air will go on and on. 00:13:41.240 --> 00:13:44.720 align:middle line:84% Mornings, I kiss my wife's cold lips. 00:13:44.720 --> 00:13:48.890 align:middle line:84% Nights, her body dripping with mist. 00:13:48.890 --> 00:13:52.190 align:middle line:90% This is the air that fascinates. 00:13:52.190 --> 00:13:57.140 align:middle line:84% I suppose you are secretly lonely, thinking of death, 00:13:57.140 --> 00:13:58.910 align:middle line:90% thinking of love. 00:13:58.910 --> 00:14:03.500 align:middle line:84% I'd like, please, to leave on your soul, just one 00:14:03.500 --> 00:14:09.530 align:middle line:84% cold flower, whose beauty would leave you inconsolable all day. 00:14:09.530 --> 00:14:13.712 align:middle line:90% The secret of poetry is cruelty. 00:14:13.712 --> 00:14:16.142 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:14:16.142 --> 00:14:25.380 align:middle line:90% 00:14:25.380 --> 00:14:28.260 align:middle line:84% I'm really grateful for this night 00:14:28.260 --> 00:14:33.780 align:middle line:84% and honored to be with these folks on this stage. 00:14:33.780 --> 00:14:38.880 align:middle line:84% Jon was a great friend of mine, and a lot of his poems address 00:14:38.880 --> 00:14:39.700 align:middle line:90% friendship. 00:14:39.700 --> 00:14:44.700 align:middle line:84% And he was he was a great friend in life, too. 00:14:44.700 --> 00:14:48.690 align:middle line:84% this poem is another of Jon's poems about friendship, 00:14:48.690 --> 00:14:53.760 align:middle line:84% but this one's written about the friendship between Jon's dog 00:14:53.760 --> 00:14:56.070 align:middle line:90% and Steve's dog. 00:14:56.070 --> 00:14:59.280 align:middle line:90% It's called "Ye Brothers Dogg." 00:14:59.280 --> 00:15:03.240 align:middle line:84% And for those of you who don't know it, on the page 00:15:03.240 --> 00:15:05.880 align:middle line:84% it's written in a sort of pseudo old English 00:15:05.880 --> 00:15:08.040 align:middle line:84% with E on the end of every other word. 00:15:08.040 --> 00:15:15.930 align:middle line:84% And the dogs' names are Hodain D Dogg and Tooley Orlen, 00:15:15.930 --> 00:15:17.480 align:middle line:90% who looks a lot like you. 00:15:17.480 --> 00:15:25.200 align:middle line:90% 00:15:25.200 --> 00:15:28.620 align:middle line:84% Ye dog O'Toole who hath not work at 00:15:28.620 --> 00:15:33.300 align:middle line:84% love nor art nor goeth school, sayeth with fart 00:15:33.300 --> 00:15:35.340 align:middle line:90% at Golden Rule. 00:15:35.340 --> 00:15:38.760 align:middle line:84% Be it bitch or biscuit or platter stew, 00:15:38.760 --> 00:15:42.390 align:middle line:90% ye palate alone shall guide you. 00:15:42.390 --> 00:15:46.380 align:middle line:84% Ye dog Hodain forgoeth bone nor doth disdain 00:15:46.380 --> 00:15:51.900 align:middle line:84% to moan for wind and rain, ye snow and fog, ye seasons 00:15:51.900 --> 00:15:57.990 align:middle line:84% sun and world roll on but ye days a dog be not long. 00:15:57.990 --> 00:16:01.680 align:middle line:84% Brothers two you slim Hodain and fat O'Toole, 00:16:01.680 --> 00:16:07.260 align:middle line:84% beneath fence diggeth hole into ye world ye brothers dance. 00:16:07.260 --> 00:16:13.080 align:middle line:84% Nor would return you fat O'Toole and slim Hodain. 00:16:13.080 --> 00:16:17.820 align:middle line:84% Soon as report brothers to doth run amok in neighborhood. 00:16:17.820 --> 00:16:22.890 align:middle line:84% Cautions O'Toole, Hodain, ye may bark, may scowl, and be rude, 00:16:22.890 --> 00:16:27.840 align:middle line:84% but do not bite ye hand what giveth dog food. 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:30.210 align:middle line:84% Though all complain, the brothers two, 00:16:30.210 --> 00:16:33.660 align:middle line:84% no wind nor rain doth drive them home. 00:16:33.660 --> 00:16:36.990 align:middle line:84% Then sayeth Hodain to brother O'Toole, 00:16:36.990 --> 00:16:40.180 align:middle line:84% though we have been friend through thick and thin, dog 00:16:40.180 --> 00:16:42.930 align:middle line:90% needeth some love from man. 00:16:42.930 --> 00:16:46.890 align:middle line:84% So end ye song of brothers two, away they had flown 00:16:46.890 --> 00:16:48.480 align:middle line:90% and back they flew. 00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:51.570 align:middle line:84% Recline at the yard through seasons and sun, 00:16:51.570 --> 00:16:56.280 align:middle line:84% through wind and rain, ye snow, ye fog, O'Toole, Hodain, 00:16:56.280 --> 00:16:57.360 align:middle line:90% ye brothers dog. 00:16:57.360 --> 00:17:10.220 align:middle line:90% 00:17:10.220 --> 00:17:13.819 align:middle line:90% This is called "Camouflage." 00:17:13.819 --> 00:17:17.480 align:middle line:84% Then it was autumn and the leaves fell down, 00:17:17.480 --> 00:17:20.990 align:middle line:84% full of the odors of tobacco and coffee. 00:17:20.990 --> 00:17:23.150 align:middle line:84% When the uncles burped and smoked 00:17:23.150 --> 00:17:27.079 align:middle line:84% and repeated their little histories because weren't they 00:17:27.079 --> 00:17:29.930 align:middle line:90% after all still children? 00:17:29.930 --> 00:17:33.590 align:middle line:84% And you hid your secret body in the room behind the drapes down 00:17:33.590 --> 00:17:37.130 align:middle line:84% flowing as a coming rain, wrapping yourself 00:17:37.130 --> 00:17:41.330 align:middle line:84% in such robes of velvet and lilac patterns of crimson 00:17:41.330 --> 00:17:46.520 align:middle line:84% and India from which to listen and began 00:17:46.520 --> 00:17:53.630 align:middle line:84% to be not so taken with life's events, a meal, a coming storm. 00:17:53.630 --> 00:17:56.840 align:middle line:84% But nuance, yes that was a tangible thing 00:17:56.840 --> 00:18:00.260 align:middle line:84% a child's body could take in, a connection 00:18:00.260 --> 00:18:03.800 align:middle line:90% from this day to that one. 00:18:03.800 --> 00:18:10.100 align:middle line:84% Like the seasons, their terrible seemingly effortless labor to 00:18:10.100 --> 00:18:12.230 align:middle line:90% simply become. 00:18:12.230 --> 00:18:16.940 align:middle line:84% So you turn briefly to the storm where in the distance 00:18:16.940 --> 00:18:19.220 align:middle line:84% some men in the camouflage of coats 00:18:19.220 --> 00:18:20.975 align:middle line:90% were just beginning to run. 00:18:20.975 --> 00:18:23.840 align:middle line:90% 00:18:23.840 --> 00:18:30.050 align:middle line:84% I chose this one because Jon was seasonal 00:18:30.050 --> 00:18:34.040 align:middle line:84% and his good months coincided with the baseball season. 00:18:34.040 --> 00:18:36.770 align:middle line:90% 00:18:36.770 --> 00:18:38.330 align:middle line:84% The only reason he got through winter 00:18:38.330 --> 00:18:44.810 align:middle line:84% was he was into the metaphysics of the U of A basketball team. 00:18:44.810 --> 00:18:47.570 align:middle line:90% 00:18:47.570 --> 00:18:52.550 align:middle line:84% So anyway the seasons affect you so dramatically when 00:18:52.550 --> 00:18:56.210 align:middle line:90% you live in Boston. 00:18:56.210 --> 00:19:01.580 align:middle line:84% He used to in the winter time choose all the games 00:19:01.580 --> 00:19:05.510 align:middle line:84% that he wanted to go to with his friend. 00:19:05.510 --> 00:19:06.950 align:middle line:84% This was his partner at the game. 00:19:06.950 --> 00:19:09.560 align:middle line:84% And what they'd do is they'd hang outside of the grocery 00:19:09.560 --> 00:19:13.250 align:middle line:84% store because if they got $100 worth of receipts, now this 00:19:13.250 --> 00:19:17.627 align:middle line:84% is 1958-59, you got a free ticket. 00:19:17.627 --> 00:19:20.210 align:middle line:84% And it didn't take them long to have all the tickets that they 00:19:20.210 --> 00:19:21.560 align:middle line:90% needed. 00:19:21.560 --> 00:19:27.307 align:middle line:84% I suspect that-- well I don't know about that, 00:19:27.307 --> 00:19:28.640 align:middle line:90% I think I'll leave it like that. 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:37.310 align:middle line:90% 00:19:37.310 --> 00:19:41.540 align:middle line:90% Harumi, Harumi, Harumi. 00:19:41.540 --> 00:19:44.390 align:middle line:84% One weekend the kid brings home Harumi. 00:19:44.390 --> 00:19:47.450 align:middle line:84% Harumi, girl in league with the morning sun. 00:19:47.450 --> 00:19:51.200 align:middle line:84% Black hair, bright eyes, clothes from Bloomingdale's. 00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:55.550 align:middle line:84% Passes through real quickly, dropping cherry clothes. 00:19:55.550 --> 00:19:58.850 align:middle line:84% Next week she gives me a dewdrop vase from Japan, 00:19:58.850 --> 00:20:01.400 align:middle line:90% original, big as a thumb. 00:20:01.400 --> 00:20:04.880 align:middle line:84% I, seeking to impress, stick a buttercup in it, 00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:08.930 align:middle line:84% a sprig of spring, an afterthought, something 00:20:08.930 --> 00:20:10.880 align:middle line:90% off the lawn. 00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:13.970 align:middle line:84% Harumi becomes an East Asian wind. 00:20:13.970 --> 00:20:18.350 align:middle line:84% Tidbits of English spoken in random flight, a foxtrot 00:20:18.350 --> 00:20:22.100 align:middle line:90% of Woburn, Bartok on resin. 