WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.220 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.220 --> 00:00:06.150 align:middle line:90% Welcome. 00:00:06.150 --> 00:00:07.880 align:middle line:84% I'm glad you came out on this holiday 00:00:07.880 --> 00:00:11.420 align:middle line:84% night, and sorry for the inconvenience 00:00:11.420 --> 00:00:14.563 align:middle line:84% with scheduling here in the building. 00:00:14.563 --> 00:00:15.980 align:middle line:84% Before tonight's reading, I'd like 00:00:15.980 --> 00:00:17.390 align:middle line:84% to make a couple of announcements 00:00:17.390 --> 00:00:19.940 align:middle line:90% of upcoming events of interest. 00:00:19.940 --> 00:00:23.810 align:middle line:84% One in particular, I think many of about Arts Reach, which 00:00:23.810 --> 00:00:28.160 align:middle line:84% is a program here in Tucson that teaches creative writing 00:00:28.160 --> 00:00:30.260 align:middle line:90% to Native American children. 00:00:30.260 --> 00:00:32.119 align:middle line:84% There's going to be a reading by some 00:00:32.119 --> 00:00:37.370 align:middle line:84% of the kids in that program this Sunday at 2 o'clock, 00:00:37.370 --> 00:00:38.780 align:middle line:90% at the Poetry Center. 00:00:38.780 --> 00:00:42.350 align:middle line:84% So that should be a lot of fun, and an opportunity 00:00:42.350 --> 00:00:46.790 align:middle line:84% to give some support to some young American Indian poets. 00:00:46.790 --> 00:00:49.010 align:middle line:84% So I hope that some of you will come 00:00:49.010 --> 00:00:52.610 align:middle line:84% by for that, that's 2 o'clock Sunday at the Poetry Center. 00:00:52.610 --> 00:00:56.390 align:middle line:84% Friday this week, there's a reading 00:00:56.390 --> 00:00:59.600 align:middle line:84% in the Chax Press Here and Now series, 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:03.260 align:middle line:90% by playwright Migdalia Cruz. 00:01:03.260 --> 00:01:07.580 align:middle line:84% And next Wednesday here, will be Denise Levertov. 00:01:07.580 --> 00:01:11.050 align:middle line:90% 00:01:11.050 --> 00:01:14.530 align:middle line:84% Tonight we're delighted to welcome Judith Barrington. 00:01:14.530 --> 00:01:16.600 align:middle line:84% She was born in Brighton, England 00:01:16.600 --> 00:01:21.130 align:middle line:84% and has lived in Portland, Oregon since 1976. 00:01:21.130 --> 00:01:26.560 align:middle line:84% She's founded there The Flight of the Mind, a summer writing 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:29.560 align:middle line:84% workshop which is held in the Oregon Cascades. 00:01:29.560 --> 00:01:32.080 align:middle line:84% I think she's left some literature about that writing 00:01:32.080 --> 00:01:34.300 align:middle line:84% conference, if you're interested in it. 00:01:34.300 --> 00:01:37.840 align:middle line:84% It's a conference for women, that's held every summer. 00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:42.250 align:middle line:84% And she's also in the process of founding a writing retreat 00:01:42.250 --> 00:01:45.820 align:middle line:84% for women called Soapstone, which sounds like it's going 00:01:45.820 --> 00:01:47.740 align:middle line:90% to be absolutely exquisite. 00:01:47.740 --> 00:01:52.570 align:middle line:84% Some very rustic little cabins on a piece of very wild land, 00:01:52.570 --> 00:01:54.020 align:middle line:90% in that part of the country. 00:01:54.020 --> 00:01:57.100 align:middle line:84% And I think they're based on that too. 00:01:57.100 --> 00:02:00.220 align:middle line:84% And if you have an interest in supporting her in that effort, 00:02:00.220 --> 00:02:03.880 align:middle line:84% I know she needs help at this point in the young life 00:02:03.880 --> 00:02:06.400 align:middle line:90% of that operation. 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:08.919 align:middle line:84% Judith has published two lyrical books 00:02:08.919 --> 00:02:12.730 align:middle line:84% of poetry, which also includes some prose 00:02:12.730 --> 00:02:15.820 align:middle line:84% memoirs, both of which are published by Eighth Mountain 00:02:15.820 --> 00:02:17.170 align:middle line:90% Press. 00:02:17.170 --> 00:02:21.160 align:middle line:84% The first in 1985, Trying to Be an Honest Woman. 00:02:21.160 --> 00:02:25.030 align:middle line:84% And in 1989, History and Geography. 00:02:25.030 --> 00:02:28.630 align:middle line:84% She's also edited the anthology, An Intimate Wilderness: 00:02:28.630 --> 00:02:31.660 align:middle line:84% Lesbian Writers on Sexuality, which 00:02:31.660 --> 00:02:35.530 align:middle line:84% makes an important contribution to our understanding 00:02:35.530 --> 00:02:39.460 align:middle line:84% of recent lesbian writing as a literary movement, 00:02:39.460 --> 00:02:43.840 align:middle line:84% as Judith says, with its own themes and preoccupations, 00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:48.130 align:middle line:84% and with its own emerging influences on form 00:02:48.130 --> 00:02:48.850 align:middle line:90% and language. 00:02:48.850 --> 00:02:51.370 align:middle line:90% 00:02:51.370 --> 00:02:54.460 align:middle line:84% She's beginning to sound like a very busy woman, isn't she? 00:02:54.460 --> 00:02:58.360 align:middle line:84% She's also done translations of the Uruguayan Poet, Cristina 00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:00.220 align:middle line:84% Rossi, some of which have appeared 00:03:00.220 --> 00:03:02.800 align:middle line:90% in Translation Magazine. 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:05.770 align:middle line:84% While she's been here visiting some classes on campus, 00:03:05.770 --> 00:03:09.100 align:middle line:84% we've been talking about the impossibility for her, 00:03:09.100 --> 00:03:11.530 align:middle line:84% of separating her literary interests 00:03:11.530 --> 00:03:13.750 align:middle line:90% from political interests. 00:03:13.750 --> 00:03:16.510 align:middle line:84% And that's been particularly true in relation 00:03:16.510 --> 00:03:20.350 align:middle line:84% to the issue of gay rights, where a particularly important 00:03:20.350 --> 00:03:24.520 align:middle line:84% battle has recently been fought and won against Ballot 9. 00:03:24.520 --> 00:03:28.820 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:28.820 --> 00:03:31.760 align:middle line:84% Well, don't forget there will be other battles. 00:03:31.760 --> 00:03:34.160 align:middle line:84% That interest and commitment to both the 00:03:34.160 --> 00:03:38.270 align:middle line:84% literary and political, is finding its form 00:03:38.270 --> 00:03:40.490 align:middle line:84% most recently in a collaborative book 00:03:40.490 --> 00:03:43.190 align:middle line:84% that she's working on with Ursula Le Guin. 00:03:43.190 --> 00:03:46.280 align:middle line:84% Which is about homophobia, as she describes it, 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:50.180 align:middle line:84% for well-intentioned liberal heterosexuals. 00:03:50.180 --> 00:03:51.990 align:middle line:84% We're delighted she's here with us tonight. 00:03:51.990 --> 00:03:53.960 align:middle line:84% Please welcome Judith Barrington. 00:03:53.960 --> 00:04:05.950 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:05.950 --> 00:04:07.270 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Alison. 00:04:07.270 --> 00:04:10.870 align:middle line:84% And before I begin, I'd like to thank 00:04:10.870 --> 00:04:12.730 align:middle line:84% Alison Deming and the Poetry Center 00:04:12.730 --> 00:04:16.990 align:middle line:84% for bringing me here, for my first visit to Tucson, which 00:04:16.990 --> 00:04:19.000 align:middle line:90% is brief, but enjoyable. 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:22.630 align:middle line:84% And in cooperation with Carla Elling 00:04:22.630 --> 00:04:27.890 align:middle line:84% at Arizona State, where I'm going to go later in the week. 00:04:27.890 --> 00:04:32.200 align:middle line:84% So thank you for all the work to do that. 00:04:32.200 --> 00:04:34.820 align:middle line:90% I'm going to start by reading-- 00:04:34.820 --> 00:04:35.650 align:middle line:90% can you hear me? 00:04:35.650 --> 00:04:37.240 align:middle line:90% Is the-- good, OK. 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:38.920 align:middle line:90% It's a great sound system. 00:04:38.920 --> 00:04:41.920 align:middle line:84% Usually I'm used to hearing a lot of echo and click, 00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:43.990 align:middle line:84% and buzz and all of that, but it just-- 00:04:43.990 --> 00:04:46.630 align:middle line:90% I don't even know it's working. 00:04:46.630 --> 00:04:50.150 align:middle line:84% I'm going to start with a poem from History and Geography, 00:04:50.150 --> 00:04:53.740 align:middle line:84% which is a poem about the experience of moving 00:04:53.740 --> 00:04:58.090 align:middle line:84% from England to the United States, which I did in 1976. 00:04:58.090 --> 00:05:01.900 align:middle line:84% People always ask me at parties, well, why did you move here? 00:05:01.900 --> 00:05:04.840 align:middle line:84% As if it's a question that has a one sentence, 00:05:04.840 --> 00:05:08.470 align:middle line:84% and I'm still trying to figure it out actually. 00:05:08.470 --> 00:05:11.050 align:middle line:84% It wasn't something that was an easy or even 00:05:11.050 --> 00:05:13.270 align:middle line:84% a conscious decision, but this poem 00:05:13.270 --> 00:05:17.690 align:middle line:84% does address that just a little bit. 00:05:17.690 --> 00:05:21.280 align:middle line:84% The first part of the poem uses as a metaphor, the London 00:05:21.280 --> 00:05:23.620 align:middle line:84% underground train system, so it has the name 00:05:23.620 --> 00:05:24.820 align:middle line:90% of a couple of the lines. 00:05:24.820 --> 00:05:27.910 align:middle line:84% If you've been in London, you'll remember 00:05:27.910 --> 00:05:31.180 align:middle line:84% that the maps have all these different colored lines 00:05:31.180 --> 00:05:34.060 align:middle line:84% to indicate what line of the train you are on. 00:05:34.060 --> 00:05:36.910 align:middle line:84% And also that people in London, refer to the underground trains 00:05:36.910 --> 00:05:37.480 align:middle line:90% as the tube. 00:05:37.480 --> 00:05:41.220 align:middle line:90% 00:05:41.220 --> 00:05:43.530 align:middle line:90% "Countries." 00:05:43.530 --> 00:05:46.320 align:middle line:84% "Changing countries midlife is a bit 00:05:46.320 --> 00:05:49.380 align:middle line:90% like changing trains midtown. 00:05:49.380 --> 00:05:53.760 align:middle line:84% You step off the Bakerloo train, that muddy brown path 00:05:53.760 --> 00:05:58.800 align:middle line:84% on the map where suspicious eyes peer over newspapers. 00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:00.660 align:middle line:90% Why are you leaving? 00:06:00.660 --> 00:06:02.730 align:middle line:90% Where are you going? 00:06:02.730 --> 00:06:04.890 align:middle line:84% And board the District and Circle, 00:06:04.890 --> 00:06:08.880 align:middle line:84% whose green and yellow lines drag memories of springtime 00:06:08.880 --> 00:06:15.220 align:middle line:84% across each tube plan, above each vicious sliding door. 00:06:15.220 --> 00:06:19.480 align:middle line:84% Stand clear of the doors, and they hiss with gusto 00:06:19.480 --> 00:06:21.850 align:middle line:84% as you stumble towards a new life. 00:06:21.850 --> 00:06:25.630 align:middle line:84% Hoping they will not catch you, and squeeze you 00:06:25.630 --> 00:06:27.310 align:middle line:90% in their impersonal grip. 00:06:27.310 --> 00:06:30.340 align:middle line:84% And the whole train watch as you cry out, 00:06:30.340 --> 00:06:34.730 align:middle line:84% stuck with one foot in each world. 