WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.170 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.170 --> 00:00:02.991 align:middle line:90% And this is Museum. 00:00:02.991 --> 00:00:06.360 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.360 --> 00:00:09.240 align:middle line:84% On the morning of the Käthe Kollwitz exhibit, 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:12.870 align:middle line:84% a young man and woman come into the museum restaurant. 00:00:12.870 --> 00:00:15.120 align:middle line:90% She is carrying a baby. 00:00:15.120 --> 00:00:18.210 align:middle line:84% He carries an air-freight edition of the Sunday New York 00:00:18.210 --> 00:00:19.770 align:middle line:90% Times. 00:00:19.770 --> 00:00:22.710 align:middle line:84% She sits in a high-backed wicker chair cradling 00:00:22.710 --> 00:00:24.750 align:middle line:90% the infant in her arms. 00:00:24.750 --> 00:00:27.600 align:middle line:84% He fills a tray with fresh fruit, rolls, 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:31.860 align:middle line:84% and coffee in white cups and brings it to the table. 00:00:31.860 --> 00:00:36.060 align:middle line:84% His hair is tousled, her eyes are puffy. 00:00:36.060 --> 00:00:38.700 align:middle line:84% They look like they were thrown down into sleep 00:00:38.700 --> 00:00:42.750 align:middle line:84% and then yanked out of it like divers coming up for air. 00:00:42.750 --> 00:00:44.580 align:middle line:90% He holds the baby. 00:00:44.580 --> 00:00:48.240 align:middle line:84% She drinks coffee, scans the front page, butters a roll, 00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:51.510 align:middle line:84% and eats it in their little corner in the sun. 00:00:51.510 --> 00:00:54.180 align:middle line:84% After a while, she holds the baby. 00:00:54.180 --> 00:00:57.690 align:middle line:84% He reads the Book Review and eats some fruit. 00:00:57.690 --> 00:00:59.310 align:middle line:84% Then he holds the child while she 00:00:59.310 --> 00:01:01.980 align:middle line:84% finds the section of the paper she wants and eats 00:01:01.980 --> 00:01:03.750 align:middle line:90% fruit and smokes. 00:01:03.750 --> 00:01:06.180 align:middle line:90% They've hardly exchanged a look. 00:01:06.180 --> 00:01:09.000 align:middle line:84% Meanwhile, I have fallen in love with 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:11.130 align:middle line:90% this equitable arrangement. 00:01:11.130 --> 00:01:15.780 align:middle line:84% And with the baby who cooperates by sleeping. 00:01:15.780 --> 00:01:18.780 align:middle line:84% All around them are faces Käthe Kollwitz 00:01:18.780 --> 00:01:22.200 align:middle line:84% carved in wood of people with no talent or capacity 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:26.310 align:middle line:84% for suffering who are suffering the numbest kinds of pain-- 00:01:26.310 --> 00:01:29.340 align:middle line:90% hunger, helpless terror. 00:01:29.340 --> 00:01:33.540 align:middle line:84% But this young couple is reading the Sunday paper in the sun. 00:01:33.540 --> 00:01:36.360 align:middle line:84% The baby is sleeping, the green has 00:01:36.360 --> 00:01:39.690 align:middle line:84% begun to emerge from the rind of the cantaloupe, 00:01:39.690 --> 00:01:41.910 align:middle line:90% and everything seems possible. 00:01:41.910 --> 00:01:51.478 align:middle line:90% 00:01:51.478 --> 00:01:53.300 align:middle line:90% That was a prose poem. 00:01:53.300 --> 00:01:58.370 align:middle line:84% And it was a prose poem because I was trying to-- 00:01:58.370 --> 00:02:00.383 align:middle line:84% it almost never happens to me that I 00:02:00.383 --> 00:02:03.050 align:middle line:84% see something and then think I'm going to write a poem about it. 00:02:03.050 --> 00:02:04.550 align:middle line:90% The language comes to me. 00:02:04.550 --> 00:02:09.289 align:middle line:84% But in this case, I had seen that and it struck me. 00:02:09.289 --> 00:02:11.840 align:middle line:84% And trying to write about it, I kept 00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:15.830 align:middle line:84% having trouble with finding a verse form for the hands 00:02:15.830 --> 00:02:17.727 align:middle line:90% back and forth. 00:02:17.727 --> 00:02:19.310 align:middle line:84% And I thought, well, the hell with it. 00:02:19.310 --> 00:02:20.160 align:middle line:90% Just write it out. 00:02:20.160 --> 00:02:23.360 align:middle line:84% And then when it was a kind of clear, rhythmic paragraph, 00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:25.260 align:middle line:90% I thought, OK, this [INAUDIBLE]. 00:02:25.260 --> 00:02:29.013 align:middle line:84% Then I thought, I can write prose poems, so I-- 00:02:29.013 --> 00:02:31.430 align:middle line:84% and the one thing I knew about the convention of the prose 00:02:31.430 --> 00:02:35.090 align:middle line:84% poem was it wasn't supposed to sound too much like prose. 00:02:35.090 --> 00:02:38.990 align:middle line:90% So I started trying to see. 00:02:38.990 --> 00:02:40.910 align:middle line:84% And I like the first sentence of this one 00:02:40.910 --> 00:02:44.060 align:middle line:84% because it sounded so much like prose. 00:02:44.060 --> 00:02:46.240 align:middle line:90% And indeed it was.