WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.880 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.880 --> 00:00:05.460 align:middle line:84% If you could, follow along on the page with this next one. 00:00:05.460 --> 00:00:07.170 align:middle line:84% Occasionally, I'll ask you if you've 00:00:07.170 --> 00:00:09.515 align:middle line:90% got the book to read along. 00:00:09.515 --> 00:00:11.640 align:middle line:84% You don't have to do it with every poem, of course, 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:13.020 align:middle line:90% if you don't want to. 00:00:13.020 --> 00:00:15.390 align:middle line:84% This one, I would sort of prefer if you would, 00:00:15.390 --> 00:00:17.190 align:middle line:90% if you've got the handout. 00:00:17.190 --> 00:00:19.830 align:middle line:90% 00:00:19.830 --> 00:00:22.050 align:middle line:90% This poem is about-- 00:00:22.050 --> 00:00:24.960 align:middle line:84% as you can see from the title, It's called "The Closet," 00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:27.210 align:middle line:84% and then it has a little subtitle 00:00:27.210 --> 00:00:30.150 align:middle line:84% to set the scene, "After My Mother's Death." 00:00:30.150 --> 00:00:37.200 align:middle line:84% The speaker is a six-year-old boy whose mother has just died. 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:43.780 align:middle line:84% And he comes upon her newly emptied closet. 00:00:43.780 --> 00:00:49.380 align:middle line:90% And the poem is about this. 00:00:49.380 --> 00:00:54.810 align:middle line:84% And in the course of it, you discover, 00:00:54.810 --> 00:00:59.430 align:middle line:84% or he re-experiences in some way, the death of the mother. 00:00:59.430 --> 00:01:01.200 align:middle line:90% The mother died in childbirth. 00:01:01.200 --> 00:01:04.881 align:middle line:90% And the child died also. 00:01:04.881 --> 00:01:09.300 align:middle line:84% It's called "The Closet, After My Mother's Death." 00:01:09.300 --> 00:01:14.490 align:middle line:84% Here, not long enough after the hospital happened. 00:01:14.490 --> 00:01:17.040 align:middle line:84% Here, not long enough after the hospital 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:22.890 align:middle line:84% happened, I find her closet lying empty and stop my play, 00:01:22.890 --> 00:01:29.880 align:middle line:84% and go in, and crane up at three black wire hangers, which 00:01:29.880 --> 00:01:33.390 align:middle line:90% quiver, airy, released. 00:01:33.390 --> 00:01:36.090 align:middle line:84% They appear to a joy, they appear 00:01:36.090 --> 00:01:40.740 align:middle line:84% to enjoy their new distance, cognizance 00:01:40.740 --> 00:01:44.760 align:middle line:84% born of the absence of anything else. 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:50.520 align:middle line:84% The closet has been cleaned out, full flush as surgeries, 00:01:50.520 --> 00:01:52.920 align:middle line:90% where the hangers could be. 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:57.480 align:middle line:84% Amiable scalpels, though they just as well 00:01:57.480 --> 00:02:01.380 align:middle line:84% would be themselves in basements, 00:02:01.380 --> 00:02:05.010 align:middle line:90% glovelessly scraping uteri. 00:02:05.010 --> 00:02:09.840 align:middle line:84% But here, pure, transfigured heavenward-- 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:19.140 align:middle line:84% there birds whose wingspans expand by excluding me. 00:02:19.140 --> 00:02:24.510 align:middle line:90% Their range is enlarged by loss. 00:02:24.510 --> 00:02:25.890 align:middle line:90% They'd leave buzzards. 00:02:25.890 --> 00:02:30.240 align:middle line:84% They'd leave buzzards measly as moths. 