00:20:22.100 --> 00:20:25.790 align:middle line:84% I take to walking the neighborhood, looking around. 00:20:25.790 --> 00:20:27.350 align:middle line:90% Harumi blows a tire. 00:20:27.350 --> 00:20:29.330 align:middle line:90% American Pop to the rescue. 00:20:29.330 --> 00:20:31.520 align:middle line:90% She eyes my labor and huff. 00:20:31.520 --> 00:20:33.590 align:middle line:90% I see what I've done. 00:20:33.590 --> 00:20:36.290 align:middle line:90% Harumi, Harumi, Harumi. 00:20:36.290 --> 00:20:39.410 align:middle line:84% Keep loving my son, the imbecile blonde 00:20:39.410 --> 00:20:41.090 align:middle line:90% with the wisenheimer grin. 00:20:41.090 --> 00:20:45.140 align:middle line:84% The kid from alternative cartoon TV explosion. 00:20:45.140 --> 00:20:49.340 align:middle line:84% He's taller than me, looks like a three quarter gentleman. 00:20:49.340 --> 00:20:53.420 align:middle line:84% Harumi and Bodi I hear you both teasing and giggling. 00:20:53.420 --> 00:20:55.160 align:middle line:90% Quit it, Harumi and Bodi. 00:20:55.160 --> 00:20:57.425 align:middle line:90% Still up and it's almost dawn. 00:20:57.425 --> 00:21:00.110 align:middle line:90% 00:21:00.110 --> 00:21:03.130 align:middle line:84% This is the strangest love poem I've ever read. 00:21:03.130 --> 00:21:03.895 align:middle line:90% It really is. 00:21:03.895 --> 00:21:06.460 align:middle line:90% 00:21:06.460 --> 00:21:11.230 align:middle line:84% He loves someone because she loves someone he loves. 00:21:11.230 --> 00:21:16.630 align:middle line:84% And that's just really generous and sideways. 00:21:16.630 --> 00:21:23.350 align:middle line:84% And that was my experience of Jon, generous and sideways. 00:21:23.350 --> 00:21:38.110 align:middle line:90% 00:21:38.110 --> 00:21:38.650 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:21:38.650 --> 00:21:40.540 align:middle line:90% I hate microphones. 00:21:40.540 --> 00:21:43.900 align:middle line:90% I apologize. 00:21:43.900 --> 00:21:46.380 align:middle line:90% Where is it? 00:21:46.380 --> 00:21:47.430 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:21:47.430 --> 00:21:52.440 align:middle line:84% I'm doing the poem "A Song for Children ". 00:21:52.440 --> 00:21:57.210 align:middle line:84% Where are the tired adults we must court and entertain? 00:21:57.210 --> 00:21:59.890 align:middle line:90% We are helpless like history. 00:21:59.890 --> 00:22:04.110 align:middle line:84% We do not want to begin now to be bathed, 00:22:04.110 --> 00:22:07.770 align:middle line:84% now to be kissed, now to be put to sleep. 00:22:07.770 --> 00:22:10.590 align:middle line:90% We are soft dolls or cups. 00:22:10.590 --> 00:22:11.970 align:middle line:90% The silences they keep. 00:22:11.970 --> 00:22:14.700 align:middle line:90% 00:22:14.700 --> 00:22:15.870 align:middle line:90% And so that's that. 00:22:15.870 --> 00:22:23.102 align:middle line:90% 00:22:23.102 --> 00:22:24.060 align:middle line:90% We're not like married. 00:22:24.060 --> 00:22:24.870 align:middle line:90% This is my mom. 00:22:24.870 --> 00:22:33.120 align:middle line:90% 00:22:33.120 --> 00:22:37.890 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read "Spring Song," which is an odd little poem, 00:22:37.890 --> 00:22:41.580 align:middle line:84% but I think I actually understand this one. 00:22:41.580 --> 00:22:44.490 align:middle line:90% The raccoon laid down at dawn. 00:22:44.490 --> 00:22:47.610 align:middle line:84% Its little feet were pointing upward. 00:22:47.610 --> 00:22:50.370 align:middle line:90% Even the tourists are sick. 00:22:50.370 --> 00:22:52.590 align:middle line:84% And the daily beneficial light, which 00:22:52.590 --> 00:22:57.840 align:middle line:84% had traveled a long time toward us, lies on its head in meadows 00:22:57.840 --> 00:22:59.760 align:middle line:90% and against trees. 00:22:59.760 --> 00:23:04.050 align:middle line:84% It begins to surround us, lighting the leaves easily, 00:23:04.050 --> 00:23:08.880 align:middle line:84% some bark, the Earth, a green stone. 00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:12.030 align:middle line:84% We spread sheets over the ground. 00:23:12.030 --> 00:23:14.280 align:middle line:90% Love is good. 00:23:14.280 --> 00:23:15.930 align:middle line:90% Who are you? 00:23:15.930 --> 00:23:18.420 align:middle line:90% If I'm sullen, you'll mother it. 00:23:18.420 --> 00:23:23.100 align:middle line:84% Just under the blue scum of a pond, we, facing up, 00:23:23.100 --> 00:23:27.060 align:middle line:84% see ourselves dramatically touch. 00:23:27.060 --> 00:23:28.620 align:middle line:90% I'm sick of it all. 00:23:28.620 --> 00:23:31.140 align:middle line:90% I pull your little breasts. 00:23:31.140 --> 00:23:36.480 align:middle line:84% Oh it is another morning, starving, I've come around. 00:23:36.480 --> 00:23:39.180 align:middle line:90% Love money bitch. 00:23:39.180 --> 00:23:42.180 align:middle line:90% Nothing is right. 00:23:42.180 --> 00:23:45.150 align:middle line:90% It is the year of regrets. 00:23:45.150 --> 00:23:48.075 align:middle line:84% Oh Jon, why does the light come down? 00:23:48.075 --> 00:24:07.720 align:middle line:90% 00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:12.610 align:middle line:84% If you Google the first allusion in this poem, Franconati, 00:24:12.610 --> 00:24:15.655 align:middle line:84% you can confirm that no such figure exists. 00:24:15.655 --> 00:24:20.470 align:middle line:90% 00:24:20.470 --> 00:24:24.190 align:middle line:84% Jon took great pleasure pointing that out in readings. 00:24:24.190 --> 00:24:27.460 align:middle line:84% So this is a poem that fabricates its authority, 00:24:27.460 --> 00:24:30.940 align:middle line:84% works out some wonderful logarithm between fiction 00:24:30.940 --> 00:24:33.790 align:middle line:90% or story and poetry. 00:24:33.790 --> 00:24:39.850 align:middle line:84% And out of some ease of its reflective instance. 00:24:39.850 --> 00:24:42.610 align:middle line:84% And this is what kills me about Jon's poems, 00:24:42.610 --> 00:24:45.160 align:middle line:84% creates a place that's very dangerous 00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:50.140 align:middle line:84% but also a sanctuary in an ever changing vastness. 00:24:50.140 --> 00:24:53.830 align:middle line:90% 00:24:53.830 --> 00:24:56.560 align:middle line:90% "The Cypresses" 00:24:56.560 --> 00:25:01.720 align:middle line:84% Of the leaning cypresses, Franconati says, these feathers 00:25:01.720 --> 00:25:07.400 align:middle line:84% constitute an evidence or inclination of God's breath. 00:25:07.400 --> 00:25:09.610 align:middle line:84% Seeing them from my study window, 00:25:09.610 --> 00:25:13.450 align:middle line:84% they are a gesture I begin to understand. 00:25:13.450 --> 00:25:18.280 align:middle line:84% As the raised open hand in farewell salutes 00:25:18.280 --> 00:25:23.350 align:middle line:84% a depth of feeling, now the great ocean of wind moves. 00:25:23.350 --> 00:25:27.580 align:middle line:84% Again the cypresses lean and whatever their meaning, 00:25:27.580 --> 00:25:31.300 align:middle line:84% it is a dignification, a rational grace 00:25:31.300 --> 00:25:34.660 align:middle line:84% because the weight of even the topmost parts 00:25:34.660 --> 00:25:37.450 align:middle line:90% moves in its own time. 00:25:37.450 --> 00:25:39.940 align:middle line:90% The wind is an ocean. 00:25:39.940 --> 00:25:44.350 align:middle line:84% A great armada of ships' pennants awash 00:25:44.350 --> 00:25:46.930 align:middle line:90% rushes to the horizon. 00:25:46.930 --> 00:25:49.630 align:middle line:84% They are on an important errand but will 00:25:49.630 --> 00:25:52.960 align:middle line:84% return bearing men haggard with war 00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:56.890 align:middle line:84% and having lived too long with the quick bright meaningless 00:25:56.890 --> 00:25:59.350 align:middle line:90% striking of wars. 00:25:59.350 --> 00:26:03.400 align:middle line:84% So this story or poetry first told 00:26:03.400 --> 00:26:07.600 align:middle line:84% among savages who were kings in a land of cypresses 00:26:07.600 --> 00:26:13.690 align:middle line:84% by a man who is blind unwinds its thousands of cadences. 00:26:13.690 --> 00:26:17.860 align:middle line:84% The dead are risen and the imagined countenanced. 00:26:17.860 --> 00:26:20.830 align:middle line:84% When the cypresses lean again, I notice 00:26:20.830 --> 00:26:26.710 align:middle line:84% their light, slow tracing upon a sky full of clouds assuming 00:26:26.710 --> 00:26:33.430 align:middle line:84% familiar shapes in times upon all the possible faces 00:26:33.430 --> 00:26:35.155 align:middle line:90% of all possible things. 00:26:35.155 --> 00:26:50.060 align:middle line:90% 00:26:50.060 --> 00:26:52.670 align:middle line:84% The most characteristic thing I could think to say about Jon 00:26:52.670 --> 00:26:55.310 align:middle line:84% is something he himself said in an interview. 00:26:55.310 --> 00:26:58.040 align:middle line:84% This is just a little passage that happened 00:26:58.040 --> 00:26:59.280 align:middle line:90% after In Sepia came out. 00:26:59.280 --> 00:27:01.640 align:middle line:90% It just seems so true of him. 00:27:01.640 --> 00:27:05.930 align:middle line:84% He says, "I hope that I've become more satisfied 00:27:05.930 --> 00:27:09.440 align:middle line:84% with those things which are partial but can never be whole, 00:27:09.440 --> 00:27:14.090 align:middle line:84% love, friendship, the inability to integrate entirely one's 00:27:14.090 --> 00:27:16.730 align:middle line:84% character into one's life so that you are always 00:27:16.730 --> 00:27:18.770 align:middle line:90% acting true to yourself. 