00:06:34.730 --> 00:06:39.500 align:middle line:84% To change countries midlife is to change meal times, tax 00:06:39.500 --> 00:06:43.070 align:middle line:90% forms, the shape of mailboxes. 00:06:43.070 --> 00:06:47.210 align:middle line:84% And to discover that green and white chalk hills falling down 00:06:47.210 --> 00:06:51.700 align:middle line:84% to the gray sea, are etched into your heart. 00:06:51.700 --> 00:06:56.530 align:middle line:84% Dutiful at first, you admire forests of Douglas fir, 00:06:56.530 --> 00:06:59.380 align:middle line:84% but they roll away on such a grand scale, 00:06:59.380 --> 00:07:03.430 align:middle line:84% that you long for an unassuming pigsty or a shearing 00:07:03.430 --> 00:07:07.150 align:middle line:84% shed between narrow pathways of mud. 00:07:07.150 --> 00:07:09.970 align:middle line:84% You miss leaning on gates to discuss them 00:07:09.970 --> 00:07:15.160 align:middle line:84% with strangers, and the private lives of back gardens. 00:07:15.160 --> 00:07:18.940 align:middle line:84% You miss a particular smell of salt and chalk, 00:07:18.940 --> 00:07:21.910 align:middle line:84% carried by massive winds from the channel. 00:07:21.910 --> 00:07:24.610 align:middle line:84% And the almost white cliffs, turning blunt 00:07:24.610 --> 00:07:26.710 align:middle line:90% faces towards France. 00:07:26.710 --> 00:07:29.590 align:middle line:84% Their toupees of bright green turf, 00:07:29.590 --> 00:07:33.820 align:middle line:84% threatening to lift and sail away. 00:07:33.820 --> 00:07:37.690 align:middle line:84% You know how to love those soft valleys, in spite 00:07:37.690 --> 00:07:41.050 align:middle line:84% of the miseries you know they hide, where you simply 00:07:41.050 --> 00:07:43.360 align:middle line:90% happened to be born. 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:45.520 align:middle line:84% There your heart knows the difference 00:07:45.520 --> 00:07:48.840 align:middle line:84% between a politician and an oak tree, 00:07:48.840 --> 00:07:53.460 align:middle line:84% but here when your heart begins to stir in the arroyos 00:07:53.460 --> 00:07:57.930 align:middle line:84% and mesas of O'Keeffe, giant mouth of petal 00:07:57.930 --> 00:07:59.790 align:middle line:90% hinting at stamen. 00:07:59.790 --> 00:08:03.270 align:middle line:84% Sandstone canyon and dwelling, words 00:08:03.270 --> 00:08:08.070 align:middle line:84% carved out of rock and insects rolling their Rs. 00:08:08.070 --> 00:08:12.870 align:middle line:84% You wonder, can you trust your heart's response? 00:08:12.870 --> 00:08:18.060 align:middle line:84% You adopt this new landscape, this powerful sky. 00:08:18.060 --> 00:08:22.410 align:middle line:84% And is to choose a land also to choose a people?" 00:08:22.410 --> 00:08:30.160 align:middle line:90% 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:32.270 align:middle line:84% I just started to wear glasses recently, 00:08:32.270 --> 00:08:33.728 align:middle line:84% and I can never remember if they're 00:08:33.728 --> 00:08:36.640 align:middle line:90% supposed to be on or off. 00:08:36.640 --> 00:08:39.590 align:middle line:84% I can't see back there, or I can't see up here. 00:08:39.590 --> 00:08:40.610 align:middle line:90% It's one or the other. 00:08:40.610 --> 00:08:43.299 align:middle line:90% 00:08:43.299 --> 00:08:46.960 align:middle line:84% This last January, I went to Florida for the first time. 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:51.120 align:middle line:84% And I was at the Atlantic Center for the Arts 00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:56.410 align:middle line:84% in New Smyrna Beach, which is a wonderful art center where 00:08:56.410 --> 00:09:00.400 align:middle line:84% they do workshops and retreats in all different art forms. 00:09:00.400 --> 00:09:03.640 align:middle line:84% And encourage collaborative work between different kinds 00:09:03.640 --> 00:09:04.840 align:middle line:90% of artists. 00:09:04.840 --> 00:09:08.970 align:middle line:84% And while I was there, there were 00:09:08.970 --> 00:09:12.000 align:middle line:84% a group of composers working there 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:14.237 align:middle line:84% and I was part of a group of poets. 00:09:14.237 --> 00:09:15.820 align:middle line:84% And that was one of the reasons that I 00:09:15.820 --> 00:09:17.250 align:middle line:84% had to go at that particular time, 00:09:17.250 --> 00:09:18.792 align:middle line:84% because I've been doing a lot of work 00:09:18.792 --> 00:09:20.490 align:middle line:84% with musicians in the last few years. 00:09:20.490 --> 00:09:23.550 align:middle line:84% I was fortunate enough to be commissioned 00:09:23.550 --> 00:09:27.420 align:middle line:84% to write the libretto for an oratorio in 1990, 00:09:27.420 --> 00:09:32.100 align:middle line:84% and I've really loved working with composers. 00:09:32.100 --> 00:09:38.880 align:middle line:84% So I was there, and the sort of famous composer in residence 00:09:38.880 --> 00:09:42.210 align:middle line:84% was a man, a Polish man named Zygmunt Krauze. 00:09:42.210 --> 00:09:46.170 align:middle line:84% And one evening the poets were invited 00:09:46.170 --> 00:09:49.950 align:middle line:84% by Amy Clampitt, the poet who was also there 00:09:49.950 --> 00:09:53.520 align:middle line:84% to meet with the composers for the evening in her cottage. 00:09:53.520 --> 00:09:55.950 align:middle line:84% And the composers played us tapes 00:09:55.950 --> 00:09:58.530 align:middle line:84% of some of their work, the compositions. 00:09:58.530 --> 00:10:01.140 align:middle line:90% And afterwards, we all talked. 00:10:01.140 --> 00:10:03.570 align:middle line:84% And this guy, Zygmunt Krauze, I think 00:10:03.570 --> 00:10:05.610 align:middle line:84% in the spirit of playing devil's advocate 00:10:05.610 --> 00:10:09.870 align:middle line:84% or getting some lively debate going, 00:10:09.870 --> 00:10:11.760 align:middle line:84% put out some remarks about poetry 00:10:11.760 --> 00:10:15.510 align:middle line:90% that were somewhat irritating. 00:10:15.510 --> 00:10:18.150 align:middle line:84% One of which was that the reason that poetry 00:10:18.150 --> 00:10:20.610 align:middle line:84% no longer has an audience, which we 00:10:20.610 --> 00:10:24.630 align:middle line:84% are disproving at this moment, is that people 00:10:24.630 --> 00:10:26.820 align:middle line:90% don't know how to read poetry. 00:10:26.820 --> 00:10:29.520 align:middle line:84% He said that when you buy a poetry book, 00:10:29.520 --> 00:10:34.290 align:middle line:84% you have no idea how the poet intended the poem to be heard 00:10:34.290 --> 00:10:35.400 align:middle line:90% or to be read. 00:10:35.400 --> 00:10:39.690 align:middle line:84% Unlike music, which of course, is notated in such a way 00:10:39.690 --> 00:10:41.370 align:middle line:84% that the rhythm is already set up. 00:10:41.370 --> 00:10:43.080 align:middle line:84% And when there is silence, it tells you 00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:45.960 align:middle line:90% how long the silence should be. 00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:47.640 align:middle line:90% He said, this is very confusing. 00:10:47.640 --> 00:10:51.250 align:middle line:84% In poetry, you're just sort of left to do that by yourself. 00:10:51.250 --> 00:10:54.460 align:middle line:84% And he figured that this was a rather bad thing. 00:10:54.460 --> 00:10:57.720 align:middle line:84% So many of us argued for several hours, 00:10:57.720 --> 00:11:00.260 align:middle line:84% and my response was to go back to my room 00:11:00.260 --> 00:11:03.000 align:middle line:84% and write a poem for him, which I gave him the next day. 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:06.690 align:middle line:84% It was done in a good-- well, a good-natured spirit, 00:11:06.690 --> 00:11:09.270 align:middle line:84% but he didn't take it quite that way. 00:11:09.270 --> 00:11:10.710 align:middle line:90% It was a little embarrassing. 00:11:10.710 --> 00:11:13.440 align:middle line:84% He announced to the company at large that night, 00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:15.510 align:middle line:84% that I had written a poem for him. 00:11:15.510 --> 00:11:18.240 align:middle line:84% He said, it's the first time a woman has ever 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:19.830 align:middle line:90% written a poem for me. 00:11:19.830 --> 00:11:21.720 align:middle line:84% He said, I've had many poets write for me, 00:11:21.720 --> 00:11:22.935 align:middle line:90% but never a woman before. 00:11:22.935 --> 00:11:26.160 align:middle line:90% 00:11:26.160 --> 00:11:29.880 align:middle line:84% So the good-natured aspect died a little at that point, 00:11:29.880 --> 00:11:31.680 align:middle line:90% but it was a good-natured poem. 00:11:31.680 --> 00:11:35.160 align:middle line:84% [FROM AUDIENCE] I hope you wrote another one. 00:11:35.160 --> 00:11:37.800 align:middle line:90% No, I will though one day. 00:11:37.800 --> 00:11:39.450 align:middle line:84% Here's my poem for Zygmunt Krauze. 00:11:39.450 --> 00:11:44.410 align:middle line:84% It's called "Instructions to the Reader of Poetry." 00:11:44.410 --> 00:11:47.950 align:middle line:84% "First, rehearse the pure iambic line 00:11:47.950 --> 00:11:51.250 align:middle line:84% that spans this empty page like stepping stones 00:11:51.250 --> 00:11:52.780 align:middle line:90% across the creek. 00:11:52.780 --> 00:11:57.610 align:middle line:84% Study their width apart, their surface, slick with moss. 00:11:57.610 --> 00:12:02.570 align:middle line:84% The wobbly one that wants to pitch you into the melted snow. 00:12:02.570 --> 00:12:06.170 align:middle line:84% Now you have reached a punctuation mark, 00:12:06.170 --> 00:12:08.580 align:middle line:90% observe its single dot. 00:12:08.580 --> 00:12:13.100 align:middle line:84% Let silence fall, and do not ask me how to measure it. 00:12:13.100 --> 00:12:16.790 align:middle line:84% How long to let that snow hang in the air, 00:12:16.790 --> 00:12:20.090 align:middle line:84% or when to begin again, precisely when. 00:12:20.090 --> 00:12:23.180 align:middle line:90% These things, your body knows. 00:12:23.180 --> 00:12:26.690 align:middle line:84% As the body knows exactly when to suck the waiting 00:12:26.690 --> 00:12:30.230 align:middle line:84% air into its lungs, to wrap around the word 00:12:30.230 --> 00:12:33.140 align:middle line:84% that will always find its way out of the mouth. 00:12:33.140 --> 00:12:37.880 align:middle line:84% And into some sentence riding the back of the breath. 00:12:37.880 --> 00:12:42.110 align:middle line:84% Now consider how to pace yourself, without conductor, 00:12:42.110 --> 00:12:44.510 align:middle line:90% metronome or marks. 00:12:44.510 --> 00:12:47.870 align:middle line:84% When pen in hand, I send you on your way. 00:12:47.870 --> 00:12:51.440 align:middle line:84% Give you a little shove from the crumbling bank, hoping you 00:12:51.440 --> 00:12:54.560 align:middle line:90% won't end up in the icy stream. 00:12:54.560 --> 00:12:58.880 align:middle line:84% There's more than one way to step from stone to stone. 00:12:58.880 --> 00:13:03.020 align:middle line:84% Some people leap and some step cautiously, 00:13:03.020 --> 00:13:07.190 align:middle line:84% while others wobble around on one shaky leg, their arms 00:13:07.190 --> 00:13:09.140 align:middle line:90% like a tightrope walker. 