WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.490 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.490 --> 00:00:00.990 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:00.990 --> 00:00:07.170 align:middle line:84% Now this is sort of the weird part of the challenge. 00:00:07.170 --> 00:00:09.660 align:middle line:84% The ways, or I think a way, one of the ways 00:00:09.660 --> 00:00:13.320 align:middle line:84% that surrealism manifests itself in the world, that the most-- 00:00:13.320 --> 00:00:16.560 align:middle line:84% the famous sort of what most of us 00:00:16.560 --> 00:00:18.420 align:middle line:84% think of what we think of surrealism 00:00:18.420 --> 00:00:20.190 align:middle line:90% is the surrealist image. 00:00:20.190 --> 00:00:27.390 align:middle line:84% And certainly the show out here confronts us, 00:00:27.390 --> 00:00:29.790 align:middle line:84% insights us very much with the surrealist image, which 00:00:29.790 --> 00:00:31.380 align:middle line:84% is the thing that's usually based 00:00:31.380 --> 00:00:37.328 align:middle line:84% upon certain things brought together out of context. 00:00:37.328 --> 00:00:39.703 align:middle line:84% The famous quote, which was quoted from the Les Chants de 00:00:39.703 --> 00:00:45.930 align:middle line:84% Maldoror, is as beautiful as a sewing machine and an umbrella 00:00:45.930 --> 00:00:50.430 align:middle line:90% meeting on an operating table. 00:00:50.430 --> 00:00:54.810 align:middle line:84% Well, in literature-- well for me, 00:00:54.810 --> 00:00:56.550 align:middle line:84% the surrealist image still matters 00:00:56.550 --> 00:00:59.250 align:middle line:84% but, what I'm sort of most interested in, 00:00:59.250 --> 00:01:02.190 align:middle line:84% and I think the thing that surrealism feels very 00:01:02.190 --> 00:01:04.920 align:middle line:84% alive to me, is this particular relationship 00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:08.190 align:middle line:90% to the autobiographical urge. 00:01:08.190 --> 00:01:11.940 align:middle line:84% And it's the notion that the self is something 00:01:11.940 --> 00:01:14.530 align:middle line:90% that is constantly being made. 00:01:14.530 --> 00:01:16.395 align:middle line:84% I know that my poems are autobiographical. 00:01:16.395 --> 00:01:17.895 align:middle line:84% I just don't know who they're about. 00:01:17.895 --> 00:01:20.740 align:middle line:90% 00:01:20.740 --> 00:01:25.710 align:middle line:84% So the next few poems are going to have maybe something 00:01:25.710 --> 00:01:28.030 align:middle line:90% to do with that. 00:01:28.030 --> 00:01:30.810 align:middle line:90% But this is called "Exit Exam." 00:01:30.810 --> 00:01:34.200 align:middle line:84% It means basically that the self is not a matter of the past. 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:37.510 align:middle line:84% Self is always something that's been in the future. 00:01:37.510 --> 00:01:39.400 align:middle line:90% Which is very helpful. 00:01:39.400 --> 00:01:42.300 align:middle line:84% And it's a very different idea than the idea that poetry 00:01:42.300 --> 00:01:45.420 align:middle line:84% usually presents us with, which is that the notion 00:01:45.420 --> 00:01:49.830 align:middle line:84% that the self is a product of neurosis. 00:01:49.830 --> 00:01:54.680 align:middle line:84% Is a product of the things the bad things that happen to us. 00:01:54.680 --> 00:01:55.941 align:middle line:90% This is called "Exit Exam." 00:01:55.941 --> 00:01:58.590 align:middle line:90% 00:01:58.590 --> 00:02:02.460 align:middle line:84% Difficult to believe what hurts so much when the cement 00:02:02.460 --> 00:02:05.730 align:middle line:90% truck bounces you off a tree. 00:02:05.730 --> 00:02:10.410 align:middle line:84% It's not solid rock knocking solid but electron cloud 00:02:10.410 --> 00:02:15.570 align:middle line:84% and pulsing electron cloud around the overall emptiness 00:02:15.570 --> 00:02:17.280 align:middle line:90% of matter. 