00:27:18.770 --> 00:27:22.250 align:middle line:84% Those things I long for, but they can't happen for me, 00:27:22.250 --> 00:27:23.990 align:middle line:90% at least not now. 00:27:23.990 --> 00:27:27.950 align:middle line:84% So I hope I'm gentler with myself regarding those things. 00:27:27.950 --> 00:27:30.770 align:middle line:84% In a sense, the key line of In Sepia that 00:27:30.770 --> 00:27:34.730 align:middle line:84% defines that aspect of the book and I suppose the perspective 00:27:34.730 --> 00:27:40.250 align:middle line:84% comes at the end of the journey from Essex July 1841. 00:27:40.250 --> 00:27:44.570 align:middle line:84% John Clare, so you may stay at home I will hold back some 00:27:44.570 --> 00:27:51.590 align:middle line:84% harshness nor judge myself continually or any man. " 00:27:51.590 --> 00:27:54.200 align:middle line:90% "In Autumn." 00:27:54.200 --> 00:27:58.730 align:middle line:84% At day's light, I dressed my cold body and went out. 00:27:58.730 --> 00:28:03.140 align:middle line:84% Calling the dogs, I climbed the west hill through cut wood 00:28:03.140 --> 00:28:05.750 align:middle line:90% down to the road for hauling. 00:28:05.750 --> 00:28:06.470 align:middle line:90% Done. 00:28:06.470 --> 00:28:10.370 align:middle line:84% There was a kind of exultation that wanted to go on. 00:28:10.370 --> 00:28:13.670 align:middle line:84% I made my way up through briars and vines 00:28:13.670 --> 00:28:18.140 align:middle line:84% to a great stone that rises at the hills brow large enough 00:28:18.140 --> 00:28:19.730 align:middle line:90% to stand on. 00:28:19.730 --> 00:28:23.330 align:middle line:84% The river below was a thick, dark line. 00:28:23.330 --> 00:28:25.580 align:middle line:90% My house was quaint. 00:28:25.580 --> 00:28:29.960 align:middle line:84% I sat not thoughtful, lost in the body a while, 00:28:29.960 --> 00:28:33.380 align:middle line:84% then came down the back way winding through stands 00:28:33.380 --> 00:28:35.720 align:middle line:90% of cedar and pine. 00:28:35.720 --> 00:28:37.910 align:middle line:90% I can tell you where I live. 00:28:37.910 --> 00:28:42.890 align:middle line:84% My grief is that I bear no grief, and so I bear myself. 00:28:42.890 --> 00:28:48.440 align:middle line:84% I know I live apart but have had long evenings of conversation 00:28:48.440 --> 00:28:52.760 align:middle line:84% the faces of which betrayed no separation from a place 00:28:52.760 --> 00:28:54.020 align:middle line:90% or time. 00:28:54.020 --> 00:28:58.670 align:middle line:84% Now in the middle of my life, a woman of delicate bearing 00:28:58.670 --> 00:29:00.140 align:middle line:90% gives me her hand. 00:29:00.140 --> 00:29:03.770 align:middle line:84% And friends are so enclosed within my reasoning, 00:29:03.770 --> 00:29:06.530 align:middle line:90% I am occasionally them. 00:29:06.530 --> 00:29:11.700 align:middle line:84% When I had finally stood high above the house, land, my life 00:29:11.700 --> 00:29:15.230 align:middle line:84% slow dream, for a moment I was required 00:29:15.230 --> 00:29:17.900 align:middle line:84% to turn to those deep rows of cedar 00:29:17.900 --> 00:29:22.130 align:middle line:84% and would have gone on walking endlessly in. 00:29:22.130 --> 00:29:24.560 align:middle line:84% I understand why the body's knowledge. 00:29:24.560 --> 00:29:26.900 align:middle line:90% I will not begin again. 00:29:26.900 --> 00:29:28.610 align:middle line:90% But it was October. 00:29:28.610 --> 00:29:33.380 align:middle line:84% Leaves in the yellowed light were altered and familiar. 00:29:33.380 --> 00:29:36.890 align:middle line:84% We who have changed and have no hope of change 00:29:36.890 --> 00:29:39.260 align:middle line:84% must now love the passage of time. 00:29:39.260 --> 00:29:50.380 align:middle line:90% 00:29:50.380 --> 00:29:55.000 align:middle line:84% I always thought Franconati was Tony Hoagland, but-- 00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:56.260 align:middle line:90% on a good day you know. 00:29:56.260 --> 00:30:00.320 align:middle line:90% 00:30:00.320 --> 00:30:03.640 align:middle line:84% I was just thinking about what Nancy read 00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:05.770 align:middle line:90% in that poem of Jon's that-- 00:30:05.770 --> 00:30:08.530 align:middle line:90% 00:30:08.530 --> 00:30:11.830 align:middle line:84% about being enclosed in friendship, 00:30:11.830 --> 00:30:14.930 align:middle line:84% and Jon had a way of making friendship 00:30:14.930 --> 00:30:17.080 align:middle line:84% seem like a conspiracy, especially 00:30:17.080 --> 00:30:19.360 align:middle line:90% as it related to poetry. 00:30:19.360 --> 00:30:21.460 align:middle line:84% And one of the ways in which he did 00:30:21.460 --> 00:30:28.120 align:middle line:84% that was to every once in a while read poems to you that he 00:30:28.120 --> 00:30:31.630 align:middle line:84% loved and occasionally, really occasionally 00:30:31.630 --> 00:30:33.220 align:middle line:84% to read something new that he would 00:30:33.220 --> 00:30:35.350 align:middle line:84% write to you, that he would write, 00:30:35.350 --> 00:30:37.180 align:middle line:90% that he would have written. 00:30:37.180 --> 00:30:42.880 align:middle line:90% And he read this poem to me. 00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:45.430 align:middle line:84% He had spent the summer in Port Townsend. 00:30:45.430 --> 00:30:47.440 align:middle line:84% I think it was the summer of 1981, 00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:50.500 align:middle line:84% and this is one of the last poems written 00:30:50.500 --> 00:30:55.060 align:middle line:84% for the new section of The Milky Way. 00:30:55.060 --> 00:30:59.930 align:middle line:84% And I think it was a poem he was enormously excited about. 00:30:59.930 --> 00:31:03.640 align:middle line:84% And I just-- for me it's just one of those touchstone moments 00:31:03.640 --> 00:31:08.930 align:middle line:84% in my life as a poet to hear that in his voice 00:31:08.930 --> 00:31:15.490 align:middle line:84% and to hear the intimacy of it and the need 00:31:15.490 --> 00:31:17.440 align:middle line:90% to have it communicated. 00:31:17.440 --> 00:31:20.740 align:middle line:84% The other way in which he made friendship into a conspiracy 00:31:20.740 --> 00:31:22.660 align:middle line:90% was to go to movies with you. 00:31:22.660 --> 00:31:26.620 align:middle line:84% And this poem connects with the movie 00:31:26.620 --> 00:31:30.520 align:middle line:84% I went to see with Jon, "McCabe and Mrs. Miller." 00:31:30.520 --> 00:31:33.160 align:middle line:84% I remember two things about that night. 00:31:33.160 --> 00:31:35.480 align:middle line:84% One was that he said, this is great. 00:31:35.480 --> 00:31:36.910 align:middle line:84% You're going to really love this. 00:31:36.910 --> 00:31:40.510 align:middle line:84% He said the rain is really Japanese, 00:31:40.510 --> 00:31:43.240 align:middle line:90% it's really Kurosawa wet rain. 00:31:43.240 --> 00:31:45.910 align:middle line:84% And the other thing was when we got in the door, 00:31:45.910 --> 00:31:50.200 align:middle line:84% he said I want to sit in the front row. 00:31:50.200 --> 00:31:58.520 align:middle line:84% He said, I really like it when the images get really abstract, 00:31:58.520 --> 00:32:02.660 align:middle line:84% which is a key to his poems in a lot of ways. 00:32:02.660 --> 00:32:04.510 align:middle line:84% This is called "American Landscape 00:32:04.510 --> 00:32:05.740 align:middle line:90% with Clouds in a Zoo." 00:32:05.740 --> 00:32:09.160 align:middle line:90% 00:32:09.160 --> 00:32:10.930 align:middle line:84% You can be walking along the beach 00:32:10.930 --> 00:32:15.110 align:middle line:84% of a quaint northwestern coastal town on the one hand, 00:32:15.110 --> 00:32:19.210 align:middle line:84% the Great Pacific Ocean held placid, restless in the sound 00:32:19.210 --> 00:32:20.890 align:middle line:90% when it comes over. 00:32:20.890 --> 00:32:25.510 align:middle line:84% Like those immense woolen gray clouds, layer upon layer. 00:32:25.510 --> 00:32:27.880 align:middle line:84% They pour from their Pacific composure 00:32:27.880 --> 00:32:33.130 align:middle line:84% suddenly troubled, moving, troubling, roaring easterly 00:32:33.130 --> 00:32:36.160 align:middle line:90% overhead for the inland. 00:32:36.160 --> 00:32:38.980 align:middle line:84% America is in trouble, and you're too fucked up 00:32:38.980 --> 00:32:43.330 align:middle line:90% to even understand by it. 00:32:43.330 --> 00:32:46.390 align:middle line:84% Is America fucked up because it understands itself 00:32:46.390 --> 00:32:50.260 align:middle line:90% only too well as you do you. 00:32:50.260 --> 00:32:52.270 align:middle line:84% Every time your girlfriend chucks 00:32:52.270 --> 00:32:55.930 align:middle line:84% you a lusciously coy smile, you're beside yourself 00:32:55.930 --> 00:32:57.610 align:middle line:90% like a sailboat. 