WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.280 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.280 --> 00:00:03.270 align:middle line:90% Another one of the-- 00:00:03.270 --> 00:00:06.170 align:middle line:90% I'm going to stop that. 00:00:06.170 --> 00:00:11.460 align:middle line:84% It was a very dark thing to have to work through, 00:00:11.460 --> 00:00:15.870 align:middle line:84% that section, working on all of those poems. 00:00:15.870 --> 00:00:22.680 align:middle line:84% And this next group of poems, and I'm only going to-- they're 00:00:22.680 --> 00:00:24.300 align:middle line:90% very short these poems. 00:00:24.300 --> 00:00:27.240 align:middle line:90% But we're equally taxing. 00:00:27.240 --> 00:00:32.170 align:middle line:84% But in a certain way exhilarating 00:00:32.170 --> 00:00:36.970 align:middle line:84% because I was working in a collaboration with a composer. 00:00:36.970 --> 00:00:40.840 align:middle line:84% The composer Richard Danielpour had approached me 00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:45.310 align:middle line:84% and asked me if I was interested in working with him on a song 00:00:45.310 --> 00:00:46.120 align:middle line:90% cycle. 00:00:46.120 --> 00:00:51.760 align:middle line:84% And the song cycle was going to depict the last 50-60 00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:56.630 align:middle line:84% years of American history with one standing 00:00:56.630 --> 00:00:59.420 align:middle line:84% witness who would turn out to be the Statue of Liberty. 00:00:59.420 --> 00:01:04.340 align:middle line:84% And the chutzpah of saying, "Oh, we're 00:01:04.340 --> 00:01:09.590 align:middle line:84% just going to do 60 years of history and 12 songs", 00:01:09.590 --> 00:01:13.820 align:middle line:84% was in a certain way the reason why I said yes, 00:01:13.820 --> 00:01:17.060 align:middle line:84% and also the fact to be able to work with a musician. 00:01:17.060 --> 00:01:20.570 align:middle line:84% I love working across genres and that challenge 00:01:20.570 --> 00:01:23.480 align:middle line:84% of not writing songs, but writing 00:01:23.480 --> 00:01:26.790 align:middle line:84% poems that could be sung is a different thing. 00:01:26.790 --> 00:01:31.280 align:middle line:84% And so we pushed and challenged each other. 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:33.950 align:middle line:84% We had very different writing processes, 00:01:33.950 --> 00:01:38.270 align:middle line:84% so that was hard to deal with, but we managed. 00:01:38.270 --> 00:01:43.400 align:middle line:84% And I really felt that it kind of 00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:46.890 align:middle line:84% taught me stuff too, which is what every writer, I think, 00:01:46.890 --> 00:01:51.470 align:middle line:84% wants to at some point be learning always. 00:01:51.470 --> 00:01:54.510 align:middle line:84% I knew that the voice was going to be a mezzo-soprano. 00:01:54.510 --> 00:01:56.780 align:middle line:84% I knew that Susan Graham was going to sing it. 00:01:56.780 --> 00:02:00.530 align:middle line:84% And so that mezzo-soprano voice was always behind me. 00:02:00.530 --> 00:02:06.800 align:middle line:84% But I never thought, "OK, the music is going to carry this. 00:02:06.800 --> 00:02:08.580 align:middle line:84% The poems have to stand by themselves." 00:02:08.580 --> 00:02:10.820 align:middle line:90% So let me read to you just-- 00:02:10.820 --> 00:02:12.930 align:middle line:84% they also all have to be a certain length. 00:02:12.930 --> 00:02:14.390 align:middle line:84% If you're going to sing something, 00:02:14.390 --> 00:02:17.780 align:middle line:84% it has to be the length of a German Lieder, or Lied, that 00:02:17.780 --> 00:02:20.420 align:middle line:84% has to be about the length of a sonnet-- well, 00:02:20.420 --> 00:02:21.860 align:middle line:90% it doesn't have to be a sonnet. 00:02:21.860 --> 00:02:27.050 align:middle line:90% So I will read to you three-- 00:02:27.050 --> 00:02:32.960 align:middle line:84% again, three, Which are going to hop through history. 00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:35.690 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to start with this one, which 00:02:35.690 --> 00:02:38.670 align:middle line:90% is the first testimony. 00:02:38.670 --> 00:02:41.670 align:middle line:90% 00:02:41.670 --> 00:02:43.350 align:middle line:90% 1968. 00:02:43.350 --> 00:02:47.910 align:middle line:84% 1968 was a year of great turmoil. 00:02:47.910 --> 00:02:51.150 align:middle line:84% It was a year when I think many thought this country was 00:02:51.150 --> 00:02:54.020 align:middle line:90% going to break apart. 00:02:54.020 --> 00:02:58.340 align:middle line:90% Assassinations King and Kennedy. 00:02:58.340 --> 00:03:04.080 align:middle line:84% And it just it seemed that what it needed 00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:07.740 align:middle line:84% was a villanelle, a broken villanelle, 00:03:07.740 --> 00:03:11.760 align:middle line:84% one that stops before it's finished. 00:03:11.760 --> 00:03:13.770 align:middle line:90% You're tired, you're poor. 00:03:13.770 --> 00:03:16.480 align:middle line:90% 00:03:16.480 --> 00:03:20.300 align:middle line:84% Who comforts you now that the wheel has broken? 00:03:20.300 --> 00:03:23.870 align:middle line:90% No more princes for the poor. 00:03:23.870 --> 00:03:26.990 align:middle line:90% Loss whittling you thin. 00:03:26.990 --> 00:03:29.570 align:middle line:90% Grief is the constant now. 00:03:29.570 --> 00:03:32.510 align:middle line:90% Hope the last word spoken. 00:03:32.510 --> 00:03:37.250 align:middle line:84% In a dance of two elegies, which circles the drain? 00:03:37.250 --> 00:03:42.560 align:middle line:84% A token year with its daisies and carbines is where we begin. 00:03:42.560 --> 00:03:44.810 align:middle line:90% Who comforts you now? 00:03:44.810 --> 00:03:48.470 align:middle line:84% That the wheel has broken is mechanics 101. 00:03:48.470 --> 00:03:51.500 align:middle line:84% To keep dreaming when the joke's on you. 00:03:51.500 --> 00:03:55.370 align:middle line:84% Well, crazier legends have been written. 00:03:55.370 --> 00:03:57.380 align:middle line:90% Grief is the constant now. 00:03:57.380 --> 00:04:01.490 align:middle line:84% Hope the last word spoken on a motel balcony, 00:04:01.490 --> 00:04:04.880 align:middle line:90% shouted in a hotel kitchen. 00:04:04.880 --> 00:04:09.250 align:middle line:84% No kin can make this journey for you. 00:04:09.250 --> 00:04:11.650 align:middle line:90% The roots are locked in. 00:04:11.650 --> 00:04:14.890 align:middle line:84% Who comforts you now that the wheel has broken 00:04:14.890 --> 00:04:18.070 align:middle line:90% the bodies of its makers? 00:04:18.070 --> 00:04:21.100 align:middle line:84% Beyond the smoke and ashes, what you 00:04:21.100 --> 00:04:25.850 align:middle line:84% hear rising is nothing but the wind. 00:04:25.850 --> 00:04:31.070 align:middle line:84% Who comforts you now that the wheel has broken? 00:04:31.070 --> 00:04:34.170 align:middle line:90% Grief is the constant. 00:04:34.170 --> 00:04:37.910 align:middle line:90% Hope the last word spoken. 00:04:37.910 --> 00:04:40.000 align:middle line:90%