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:20.250 align:middle line:84% A clash of minuscule probabilities 00:02:20.250 --> 00:02:23.670 align:middle line:90% in the beehive of the void. 00:02:23.670 --> 00:02:27.690 align:middle line:84% Somehow you're only scratched and bruised, 00:02:27.690 --> 00:02:30.450 align:middle line:90% but the driver's in agony. 00:02:30.450 --> 00:02:33.990 align:middle line:84% No license, no immigration paper, 00:02:33.990 --> 00:02:37.500 align:middle line:84% a picture of his wife still in Oaxaca in his wallet, 00:02:37.500 --> 00:02:40.590 align:middle line:90% five kids he sends money to. 00:02:40.590 --> 00:02:45.120 align:middle line:84% So you try to assure him by hopping about, 00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:49.020 align:middle line:84% to show no broken tears, which only 00:02:49.020 --> 00:02:53.130 align:middle line:84% seems to him you've got trauma to the brain, 00:02:53.130 --> 00:02:55.680 align:middle line:90% or were already loco. 00:02:55.680 --> 00:02:58.800 align:middle line:90% Either way, problemo. 00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:02.310 align:middle line:84% Your bicycle bent, he lifts it, tears 00:03:02.310 --> 00:03:06.150 align:middle line:84% in his eyes, which are mirrors showing everything 00:03:06.150 --> 00:03:09.570 align:middle line:90% on fire in black water. 00:03:09.570 --> 00:03:13.710 align:middle line:84% This is the universal language of bent bikes, something 00:03:13.710 --> 00:03:18.690 align:middle line:84% large and tragic in small words, while the world 00:03:18.690 --> 00:03:21.600 align:middle line:90% burns in black water. 00:03:21.600 --> 00:03:23.670 align:middle line:90% Nothing will repair it. 00:03:23.670 --> 00:03:25.380 align:middle line:90% Is that true? 00:03:25.380 --> 00:03:29.070 align:middle line:84% But now is not the time to bring that up. 00:03:29.070 --> 00:03:34.440 align:middle line:84% You're both golden pepperoncinis in the vinegar of life. 00:03:34.440 --> 00:03:38.010 align:middle line:90% So piquant, so sad. 00:03:38.010 --> 00:03:42.090 align:middle line:84% There is a wound where you bonked against the tree, 00:03:42.090 --> 00:03:46.050 align:middle line:84% and the tree, as usual, is dealing with its injuries 00:03:46.050 --> 00:03:48.480 align:middle line:90% in a good mood. 00:03:48.480 --> 00:03:53.730 align:middle line:84% A bird in its branches has just come to life, hideously bald, 00:03:53.730 --> 00:03:59.850 align:middle line:84% eyes and open bulging sacks, too delicate, too helpless. 00:03:59.850 --> 00:04:04.800 align:middle line:84% Yet there is a concept of the cosmos forming in its tiny salt 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:06.660 align:middle line:90% stall. 00:04:06.660 --> 00:04:11.850 align:middle line:84% It gapes and mother regurgitates nutritious worm. 00:04:11.850 --> 00:04:15.540 align:middle line:84% It grows a black miter, blue belly. 00:04:15.540 --> 00:04:17.370 align:middle line:90% Next formation. 00:04:17.370 --> 00:04:20.970 align:middle line:84% A couple false starts and presto, 00:04:20.970 --> 00:04:24.960 align:middle line:90% it calls its mate radiant toy. 00:04:24.960 --> 00:04:29.400 align:middle line:84% Its mate calls back, radiant toy. 00:04:29.400 --> 00:04:33.460 align:middle line:84% It gets trapped in the science building for an hour. 00:04:33.460 --> 00:04:36.480 align:middle line:84% Still it understands now more than we 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:41.190 align:middle line:84% do that the voice coming to us in our authentic bitterness, 00:04:41.190 --> 00:04:46.350 align:middle line:84% our dark dread saying everything will be OK. 00:04:46.350 --> 00:04:50.810 align:middle line:84% Bright opening, bright opening, where does it come from? 00:04:50.810 --> 00:04:52.950 align:middle line:90% How can we get there? 00:04:52.950 --> 00:04:56.870 align:middle line:84% And when we get there, will we be petrified or dashed 00:04:56.870 --> 00:04:59.810 align:middle line:90% into even smaller pieces? 00:04:59.810 --> 00:05:02.690 align:middle line:84% Will we be released from the new house, 00:05:02.690 --> 00:05:09.240 align:middle line:84% or come back as hyena or mouse, as a rock, or a cloud, 00:05:09.240 --> 00:05:13.840 align:middle line:84% will it be sleep's peace of nothingness?