00:32:57.610 --> 00:32:59.740 align:middle line:84% And every time you think happiness 00:32:59.740 --> 00:33:05.080 align:middle line:84% is just like this forever, you're fooled like a kid. 00:33:05.080 --> 00:33:07.810 align:middle line:90% 00:33:07.810 --> 00:33:11.920 align:middle line:84% America, I'm glad I'm hardly you. 00:33:11.920 --> 00:33:14.770 align:middle line:90% I've got myself to think about. 00:33:14.770 --> 00:33:17.830 align:middle line:84% In my zone, it's a fairly large zoo, 00:33:17.830 --> 00:33:21.550 align:middle line:84% plenty of room to walk around, shade 00:33:21.550 --> 00:33:24.100 align:middle line:84% and the shade that is increasingly bitterly 00:33:24.100 --> 00:33:26.500 align:middle line:90% called shadow. 00:33:26.500 --> 00:33:29.860 align:middle line:84% Of animals, there are but two arranged 00:33:29.860 --> 00:33:33.430 align:middle line:84% in unpredictable cadence in sequence. 00:33:33.430 --> 00:33:36.910 align:middle line:84% One is the renowned leopard of the snow, 00:33:36.910 --> 00:33:41.530 align:middle line:84% lazy, humorous, speckled pepper a bit, 00:33:41.530 --> 00:33:44.230 align:middle line:84% like the wren that flies from shadow to cage 00:33:44.230 --> 00:33:47.920 align:middle line:90% to shade to shadow. 00:33:47.920 --> 00:33:50.590 align:middle line:84% When I mistakenly awaken at night, 00:33:50.590 --> 00:33:54.700 align:middle line:84% I dread both the darkness and the inevitable increasingly 00:33:54.700 --> 00:33:58.570 align:middle line:84% querulous birdsong of the inevitable increasingly wide 00:33:58.570 --> 00:34:00.850 align:middle line:90% stun of light. 00:34:00.850 --> 00:34:07.780 align:middle line:84% Everything is too brief, eternal, stable, unpredictable. 00:34:07.780 --> 00:34:13.480 align:middle line:84% Everything always says I'm all there is forever, chum. 00:34:13.480 --> 00:34:16.984 align:middle line:90% Just see it my way, and I do. 00:34:16.984 --> 00:34:17.484 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:34:17.484 --> 00:34:28.750 align:middle line:90% 00:34:28.750 --> 00:34:32.440 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read a few stanzas from "Lives 00:34:32.440 --> 00:34:36.400 align:middle line:90% of the Saints," the first part. 00:34:36.400 --> 00:34:40.690 align:middle line:84% I've always loved this poem because for me it 00:34:40.690 --> 00:34:45.820 align:middle line:84% represents the syntax and sound the music that 00:34:45.820 --> 00:34:51.830 align:middle line:84% was Jon's alone in its most compressed, intense form. 00:34:51.830 --> 00:34:56.270 align:middle line:84% And I've always loved it because if my memory isn't faulty, 00:34:56.270 --> 00:35:00.350 align:middle line:84% he wrote it when I lived with Jon and Barbara 00:35:00.350 --> 00:35:04.430 align:middle line:84% and Bodi, who was about that tall at the time, 00:35:04.430 --> 00:35:06.320 align:middle line:90% after graduate school. 00:35:06.320 --> 00:35:09.770 align:middle line:84% I didn't have prospects, and they had an extra room. 00:35:09.770 --> 00:35:12.230 align:middle line:90% And so they invited me in. 00:35:12.230 --> 00:35:14.570 align:middle line:84% And when I could, I paid a little rent. 00:35:14.570 --> 00:35:19.280 align:middle line:84% But I think I can remember him bringing these stanzas 00:35:19.280 --> 00:35:22.220 align:middle line:90% on typed sheets of paper. 00:35:22.220 --> 00:35:25.070 align:middle line:84% And then occasionally in the margin, if you ever saw it, 00:35:25.070 --> 00:35:26.930 align:middle line:84% you'll never forget it-- the little spidery 00:35:26.930 --> 00:35:31.760 align:middle line:84% kind of elfin script that was also Jon's alone. 00:35:31.760 --> 00:35:36.320 align:middle line:84% It had the same delicacy in a way as I think these lines do. 00:35:36.320 --> 00:35:40.310 align:middle line:84% So just a few stanzas from "Lives of the Saints," part 00:35:40.310 --> 00:35:41.990 align:middle line:90% one. 00:35:41.990 --> 00:35:47.260 align:middle line:84% This is the rain on Mozart's grave, shearing to glissandi. 00:35:47.260 --> 00:35:53.590 align:middle line:84% Where do you little lie exhausted whole and holy done, 00:35:53.590 --> 00:35:54.970 align:middle line:90% sweet Amadeus. 00:35:54.970 --> 00:35:58.510 align:middle line:84% When I sip my bourbon, weaving myself 00:35:58.510 --> 00:36:02.230 align:middle line:84% toward pure abstraction, the recollection of emotion 00:36:02.230 --> 00:36:03.850 align:middle line:90% without tired events. 00:36:03.850 --> 00:36:08.230 align:middle line:84% I'd trade my part in this to bear your song, 00:36:08.230 --> 00:36:13.780 align:middle line:84% even the most last broken Wolfgang human moan. 00:36:13.780 --> 00:36:18.900 align:middle line:84% You are so friendly, and your pillow is a stone. 00:36:18.900 --> 00:36:21.720 align:middle line:84% This is Mozart, a curtain of rain, 00:36:21.720 --> 00:36:23.790 align:middle line:84% the turning heads of certain women, 00:36:23.790 --> 00:36:27.660 align:middle line:84% the sweetness of bourbon, sweetness of music, 00:36:27.660 --> 00:36:30.390 align:middle line:90% the poor politeness of oblivion. 00:36:30.390 --> 00:36:33.430 align:middle line:90% 00:36:33.430 --> 00:36:36.940 align:middle line:84% Dear sir, I am in a madhouse and quite forget your name 00:36:36.940 --> 00:36:38.110 align:middle line:90% or who you are. 00:36:38.110 --> 00:36:42.010 align:middle line:84% You must excuse me for I have nothing to communicate or tell. 00:36:42.010 --> 00:36:44.500 align:middle line:84% And why I am shut up, I don't know. 00:36:44.500 --> 00:36:45.940 align:middle line:90% I have nothing to say. 00:36:45.940 --> 00:36:52.000 align:middle line:84% So must conclude yours respectfully, John Clare. 00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:54.880 align:middle line:84% Was this his letter into the Earth? 00:36:54.880 --> 00:36:57.800 align:middle line:84% Was it wholly composed of solitude? 00:36:57.800 --> 00:37:00.070 align:middle line:90% It was wholly composed. 00:37:00.070 --> 00:37:03.220 align:middle line:84% Did he bear extravagant pain whose poems 00:37:03.220 --> 00:37:06.280 align:middle line:84% of such light fragrance as to be? 00:37:06.280 --> 00:37:09.040 align:middle line:90% Dear sir, forgive me small. 00:37:09.040 --> 00:37:12.760 align:middle line:84% You are minor, sir, and would not offend. 00:37:12.760 --> 00:37:15.280 align:middle line:90% I am respectfully yours. 00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:19.680 align:middle line:90% 00:37:19.680 --> 00:37:21.060 align:middle line:90% I am Chopin. 00:37:21.060 --> 00:37:22.980 align:middle line:90% I enclose a little time. 00:37:22.980 --> 00:37:24.990 align:middle line:90% I bow and play. 00:37:24.990 --> 00:37:28.350 align:middle line:84% The sea, the chandelier, this room, the sky, 00:37:28.350 --> 00:37:32.280 align:middle line:84% the cliffs at Sourash, even the whole of Europe blown black, 00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:33.750 align:middle line:90% spin. 00:37:33.750 --> 00:37:36.180 align:middle line:90% The music speeds, retreats. 00:37:36.180 --> 00:37:37.860 align:middle line:90% And I am Robert Schumann. 00:37:37.860 --> 00:37:39.480 align:middle line:90% Mad and done. 00:37:39.480 --> 00:37:44.530 align:middle line:90% You must a little time go on. 00:37:44.530 --> 00:37:47.650 align:middle line:84% Now at the hour we lately lie awake, 00:37:47.650 --> 00:37:52.360 align:middle line:84% give us that surety on which our fragile art depends. 00:37:52.360 --> 00:37:54.760 align:middle line:84% I am Robert Schumann, bewildered, 00:37:54.760 --> 00:37:59.020 align:middle line:84% woken by a strange sonata in a foreign bed. 00:37:59.020 --> 00:38:03.205 align:middle line:84% Give me a little time, eternity, and I will mend. 00:38:03.205 --> 00:38:20.620 align:middle line:90% 00:38:20.620 --> 00:38:21.745 align:middle line:90% Jon would say relax. 00:38:21.745 --> 00:38:25.270 align:middle line:90% 00:38:25.270 --> 00:38:30.490 align:middle line:84% This is "Sonnet Thinking of Death 1955. 00:38:30.490 --> 00:38:33.400 align:middle line:84% Bowels over the courthouse pattern. 00:38:33.400 --> 00:38:36.010 align:middle line:90% By afternoon chill air. 00:38:36.010 --> 00:38:41.770 align:middle line:84% Sun, a slightly a slant pale wafer, paper sky. 00:38:41.770 --> 00:38:46.750 align:middle line:84% The birds plumage seems darker every day, 00:38:46.750 --> 00:38:50.320 align:middle line:84% living in Breugel's palette of red browns, reds. 00:38:50.320 --> 00:38:54.100 align:middle line:84% Walk sometimes the half mile from high school home 00:38:54.100 --> 00:38:58.150 align:middle line:84% in a literal blizzard of leaves and birds asway. 00:38:58.150 --> 00:39:04.210 align:middle line:84% Headache with the edge of a new knowledge coming my way. 00:39:04.210 --> 00:39:08.800 align:middle line:84% It had a glide, a leap, a pause in the local atmosphere. 00:39:08.800 --> 00:39:14.890 align:middle line:84% Snap, jump shot, a quick look out over everything nearby. 00:39:14.890 --> 00:39:20.200 align:middle line:84% It had the ivory intellectual look of the bald moon rising. 