00:13:09.140 --> 00:13:11.120 align:middle line:84% Sorry they came, but knowing it's 00:13:11.120 --> 00:13:14.030 align:middle line:84% harder to turn than just to go on. 00:13:14.030 --> 00:13:17.870 align:middle line:84% Yes, that was another period, didn't you see? 00:13:17.870 --> 00:13:20.900 align:middle line:84% By now, you have probably got the hang of it. 00:13:20.900 --> 00:13:24.170 align:middle line:84% And if you haven't, there's nothing more I can do. 00:13:24.170 --> 00:13:27.080 align:middle line:84% Your body knows the music of words 00:13:27.080 --> 00:13:32.000 align:middle line:84% that we shall breathe and speak, a step and a leap 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:33.080 align:middle line:90% and you're there." 00:13:33.080 --> 00:13:39.470 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:13:39.470 --> 00:13:41.030 align:middle line:84% Well, it was good-natured, wasn't it? 00:13:41.030 --> 00:13:43.880 align:middle line:84% I mean, who could be offended at that really? 00:13:43.880 --> 00:13:51.370 align:middle line:90% 00:13:51.370 --> 00:13:56.980 align:middle line:90% This next poem was triggered-- 00:13:56.980 --> 00:13:58.040 align:middle line:90% I always say that word. 00:13:58.040 --> 00:13:59.680 align:middle line:84% And it's about horses, and it's really 00:13:59.680 --> 00:14:03.160 align:middle line:84% a mistake to use that word in the introduction. 00:14:03.160 --> 00:14:10.720 align:middle line:84% It was inspired by an article in our daily newspaper, 00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:12.490 align:middle line:90% The Oregonian. 00:14:12.490 --> 00:14:14.410 align:middle line:84% A rather horrible article, but of course, 00:14:14.410 --> 00:14:15.910 align:middle line:84% if you read the newspaper every day, 00:14:15.910 --> 00:14:17.290 align:middle line:90% it's full of horrible articles. 00:14:17.290 --> 00:14:20.710 align:middle line:84% So sometimes you don't even notice them anymore, 00:14:20.710 --> 00:14:25.300 align:middle line:84% but this one I think because it was about a horse, 00:14:25.300 --> 00:14:28.000 align:middle line:84% it stood out from all the other ones which were probably 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:32.710 align:middle line:84% about violence towards children and other people. 00:14:32.710 --> 00:14:35.230 align:middle line:84% And it stayed with me on my mind, 00:14:35.230 --> 00:14:37.450 align:middle line:90% so I wrote a poem about it. 00:14:37.450 --> 00:14:38.980 align:middle line:84% And I used a piece from the article 00:14:38.980 --> 00:14:43.240 align:middle line:84% as an epigraph, which reads, "Undercover investigators 00:14:43.240 --> 00:14:46.660 align:middle line:84% in Tallahassee, Florida watched two men 00:14:46.660 --> 00:14:50.380 align:middle line:84% break a Thoroughbred's right rear leg with a crowbar 00:14:50.380 --> 00:14:52.510 align:middle line:90% at 10:10 PM." 00:14:52.510 --> 00:14:55.000 align:middle line:84% The men were part of a nationwide ring, 00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:00.460 align:middle line:84% that injured horses to collect on insurance policies. 00:15:00.460 --> 00:15:03.580 align:middle line:84% My poem is in four short parts, and it's called 00:15:03.580 --> 00:15:05.590 align:middle line:90% "Horses and the Human Soul." 00:15:05.590 --> 00:15:08.690 align:middle line:90% 00:15:08.690 --> 00:15:14.900 align:middle line:84% "One, the bay mare lifts her head and listens. 00:15:14.900 --> 00:15:16.550 align:middle line:90% There is darkness. 00:15:16.550 --> 00:15:20.060 align:middle line:84% The new moon barely revealing trunks of scrub oak 00:15:20.060 --> 00:15:22.500 align:middle line:90% beside her meadow. 00:15:22.500 --> 00:15:24.990 align:middle line:90% A car door has slammed. 00:15:24.990 --> 00:15:29.610 align:middle line:84% The mare shifts her hoofs in the wet grass, her belly round 00:15:29.610 --> 00:15:32.460 align:middle line:90% with a sweet spring growth. 00:15:32.460 --> 00:15:34.950 align:middle line:84% Frogs filling a backdrop of sound, 00:15:34.950 --> 00:15:38.820 align:middle line:84% as much part of her world as the post and rail fence, 00:15:38.820 --> 00:15:41.310 align:middle line:84% against which she scratches her rump. 00:15:41.310 --> 00:15:44.670 align:middle line:84% Or the stamp, stamp of Bess and William 00:15:44.670 --> 00:15:49.830 align:middle line:84% in the afternoon, when the sun is up and the flies biting. 00:15:49.830 --> 00:15:53.880 align:middle line:84% A figure steps from the oaks, metal scoop in his hand. 00:15:53.880 --> 00:15:57.150 align:middle line:84% He holds it out, jiggles it till the mare 00:15:57.150 --> 00:16:02.830 align:middle line:84% hears the familiar sound of sifting oats. 00:16:02.830 --> 00:16:07.280 align:middle line:84% Two, they say, when you dream a horse, 00:16:07.280 --> 00:16:10.160 align:middle line:90% that horse is your spirit. 00:16:10.160 --> 00:16:12.950 align:middle line:84% Once the horse I dreamed looked out 00:16:12.950 --> 00:16:16.100 align:middle line:84% of a trailer, pulled by an old Volvo. 00:16:16.100 --> 00:16:19.910 align:middle line:84% The driver, a woman who one day would teach me 00:16:19.910 --> 00:16:22.310 align:middle line:90% something about the spirit. 00:16:22.310 --> 00:16:24.380 align:middle line:90% She drove carefully. 00:16:24.380 --> 00:16:26.570 align:middle line:90% The horse was safe. 00:16:26.570 --> 00:16:29.480 align:middle line:84% When you dream a horse, it had better be safe 00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:33.170 align:middle line:90% or we are all in trouble. 00:16:33.170 --> 00:16:38.270 align:middle line:84% Three, did the investigators find those same scrub oaks? 00:16:38.270 --> 00:16:41.060 align:middle line:84% Did they wear gray suits and carry notebooks, 00:16:41.060 --> 00:16:44.270 align:middle line:84% as they pushed their way through the lush undergrowth? 00:16:44.270 --> 00:16:48.080 align:middle line:84% Did their ballpoint pens carry the name of their company? 00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:51.560 align:middle line:84% Did they smoke as they waited for the sound of the car? 00:16:51.560 --> 00:16:54.320 align:middle line:84% Or did they talk about money or football, 00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:56.570 align:middle line:90% or the girls in the office? 00:16:56.570 --> 00:16:59.810 align:middle line:84% Did it occur to them then as the man led the mare back 00:16:59.810 --> 00:17:02.990 align:middle line:84% to his friend with the crowbar, that they could stop this 00:17:02.990 --> 00:17:04.910 align:middle line:90% before it happened? 00:17:04.910 --> 00:17:07.940 align:middle line:84% Did the new moon shed enough light for them to see, 00:17:07.940 --> 00:17:11.990 align:middle line:84% as the crowbar hit the right rear leg just below the hock? 00:17:11.990 --> 00:17:14.839 align:middle line:84% The blood spurted, the rich brown hair 00:17:14.839 --> 00:17:18.200 align:middle line:84% mixed with splintered bone and the mare screamed. 00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:21.349 align:middle line:84% Or did they have to note which leg it was later, 00:17:21.349 --> 00:17:22.760 align:middle line:90% after the arrest? 00:17:22.760 --> 00:17:25.130 align:middle line:84% And what happened to their souls? 00:17:25.130 --> 00:17:26.780 align:middle line:90% What happened to them? 00:17:26.780 --> 00:17:29.490 align:middle line:90% I want to know that. 00:17:29.490 --> 00:17:34.140 align:middle line:84% Four, the brown mare dreams of Bess and William. 00:17:34.140 --> 00:17:37.350 align:middle line:84% In her dream, they stand nose to withers, 00:17:37.350 --> 00:17:40.170 align:middle line:84% nibbling the itchy spots on his backs. 00:17:40.170 --> 00:17:43.560 align:middle line:84% Swishing tails across hindquarters. 00:17:43.560 --> 00:17:46.020 align:middle line:90% Later, all three of them gallop. 00:17:46.020 --> 00:17:49.230 align:middle line:84% Heads up, and she feels the wind on her chest 00:17:49.230 --> 00:17:52.320 align:middle line:84% and the sky all around her ears, and the scent 00:17:52.320 --> 00:17:54.630 align:middle line:90% of hay in her nostrils. 00:17:54.630 --> 00:17:57.270 align:middle line:84% She bucks as she did when she was a yearling. 00:17:57.270 --> 00:18:00.270 align:middle line:84% And when she barks, her right rear leg 00:18:00.270 --> 00:18:03.840 align:middle line:84% reaches up as if to kick a hole in the sky. 00:18:03.840 --> 00:18:07.710 align:middle line:84% Then in her dream, a man leads her in a trailer. 00:18:07.710 --> 00:18:11.310 align:middle line:84% She has never thought of kicking a hole in a trailer 00:18:11.310 --> 00:18:15.720 align:middle line:84% or in a man, and she does neither in this dream. 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:19.590 align:middle line:84% She knows nothing of the state of human souls. 00:18:19.590 --> 00:18:23.670 align:middle line:84% In her dream, the man drives carefully and she is safe." 00:18:23.670 --> 00:18:33.090 align:middle line:90% 00:18:33.090 --> 00:18:36.437 align:middle line:84% I'm mostly reading from a new manuscript. 00:18:36.437 --> 00:18:38.520 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read a couple of poems out of History 00:18:38.520 --> 00:18:42.987 align:middle line:84% and Geography, but as we who write, 00:18:42.987 --> 00:18:44.820 align:middle line:84% I expect there are a lot of you here who do, 00:18:44.820 --> 00:18:47.490 align:middle line:84% know that it's always more exciting to read what 00:18:47.490 --> 00:18:50.940 align:middle line:90% you've written more recently. 00:18:50.940 --> 00:18:53.333 align:middle line:84% It's kind of dangerous too, because if you've just 00:18:53.333 --> 00:18:54.750 align:middle line:84% written it, then you usually think 00:18:54.750 --> 00:18:57.510 align:middle line:84% it's the best thing you've ever done. 00:18:57.510 --> 00:19:01.470 align:middle line:84% It takes about a week to realize that it isn't, but I'm not 00:19:01.470 --> 00:19:03.870 align:middle line:90% reading anything that new. 00:19:03.870 --> 00:19:07.320 align:middle line:84% I have in this manuscript, a section 00:19:07.320 --> 00:19:12.780 align:middle line:84% which I'm thinking of at the moment as the family album 00:19:12.780 --> 00:19:13.740 align:middle line:90% poems. 00:19:13.740 --> 00:19:18.810 align:middle line:84% And they're poems which are based on real old photographs 00:19:18.810 --> 00:19:21.780 align:middle line:84% that I have stashed away in a drawer, 00:19:21.780 --> 00:19:26.490 align:middle line:84% or some of them actually at the moment are on my refrigerator. 00:19:26.490 --> 00:19:29.190 align:middle line:84% And this one is taken from a real photograph 00:19:29.190 --> 00:19:30.750 align:middle line:90% that I have in my possession. 00:19:30.750 --> 00:19:33.067 align:middle line:90% 00:19:33.067 --> 00:19:35.150 align:middle line:84% And I think I won't tell you about the photograph, 00:19:35.150 --> 00:19:37.970 align:middle line:84% because the poem tells you about the photograph. 00:19:37.970 --> 00:19:44.430 align:middle line:84% "Photograph, Scotland, Circa 1950." 00:19:44.430 --> 00:19:48.780 align:middle line:84% "It's rain[ing] of course, all contrast washed into gray 00:19:48.780 --> 00:19:50.610 align:middle line:90% and more gray. 00:19:50.610 --> 00:19:54.000 align:middle line:84% Grainy and flat, insufficient light 00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:58.320 align:middle line:84% in the lens of the cheap Kodak Brownie. 