00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:32.550 align:middle line:90% And the hat shelf-- 00:02:32.550 --> 00:02:36.090 align:middle line:84% the hat shelf is even higher as the sky 00:02:36.090 --> 00:02:39.570 align:middle line:84% over a prairie, an undoubted desert 00:02:39.570 --> 00:02:45.300 align:middle line:84% where nothing can swoop sudden, crumple in secret. 00:02:45.300 --> 00:02:52.050 align:middle line:84% I've fled, had ambush, tag, age six, must I face this? 00:02:52.050 --> 00:02:57.030 align:middle line:84% Can I have my hide and seek hole back now please? 00:02:57.030 --> 00:02:59.940 align:middle line:84% Can I have my hide and seek hole back now please? 00:02:59.940 --> 00:03:06.120 align:middle line:84% The clothes, the thicket of shoes, where is it? 00:03:06.120 --> 00:03:11.910 align:middle line:84% Only, only the hangers are at home here. 00:03:11.910 --> 00:03:16.920 align:middle line:84% Come heir to this rare element, fluent, 00:03:16.920 --> 00:03:20.100 align:middle line:90% their skeletal gray sings. 00:03:20.100 --> 00:03:25.320 align:middle line:84% Their skeletal gray sings of the ease with which they let 00:03:25.320 --> 00:03:31.980 align:middle line:84% go the dress slip, house coat, or blouse so absolvingly. 00:03:31.980 --> 00:03:36.570 align:middle line:90% Free they fly, trim triangular. 00:03:36.570 --> 00:03:41.410 align:middle line:84% Augurs leapt ahead from some geometric god who soars, 00:03:41.410 --> 00:03:44.820 align:middle line:90% stripped of flesh, it is said. 00:03:44.820 --> 00:03:50.400 align:middle line:84% Catnip to a brat, placated by model airplane 00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:54.900 align:middle line:84% kits kids my size lack motor skills for. 00:03:54.900 --> 00:04:00.120 align:middle line:84% So I wind up glue-scabbed, pawing goo-goo fingernails, 00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:07.020 align:middle line:84% glaze skins, fun to peer in as Frost-i-glass doors. 00:04:07.020 --> 00:04:12.180 align:middle line:84% But the closet has no windows, opaque or sheer. 00:04:12.180 --> 00:04:19.140 align:middle line:84% I must shut my eyes, shrink within to peep into this wall. 00:04:19.140 --> 00:04:23.790 align:middle line:84% Soliciting sleep, I'll dream, mother spilled 00:04:23.790 --> 00:04:28.140 align:middle line:84% and cold, unpillowed, the operating table 00:04:28.140 --> 00:04:31.230 align:middle line:90% cracked to goad delivery. 00:04:31.230 --> 00:04:36.090 align:middle line:84% Its stirrups slack, its forceps closed. 00:04:36.090 --> 00:04:42.180 align:middle line:84% By it, I'll see mobs of obstetrical personnel 00:04:42.180 --> 00:04:48.870 align:middle line:84% kneel, proud, congratulatory, cooing, and oohing, 00:04:48.870 --> 00:04:54.780 align:middle line:84% and hold the dead infant up to the dead woman's face, 00:04:54.780 --> 00:04:57.340 align:middle line:90% as if for approval. 00:04:57.340 --> 00:05:04.830 align:middle line:84% The prompted beholding, tears, a zoom-shot kiss, 00:05:04.830 --> 00:05:09.660 align:middle line:84% white-masked doctors and nurses, patting each other 00:05:09.660 --> 00:05:13.080 align:middle line:84% on the back, which is how in the Old West, 00:05:13.080 --> 00:05:20.850 align:middle line:84% a hangman, if he was good, could gauge the heft of his intended. 00:05:20.850 --> 00:05:24.360 align:middle line:90% Awake, the hangers are sharper. 00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:28.890 align:middle line:84% Knife and slice, I jump gropelessly to catch them, 00:05:28.890 --> 00:05:32.940 align:middle line:84% to twist them clear, misshape them whole, 00:05:32.940 --> 00:05:39.570 align:middle line:84% sail them across the small airspace of the closet. 00:05:39.570 --> 00:05:45.030 align:middle line:84% I shall find room enough here by excluding myself. 00:05:45.030 --> 00:05:49.100 align:middle line:90% By excluding myself, I'll grow.