00:39:20.200 --> 00:39:24.160 align:middle line:84% A wonder, a stone afloat, a stepping stone, 00:39:24.160 --> 00:39:25.570 align:middle line:90% so step upon it. 00:39:25.570 --> 00:39:29.350 align:middle line:90% Think, think upon it smart, boy. 00:39:29.350 --> 00:39:33.460 align:middle line:90% 00:39:33.460 --> 00:39:35.710 align:middle line:90% Why this poem? 00:39:35.710 --> 00:39:41.470 align:middle line:84% For me, it's Jon all over as a poet, formal but playful, 00:39:41.470 --> 00:39:44.470 align:middle line:90% as much about language as life. 00:39:44.470 --> 00:39:47.080 align:middle line:84% Jon said to me more than once that he often 00:39:47.080 --> 00:39:51.790 align:middle line:84% cared more about the sound of a poem than its meaning. 00:39:51.790 --> 00:39:55.780 align:middle line:84% As a graduate student, I took Jon's forms class twice, 00:39:55.780 --> 00:39:58.960 align:middle line:90% both times great. 00:39:58.960 --> 00:40:04.780 align:middle line:84% Forms class with Jon was not a boot camp for metrists. 00:40:04.780 --> 00:40:07.750 align:middle line:90% Not the playing of etudes. 00:40:07.750 --> 00:40:11.470 align:middle line:84% Rather a closed form or a civically patterned line 00:40:11.470 --> 00:40:13.210 align:middle line:90% was a jumping off point. 00:40:13.210 --> 00:40:17.260 align:middle line:84% You could adhere as closely or as loosely as you wanted. 00:40:17.260 --> 00:40:21.800 align:middle line:84% Your ear would be sensitized in any case. 00:40:21.800 --> 00:40:24.310 align:middle line:84% The first time around with my pals 00:40:24.310 --> 00:40:27.520 align:middle line:84% were in the class much affection, seriousness, 00:40:27.520 --> 00:40:29.050 align:middle line:90% and play. 00:40:29.050 --> 00:40:32.200 align:middle line:84% I was struggling psychologically for permission 00:40:32.200 --> 00:40:34.585 align:middle line:90% to use intellect for writing. 00:40:34.585 --> 00:40:36.940 align:middle line:84% One week I showed a draft of a poem 00:40:36.940 --> 00:40:40.150 align:middle line:90% to my friends Vivian and Dave. 00:40:40.150 --> 00:40:43.600 align:middle line:84% They liked the first line, jammed up, fucked up. 00:40:43.600 --> 00:40:46.810 align:middle line:90% 00:40:46.810 --> 00:40:51.170 align:middle line:84% One of them suggested we all use this as our first line. 00:40:51.170 --> 00:40:51.670 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:40:51.670 --> 00:40:53.350 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:40:53.350 --> 00:40:56.080 align:middle line:84% In the class that week Jon began reading 00:40:56.080 --> 00:41:00.070 align:middle line:84% the first or second or third poem in the stack. 00:41:00.070 --> 00:41:01.450 align:middle line:90% Jammed up, fucked up. 00:41:01.450 --> 00:41:03.760 align:middle line:90% I eat my bowl of nails. 00:41:03.760 --> 00:41:05.440 align:middle line:90% Something like that. 00:41:05.440 --> 00:41:06.580 align:middle line:90% He liked it. 00:41:06.580 --> 00:41:08.830 align:middle line:90% Rhythmic and vivid. 00:41:08.830 --> 00:41:10.360 align:middle line:90% Discussion. 00:41:10.360 --> 00:41:15.040 align:middle line:90% Next poem, jammed up, fucked up. 00:41:15.040 --> 00:41:17.980 align:middle line:90% I tried to breathe on my bike. 00:41:17.980 --> 00:41:20.260 align:middle line:90% Something like that. 00:41:20.260 --> 00:41:21.790 align:middle line:90% Jon grinned. 00:41:21.790 --> 00:41:23.125 align:middle line:90% Knew what to expect next. 00:41:23.125 --> 00:41:38.600 align:middle line:90% 00:41:38.600 --> 00:41:41.660 align:middle line:84% The truth is I don't remember a whole lot about what Jon taught 00:41:41.660 --> 00:41:43.430 align:middle line:84% me, but I remember really distinctly 00:41:43.430 --> 00:41:47.030 align:middle line:84% he told me to always every time I sat down to compose, 00:41:47.030 --> 00:41:51.680 align:middle line:84% to reinvent poetry, which seems like a really daunting task 00:41:51.680 --> 00:41:53.180 align:middle line:90% and a very tall order. 00:41:53.180 --> 00:41:54.770 align:middle line:84% But for me it was really liberating. 00:41:54.770 --> 00:41:57.110 align:middle line:84% I felt like I could do whatever I want, 00:41:57.110 --> 00:42:00.580 align:middle line:84% use whatever jargon or lingo I wanted, and use whatever form. 00:42:00.580 --> 00:42:03.080 align:middle line:84% So I would do this stuff, and then I would show it to Steve. 00:42:03.080 --> 00:42:04.372 align:middle line:90% And he'd say who told you that. 00:42:04.372 --> 00:42:06.000 align:middle line:90% I said Jon did. 00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:06.890 align:middle line:90% It's stupid. 00:42:06.890 --> 00:42:09.590 align:middle line:90% Don't do that. 00:42:09.590 --> 00:42:12.500 align:middle line:90% I thought it was a good idea. 00:42:12.500 --> 00:42:14.660 align:middle line:90% I liked it. 00:42:14.660 --> 00:42:16.940 align:middle line:84% But I had a very unique relationship with Jon. 00:42:16.940 --> 00:42:19.190 align:middle line:84% The last 25 years or so we were co-owners 00:42:19.190 --> 00:42:24.090 align:middle line:84% of the Sioux City Slugs, which is a ghost fantasy baseball 00:42:24.090 --> 00:42:24.590 align:middle line:90% league. 00:42:24.590 --> 00:42:27.380 align:middle line:90% And we never won. 00:42:27.380 --> 00:42:30.470 align:middle line:84% We always drafted players like Latin American players who 00:42:30.470 --> 00:42:33.200 align:middle line:84% had visa problems or wife beaters, 00:42:33.200 --> 00:42:35.390 align:middle line:84% you know, steroid users, you know. 00:42:35.390 --> 00:42:38.990 align:middle line:84% And Jon would say well that's why they're slugs. 00:42:38.990 --> 00:42:41.420 align:middle line:84% But the thing that was very interesting to me 00:42:41.420 --> 00:42:44.960 align:middle line:84% is when his day was winding down at like 5:00 or 6:00 00:42:44.960 --> 00:42:49.070 align:middle line:84% AM eastern time because he lived here, and I lived there, 00:42:49.070 --> 00:42:50.960 align:middle line:90% he would call me. 00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:52.730 align:middle line:84% And it was just when I was waking up 00:42:52.730 --> 00:42:55.080 align:middle line:84% and like picking out my suit for the day. 00:42:55.080 --> 00:42:56.720 align:middle line:84% And I was thinking we were supposed 00:42:56.720 --> 00:42:58.800 align:middle line:84% to talk about our baseball team but we never did. 00:42:58.800 --> 00:43:02.810 align:middle line:84% He just kind of confirmed how much he loved me, 00:43:02.810 --> 00:43:04.430 align:middle line:84% and I confirmed how much I loved him. 00:43:04.430 --> 00:43:07.970 align:middle line:84% And it was a very sentimental kind of thing. 00:43:07.970 --> 00:43:09.200 align:middle line:90% That we were OK. 00:43:09.200 --> 00:43:11.670 align:middle line:84% And it was a really wonderful thing. 00:43:11.670 --> 00:43:14.660 align:middle line:84% So the poem I wanted to read because in my mind 00:43:14.660 --> 00:43:17.030 align:middle line:84% they're inseparable is "Listen Leo," 00:43:17.030 --> 00:43:20.600 align:middle line:84% which is the final poem in Jon's final book. 00:43:20.600 --> 00:43:22.790 align:middle line:90% And it's dedicated to Steve. 00:43:22.790 --> 00:43:26.110 align:middle line:84% And I always thought of them together. 00:43:26.110 --> 00:43:27.860 align:middle line:84% When my father died when I was very young, 00:43:27.860 --> 00:43:29.570 align:middle line:84% they both took me under their wing. 00:43:29.570 --> 00:43:32.270 align:middle line:84% I mean if I would have known then how they really are-- 00:43:32.270 --> 00:43:36.640 align:middle line:90% 00:43:36.640 --> 00:43:39.080 align:middle line:90% They were fine. 00:43:39.080 --> 00:43:41.170 align:middle line:90% They tried their best. 00:43:41.170 --> 00:43:43.410 align:middle line:84% But I really like this poem a lot. 00:43:43.410 --> 00:43:46.910 align:middle line:90% So, listen Leo. 00:43:46.910 --> 00:43:48.980 align:middle line:84% Remember the lifeboat we pilfered 00:43:48.980 --> 00:43:52.340 align:middle line:84% from what you said was an abandoned garage sale 00:43:52.340 --> 00:43:54.890 align:middle line:90% 1442 Columbus. 00:43:54.890 --> 00:43:58.430 align:middle line:90% Not the explorer, the street. 00:43:58.430 --> 00:44:01.940 align:middle line:84% Last night I came to, retired to the basement 00:44:01.940 --> 00:44:05.780 align:middle line:84% to ponder my position on circumspection, 00:44:05.780 --> 00:44:08.390 align:middle line:84% the fate of the cruel and unusual 00:44:08.390 --> 00:44:11.570 align:middle line:90% and drink until I passed out. 00:44:11.570 --> 00:44:15.350 align:middle line:90% I had my underwear on and my 45. 00:44:15.350 --> 00:44:19.100 align:middle line:84% I was planning to feast on that bag of Chicken Shack 00:44:19.100 --> 00:44:23.180 align:middle line:84% backs and beaks we got at the place that went broke, 00:44:23.180 --> 00:44:26.360 align:middle line:84% put my legs up on a six pack and drift. 00:44:26.360 --> 00:44:31.520 align:middle line:84% Anyway this eerie glow started emanating from the sewage 00:44:31.520 --> 00:44:33.800 align:middle line:90% pool, mostly greenish. 00:44:33.800 --> 00:44:37.190 align:middle line:90% It winked, so I shot it, Leo. 00:44:37.190 --> 00:44:38.910 align:middle line:90% I've had enough. 00:44:38.910 --> 00:44:42.950 align:middle line:84% Then this long, low lump along the wall near the bulkhead 00:44:42.950 --> 00:44:48.080 align:middle line:84% started toward me so slow, I had time to think. 00:44:48.080 --> 00:44:53.750 align:middle line:84% Went to the attic and came back bearing Mr Double 00 Leo. 00:44:53.750 --> 00:44:56.300 align:middle line:90% I perforated the lifeboat. 