00:19:58.320 --> 00:20:01.740 align:middle line:84% I stand small in huge wellingtons. 00:20:01.740 --> 00:20:04.170 align:middle line:84% For once my mother leans into me, 00:20:04.170 --> 00:20:07.080 align:middle line:84% as if to encircle my six-year-old body 00:20:07.080 --> 00:20:08.670 align:middle line:90% with her bulk. 00:20:08.670 --> 00:20:12.060 align:middle line:84% Both our raincoats are like armor. 00:20:12.060 --> 00:20:15.240 align:middle line:84% Somewhere inside the stiff gabardine, 00:20:15.240 --> 00:20:17.610 align:middle line:90% behind buckles and belts. 00:20:17.610 --> 00:20:21.660 align:middle line:84% Under layers of wool and stretchy hidden things, 00:20:21.660 --> 00:20:25.380 align:middle line:84% our skins' aroma of soap and longing 00:20:25.380 --> 00:20:29.280 align:middle line:84% yields to the rubbery smell of mackintosh. 00:20:29.280 --> 00:20:33.330 align:middle line:84% Our skins pretend they are strangers. 00:20:33.330 --> 00:20:35.790 align:middle line:84% Surely it wasn't always like this, 00:20:35.790 --> 00:20:38.760 align:middle line:84% though I have no memory of being held. 00:20:38.760 --> 00:20:44.600 align:middle line:84% No umbilical trace, no aftertaste of that sudden milk. 00:20:44.600 --> 00:20:48.200 align:middle line:84% How did my cheek learn to forget the particular planes 00:20:48.200 --> 00:20:49.970 align:middle line:90% of that breast? 00:20:49.970 --> 00:20:53.240 align:middle line:84% And what else of love and the body was forgotten? 00:20:53.240 --> 00:20:57.200 align:middle line:84% Even by that sixth year on a dock in Scotland, 00:20:57.200 --> 00:21:01.760 align:middle line:84% my mother sitting on a bollard, rope trailing into the mist. 00:21:01.760 --> 00:21:06.215 align:middle line:84% Insufficient light on my upturned hopeful face." 00:21:06.215 --> 00:21:17.110 align:middle line:90% 00:21:17.110 --> 00:21:20.740 align:middle line:84% This next poem I wrote, I was at the beach in Oregon 00:21:20.740 --> 00:21:21.430 align:middle line:90% at the coast. 00:21:21.430 --> 00:21:24.220 align:middle line:84% And it was at a time of year when there 00:21:24.220 --> 00:21:26.420 align:middle line:90% are millions of spider webs. 00:21:26.420 --> 00:21:29.800 align:middle line:84% I forget why that happens, but it seems like that everywhere 00:21:29.800 --> 00:21:31.780 align:middle line:90% there are these spider webs. 00:21:31.780 --> 00:21:36.540 align:middle line:84% And I wrote it during the Gulf War. 00:21:36.540 --> 00:21:39.630 align:middle line:84% And while I was writing it and immediately afterwards, 00:21:39.630 --> 00:21:43.230 align:middle line:84% I thought I had written a poem about spiders. 00:21:43.230 --> 00:21:46.770 align:middle line:84% And then the first time I read it aloud, I 00:21:46.770 --> 00:21:50.070 align:middle line:84% realized that perhaps it was a poem about the Gulf War. 00:21:50.070 --> 00:21:52.050 align:middle line:84% Even though it wasn't what I thought 00:21:52.050 --> 00:21:53.880 align:middle line:90% I was doing at the time. 00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:56.730 align:middle line:84% What it really is, is a poem about attitudes. 00:21:56.730 --> 00:22:00.840 align:middle line:84% And it's in particular, a poem about four different attitudes 00:22:00.840 --> 00:22:03.960 align:middle line:84% that people have to getting rid of things that are in their way 00:22:03.960 --> 00:22:06.240 align:middle line:90% or are inconvenient. 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:08.040 align:middle line:84% And it did seem to me that there was 00:22:08.040 --> 00:22:10.050 align:middle line:84% a lot of my anger about the Gulf War 00:22:10.050 --> 00:22:12.760 align:middle line:90% that was getting into this poem. 00:22:12.760 --> 00:22:17.040 align:middle line:84% So I acknowledged it with the subtitle, "Four Reasons 00:22:17.040 --> 00:22:20.940 align:middle line:84% for Destroying A Spider's Web: A Meditation 00:22:20.940 --> 00:22:23.750 align:middle line:90% During the Gulf War." 00:22:23.750 --> 00:22:27.890 align:middle line:90% One, it is in your way. 00:22:27.890 --> 00:22:31.160 align:middle line:84% Strung across a doorway, or between the forest 00:22:31.160 --> 00:22:33.860 align:middle line:90% walls flanking your trail. 00:22:33.860 --> 00:22:39.320 align:middle line:84% It floats like a mantra, across the steps down from your deck. 00:22:39.320 --> 00:22:43.700 align:middle line:84% And you cannot duck under, or walk around the other way, 00:22:43.700 --> 00:22:45.470 align:middle line:90% you've tried. 00:22:45.470 --> 00:22:49.880 align:middle line:84% There is no secret password at which, when you utter it, 00:22:49.880 --> 00:22:54.530 align:middle line:84% one filament will let go and the whole web swing intact, 00:22:54.530 --> 00:22:58.870 align:middle line:90% closing silently behind you. 00:22:58.870 --> 00:23:02.810 align:middle line:90% Two, you don't like spiders. 00:23:02.810 --> 00:23:05.420 align:middle line:84% It's not a violent dislike, just the kind 00:23:05.420 --> 00:23:09.500 align:middle line:84% that makes you shudder when you feel the web caress your face. 00:23:09.500 --> 00:23:10.940 align:middle line:90% Where is the spider? 00:23:10.940 --> 00:23:14.150 align:middle line:84% You wonder as your smallest hairs prick up. 00:23:14.150 --> 00:23:18.320 align:middle line:84% And somewhere in your brain, a picture of that arachnoid body 00:23:18.320 --> 00:23:20.990 align:middle line:84% dropping inside your shirt, opens 00:23:20.990 --> 00:23:25.810 align:middle line:84% like the iris of the camera's eye, gone before the thought. 00:23:25.810 --> 00:23:29.920 align:middle line:84% You try to be careful as you break the web at one corner, 00:23:29.920 --> 00:23:34.770 align:middle line:84% and its tenant falls away glaring. 00:23:34.770 --> 00:23:39.210 align:middle line:84% Three, spiders belong in the wild 00:23:39.210 --> 00:23:41.790 align:middle line:90% and yours is human territory. 00:23:41.790 --> 00:23:44.670 align:middle line:84% Sterile, cleansed of everything that 00:23:44.670 --> 00:23:47.190 align:middle line:90% grows outside your control. 00:23:47.190 --> 00:23:50.760 align:middle line:84% You scrub lichen and moss from bathroom tiles, 00:23:50.760 --> 00:23:53.730 align:middle line:84% smother the prolific Earth with concrete 00:23:53.730 --> 00:23:58.850 align:middle line:84% and watch out for those beasts that swim through the plumbing. 00:23:58.850 --> 00:24:00.800 align:middle line:84% Somewhere in your immaculate brain, 00:24:00.800 --> 00:24:04.130 align:middle line:84% you know the spider's web is a symbol. 00:24:04.130 --> 00:24:07.280 align:middle line:84% Not the great grandmother spread across the sky, 00:24:07.280 --> 00:24:10.700 align:middle line:84% but wayward nature getting the better of you. 00:24:10.700 --> 00:24:15.830 align:middle line:84% You keep a special broom for the ones slung, gaudy with dew 00:24:15.830 --> 00:24:20.260 align:middle line:90% between your sculptured shrubs. 00:24:20.260 --> 00:24:24.460 align:middle line:84% Four, killing things gives you a fix. 00:24:24.460 --> 00:24:28.300 align:middle line:84% So you tear out the web one wild grab of your hand, 00:24:28.300 --> 00:24:31.660 align:middle line:84% and watch the small body plop down. 00:24:31.660 --> 00:24:34.420 align:middle line:84% When it's scuttles away, one step, 00:24:34.420 --> 00:24:38.620 align:middle line:84% one foot grinding it to pulp and you smile. 00:24:38.620 --> 00:24:44.260 align:middle line:84% Something in your brain gives a little, eases up. 00:24:44.260 --> 00:24:47.140 align:middle line:84% Sometimes you speak to the body, flattened 00:24:47.140 --> 00:24:49.640 align:middle line:90% to a smear on the floor. 00:24:49.640 --> 00:24:51.820 align:middle line:90% Little bastard, you sneer. 00:24:51.820 --> 00:24:54.655 align:middle line:84% And the thing in your brain hums a sweet song, 00:24:54.655 --> 00:24:59.620 align:middle line:84% or goddamn black fucker, as you grind your teeth and grin." 00:24:59.620 --> 00:25:02.140 align:middle line:90% 00:25:02.140 --> 00:25:05.647 align:middle line:84% Yes, I didn't know I felt that way about spiders, 00:25:05.647 --> 00:25:07.480 align:middle line:84% so I really think it must have been the war. 00:25:07.480 --> 00:25:14.950 align:middle line:90% 00:25:14.950 --> 00:25:18.070 align:middle line:84% Maybe to lighten the air a little bit 00:25:18.070 --> 00:25:22.090 align:middle line:84% after that, this is one of those poems 00:25:22.090 --> 00:25:26.350 align:middle line:84% that you say when you write it, where did that come from? 00:25:26.350 --> 00:25:31.780 align:middle line:84% One of those poems that just falls out of nowhere in a sort 00:25:31.780 --> 00:25:33.520 align:middle line:90% of zany way. 00:25:33.520 --> 00:25:36.700 align:middle line:84% And actually I think it's the sort of child in the poet that 00:25:36.700 --> 00:25:40.060 align:middle line:84% brings these poems up sometimes, and I wish I had more of that. 00:25:40.060 --> 00:25:45.130 align:middle line:84% I think that poets need to have their child self present, 00:25:45.130 --> 00:25:50.560 align:middle line:84% and mine tends to get subsumed by my earnestness 00:25:50.560 --> 00:25:53.560 align:middle line:84% and seriousness from time to time, 00:25:53.560 --> 00:25:55.600 align:middle line:84% but it happened to come out here. 00:25:55.600 --> 00:25:56.530 align:middle line:90% "Word Bank." 00:25:56.530 --> 00:26:00.100 align:middle line:90% 00:26:00.100 --> 00:26:03.850 align:middle line:84% "Where do all the words go when they leave our mouths? 00:26:03.850 --> 00:26:07.420 align:middle line:84% Rise through crowds of nouns and verbs, 00:26:07.420 --> 00:26:12.520 align:middle line:84% jostle and shove and elbow small prepositions out of the way. 00:26:12.520 --> 00:26:18.000 align:middle line:84% Then float for a moment on an up current, before they disappear. 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.660 align:middle line:84% Sometimes driving under the freeway ramp, 00:26:21.660 --> 00:26:26.280 align:middle line:84% I think I see the ones that got trapped hanging from concrete 00:26:26.280 --> 00:26:29.340 align:middle line:90% like huge swarms of bees. 00:26:29.340 --> 00:26:32.130 align:middle line:84% Bitter words that someone regrets. 00:26:32.130 --> 00:26:34.350 align:middle line:84% All mixed up with sweet nothings, 00:26:34.350 --> 00:26:39.480 align:middle line:84% and the gaudy overblown remnants of a politician's speech. 00:26:39.480 --> 00:26:44.700 align:middle line:84% Fragments of greetings flap on sharp twigs of winter trees. 00:26:44.700 --> 00:26:47.190 align:middle line:90% Each hi, and how are you doing? 00:26:47.190 --> 00:26:51.690 align:middle line:84% Caught fast like a child's kite that no one can free. 00:26:51.690 --> 00:26:54.960 align:middle line:84% Even the eves of my house have captured 00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:58.470 align:middle line:84% the remains of the neighborhood calling in its cats. 00:26:58.470 --> 00:26:59.760 align:middle line:90% Hey kitty, kitty. 00:26:59.760 --> 00:27:02.420 align:middle line:90% Hey kitty, kitty, kitty. 00:27:02.420 --> 00:27:04.610 align:middle line:84% These are the casualties, the ones 00:27:04.610 --> 00:27:09.440 align:middle line:84% that didn't make it to the rest who went, but where is that. 00:27:09.440 --> 00:27:13.970 align:middle line:84% Just another bank I suppose, like a blood bank or a sperm 00:27:13.970 --> 00:27:20.930 align:middle line:84% bank where teapot, linoleum, glacier and hysteria wait 00:27:20.930 --> 00:27:23.990 align:middle line:84% patiently in alphabetized drawers. 