WEBVTT

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Thank you, Frances, for that
very generous introduction.

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What a great analytical
mind you have.

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I loved your comment
on averaging.

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Can you hear me OK, if I raise
my voice, in the back there?

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Do you hear me OK?

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OK.

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I'm going to begin
with a few poems

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from the first book,
Candy Necklace, which

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was published in 1997.

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And I'm going to begin with the
title poem, which originated--

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which I wrote at Skidmore
College in New York, Saratoga

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when I was taking a workshop
with Robert Pinsky in 1994.

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And he gave us assignments,
and one assignment

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was to go out on campus, and
find something, and start

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the poem with that object, and
end up as far away as possible.

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So I went to the student
store, immediately after class,

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not intending to
look for any object,

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but I saw candy necklaces for
sale, beside the cash register.

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And for some reason,
they spoke to me.

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I don't actually remember
eating candy necklaces

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or wearing them, gross,
when I was a kid.

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But you're supposed
to wear them, get

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them really oily and
greasy, and then eat them.

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And I began with
the candy necklace,

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and I ended with God and--

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because I was reading Giorgio
Agamben's book The Coming

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Community, at the time.

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In fact, the poem
quotes from Agamben

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in one of its prose sections.

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And I took the poem in,
read it to the class

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and to Robert, who didn't
want to see it on the page

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before he heard it.

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And he listened carefully
and asked if he could see it.

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And I handed it to him.

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And it took him
all of 20 seconds

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to decide that what was there
should come in reverse order.

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And so the poem now ends
with a candy necklace.

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I'd love to have the Robert
Pinsky structural program

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on my computer.

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But I learned something from
every workshop I ever took.

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And structuration was one
thing I learned from Robert.

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"Candy Necklace,"
it's a combination.

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It's a hybrid.

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It's a combination of verse
lines and prose sections.

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I'll leave those
unmarked by my voice.

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"Candy Necklace."

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"Unhellinized, the
crows on the campus lawn

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rasp like the bicycle
bells of hell.

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It is thus that they sing.

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Someone in the cafeteria
says, 'Barbara is rubbing off

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on him.'

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It is thus that he loves.

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The little sisters
of the Dying Swan

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mount on one toe in their
practice room and spin.

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It is thus that they die.

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The squirrel outside
darts this way

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and that, like a honeymooner
looking for a mislaid wedding

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ring.

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Ballet is not his thing.

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Everything as it is,
being master without being

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master of its own being.

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Everything, a discreet
as such, spread out

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on an endless center, its
irreparable limits its torment.

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God, the secret of
the differencing.

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Wishbone of snow on
the mountain and below,

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a grasshopper-shaped trailer
pointing to the prairies.

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Goodbye, flitting sons.

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You're the taking-place
of God, who,

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taking-place, scatters
his goodness differently,

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indifferently.

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A mountain cannot but
look down on the clefts,

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its heavings made.

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My daughter's the
thicket in which I bleed.

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Goodbye, daughters.

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The pure taking-place
of everything

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scatters you, red
berry ball and smear.

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Steps maul me all the way to the
smoke half-uttered in my hair.

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Day and night, I try to
clamor out of my separateness.

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Day and night, waste
the good within.

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Not taking place is my sin.

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Daylight in the evening.

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Openness without a stint.

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More craving than when
there is a mountain.

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This morning, the thusness
of the candy necklace

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in the student store.

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Blue, yellow, white, and pink
beads snuggling together.

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They made me want a hug.

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Click, they'd go,
if you shook them.

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Click, click, a telegraphy
of hardened sweet talk.

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I was hungry, but I didn't
want to strip the string.

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The candy necklace was
outside the world."