00:44:56.300 --> 00:45:00.500 align:middle line:84% It has become a dead one, incapable now 00:45:00.500 --> 00:45:05.450 align:middle line:84% of surfacing above its circumference. 00:45:05.450 --> 00:45:07.880 align:middle line:90% We can never return to it now. 00:45:07.880 --> 00:45:10.820 align:middle line:90% It's gone like the snow. 00:45:10.820 --> 00:45:13.310 align:middle line:90% Gone like I got a little behind. 00:45:13.310 --> 00:45:15.470 align:middle line:90% It's a sad world, Leo. 00:45:15.470 --> 00:45:19.980 align:middle line:84% We fell like yesterday's laundry into the tub. 00:45:19.980 --> 00:45:22.130 align:middle line:90% Let's face a fact. 00:45:22.130 --> 00:45:24.590 align:middle line:90% There's nobody left like us. 00:45:24.590 --> 00:45:28.550 align:middle line:84% I got a weathered pate, you got a ticket to Nova Scotia, 00:45:28.550 --> 00:45:30.950 align:middle line:84% and I'm swimming beside the boat. 00:45:30.950 --> 00:45:33.890 align:middle line:90% When we got to die, we're gone. 00:45:33.890 --> 00:45:36.080 align:middle line:90% Leo, I confess. 00:45:36.080 --> 00:45:38.120 align:middle line:90% I adore your face. 00:45:38.120 --> 00:45:40.220 align:middle line:90% Give me a little papa kiss. 00:45:40.220 --> 00:45:42.320 align:middle line:90% Give me a muscle up. 00:45:42.320 --> 00:45:44.825 align:middle line:84% Leo, there's nobody left like us. 00:45:44.825 --> 00:46:05.400 align:middle line:90% 00:46:05.400 --> 00:46:09.780 align:middle line:84% I was looking out at so many people and the backs 00:46:09.780 --> 00:46:15.720 align:middle line:84% of so many people who have not just been 00:46:15.720 --> 00:46:18.840 align:middle line:90% friends of Jon's and family. 00:46:18.840 --> 00:46:22.680 align:middle line:84% It feels like a family, just looking around at everyone, 00:46:22.680 --> 00:46:26.010 align:middle line:90% hearing so many voices of Jon. 00:46:26.010 --> 00:46:29.190 align:middle line:84% I was a student of Jon's a long time ago 00:46:29.190 --> 00:46:36.960 align:middle line:84% and was thinking a lot about not so much what he taught me. 00:46:36.960 --> 00:46:41.220 align:middle line:84% I couldn't put it into words, but the intensity 00:46:41.220 --> 00:46:43.230 align:middle line:90% of his intuition. 00:46:43.230 --> 00:46:48.300 align:middle line:84% And it was so specific and singular 00:46:48.300 --> 00:46:53.170 align:middle line:84% to everyone who had him as a teacher. 00:46:53.170 --> 00:46:59.280 align:middle line:84% And it was made of many of the same things that-- 00:46:59.280 --> 00:47:01.980 align:middle line:84% I'm sure I speak for a lot of people, 00:47:01.980 --> 00:47:05.440 align:middle line:84% loved in him as a person, his humor, 00:47:05.440 --> 00:47:08.490 align:middle line:84% his generosity, which has come up a lot. 00:47:08.490 --> 00:47:11.200 align:middle line:84% And I was trying to find a term for it, 00:47:11.200 --> 00:47:14.460 align:middle line:84% but I came up with the closest thing 00:47:14.460 --> 00:47:18.315 align:middle line:84% I could call it is the credibility of his soul. 00:47:18.315 --> 00:47:23.850 align:middle line:90% 00:47:23.850 --> 00:47:26.610 align:middle line:90% "Counting the Days." 00:47:26.610 --> 00:47:29.790 align:middle line:84% Just as we wake up, yawn, and lift a shade 00:47:29.790 --> 00:47:34.500 align:middle line:84% to explore always imperfectly amazed at subtle change 00:47:34.500 --> 00:47:38.280 align:middle line:84% but limited by expectations and the windows frame 00:47:38.280 --> 00:47:39.900 align:middle line:90% from which we gaze. 00:47:39.900 --> 00:47:44.040 align:middle line:84% A yard of weeds and dogs and brown boughs 00:47:44.040 --> 00:47:48.810 align:middle line:84% though sometimes even the boughs are altered by falling snow. 00:47:48.810 --> 00:47:52.080 align:middle line:84% So he is counting the days, the years, 00:47:52.080 --> 00:47:56.910 align:middle line:84% back toward a serious initial thought that he was here, 00:47:56.910 --> 00:48:02.160 align:middle line:84% was someone who was counting the days toward when he would today 00:48:02.160 --> 00:48:05.850 align:middle line:90% count back an important deja vu. 00:48:05.850 --> 00:48:10.200 align:middle line:84% Accompany him, please, this journey into dissolution 00:48:10.200 --> 00:48:14.610 align:middle line:84% as memories become events, become anticipations 00:48:14.610 --> 00:48:16.020 align:middle line:90% that then dissolve. 00:48:16.020 --> 00:48:19.350 align:middle line:84% Will empty us of our complex doubts. 00:48:19.350 --> 00:48:21.120 align:middle line:84% You will certainly love yourselves 00:48:21.120 --> 00:48:26.910 align:middle line:84% as history potential, which only took a certain lovely arbitrary 00:48:26.910 --> 00:48:32.160 align:middle line:84% route as on a December afternoon the stillness of which 00:48:32.160 --> 00:48:35.220 align:middle line:84% engenders that image of falling snow. 00:48:35.220 --> 00:48:38.580 align:middle line:84% We now begin again that art our lives become. 00:48:38.580 --> 00:48:57.190 align:middle line:90% 00:48:57.190 --> 00:49:01.600 align:middle line:84% I remember taking a course of Jon's called "The Long 00:49:01.600 --> 00:49:04.420 align:middle line:90% Poem and the Short Story." 00:49:04.420 --> 00:49:08.500 align:middle line:84% And my short story for that class 00:49:08.500 --> 00:49:13.210 align:middle line:84% was about a Russian filmmaker that I 00:49:13.210 --> 00:49:18.010 align:middle line:84% had imagined named Sergei, who was at a party 00:49:18.010 --> 00:49:22.540 align:middle line:84% and just ran around the party sort of in anguish 00:49:22.540 --> 00:49:24.940 align:middle line:84% and would keep running to the bathroom 00:49:24.940 --> 00:49:27.070 align:middle line:84% to dip his hors d'oeuvres in the toilet 00:49:27.070 --> 00:49:29.050 align:middle line:90% and then eat it, eat them. 00:49:29.050 --> 00:49:35.500 align:middle line:84% And I think I was trying to shock people or maybe shock 00:49:35.500 --> 00:49:38.290 align:middle line:84% him, but I kind of knew he would appreciate it. 00:49:38.290 --> 00:49:42.850 align:middle line:84% And he did, and he encouraged me to continue. 00:49:42.850 --> 00:49:53.500 align:middle line:84% And so 10 years later, I came back to do a reading. 00:49:53.500 --> 00:49:58.420 align:middle line:84% I had just published a book, and he was sitting right there 00:49:58.420 --> 00:50:00.230 align:middle line:90% celebrating it with me. 00:50:00.230 --> 00:50:07.450 align:middle line:84% And before I came up to read, he pulled out this aged paper 00:50:07.450 --> 00:50:11.335 align:middle line:84% and leaned over and said read Sergei, read Sergei. 00:50:11.335 --> 00:50:18.210 align:middle line:90% 00:50:18.210 --> 00:50:24.330 align:middle line:84% Jon Anderson was my teacher, my mentor, and my friend. 00:50:24.330 --> 00:50:27.960 align:middle line:84% He gave me endless encouragement, 00:50:27.960 --> 00:50:33.510 align:middle line:84% guided me, and inspired me in poetry and in life. 00:50:33.510 --> 00:50:37.230 align:middle line:84% Even a year ago when I last spoke with him on the phone, 00:50:37.230 --> 00:50:42.750 align:middle line:84% he said keep writing and send me your work. 00:50:42.750 --> 00:50:47.490 align:middle line:84% As soon as I got here, I came to admire and love him. 00:50:47.490 --> 00:50:50.550 align:middle line:84% And though I hadn't known his work before I came, 00:50:50.550 --> 00:50:58.750 align:middle line:84% I quickly also came to admire and love his work, his poetry. 00:50:58.750 --> 00:51:01.830 align:middle line:84% So you can imagine how honored and how 00:51:01.830 --> 00:51:08.700 align:middle line:84% flattered I was to learn shortly after I had left that he wrote 00:51:08.700 --> 00:51:12.510 align:middle line:90% a poem with me in it. 00:51:12.510 --> 00:51:16.680 align:middle line:84% The process of I think all the poems that he wrote 00:51:16.680 --> 00:51:18.810 align:middle line:84% for this book, and including this one, 00:51:18.810 --> 00:51:23.070 align:middle line:84% was to wake up sort of late and as Bodi was heading out 00:51:23.070 --> 00:51:27.510 align:middle line:84% the door to go to class said Bodi give me a line or a theme 00:51:27.510 --> 00:51:33.450 align:middle line:84% or something to start with, and Bodi gave him the title. 00:51:33.450 --> 00:51:35.475 align:middle line:84% "Curious George Meets Loren Goodman." 00:51:35.475 --> 00:51:38.700 align:middle line:90% 00:51:38.700 --> 00:51:43.890 align:middle line:84% Goodman had on a tan overcoat, wingtip shoes, 00:51:43.890 --> 00:51:47.490 align:middle line:84% and a white shirt, his trademark. 00:51:47.490 --> 00:51:54.750 align:middle line:84% He said I had a white spot on my nose like "birdshitskila." 00:51:54.750 --> 00:51:57.210 align:middle line:90% We crossed glances. 00:51:57.210 --> 00:51:59.310 align:middle line:90% He was confident. 00:51:59.310 --> 00:52:05.070 align:middle line:84% Had a look like a Melville or a Kafka clerk. 00:52:05.070 --> 00:52:08.190 align:middle line:84% I'd been snorting whiteout since All Saints Eve 00:52:08.190 --> 00:52:13.860 align:middle line:84% plus a bit of Sudafed, Listerine, and baby laxative. 00:52:13.860 --> 00:52:22.170 align:middle line:84% I was extremely dramatically relaxed without a care but one. 00:52:22.170 --> 00:52:24.060 align:middle line:90% Who was this schmuck? 