00:27:23.990 --> 00:27:28.340 align:middle line:84% Along with, shut up, break a leg and so sorry. 00:27:28.340 --> 00:27:30.724 align:middle line:90% Oh, so sorry." 00:27:30.724 --> 00:27:34.133 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:27:34.133 --> 00:27:43.410 align:middle line:90% 00:27:43.410 --> 00:27:48.240 align:middle line:84% Alison mentioned the Ballot Measure 9 00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:50.760 align:middle line:84% that we were fighting in Oregon recently, 00:27:50.760 --> 00:27:54.930 align:middle line:84% and this next poem very indirectly 00:27:54.930 --> 00:27:56.580 align:middle line:90% has a connection to that. 00:27:56.580 --> 00:28:01.560 align:middle line:90% It's a poem that I wrote. 00:28:01.560 --> 00:28:03.780 align:middle line:84% I think it came out of teaching a class that I've 00:28:03.780 --> 00:28:05.155 align:middle line:84% been doing for a couple of years, 00:28:05.155 --> 00:28:08.260 align:middle line:84% a writing class called Landscape and Memory, 00:28:08.260 --> 00:28:12.330 align:middle line:84% which is where people use places to get 00:28:12.330 --> 00:28:16.050 align:middle line:84% into writing personal memories in poetry or in prose. 00:28:16.050 --> 00:28:17.730 align:middle line:84% And of course, that class has made 00:28:17.730 --> 00:28:21.510 align:middle line:84% me think a lot about nature writing. 00:28:21.510 --> 00:28:24.720 align:middle line:90% Writing about the natural world. 00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:28.170 align:middle line:84% And this past summer, I taught the class again. 00:28:28.170 --> 00:28:31.590 align:middle line:84% And really got a different perspective on it, 00:28:31.590 --> 00:28:33.720 align:middle line:84% after I talked with a friend of mine who's 00:28:33.720 --> 00:28:36.540 align:middle line:84% an African-American writer, who had written 00:28:36.540 --> 00:28:39.120 align:middle line:84% an article about why are there so few Black people 00:28:39.120 --> 00:28:42.270 align:middle line:90% in the environmental movement? 00:28:42.270 --> 00:28:45.300 align:middle line:84% And in that article, she wrote a lot 00:28:45.300 --> 00:28:48.540 align:middle line:84% about her own personal experience of wilderness. 00:28:48.540 --> 00:28:52.380 align:middle line:84% And said that, she was reading a lot of these books that 00:28:52.380 --> 00:28:56.730 align:middle line:84% are coming out now, about the writer's relationship 00:28:56.730 --> 00:28:59.430 align:middle line:90% to wilderness and nature. 00:28:59.430 --> 00:29:03.690 align:middle line:84% And she said, it struck her that for those people, 00:29:03.690 --> 00:29:06.900 align:middle line:84% it was often a very nurturing environment. 00:29:06.900 --> 00:29:10.920 align:middle line:84% A place of going to find a spiritual kind of healing. 00:29:10.920 --> 00:29:13.440 align:middle line:84% And she said, me, my racial memories 00:29:13.440 --> 00:29:17.250 align:middle line:84% are of lynchings and of being hunted by dogs in the wild. 00:29:17.250 --> 00:29:19.860 align:middle line:84% And it's not a safe place, and it's 00:29:19.860 --> 00:29:23.130 align:middle line:84% a place that's very frightening for me to be. 00:29:23.130 --> 00:29:27.420 align:middle line:84% And she said, that doesn't mean that it 00:29:27.420 --> 00:29:29.040 align:middle line:84% can be something else for you, but I 00:29:29.040 --> 00:29:31.410 align:middle line:84% think it's good that people understand that that's 00:29:31.410 --> 00:29:32.667 align:middle line:90% a cultural experience. 00:29:32.667 --> 00:29:34.500 align:middle line:84% And there are cultural differences about it, 00:29:34.500 --> 00:29:37.210 align:middle line:84% just like there are about everything else. 00:29:37.210 --> 00:29:41.820 align:middle line:84% And that really made me think a lot about this whole question 00:29:41.820 --> 00:29:44.790 align:middle line:84% of writing about nature, and what it means to some of us 00:29:44.790 --> 00:29:47.620 align:middle line:84% and how it means something very different to others. 00:29:47.620 --> 00:29:51.180 align:middle line:84% And it also made me think about my own relationship 00:29:51.180 --> 00:29:58.680 align:middle line:84% to the natural world, and that word natural. 00:29:58.680 --> 00:30:02.280 align:middle line:84% In the Oregon Ballot Measure, the proposition 00:30:02.280 --> 00:30:06.330 align:middle line:84% was to change the Oregon Constitution to declare 00:30:06.330 --> 00:30:11.160 align:middle line:84% that homosexuals are wrong, abnormal, unnatural and 00:30:11.160 --> 00:30:12.048 align:middle line:90% perverse. 00:30:12.048 --> 00:30:13.590 align:middle line:84% That was the wording that they wanted 00:30:13.590 --> 00:30:14.970 align:middle line:90% to write into our Constitution. 00:30:14.970 --> 00:30:20.070 align:middle line:84% And the word unnatural just really rang a bell with me. 00:30:20.070 --> 00:30:23.970 align:middle line:84% I grew up in the 50s, when that was an attitude that 00:30:23.970 --> 00:30:26.490 align:middle line:84% was very prevalent, although it was never spoken out 00:30:26.490 --> 00:30:30.060 align:middle line:84% loud the way it has been in Oregon for the last six months. 00:30:30.060 --> 00:30:36.660 align:middle line:84% And I realized that one of the struggles that young gay people 00:30:36.660 --> 00:30:43.290 align:middle line:84% have growing up, is the struggle to actually assert the feeling 00:30:43.290 --> 00:30:44.550 align:middle line:90% that they are natural. 00:30:44.550 --> 00:30:47.910 align:middle line:84% That we are part of the natural world, as indeed are humans are 00:30:47.910 --> 00:30:50.560 align:middle line:90% and that, that is a struggle. 00:30:50.560 --> 00:30:55.740 align:middle line:84% And so this poem in a way, addresses that struggle 00:30:55.740 --> 00:30:59.370 align:middle line:84% to maintain the sort of natural connection 00:30:59.370 --> 00:31:02.520 align:middle line:84% with the outdoors and the natural world. 00:31:02.520 --> 00:31:04.560 align:middle line:84% That I felt as a child, and then had 00:31:04.560 --> 00:31:08.460 align:middle line:84% to struggle to maintain as I questioned 00:31:08.460 --> 00:31:12.240 align:middle line:84% my own place in the natural order of things, 00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:14.040 align:middle line:84% because that was the message that I 00:31:14.040 --> 00:31:15.540 align:middle line:90% was getting from outside. 00:31:15.540 --> 00:31:18.720 align:middle line:90% 00:31:18.720 --> 00:31:20.940 align:middle line:84% Also, it's written about a character 00:31:20.940 --> 00:31:22.590 align:middle line:90% named The Dyke With No Name. 00:31:22.590 --> 00:31:26.250 align:middle line:84% She is a character who came to me when 00:31:26.250 --> 00:31:28.710 align:middle line:84% I wrote History and Geography, and told 00:31:28.710 --> 00:31:30.480 align:middle line:90% some stories about growing up. 00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:33.930 align:middle line:84% She bears something of a resemblance to me, 00:31:33.930 --> 00:31:36.060 align:middle line:84% but she seemed to have her own voice 00:31:36.060 --> 00:31:39.430 align:middle line:84% and she comes back from time to time to talk about things. 00:31:39.430 --> 00:31:44.310 align:middle line:84% So in this instance, she came back to talk about landscape. 00:31:44.310 --> 00:31:46.980 align:middle line:84% And like me, she starts in England 00:31:46.980 --> 00:31:49.830 align:middle line:84% and she spent some time in Spain and in Italy. 00:31:49.830 --> 00:31:53.580 align:middle line:84% And the last section of the poem is in Oregon, 00:31:53.580 --> 00:31:56.610 align:middle line:84% on the banks of the great Columbia River. 00:31:56.610 --> 00:31:59.316 align:middle line:90% It's in six parts. 00:31:59.316 --> 00:32:04.190 align:middle line:84% "The Dyke With No Name Thinks about Landscape." 00:32:04.190 --> 00:32:09.350 align:middle line:84% "One, at first, it wasn't landscape at all. 00:32:09.350 --> 00:32:12.020 align:middle line:84% Where you live is just where you live. 00:32:12.020 --> 00:32:14.780 align:middle line:84% A place to walk about in, drive your car 00:32:14.780 --> 00:32:17.030 align:middle line:90% through on the way to somewhere. 00:32:17.030 --> 00:32:20.360 align:middle line:84% Notice on a pretty day, when clouds [are puffs], 00:32:20.360 --> 00:32:23.330 align:middle line:90% and grasses blowing just so. 00:32:23.330 --> 00:32:27.140 align:middle line:84% From a horse's back, tracking the skyline, gray sea 00:32:27.140 --> 00:32:28.820 align:middle line:90% became gray sky. 00:32:28.820 --> 00:32:31.340 align:middle line:84% And chalky paths down the escarpment 00:32:31.340 --> 00:32:34.820 align:middle line:84% gashed the smooth flank of the downs. 00:32:34.820 --> 00:32:39.020 align:middle line:84% Leaning over to unhook the chain of a five bar gate, 00:32:39.020 --> 00:32:42.470 align:middle line:84% she knew just how fast to sidle the horse 00:32:42.470 --> 00:32:45.440 align:middle line:84% through before the metal gate swung back 00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:48.770 align:middle line:84% with a clang and the horse twitched an ear. 00:32:48.770 --> 00:32:52.190 align:middle line:84% Too familiar with the sound to make a fuss. 00:32:52.190 --> 00:32:56.600 align:middle line:84% The windmills, Jack and Jill spread their sails 00:32:56.600 --> 00:33:00.590 align:middle line:84% and grew as organic as gorse bushes or hares 00:33:00.590 --> 00:33:05.120 align:middle line:84% on the barren plow, but their spread sails remained unmoved 00:33:05.120 --> 00:33:07.190 align:middle line:84% by the great wind, which stirred up 00:33:07.190 --> 00:33:12.380 align:middle line:84% a great wave in the grasses from Firle to Beachy Head. 00:33:12.380 --> 00:33:18.130 align:middle line:84% Up there on her horse, she too grew organic as winter wheat. 00:33:18.130 --> 00:33:21.070 align:middle line:84% Never naming the villages far below-- 00:33:21.070 --> 00:33:25.240 align:middle line:84% Poynings, Ditchling, Fulking, Steyning. 00:33:25.240 --> 00:33:29.290 align:middle line:84% Distant clusters of roofs that revealed to her, as if 00:33:29.290 --> 00:33:32.290 align:middle line:84% through a telescope, a particular lychgate, 00:33:32.290 --> 00:33:36.130 align:middle line:84% a brick well, a post office serving tea. 00:33:36.130 --> 00:33:39.610 align:middle line:84% While the winding Underhill Lane, glimpsed here and there 00:33:39.610 --> 00:33:44.080 align:middle line:84% between copses whispered, shepherd and dog, wheat sheaf. 00:33:44.080 --> 00:33:48.640 align:middle line:90% Royal oak, the eight bells. 00:33:48.640 --> 00:33:52.960 align:middle line:84% Two, when she left, it became landscape. 00:33:52.960 --> 00:33:56.710 align:middle line:84% A beloved green painting hauled around in her mind. 00:33:56.710 --> 00:34:00.820 align:middle line:84% While the next one, ocher and sage unfolded. 00:34:00.820 --> 00:34:04.180 align:middle line:84% Smelling of Mediterranean pine in the afternoon. 00:34:04.180 --> 00:34:08.830 align:middle line:84% And the one after that, sepia and umber threw open its chest 00:34:08.830 --> 00:34:10.420 align:middle line:90% and sang. 00:34:10.420 --> 00:34:14.050 align:middle line:84% In these landscapes too, she wanted to grow organic. 