WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.870 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.870 --> 00:00:02.970 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:00:02.970 --> 00:00:07.350 align:middle line:84% So I'm going to read from "The Maybe-Bird," 00:00:07.350 --> 00:00:09.870 align:middle line:84% and I thought I would start with-- 00:00:09.870 --> 00:00:11.610 align:middle line:84% if I move over a little, I thought 00:00:11.610 --> 00:00:14.100 align:middle line:84% I would start with some poems from the first section, which 00:00:14.100 --> 00:00:16.410 align:middle line:84% is really kind of what happened when 00:00:16.410 --> 00:00:20.460 align:middle line:90% I did a layering of voices. 00:00:20.460 --> 00:00:24.390 align:middle line:84% The situation was I was taking a documentary poetics 00:00:24.390 --> 00:00:27.550 align:middle line:90% class at University of Denver. 00:00:27.550 --> 00:00:30.630 align:middle line:84% And so I gathered a bunch of-- so I'm 00:00:30.630 --> 00:00:32.430 align:middle line:84% Muskogee through my mother's side, 00:00:32.430 --> 00:00:34.950 align:middle line:84% and I gathered a bunch of books written 00:00:34.950 --> 00:00:41.250 align:middle line:84% by explorers and Indian agents to the Southeast ranging 00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:45.950 align:middle line:90% from 1527 to 1828. 00:00:45.950 --> 00:00:47.720 align:middle line:90% That's 300 years of-- 00:00:47.720 --> 00:00:51.140 align:middle line:84% these are all men writing about the Southeast. 00:00:51.140 --> 00:00:53.730 align:middle line:90% 00:00:53.730 --> 00:00:56.590 align:middle line:84% So I scanned through all these texts, and I thought, 00:00:56.590 --> 00:00:58.690 align:middle line:90% why am I even doing this? 00:00:58.690 --> 00:01:00.780 align:middle line:90% What am I supposed to find here? 00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:04.470 align:middle line:90% And I got more and more sad. 00:01:04.470 --> 00:01:06.200 align:middle line:90% There's nothing to find there. 00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:11.260 align:middle line:84% In over 300 years, they all kind of sounded the same. 00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:13.420 align:middle line:90% Nothing that's recognizable. 00:01:13.420 --> 00:01:15.040 align:middle line:90% Nothing that's Muskogee. 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:21.820 align:middle line:84% Nothing that even speaks to what the land was and still is. 00:01:21.820 --> 00:01:27.540 align:middle line:84% It's just hidden from sight these days. 00:01:27.540 --> 00:01:30.720 align:middle line:84% So I ended up doing an experiment where I just wanted 00:01:30.720 --> 00:01:32.205 align:middle line:90% to fracture apart the books. 00:01:32.205 --> 00:01:35.945 align:middle line:90% 00:01:35.945 --> 00:01:36.915 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:01:36.915 --> 00:01:40.060 align:middle line:90% Should I step this way? 00:01:40.060 --> 00:01:40.930 align:middle line:90% Maybe. 00:01:40.930 --> 00:01:43.375 align:middle line:84% I don't want to hurt all your ears. 00:01:43.375 --> 00:01:46.090 align:middle line:90% 00:01:46.090 --> 00:01:49.390 align:middle line:84% Where I took all the books, and I just took a bunch of words 00:01:49.390 --> 00:01:51.460 align:middle line:84% from all the books, and I typed them 00:01:51.460 --> 00:01:55.160 align:middle line:84% all up, not thinking about what they were, what they meant. 00:01:55.160 --> 00:01:58.180 align:middle line:84% I just highlighted random pages, and I typed up 00:01:58.180 --> 00:02:03.340 align:middle line:84% 16 pages of language that was not associated with any one 00:02:03.340 --> 00:02:04.330 align:middle line:90% book or any one theme. 00:02:04.330 --> 00:02:07.120 align:middle line:90% Just language as stuff. 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:10.419 align:middle line:84% And then I took the 16 pages, and I cut them up 00:02:10.419 --> 00:02:12.610 align:middle line:90% into 16 pieces. 00:02:12.610 --> 00:02:16.990 align:middle line:84% And then I made 16 new pages by taking a little square 00:02:16.990 --> 00:02:20.680 align:middle line:84% from each of the pages, and I taped them with Scotch tape. 00:02:20.680 --> 00:02:23.020 align:middle line:84% And then I gave myself a rule because rules 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:26.050 align:middle line:84% can be really helpful, especially when you're sad. 00:02:26.050 --> 00:02:31.480 align:middle line:84% And I had to write a poem for each of the 16 pages, 00:02:31.480 --> 00:02:35.350 align:middle line:84% and I can only use the words on those, what I call, 00:02:35.350 --> 00:02:36.910 align:middle line:90% text quilts. 