00:52:24.060 --> 00:52:26.250 align:middle line:90% Did I owe him? 00:52:26.250 --> 00:52:29.760 align:middle line:84% Was he my angel or perfidious devil? 00:52:29.760 --> 00:52:33.510 align:middle line:84% Offering me a stick of Portuguese marzipan, 00:52:33.510 --> 00:52:37.380 align:middle line:84% grinning like a boy scout sinking in the scout lake 00:52:37.380 --> 00:52:40.680 align:middle line:90% at a boy scout jamboree camp. 00:52:40.680 --> 00:52:44.940 align:middle line:84% I recall I had a thought, which Goodman snatched from the air. 00:52:44.940 --> 00:52:47.700 align:middle line:84% He was waving some computer paper around his head. 00:52:47.700 --> 00:52:51.120 align:middle line:90% He said how do you like my poem? 00:52:51.120 --> 00:52:53.130 align:middle line:90% I admit I was taken with him. 00:52:53.130 --> 00:52:55.050 align:middle line:90% His verse was programmatic. 00:52:55.050 --> 00:52:57.300 align:middle line:90% His timing was exquisite. 00:52:57.300 --> 00:53:01.020 align:middle line:84% You have a spot of birdshitskila on your most prominent nom de 00:53:01.020 --> 00:53:03.780 align:middle line:90% plume, Goodman remarked. 00:53:03.780 --> 00:53:07.650 align:middle line:84% I should like to feature it in a monograph. 00:53:07.650 --> 00:53:11.820 align:middle line:90% At last I was to be recognized. 00:53:11.820 --> 00:53:16.770 align:middle line:84% Here was the perfect lackey, his mere name a naked pretense. 00:53:16.770 --> 00:53:21.540 align:middle line:84% His manner so servile, it would hardly do to condescend. 00:53:21.540 --> 00:53:22.875 align:middle line:90% I offered him my schedule. 00:53:22.875 --> 00:53:41.878 align:middle line:90% 00:53:41.878 --> 00:53:46.010 align:middle line:90% It wasn't that long was it? 00:53:46.010 --> 00:53:48.320 align:middle line:84% We all have a second poem we're going to read too. 00:53:48.320 --> 00:53:51.560 align:middle line:90% 00:53:51.560 --> 00:53:52.475 align:middle line:90% The longer poems. 00:53:52.475 --> 00:53:57.287 align:middle line:90% 00:53:57.287 --> 00:53:59.120 align:middle line:84% No, it's not going to be one of those events 00:53:59.120 --> 00:54:00.920 align:middle line:84% where you all to get up and testify. 00:54:00.920 --> 00:54:06.620 align:middle line:90% 00:54:06.620 --> 00:54:11.420 align:middle line:84% I'd just like to thank Frances and Jan and Gail, 00:54:11.420 --> 00:54:15.200 align:middle line:84% everybody at the Poetry Center again 00:54:15.200 --> 00:54:18.350 align:middle line:84% for bringing us together and welcoming many of us 00:54:18.350 --> 00:54:20.810 align:middle line:90% back to Tucson. 00:54:20.810 --> 00:54:23.580 align:middle line:90% It's important in that regard. 00:54:23.580 --> 00:54:30.710 align:middle line:84% And I know that this is an event really for us to remember Jon, 00:54:30.710 --> 00:54:32.870 align:middle line:84% but I don't think it'd be too much of a distraction 00:54:32.870 --> 00:54:34.550 align:middle line:84% to say something about his friendship 00:54:34.550 --> 00:54:38.090 align:middle line:90% with Steve and Gail Orlen. 00:54:38.090 --> 00:54:40.100 align:middle line:84% While it was Jon who wrote so eloquently 00:54:40.100 --> 00:54:43.910 align:middle line:84% of the nature of friendship in general and with Steve 00:54:43.910 --> 00:54:47.030 align:middle line:84% in particular, it was often Steve and Gail 00:54:47.030 --> 00:54:50.450 align:middle line:84% who carried out the not always easy terms of its affections. 00:54:50.450 --> 00:54:53.410 align:middle line:90% 00:54:53.410 --> 00:54:55.530 align:middle line:84% I always thought about Steve as you 00:54:55.530 --> 00:54:58.030 align:middle line:84% know how the Mennonites translate 00:54:58.030 --> 00:54:59.140 align:middle line:90% the world for the Amish. 00:54:59.140 --> 00:55:03.970 align:middle line:90% 00:55:03.970 --> 00:55:08.290 align:middle line:84% I know that this is really weird, 00:55:08.290 --> 00:55:13.680 align:middle line:84% but I've always thought of you as a Mennonite and Jon 00:55:13.680 --> 00:55:14.390 align:middle line:90% as the Amish. 00:55:14.390 --> 00:55:21.930 align:middle line:90% 00:55:21.930 --> 00:55:24.720 align:middle line:84% But anyways I want to say to Gail and Jon that all of us 00:55:24.720 --> 00:55:29.730 align:middle line:84% here are incredibly grateful for the friendship that you showed 00:55:29.730 --> 00:55:32.970 align:middle line:84% to Jon and especially for someone like me who 00:55:32.970 --> 00:55:35.590 align:middle line:84% didn't get back to Tucson very often and was out of touch 00:55:35.590 --> 00:55:36.090 align:middle line:90% with Jon. 00:55:36.090 --> 00:55:40.200 align:middle line:84% I always felt as if you were an emissary. 00:55:40.200 --> 00:55:43.800 align:middle line:90% 00:55:43.800 --> 00:55:46.380 align:middle line:84% I don't like the idea of closing remarks 00:55:46.380 --> 00:55:48.870 align:middle line:84% because I think of this event as an opening up, 00:55:48.870 --> 00:55:51.840 align:middle line:90% at least I hope so. 00:55:51.840 --> 00:55:55.500 align:middle line:84% Besides the gift of his poems, Jon 00:55:55.500 --> 00:55:58.350 align:middle line:84% gave us a way of thinking and speaking about poetry 00:55:58.350 --> 00:56:02.130 align:middle line:90% that was direct and transparent. 00:56:02.130 --> 00:56:06.420 align:middle line:84% He spoke about the danger we feel when we put ourselves 00:56:06.420 --> 00:56:11.160 align:middle line:84% on the line and writing a poem and our commitment 00:56:11.160 --> 00:56:15.990 align:middle line:84% to an emotional state and attitude of pure intelligence 00:56:15.990 --> 00:56:19.350 align:middle line:90% that poems needed to convey. 00:56:19.350 --> 00:56:23.040 align:middle line:84% These are still notions I believe in. 00:56:23.040 --> 00:56:24.900 align:middle line:84% They influence most of the decisions 00:56:24.900 --> 00:56:26.565 align:middle line:90% I make as I write and revise. 00:56:26.565 --> 00:56:29.280 align:middle line:90% 00:56:29.280 --> 00:56:33.090 align:middle line:84% In a workshop Jon was usually not the first one to speak, 00:56:33.090 --> 00:56:36.600 align:middle line:84% but when he did, it was to guide, urge, and encourage us 00:56:36.600 --> 00:56:42.540 align:middle line:84% to think in large and generous terms about each other's work. 00:56:42.540 --> 00:56:45.150 align:middle line:84% All of us who have read and talked about Jon tonight 00:56:45.150 --> 00:56:49.380 align:middle line:84% and many in the audience were changed, transformed, 00:56:49.380 --> 00:56:53.490 align:middle line:84% transfigured I suppose into poets. 00:56:53.490 --> 00:56:57.930 align:middle line:84% And this is a little riskier to say, into better people 00:56:57.930 --> 00:57:01.110 align:middle line:90% by our association with Jon. 00:57:01.110 --> 00:57:05.760 align:middle line:84% When I met Richard Siken at Bread Loaf a few years ago, 00:57:05.760 --> 00:57:10.230 align:middle line:84% we quickly and passionately began talking about Jon. 00:57:10.230 --> 00:57:11.580 align:middle line:90% And we surprised ourselves. 00:57:11.580 --> 00:57:14.460 align:middle line:84% I think, by the powerful nature of the bond 00:57:14.460 --> 00:57:17.130 align:middle line:84% we shared even though our friendship with him 00:57:17.130 --> 00:57:19.455 align:middle line:84% was separated by something like 20 years. 00:57:19.455 --> 00:57:22.080 align:middle line:90% 00:57:22.080 --> 00:57:25.710 align:middle line:84% I believe all of us who studied with Jon who became his friend, 00:57:25.710 --> 00:57:30.540 align:middle line:84% the two were usually synonymous, constitute a unique group 00:57:30.540 --> 00:57:33.840 align:middle line:84% among the mostly atomized constituency 00:57:33.840 --> 00:57:37.680 align:middle line:90% of contemporary American poetry. 00:57:37.680 --> 00:57:40.020 align:middle line:84% Tonight, while we have remembered him 00:57:40.020 --> 00:57:43.950 align:middle line:84% through his poetry, we have also laid claim 00:57:43.950 --> 00:57:48.120 align:middle line:90% to a legacy he engendered. 00:57:48.120 --> 00:57:52.110 align:middle line:84% That's sort of the closing remarks, I suppose. 00:57:52.110 --> 00:57:53.880 align:middle line:84% But I wanted to say something else. 00:57:53.880 --> 00:57:56.610 align:middle line:90% 00:57:56.610 --> 00:57:58.290 align:middle line:84% Jon was one of these people as you 00:57:58.290 --> 00:58:03.360 align:middle line:84% know who possessed a really skewed charm, 00:58:03.360 --> 00:58:07.485 align:middle line:84% and he was able to affect the world in astonishing ways. 00:58:07.485 --> 00:58:10.470 align:middle line:90% 00:58:10.470 --> 00:58:13.230 align:middle line:90% I got a call from him one time. 00:58:13.230 --> 00:58:17.490 align:middle line:84% His car, you know that sorrowful and sorrowing Datsun, 00:58:17.490 --> 00:58:20.550 align:middle line:90% which Stuart-- 00:58:20.550 --> 00:58:22.545 align:middle line:90% that blue station wagon. 00:58:22.545 --> 00:58:25.230 align:middle line:90% 00:58:25.230 --> 00:58:26.430 align:middle line:90% It was a Datsun. 00:58:26.430 --> 00:58:27.240 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:58:27.240 --> 00:58:27.840 align:middle line:90% What you say? 00:58:27.840 --> 00:58:29.120 align:middle line:90% I think it was a Toyota. 