--read a few poems that are from my previous book,
The Problem of the Many.
I'm also going to read poems from my new book, Chariot.
These are the hardcovers.
The first of the poems that I'm going
to read from The Problem of the Many
reflects a little bit about--
around the precariousness of times like these.
And I-- it was written up in response
to some thinking about the condition of insomnia
that was done by the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.
And he identifies insomnia, or considers insomnia,
as a form of vigilance and wakefulness.
I mean, obviously, it's wakefulness,
but it's also vigilance-- keeping your eye open,
waiting for what might happen next.
"Insomnia."
"As darkness dissolves the forms of things,
they appear to merge into the one unbroken substance
they have been all along.
No single component of which can be said to exist by necessity.
But with such continuous relation
to all other components, it's as if nothing can be lost
without change to everything.
Nothing can be lost without losing everything."