So I'm going to read you some poems from this other book.
And then I'm going to read you like two new poems,
OK, just to give you a sense of where
we're going, if you like maps.
I like maps.
So this book is called The Trees Witness Everything,
and it's very pink and thin.
It reminds me of the old AAA maps
that we used to have when we had maps in the car,
and we would try to open them in the car.
And I loved the size of it.
It's just a cool physical object.
And I was explaining to the class that I don't-- actually
multiple classes that I don't really like to tell
the designers what to do.
So I just didn't want anything literal, so no trees, no bark,
no owls, and they did come through
with a whole bunch of those, and I said nothing.
And this-- and then they came up with this,
and I thought this was really cool.
It looked a lot like those Jenny Holzer,
you know, like art and then/or Dan Flavin neon
lights and stuff.
So I thought it was great with the dot matrix on it,
was very cool.
So I'll just read a few tiny poems.
These are all in syllabic forms, and they're all
different forms.
I talk about that in the back, so I won't even
tell you what they are, but they're
like fives, and lots of fives and lots of sevens.
And I will let you read along with me if you
want to read along with me.
And they are WS Merwin titles, and I rarely write this way,
go kind of backwards, and/or maybe forwards, or have--
I really was trying hard not to write about anything.
So in order to avoid subject matter altogether,
I sort wanted to think of ways to embody someone else's
subject matter in mind.
So WS Merwin is a poet I love who
has these really capacious titles,
and as I read them you'll see.
They're just really open, and therefore,
gave me a lot of room to move around
in a tiny miniature space.
Far Along in the Story.
Once I sat in rain, opened my mouth to the sky.
I yearned to be changed, but each drop was a small knife.
At first, I fainted, but when I woke up,
all the ticking had gone and all the centuries were one.
My choices no longer hurt.