00:58:29.120 --> 00:58:31.230 align:middle line:90% No, it was a Datsun. 00:58:31.230 --> 00:58:33.570 align:middle line:90% No it was a Datsun. 00:58:33.570 --> 00:58:35.610 align:middle line:90% This was one of the-- 00:58:35.610 --> 00:58:38.430 align:middle line:90% rust ran from this car. 00:58:38.430 --> 00:58:41.100 align:middle line:90% It would not adhere to this car. 00:58:41.100 --> 00:58:43.860 align:middle line:84% And so I got a call from Jon one time. 00:58:43.860 --> 00:58:46.920 align:middle line:84% He had mistakenly tried to go up Mount Lemmon 00:58:46.920 --> 00:58:51.300 align:middle line:84% with this car, an act of hubris, a rare act of hubris 00:58:51.300 --> 00:58:53.850 align:middle line:90% on his part. 00:58:53.850 --> 00:58:55.980 align:middle line:84% And because he knew that I changed 00:58:55.980 --> 00:58:57.660 align:middle line:84% the oil on my Volkswagen, he thought 00:58:57.660 --> 00:58:58.935 align:middle line:90% I knew something about cars. 00:58:58.935 --> 00:59:03.810 align:middle line:90% 00:59:03.810 --> 00:59:07.140 align:middle line:90% And I drove out, and I met Jon. 00:59:07.140 --> 00:59:10.410 align:middle line:84% I forget where exactly, and we drove up and there was his car. 00:59:10.410 --> 00:59:13.050 align:middle line:84% And I brought my few tools with me, 00:59:13.050 --> 00:59:15.060 align:middle line:84% and I thought the car wouldn't start 00:59:15.060 --> 00:59:17.010 align:middle line:90% so it must be the battery. 00:59:17.010 --> 00:59:18.610 align:middle line:90% And we took the battery out. 00:59:18.610 --> 00:59:20.790 align:middle line:84% And we went to a place where you could 00:59:20.790 --> 00:59:24.150 align:middle line:90% get a reconditioned battery. 00:59:24.150 --> 00:59:28.300 align:middle line:84% If you had the core, you could exchange it, so we did that. 00:59:28.300 --> 00:59:32.617 align:middle line:84% And as we were settling the bill, 00:59:32.617 --> 00:59:34.950 align:middle line:84% Jon pulled out a credit card, and he gave it to the guy. 00:59:34.950 --> 00:59:37.800 align:middle line:84% And the guy ran it through, and he said, 00:59:37.800 --> 00:59:39.030 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry I can't take this. 00:59:39.030 --> 00:59:40.710 align:middle line:84% I can't get authorization for it. 00:59:40.710 --> 00:59:43.090 align:middle line:84% You know, Jon said that's no problem. 00:59:43.090 --> 00:59:45.390 align:middle line:90% I've got another credit card. 00:59:45.390 --> 00:59:47.130 align:middle line:84% He gave another credit card, and the guy 00:59:47.130 --> 00:59:49.255 align:middle line:84% ran it through and said you know, I'm really sorry, 00:59:49.255 --> 00:59:51.780 align:middle line:90% I can't authorize this. 00:59:51.780 --> 00:59:55.980 align:middle line:84% And so I was feeling uncomfortable at this time 00:59:55.980 --> 01:00:00.210 align:middle line:84% because I thought maybe he would call the police or something. 01:00:00.210 --> 01:00:03.452 align:middle line:84% And Jon, this is his genius, he said well, 01:00:03.452 --> 01:00:04.785 align:middle line:90% would you take a personal check? 01:00:04.785 --> 01:00:09.870 align:middle line:90% 01:00:09.870 --> 01:00:13.680 align:middle line:84% And he said, yeah, if you've got ID. 01:00:13.680 --> 01:00:16.560 align:middle line:84% And I would have never thought to say that, 01:00:16.560 --> 01:00:19.680 align:middle line:84% but he just-- he there was the charm that he carried. 01:00:19.680 --> 01:00:23.350 align:middle line:90% 01:00:23.350 --> 01:00:24.520 align:middle line:90% OK I'll read my poem. 01:00:24.520 --> 01:00:28.970 align:middle line:90% 01:00:28.970 --> 01:00:29.750 align:middle line:90% "Rosebud." 01:00:29.750 --> 01:00:32.450 align:middle line:90% 01:00:32.450 --> 01:00:35.690 align:middle line:84% There is a place in Montana where the grass stands up 01:00:35.690 --> 01:00:41.090 align:middle line:84% two feet, yellow grass, white grass. 01:00:41.090 --> 01:00:44.510 align:middle line:84% The wind on it like locusts and the same shine. 01:00:44.510 --> 01:00:47.220 align:middle line:90% 01:00:47.220 --> 01:00:51.270 align:middle line:84% Facing what I think was south, I could see a broad valley 01:00:51.270 --> 01:00:53.940 align:middle line:84% and river miles into the valley that 01:00:53.940 --> 01:00:58.020 align:middle line:90% looked black and then trees. 01:00:58.020 --> 01:01:00.540 align:middle line:84% To the west, was more prairie, darker 01:01:00.540 --> 01:01:03.450 align:middle line:84% than where we stood because the clouds covered it, 01:01:03.450 --> 01:01:09.540 align:middle line:84% a long shadow like the edge of rain racing toward us. 01:01:09.540 --> 01:01:13.500 align:middle line:84% We had been driving all day and the day 01:01:13.500 --> 01:01:16.590 align:middle line:84% before through South Dakota along the Rosebud 01:01:16.590 --> 01:01:21.000 align:middle line:84% where the Sioux are now farmers and go to school 01:01:21.000 --> 01:01:23.820 align:middle line:90% and look like everyone. 01:01:23.820 --> 01:01:27.870 align:middle line:84% In the reservation town there was a Sioux museum and trading 01:01:27.870 --> 01:01:31.440 align:middle line:84% posts, some implements inside, a long bow of shined wood 01:01:31.440 --> 01:01:35.160 align:middle line:84% that lay in its glass case reflecting light. 01:01:35.160 --> 01:01:38.010 align:middle line:84% The walls were covered with framed photographs. 01:01:38.010 --> 01:01:41.010 align:middle line:84% The Oglala posed in fine dress in front 01:01:41.010 --> 01:01:46.410 align:middle line:84% of a few huts, some horses nearby, a feeling even in those 01:01:46.410 --> 01:01:51.800 align:middle line:84% photographs the size of a book of spaciousness. 01:01:51.800 --> 01:01:54.080 align:middle line:84% I wanted to ask about a Sioux holy man 01:01:54.080 --> 01:01:58.400 align:middle line:84% whose life I had recently read and whose vision had gone 01:01:58.400 --> 01:02:01.550 align:middle line:90% on hopelessly past its time. 01:02:01.550 --> 01:02:06.020 align:middle line:84% I believed then that only a great loss 01:02:06.020 --> 01:02:08.405 align:middle line:84% could make us feel small enough to begin again. 01:02:08.405 --> 01:02:11.160 align:middle line:90% 01:02:11.160 --> 01:02:15.000 align:middle line:84% The woman behind the counter talked endlessly on. 01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:17.790 align:middle line:84% There was no difference I could see between us so I never 01:02:17.790 --> 01:02:20.450 align:middle line:90% asked. 01:02:20.450 --> 01:02:23.630 align:middle line:84% The place in Montana was the Greasy Grass 01:02:23.630 --> 01:02:27.830 align:middle line:84% where Custer and the 7th Calvary fell, 01:02:27.830 --> 01:02:31.700 align:middle line:84% the last important victory for the tribes. 01:02:31.700 --> 01:02:36.020 align:middle line:84% We had been driving all day, hypnotized. 01:02:36.020 --> 01:02:39.020 align:middle line:84% And when we got out to enter the small flat American tourist 01:02:39.020 --> 01:02:40.610 align:middle line:90% center, we began to argue. 01:02:40.610 --> 01:02:45.830 align:middle line:84% And later walking between the dry grass and reading plaques, 01:02:45.830 --> 01:02:49.310 align:middle line:90% my wife made an ironic comment. 01:02:49.310 --> 01:02:54.950 align:middle line:84% I believed it hurt the land, not intentionally. 01:02:54.950 --> 01:02:57.590 align:middle line:84% It was only meant to hold us apart. 01:02:57.590 --> 01:03:00.200 align:middle line:90% 01:03:00.200 --> 01:03:04.460 align:middle line:84% Later I read of Benteen and Ross and those who escaped. 01:03:04.460 --> 01:03:07.310 align:middle line:90% But what I felt then was final. 01:03:07.310 --> 01:03:12.980 align:middle line:84% Lying down, face against the warm side of a horse 01:03:12.980 --> 01:03:21.790 align:middle line:84% and feeling the lulls endlessly the silences just before death. 01:03:21.790 --> 01:03:25.720 align:middle line:90% The place might stand for death. 01:03:25.720 --> 01:03:35.420 align:middle line:84% Every loss rejoined in a wide place or it is rest. 01:03:35.420 --> 01:03:40.070 align:middle line:84% As it was after the long drive, nothing for miles 01:03:40.070 --> 01:03:46.445 align:middle line:84% but grass, a long valley to the south, and living in history. 01:03:46.445 --> 01:03:49.020 align:middle line:90% 01:03:49.020 --> 01:03:54.420 align:middle line:84% Or it is just a way of living, gone 01:03:54.420 --> 01:03:58.860 align:middle line:90% like our own, every moment. 01:03:58.860 --> 01:04:02.040 align:middle line:84% Because what I have to do daily, and what 01:04:02.040 --> 01:04:07.410 align:middle line:84% is done to me or a number of small indignities. 01:04:07.410 --> 01:04:12.240 align:middle line:84% I have to trust that many things we all say to each other 01:04:12.240 --> 01:04:18.990 align:middle line:84% are not intentional, that every indirect word will accumulate 01:04:18.990 --> 01:04:20.820 align:middle line:90% over the Earth. 01:04:20.820 --> 01:04:27.210 align:middle line:84% And now when we may be approaching something final, 01:04:27.210 --> 01:04:31.590 align:middle line:84% it seems important not to hurt the land. 01:04:31.590 --> 01:04:33.800 align:middle line:90% Thank you all for coming. 01:04:33.800 --> 01:04:51.000 align:middle line:90%