00:34:14.050 --> 00:34:18.340 align:middle line:84% Spreading her limbs to the sky, on that almost flat rock that 00:34:18.340 --> 00:34:21.969 align:middle line:84% jutted from the river and held her between two swirling 00:34:21.969 --> 00:34:23.260 align:middle line:90% streams. 00:34:23.260 --> 00:34:26.260 align:middle line:84% Pinpoints of spray pricked her skin, 00:34:26.260 --> 00:34:30.010 align:middle line:84% dried and dried between the divided waters. 00:34:30.010 --> 00:34:35.679 align:middle line:84% While the river too, turbulence, rocks, moss, trout 00:34:35.679 --> 00:34:40.090 align:middle line:84% and human body pried open the hot thighs of the desert, 00:34:40.090 --> 00:34:43.730 align:middle line:84% with the persuasive pressure of wetness. 00:34:43.730 --> 00:34:46.340 align:middle line:90% Was it then that it started? 00:34:46.340 --> 00:34:49.969 align:middle line:84% Then she began to feel the eyes watching. 00:34:49.969 --> 00:34:53.750 align:middle line:84% In each landscape, people grew from the shadows. 00:34:53.750 --> 00:34:57.320 align:middle line:84% In each landscape, people belonged. 00:34:57.320 --> 00:35:01.100 align:middle line:84% But here on her rock, head in the V of the parted waters, 00:35:01.100 --> 00:35:03.920 align:middle line:84% the Dyke With No Name sees herself 00:35:03.920 --> 00:35:06.740 align:middle line:84% as if with eyes watching from the hill above, 00:35:06.740 --> 00:35:09.860 align:middle line:84% sees the desert intersected by a river. 00:35:09.860 --> 00:35:14.780 align:middle line:84% Sees ponderous rocks, shaggy falls, the cruising hawk. 00:35:14.780 --> 00:35:19.580 align:middle line:84% And herself, a human figure growing from shadows. 00:35:19.580 --> 00:35:25.930 align:middle line:84% Herself in the frame on the rock, not belonging. 00:35:25.930 --> 00:35:29.980 align:middle line:84% Three, the trouble is not nature, 00:35:29.980 --> 00:35:33.760 align:middle line:84% but the people who tell you, there's always one of each. 00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:38.230 align:middle line:84% Starting with Noah, and his couple-filled floating zoo. 00:35:38.230 --> 00:35:42.040 align:middle line:84% Pistils and stamens, winged seeds from trees. 00:35:42.040 --> 00:35:46.180 align:middle line:84% Insects were waving their various appendages. 00:35:46.180 --> 00:35:49.810 align:middle line:84% She remembers her smudgy drawings from biology. 00:35:49.810 --> 00:35:53.660 align:middle line:84% She knows what they left out and why. 00:35:53.660 --> 00:35:56.540 align:middle line:84% The trouble with pastoral scenes is the lovers. 00:35:56.540 --> 00:36:00.650 align:middle line:84% The hand in hand, one of each lover and his lass. 00:36:00.650 --> 00:36:04.430 align:middle line:84% She knows it's more than looking wrong in the picture, 00:36:04.430 --> 00:36:09.270 align:middle line:84% but does she know it's a matter of life and death? 00:36:09.270 --> 00:36:12.320 align:middle line:90% Four, whose life? 00:36:12.320 --> 00:36:14.210 align:middle line:90% Whose death? 00:36:14.210 --> 00:36:17.810 align:middle line:84% All she wanted was to move again like the winter wheat. 00:36:17.810 --> 00:36:21.050 align:middle line:84% To live in her skin touching the Earth's skin. 00:36:21.050 --> 00:36:25.580 align:middle line:84% To feel spray and rock, and the finger of the sun. 00:36:25.580 --> 00:36:29.150 align:middle line:84% Once a long time ago, she made love on a hilltop, 00:36:29.150 --> 00:36:31.100 align:middle line:90% under copper beech trees. 00:36:31.100 --> 00:36:33.650 align:middle line:84% Leaves turned to [AUDIO OUT] underneath her, 00:36:33.650 --> 00:36:36.650 align:middle line:84% as she breathed the sky through her lover's hair. 00:36:36.650 --> 00:36:41.720 align:middle line:84% And somewhere close by, a pony snickered, a friendly snicker, 00:36:41.720 --> 00:36:43.670 align:middle line:90% an encouragement. 00:36:43.670 --> 00:36:47.630 align:middle line:84% She still remembers what it felt like to lie in those arms. 00:36:47.630 --> 00:36:52.040 align:middle line:84% Some of them beech roots, others human and female. 00:36:52.040 --> 00:36:54.200 align:middle line:84% Trusting the pony like a brother. 00:36:54.200 --> 00:36:58.390 align:middle line:84% The sky looking down the same way she looked up. 00:36:58.390 --> 00:37:01.390 align:middle line:84% That was before the two hikers were shot. 00:37:01.390 --> 00:37:04.510 align:middle line:84% The two women stalked for days, by the man 00:37:04.510 --> 00:37:08.450 align:middle line:84% who killed one and left the other for dead. 00:37:08.450 --> 00:37:11.315 align:middle line:84% One each for life and death, as it turned out. 00:37:11.315 --> 00:37:14.030 align:middle line:90% 00:37:14.030 --> 00:37:18.140 align:middle line:84% Five, there is nothing organic about cars. 00:37:18.140 --> 00:37:21.740 align:middle line:84% They skim across surfaces, separated from the landscape 00:37:21.740 --> 00:37:24.350 align:middle line:90% by hard, black tarmac. 00:37:24.350 --> 00:37:27.140 align:middle line:90% No danger of putting down roots. 00:37:27.140 --> 00:37:32.010 align:middle line:84% Even when a car disintegrates in the ground, 00:37:32.010 --> 00:37:35.160 align:middle line:84% blackberries filling the bent frame of its windshield, 00:37:35.160 --> 00:37:37.260 align:middle line:84% [AUDIO OUT] sinking into the Earth, 00:37:37.260 --> 00:37:39.990 align:middle line:84% to blue up some passing hydrangea. 00:37:39.990 --> 00:37:44.340 align:middle line:84% Even then, its chrome and oil, and plastic seats 00:37:44.340 --> 00:37:47.490 align:middle line:84% spurn the comfort of ordinary rot. 00:37:47.490 --> 00:37:50.670 align:middle line:84% The Dyke With No Name kept moving. 00:37:50.670 --> 00:37:53.010 align:middle line:84% Her rubber tires grabbing the blacktop 00:37:53.010 --> 00:37:56.550 align:middle line:84% with a squeal, as she pushed sideways through bends, 00:37:56.550 --> 00:37:58.860 align:middle line:90% kept everything skidding. 00:37:58.860 --> 00:38:01.290 align:middle line:84% Tall haystacks with poles poking out 00:38:01.290 --> 00:38:04.050 align:middle line:90% the top, dashed by her window. 00:38:04.050 --> 00:38:06.990 align:middle line:84% She noted their shape, their resemblance 00:38:06.990 --> 00:38:11.760 align:middle line:84% to some señorita's hair held up by a protruding pin. 00:38:11.760 --> 00:38:14.280 align:middle line:84% She watched the show through glass, 00:38:14.280 --> 00:38:18.090 align:middle line:84% as if she had put in her penny on the pier. 00:38:18.090 --> 00:38:20.010 align:middle line:84% Watched herself from the hillside 00:38:20.010 --> 00:38:23.430 align:middle line:84% above, speeding through picture after picture. 00:38:23.430 --> 00:38:27.360 align:middle line:84% Silk headscarf flying, arm on the door tanned. 00:38:27.360 --> 00:38:30.780 align:middle line:84% Hands turning the small leather wheel. 00:38:30.780 --> 00:38:33.390 align:middle line:84% Sometimes when her head raged with pain, 00:38:33.390 --> 00:38:36.750 align:middle line:84% she parked the car in a field and slept. 00:38:36.750 --> 00:38:39.540 align:middle line:84% All doors locked, all windows up, 00:38:39.540 --> 00:38:45.390 align:middle line:84% while the grasses tickled the hot skin of her tires. 00:38:45.390 --> 00:38:49.380 align:middle line:84% Six, now she is lying on a blanket. 00:38:49.380 --> 00:38:53.490 align:middle line:84% The sand below molded to the shape of her body. 00:38:53.490 --> 00:38:57.450 align:middle line:84% Sudden swells slap the shore beyond her feet, 00:38:57.450 --> 00:38:59.490 align:middle line:90% a barge has passed by. 00:38:59.490 --> 00:39:01.770 align:middle line:84% Trudging down river with its load, 00:39:01.770 --> 00:39:04.080 align:middle line:90% like a good-natured shire horse. 00:39:04.080 --> 00:39:07.110 align:middle line:84% It's throbbing lost now, behind the breaking 00:39:07.110 --> 00:39:11.220 align:middle line:84% of that great wave which seems to rise from the deeps. 00:39:11.220 --> 00:39:12.930 align:middle line:90% The turbulence is quick. 00:39:12.930 --> 00:39:17.400 align:middle line:84% A lashing of the sand, followed by September's lazy calm. 00:39:17.400 --> 00:39:22.650 align:middle line:84% As the river moves unseen again, cows from another world low 00:39:22.650 --> 00:39:24.060 align:middle line:90% on the far shore. 00:39:24.060 --> 00:39:27.330 align:middle line:84% And the seagull's body, a fragile handful 00:39:27.330 --> 00:39:31.890 align:middle line:84% dangles gently between its two tremendous wings. 00:39:31.890 --> 00:39:34.410 align:middle line:84% The trouble is not nature, she thinks, 00:39:34.410 --> 00:39:37.500 align:middle line:84% but the people who say I'm not part of it. 00:39:37.500 --> 00:39:40.210 align:middle line:84% They're trying to paint me out of the landscape, 00:39:40.210 --> 00:39:41.790 align:middle line:84% says the [INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO OUT].. 00:39:41.790 --> 00:39:47.310 align:middle line:84% But her thighs in hot sand remember a horse's warm back, 00:39:47.310 --> 00:39:52.005 align:middle line:84% as the wind makes a great wave from Oregon to Beachy Head." 00:39:52.005 --> 00:39:54.705 align:middle line:90% 00:39:54.705 --> 00:39:58.086 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:39:58.086 --> 00:40:04.850 align:middle line:90% 00:40:04.850 --> 00:40:11.660 align:middle line:84% Thank you for your encouragement about Ballot Measure 9. 00:40:11.660 --> 00:40:18.260 align:middle line:84% The good news about that is that, we made great coalitions. 00:40:18.260 --> 00:40:20.150 align:middle line:84% The whole leadership of the State of Oregon 00:40:20.150 --> 00:40:21.350 align:middle line:90% came out against it. 00:40:21.350 --> 00:40:24.410 align:middle line:84% And from the governor through all the unions, 00:40:24.410 --> 00:40:26.360 align:middle line:84% and most of the churches, the Catholics, 00:40:26.360 --> 00:40:30.500 align:middle line:84% the Jewish synagogues, and so we have wonderful coalitions 00:40:30.500 --> 00:40:31.090 align:middle line:90% in place. 00:40:31.090 --> 00:40:32.840 align:middle line:84% The bad news is, they've already announced 00:40:32.840 --> 00:40:35.240 align:middle line:84% they're going to do it again in two years. 00:40:35.240 --> 00:40:37.130 align:middle line:84% So we actually have to keep fighting it, 00:40:37.130 --> 00:40:39.840 align:middle line:84% and we spent $2 million on this one. 00:40:39.840 --> 00:40:44.450 align:middle line:84% And I believe that Arizona is in line for these same [AUDIO OUT] 00:40:44.450 --> 00:40:46.460 align:middle line:90% and try their measure here. 00:40:46.460 --> 00:40:48.020 align:middle line:84% And I actually personally believe 00:40:48.020 --> 00:40:50.062 align:middle line:84% that this is going to happen all over the country 00:40:50.062 --> 00:40:54.290 align:middle line:84% in the next few years, so be prepared, 00:40:54.290 --> 00:40:56.195 align:middle line:84% but good things have come out of it too. 00:40:56.195 --> 00:41:01.580 align:middle line:90% 00:41:01.580 --> 00:41:05.330 align:middle line:84% Alison mentioned that I organize a writing workshop 00:41:05.330 --> 00:41:07.790 align:middle line:90% for women, Flight of the Mind. 00:41:07.790 --> 00:41:14.300 align:middle line:84% And I did leave a flyer on the table outside the auditorium. 00:41:14.300 --> 00:41:17.690 align:middle line:84% So if anybody is interested in getting on the mailing list, 00:41:17.690 --> 00:41:19.220 align:middle line:84% there's an address on that flyer. 