00:02:36.910 --> 00:02:39.040 align:middle line:90% I couldn't even add a pronoun. 00:02:39.040 --> 00:02:42.310 align:middle line:90% Definitely no articles. 00:02:42.310 --> 00:02:46.840 align:middle line:84% And you know what I found were very different voices. 00:02:46.840 --> 00:02:51.640 align:middle line:84% It kind of came through, and I don't know who they are. 00:02:51.640 --> 00:02:54.470 align:middle line:90% But they became like teachers. 00:02:54.470 --> 00:02:55.880 align:middle line:90% So I'll read three of those. 00:02:55.880 --> 00:03:01.550 align:middle line:90% 00:03:01.550 --> 00:03:05.960 align:middle line:84% Exhausted from the violent order of hours, 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:10.820 align:middle line:84% we took shelter in the country of Cusa, a deserted village 00:03:10.820 --> 00:03:14.870 align:middle line:90% with thin deer, flint roads. 00:03:14.870 --> 00:03:20.240 align:middle line:84% We learned to navigate painted margins, fence the fields, 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:26.060 align:middle line:84% plant stones, make of nothing, bred enough. 00:03:26.060 --> 00:03:30.580 align:middle line:84% Did not resist the music of the swamp, old dances raising 00:03:30.580 --> 00:03:34.390 align:middle line:84% the river's black dress, her perfumed cane, 00:03:34.390 --> 00:03:36.760 align:middle line:90% rum skinned fruit. 00:03:36.760 --> 00:03:41.770 align:middle line:84% In the mouth of March, we were swimming in flowers 00:03:41.770 --> 00:03:47.710 align:middle line:84% and lived in this manner without men or wars 00:03:47.710 --> 00:03:49.555 align:middle line:90% on the left banks of the Earth. 00:03:49.555 --> 00:03:56.960 align:middle line:90% 00:03:56.960 --> 00:04:01.940 align:middle line:84% People used to say to expel the honeyed thorn of that cancer, 00:04:01.940 --> 00:04:05.750 align:middle line:84% one must keep a lung of briars, the grace 00:04:05.750 --> 00:04:09.950 align:middle line:84% to last through anxious rain and purpose, the burn 00:04:09.950 --> 00:04:13.940 align:middle line:84% of the panther's mouth that those weary of fighting 00:04:13.940 --> 00:04:18.010 align:middle line:84% have never seen the captives of God. 00:04:18.010 --> 00:04:20.470 align:middle line:84% After the disease was brought to the nation, 00:04:20.470 --> 00:04:24.370 align:middle line:84% we folded our fish nets, deer skins, hands. 00:04:24.370 --> 00:04:28.340 align:middle line:84% Our flutes and arrows rent in pieces. 00:04:28.340 --> 00:04:33.080 align:middle line:84% Long governed by destruction, we were a sovereign madness, 00:04:33.080 --> 00:04:35.990 align:middle line:84% piloting knights, imperial bowels, 00:04:35.990 --> 00:04:40.540 align:middle line:84% scraping stiff canoes through the streets. 00:04:40.540 --> 00:04:45.490 align:middle line:84% We had little idea of the rushing effect, the scald 00:04:45.490 --> 00:04:49.720 align:middle line:84% of rattlesnake weather, how ash would thread 00:04:49.720 --> 00:04:53.370 align:middle line:90% raw wounds into blankets. 00:04:53.370 --> 00:04:56.700 align:middle line:84% People used to say a great way off 00:04:56.700 --> 00:05:01.030 align:middle line:84% is the dominion of the North, a vast beach 00:05:01.030 --> 00:05:05.800 align:middle line:84% painted black where people live in bolts of trees, 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:10.590 align:middle line:84% stealing prickly trinkets of lightning. 00:05:10.590 --> 00:05:15.090 align:middle line:84% Should their world be a patient country as the seed 00:05:15.090 --> 00:05:17.310 align:middle line:90% to its shawl of crimson horses? 00:05:17.310 --> 00:05:25.840 align:middle line:90% 00:05:25.840 --> 00:05:28.540 align:middle line:84% I don't know why I chose three with wars in them, but I did. 00:05:28.540 --> 00:05:31.770 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:31.770 --> 00:05:36.890 align:middle line:84% The war appeared to be coming to an end. 00:05:36.890 --> 00:05:41.050 align:middle line:84% The no name people not yet taken left their crops 00:05:41.050 --> 00:05:43.750 align:middle line:90% for summer's drought. 00:05:43.750 --> 00:05:47.530 align:middle line:84% A bow in the mouth, they passed unseen. 00:05:47.530 --> 00:05:51.040 align:middle line:84% Forded the river for rock trout, crystals, 00:05:51.040 --> 00:05:55.340 align:middle line:84% the eastward hillside dense with vines. 00:05:55.340 --> 00:05:58.520 align:middle line:84% Eyeing the sunrise, they traveled for days, 00:05:58.520 --> 00:06:05.300 align:middle line:84% and lost in the reeds, heard everything: earthworms, 00:06:05.300 --> 00:06:12.410 align:middle line:84% thunder, yesterday's moss, the patient banks of mourning.