00:41:19.220 --> 00:41:21.260 align:middle line:84% If you could just copy it down, you're 00:41:21.260 --> 00:41:23.900 align:middle line:84% welcome to drop your name and address to that address, 00:41:23.900 --> 00:41:26.030 align:middle line:84% and you can get the flyer for next summer. 00:41:26.030 --> 00:41:30.900 align:middle line:84% We have a great program with Grace Paley coming and Ursula 00:41:30.900 --> 00:41:36.280 align:middle line:84% Le Guin, and a lot of really interesting wonderful writers. 00:41:36.280 --> 00:41:42.430 align:middle line:84% This poem kind of was inspired at that workshop. 00:41:42.430 --> 00:41:46.060 align:middle line:84% It's held on a wonderful wild river 00:41:46.060 --> 00:41:49.130 align:middle line:84% called the McKenzie River, Oregon, at a Dominican retreat 00:41:49.130 --> 00:41:49.630 align:middle line:90% center. 00:41:49.630 --> 00:41:51.970 align:middle line:84% And it has this huge terrace that 00:41:51.970 --> 00:41:56.090 align:middle line:84% looks right out over a very tight bend in the river, 00:41:56.090 --> 00:42:00.130 align:middle line:84% so there is a tremendously loud sound of water there. 00:42:00.130 --> 00:42:02.350 align:middle line:84% And I was sitting out on that deck 00:42:02.350 --> 00:42:05.740 align:middle line:84% one day with my friend Teresa Clark, 00:42:05.740 --> 00:42:09.340 align:middle line:90% who is a singer and composer. 00:42:09.340 --> 00:42:13.180 align:middle line:84% And she said to me, listen to the sound of the water. 00:42:13.180 --> 00:42:14.840 align:middle line:90% It's not just one sound. 00:42:14.840 --> 00:42:17.260 align:middle line:84% And we sat there for probably half an hour, 00:42:17.260 --> 00:42:19.660 align:middle line:84% trying to identify all the different sounds we 00:42:19.660 --> 00:42:23.720 align:middle line:84% could hear within that sound of rushing water. 00:42:23.720 --> 00:42:25.280 align:middle line:84% And what happened was, she really 00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:28.190 align:middle line:84% gave me a lesson in how to use my ears. 00:42:28.190 --> 00:42:30.050 align:middle line:84% And a couple of weeks after that, I 00:42:30.050 --> 00:42:32.660 align:middle line:84% found myself at the Oregon Coast. 00:42:32.660 --> 00:42:35.030 align:middle line:84% Sitting on the beach, on a sand dune 00:42:35.030 --> 00:42:39.470 align:middle line:84% and listening to the loud sound of the surf there. 00:42:39.470 --> 00:42:41.150 align:middle line:84% And I remembered this conversation, 00:42:41.150 --> 00:42:44.930 align:middle line:84% and I really thought of listening hard 00:42:44.930 --> 00:42:46.920 align:middle line:90% to the sound of the ocean. 00:42:46.920 --> 00:42:48.830 align:middle line:84% So this is the poem that I wrote actually, 00:42:48.830 --> 00:42:50.870 align:middle line:90% sitting there on the beach. 00:42:50.870 --> 00:42:53.330 align:middle line:90% And it's for Teresa Clark. 00:42:53.330 --> 00:42:56.090 align:middle line:90% "Layers of Sound." 00:42:56.090 --> 00:42:59.210 align:middle line:84% "For example, this surf, worrying 00:42:59.210 --> 00:43:03.560 align:middle line:84% the edge of the continent where I lie against a sand dune. 00:43:03.560 --> 00:43:07.160 align:middle line:84% The surf that you might think just rolls in. 00:43:07.160 --> 00:43:12.440 align:middle line:84% Making the sound surf makes when it unravels on a Pacific beach, 00:43:12.440 --> 00:43:15.140 align:middle line:90% but this is not one whole sound. 00:43:15.140 --> 00:43:18.350 align:middle line:84% Except in the way multicolored striations 00:43:18.350 --> 00:43:21.800 align:middle line:84% press together, to form one whole rock. 00:43:21.800 --> 00:43:26.060 align:middle line:84% Except in the way that days and nights, so unalike 00:43:26.060 --> 00:43:32.480 align:middle line:84% become weeks, months, even whole years with their own numbers. 00:43:32.480 --> 00:43:35.240 align:middle line:84% The surf breaks not with a single note, 00:43:35.240 --> 00:43:38.090 align:middle line:90% but in a song for many voices. 00:43:38.090 --> 00:43:41.210 align:middle line:84% At the very top, there is rustling like the grasses 00:43:41.210 --> 00:43:43.100 align:middle line:90% blowing on my sand dune. 00:43:43.100 --> 00:43:46.910 align:middle line:84% Or like piles of crisp leaves, whispering as squirrels 00:43:46.910 --> 00:43:49.730 align:middle line:84% rummaged through their crinkled dark. 00:43:49.730 --> 00:43:53.810 align:middle line:84% Below, something smooth rushes by [AUDIO OUT] strangely, 00:43:53.810 --> 00:43:56.610 align:middle line:84% like the sound of wheat in a hot wind. 00:43:56.610 --> 00:44:01.010 align:middle line:84% But if dry stalks and surf make the same sound, 00:44:01.010 --> 00:44:03.290 align:middle line:90% what becomes of wet and dry? 00:44:03.290 --> 00:44:04.580 align:middle line:90% What is the whole? 00:44:04.580 --> 00:44:06.980 align:middle line:84% Where are the parts, and why is this 00:44:06.980 --> 00:44:09.830 align:middle line:90% rushing so constant, so even? 00:44:09.830 --> 00:44:12.920 align:middle line:84% There are after all, many separate waves. 00:44:12.920 --> 00:44:16.190 align:middle line:84% Each one glances at the shore, curls 00:44:16.190 --> 00:44:19.670 align:middle line:84% and falls before its sidles up the glassy sand. 00:44:19.670 --> 00:44:22.640 align:middle line:84% And backs off, leaving its fingerprint, 00:44:22.640 --> 00:44:28.170 align:middle line:84% a pattern of tiny ridges like mountain ranges under my soles. 00:44:28.170 --> 00:44:32.370 align:middle line:84% But though the rushing is constant in the center, when 00:44:32.370 --> 00:44:36.960 align:middle line:84% I listen very hard, the rhythm of waves drums, on and on. 00:44:36.960 --> 00:44:40.650 align:middle line:84% Each one a bulge of sound, barely perceptible 00:44:40.650 --> 00:44:43.920 align:middle line:90% among the rustles and the hiss. 00:44:43.920 --> 00:44:48.690 align:middle line:84% Underneath it all, the baseline like bedrock rumbles. 00:44:48.690 --> 00:44:51.760 align:middle line:84% At the very bottom of what I can hear, 00:44:51.760 --> 00:44:55.600 align:middle line:84% but how many layers fall outside my human capacities? 00:44:55.600 --> 00:44:59.810 align:middle line:84% How much more does the surf say to the whale? 00:44:59.810 --> 00:45:04.970 align:middle line:84% My ears are tired, unaccustomed to paying attention. 00:45:04.970 --> 00:45:10.600 align:middle line:84% My heart is tired, unused to loving in detail. 00:45:10.600 --> 00:45:15.790 align:middle line:84% Easier to hear the ocean than the wave, says the surf. 00:45:15.790 --> 00:45:18.760 align:middle line:84% Easier to love the world than this grain 00:45:18.760 --> 00:45:21.235 align:middle line:90% of sand, this fragile grass." 00:45:21.235 --> 00:45:36.550 align:middle line:90% 00:45:36.550 --> 00:45:39.580 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read the title poem from History and Geography. 00:45:39.580 --> 00:45:42.900 align:middle line:90% 00:45:42.900 --> 00:45:45.100 align:middle line:90% If I can find it. 00:45:45.100 --> 00:45:52.890 align:middle line:84% This is a poem that came out of the experience of finding 00:45:52.890 --> 00:45:58.200 align:middle line:84% myself in a life partnership, with a woman from a very 00:45:58.200 --> 00:46:03.060 align:middle line:84% Jewish family, which is a background fairly enormously 00:46:03.060 --> 00:46:04.230 align:middle line:90% different than my own. 00:46:04.230 --> 00:46:07.230 align:middle line:84% I come from a middle class British family, 00:46:07.230 --> 00:46:08.341 align:middle line:90% where [AUDIO OUT]. 00:46:08.341 --> 00:46:11.780 align:middle line:90% 00:46:11.780 --> 00:46:14.285 align:middle line:84% It was an attempt to write about that. 00:46:14.285 --> 00:46:19.250 align:middle line:90% 00:46:19.250 --> 00:46:22.850 align:middle line:90% "History and Geography." 00:46:22.850 --> 00:46:27.470 align:middle line:84% "One, your finger skims the map, dense 00:46:27.470 --> 00:46:33.380 align:middle line:84% with villages, towns, cities of Russia and Eastern Europe. 00:46:33.380 --> 00:46:37.340 align:middle line:84% You lean towards the blond head of your brother-in-law, 00:46:37.340 --> 00:46:40.190 align:middle line:84% as you search through Bessarabia. 00:46:40.190 --> 00:46:43.730 align:middle line:84% And your father hunches over the littered dinner table, 00:46:43.730 --> 00:46:46.970 align:middle line:84% passing on pieces of your mother's history. 00:46:46.970 --> 00:46:50.210 align:middle line:84% Your mother was the family historian. 00:46:50.210 --> 00:46:54.590 align:middle line:84% You all ask questions, to which mostly there are answers 00:46:54.590 --> 00:46:57.500 align:middle line:90% or at least speculations. 00:46:57.500 --> 00:47:01.520 align:middle line:84% Not like my relatives I think, who say, what's the use? 00:47:01.520 --> 00:47:04.650 align:middle line:90% And the past is the past. 00:47:04.650 --> 00:47:08.250 align:middle line:84% Two, you have your father's zany laugh. 00:47:08.250 --> 00:47:11.040 align:middle line:84% It comes down to you from before the events 00:47:11.040 --> 00:47:15.540 align:middle line:84% which flung him from camp to flight, to New World. 00:47:15.540 --> 00:47:17.580 align:middle line:90% His family decimated. 00:47:17.580 --> 00:47:21.360 align:middle line:84% That laugh rings back through Germany and Austria, 00:47:21.360 --> 00:47:26.310 align:middle line:84% pogroms and Seders, tracking the history that is your home 00:47:26.310 --> 00:47:29.460 align:middle line:90% as no country can ever be. 00:47:29.460 --> 00:47:33.060 align:middle line:84% Is this why my relatives discard their history? 00:47:33.060 --> 00:47:37.670 align:middle line:84% Rooted in land so long, they have no need of a people. 00:47:37.670 --> 00:47:40.790 align:middle line:84% My parents, living abroad much of their lives, 00:47:40.790 --> 00:47:43.460 align:middle line:84% were sometimes called expatriate. 00:47:43.460 --> 00:47:47.630 align:middle line:84% Away from the fatherland, but still and always 00:47:47.630 --> 00:47:50.000 align:middle line:90% children of that father. 00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:52.610 align:middle line:84% For you changing countries without choice 00:47:52.610 --> 00:47:54.440 align:middle line:90% is part of your history. 00:47:54.440 --> 00:47:57.890 align:middle line:84% Surely there is no such thing as an expatriate Jew, 00:47:57.890 --> 00:48:00.830 align:middle line:84% except perhaps a Jew outside history. 00:48:00.830 --> 00:48:05.860 align:middle line:84% A Jew with no questions, wanting no answers. 00:48:05.860 --> 00:48:11.590 align:middle line:84% Three, the discarded map lies beside pies and kugel, 00:48:11.590 --> 00:48:15.410 align:middle line:84% as the questions and answers go on. 00:48:15.410 --> 00:48:20.750 align:middle line:84% Leftovers become history, this table becomes geography. 00:48:20.750 --> 00:48:23.540 align:middle line:84% This room, a small square not marked 00:48:23.540 --> 00:48:27.080 align:middle line:84% on the map, where countries each have their own color. 00:48:27.080 --> 00:48:32.730 align:middle line:84% Where countries each have their own, but what of this history? 00:48:32.730 --> 00:48:35.940 align:middle line:84% This personal geography, a patchwork 00:48:35.940 --> 00:48:39.390 align:middle line:84% of dining tables, old documents, names 00:48:39.390 --> 00:48:43.440 align:middle line:84% culled from telephone directories in strange cities. 00:48:43.440 --> 00:48:47.850 align:middle line:84% Whose stories are missing even from this family history? 00:48:47.850 --> 00:48:51.030 align:middle line:84% Where one unmarried aunt in Chicago, 00:48:51.030 --> 00:48:53.730 align:middle line:90% hides behind a post office box. 00:48:53.730 --> 00:48:56.220 align:middle line:84% [AUDIO OUT] chosen a life that does not fit 00:48:56.220 --> 00:48:58.410 align:middle line:84% and written herself out, because she 00:48:58.410 --> 00:49:02.060 align:middle line:90% fears it will happen anyway? 00:49:02.060 --> 00:49:04.880 align:middle line:84% Who will become the new expatriates? 00:49:04.880 --> 00:49:07.520 align:middle line:84% Banished from the ranks of the banished. 00:49:07.520 --> 00:49:11.900 align:middle line:84% Will your name be there at some future table, when they ask, 00:49:11.900 --> 00:49:14.750 align:middle line:84% who were they, those who went before? 00:49:14.750 --> 00:49:16.760 align:middle line:90% And will mine? 00:49:16.760 --> 00:49:19.250 align:middle line:84% We choose not to write ourselves out, 00:49:19.250 --> 00:49:22.250 align:middle line:84% but to record our presence here tonight. 00:49:22.250 --> 00:49:25.580 align:middle line:84% My blond head leaning towards yours. 00:49:25.580 --> 00:49:28.700 align:middle line:84% Our curious intersection on a map 00:49:28.700 --> 00:49:31.820 align:middle line:84% that is larger even than the one your people 00:49:31.820 --> 00:49:34.970 align:middle line:84% trace, with such stubborn, loving care." 00:49:34.970 --> 00:49:46.050 align:middle line:90% 00:49:46.050 --> 00:49:49.635 align:middle line:84% I've written a lot of poems about my mother's death. 00:49:49.635 --> 00:49:52.230 align:middle line:90% 00:49:52.230 --> 00:50:01.938 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to [AUDIO OUT] that also comes out-- 00:50:01.938 --> 00:50:03.980 align:middle line:84% this isn't really a poem about my mother's death. 00:50:03.980 --> 00:50:08.240 align:middle line:84% It's a poem about my mother having died. 00:50:08.240 --> 00:50:14.850 align:middle line:84% The experience that comes later, where you realize that that's 00:50:14.850 --> 00:50:17.250 align:middle line:84% not something you deal with in a month or two months, 00:50:17.250 --> 00:50:20.130 align:middle line:84% but you actually incorporate into your being 00:50:20.130 --> 00:50:23.620 align:middle line:84% and take with you for the rest of your life. 00:50:23.620 --> 00:50:25.560 align:middle line:84% And it also is a poem that comes out 00:50:25.560 --> 00:50:27.490 align:middle line:90% of my experience of swimming. 00:50:27.490 --> 00:50:29.610 align:middle line:84% I try to go swimming pretty regularly 00:50:29.610 --> 00:50:33.510 align:middle line:84% at the YWCA in Portland, and there's 00:50:33.510 --> 00:50:36.300 align:middle line:84% something about swimming that's very meditative to me 00:50:36.300 --> 00:50:37.290 align:middle line:90% and very rhythmic. 00:50:37.290 --> 00:50:42.450 align:middle line:84% And this poem definitely came out of the swimming experience. 00:50:42.450 --> 00:50:45.300 align:middle line:84% And these two people who are described in the poem, 00:50:45.300 --> 00:50:48.270 align:middle line:84% are real people I bump into all the time at the Y, 00:50:48.270 --> 00:50:49.740 align:middle line:90% but I have never spoken to them. 00:50:49.740 --> 00:50:52.380 align:middle line:90% 00:50:52.380 --> 00:50:54.495 align:middle line:90% "Mother and Daughter at the Y." 00:50:54.495 --> 00:50:57.740 align:middle line:90% 00:50:57.740 --> 00:51:02.870 align:middle line:84% "They're always there together, the younger one about my age. 00:51:02.870 --> 00:51:06.530 align:middle line:84% I pretend not to look sideways in front of the long mirror 00:51:06.530 --> 00:51:08.900 align:middle line:90% where we blow dry. 00:51:08.900 --> 00:51:12.920 align:middle line:84% Eastern European genes I guess, and their brown eyes 00:51:12.920 --> 00:51:17.870 align:middle line:84% dance around as they pat and poke at each other's hair. 00:51:17.870 --> 00:51:20.420 align:middle line:84% They look alike, even underwater. 00:51:20.420 --> 00:51:23.780 align:middle line:84% Identical black swimsuits, against the blue tile 00:51:23.780 --> 00:51:25.990 align:middle line:90% at the shallow end. 00:51:25.990 --> 00:51:29.440 align:middle line:84% Last week when I came down lap 32, 00:51:29.440 --> 00:51:31.930 align:middle line:84% I could see through misted goggles 00:51:31.930 --> 00:51:35.350 align:middle line:84% their four feet moving slow motion. 00:51:35.350 --> 00:51:37.600 align:middle line:84% And I knew they were talking as usual, 00:51:37.600 --> 00:51:40.510 align:middle line:84% hands completing words in fast motion 00:51:40.510 --> 00:51:43.530 align:middle line:90% through the light chemical air. 00:51:43.530 --> 00:51:46.290 align:middle line:84% At the turn, my head bobbed out and I 00:51:46.290 --> 00:51:49.620 align:middle line:84% carried a snatch of laughter away up the straight. 00:51:49.620 --> 00:51:55.430 align:middle line:84% Thinking, what would it be like to have a mother as a friend? 00:51:55.430 --> 00:51:59.330 align:middle line:84% Towards the end of 34, I looked left. 00:51:59.330 --> 00:52:00.740 align:middle line:90% They were still there. 00:52:00.740 --> 00:52:03.860 align:middle line:84% This time one pair of the younger pair 00:52:03.860 --> 00:52:08.240 align:middle line:84% was planted feet apart, in the stance of peasant legs 00:52:08.240 --> 00:52:11.240 align:middle line:84% that know their ground and work it. 00:52:11.240 --> 00:52:16.250 align:middle line:84% The mother floated, arms limp, elbows sinking and abandoned. 00:52:16.250 --> 00:52:20.570 align:middle line:84% Her daughter's hand, firm under the small of her back. 00:52:20.570 --> 00:52:25.520 align:middle line:84% I bobbed and turned, what would it be like? 00:52:25.520 --> 00:52:30.650 align:middle line:84% Laps 36 and 38, I look straight ahead at the approaching wall, 00:52:30.650 --> 00:52:35.760 align:middle line:84% feeling my spine stretched thin, my chest open. 00:52:35.760 --> 00:52:41.180 align:middle line:84% Breathe, pull, kick, I think until thought merges 00:52:41.180 --> 00:52:42.110 align:middle line:90% with water. 00:52:42.110 --> 00:52:45.050 align:middle line:84% And I see again, the back view of that woman 00:52:45.050 --> 00:52:47.810 align:middle line:84% I once followed breathless through a crowd, 00:52:47.810 --> 00:52:52.600 align:middle line:84% until she turned, and I remembered my mother is dead. 00:52:52.600 --> 00:52:56.050 align:middle line:84% Breathe, pull, kick, I no longer think 00:52:56.050 --> 00:52:58.780 align:middle line:84% as I carry her absence up the lane, 00:52:58.780 --> 00:53:04.630 align:middle line:84% waterlogged yet slicing still through the pool's soft mass. 00:53:04.630 --> 00:53:07.240 align:middle line:90% At 40, daughter's by the wall. 00:53:07.240 --> 00:53:11.530 align:middle line:84% The mother swims a few fast strokes, arms sprawling, 00:53:11.530 --> 00:53:13.960 align:middle line:90% head high out of the water. 00:53:13.960 --> 00:53:17.305 align:middle line:84% The daughter laughs, and reaches out her hands." 00:53:17.305 --> 00:53:29.020 align:middle line:90% 00:53:29.020 --> 00:53:31.090 align:middle line:84% Well, I've just a couple more poems here. 00:53:31.090 --> 00:53:35.910 align:middle line:90% 00:53:35.910 --> 00:53:39.980 align:middle line:84% This is called "For a Friend Whose Lover Has Left." 00:53:39.980 --> 00:53:43.670 align:middle line:84% "They say memory resides in the head, 00:53:43.670 --> 00:53:46.970 align:middle line:84% but I say it lives in the tips of fingers. 00:53:46.970 --> 00:53:50.480 align:middle line:84% The insides of thighs and forearms. 00:53:50.480 --> 00:53:56.870 align:middle line:84% Yes, the concave belly remembers what it once embraced sleeping. 00:53:56.870 --> 00:53:59.600 align:middle line:90% Your limbs remember skin. 00:53:59.600 --> 00:54:03.020 align:middle line:84% In sleep, you reach for someone whose name you have almost 00:54:03.020 --> 00:54:04.660 align:middle line:90% forgotten. 00:54:04.660 --> 00:54:06.670 align:middle line:84% It is not your brain that recalls 00:54:06.670 --> 00:54:09.040 align:middle line:84% the hollow above her collarbone, and the shoulder 00:54:09.040 --> 00:54:11.230 align:middle line:90% blade like a wing. 00:54:11.230 --> 00:54:15.250 align:middle line:84% You say the brain cells die with age. 00:54:15.250 --> 00:54:19.180 align:middle line:84% You will forget the number you dialed over and over, 00:54:19.180 --> 00:54:23.770 align:middle line:84% but one day your finger will remember as mine once did. 00:54:23.770 --> 00:54:28.846 align:middle line:84% Leaping deftly from the six, to the four, to the one. 00:54:28.846 --> 00:54:33.510 align:middle line:84% You will not pay attention to the voice that says, hello, 00:54:33.510 --> 00:54:35.820 align:middle line:84% because memories lurk among whorls 00:54:35.820 --> 00:54:38.730 align:middle line:90% and scrolls of fingerprints. 00:54:38.730 --> 00:54:43.470 align:middle line:84% Sorry, you'll say, and hang up, but still your palm 00:54:43.470 --> 00:54:46.605 align:middle line:84% will hold the exact curve of her cheek." 00:54:46.605 --> 00:55:00.234 align:middle line:90% 00:55:00.234 --> 00:55:02.490 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I've got two more poems for you. 00:55:02.490 --> 00:55:06.560 align:middle line:90% 00:55:06.560 --> 00:55:09.743 align:middle line:84% This is called "Why Young Girls Like to Ride Bareback." 00:55:09.743 --> 00:55:11.660 align:middle line:84% I've been getting a lot of horse poems lately. 00:55:11.660 --> 00:55:15.100 align:middle line:90% 00:55:15.100 --> 00:55:21.070 align:middle line:84% I was one of those horse crazy kids, actually a teenager too, 00:55:21.070 --> 00:55:23.800 align:middle line:84% but it's difficult. I've been getting a lot of animal poems, 00:55:23.800 --> 00:55:26.830 align:middle line:84% and it's sort of difficult to be taken seriously 00:55:26.830 --> 00:55:28.810 align:middle line:84% when you are a poet who writes about animals. 00:55:28.810 --> 00:55:30.940 align:middle line:84% So I've been reading Mary Oliver a lot, 00:55:30.940 --> 00:55:33.550 align:middle line:84% because she does that and people seem 00:55:33.550 --> 00:55:38.620 align:middle line:84% to take her fairly seriously, but it's not always easy. 00:55:38.620 --> 00:55:40.930 align:middle line:84% This is not a very serious poem however. 00:55:40.930 --> 00:55:44.440 align:middle line:84% "Why Young Girls Like to Ride Bareback." 00:55:44.440 --> 00:55:47.530 align:middle line:84% "You grasp a clump of mane in your left hand. 00:55:47.530 --> 00:55:50.560 align:middle line:84% Spring up and fall across her back, 00:55:50.560 --> 00:55:53.620 align:middle line:84% then pulling on the wiry black hair, which 00:55:53.620 --> 00:55:56.620 align:middle line:84% cuts into your palm and fourth finger, 00:55:56.620 --> 00:55:59.590 align:middle line:84% haul yourself up till your right leg swings 00:55:59.590 --> 00:56:02.770 align:middle line:84% across the plump cheeks of her hindquarters. 00:56:02.770 --> 00:56:07.720 align:middle line:84% Now you hold her, warm and alive between your thighs. 00:56:07.720 --> 00:56:10.450 align:middle line:84% In summer, wearing shorts, you feel 00:56:10.450 --> 00:56:13.620 align:middle line:84% the dander of her coat, glossy and dusty 00:56:13.620 --> 00:56:14.620 align:middle line:90% at the same [AUDIO OUT]. 00:56:14.620 --> 00:56:17.470 align:middle line:84% Greasing up the insides of your calves. 00:56:17.470 --> 00:56:20.530 align:middle line:84% And as she walks, each of your knees in turn 00:56:20.530 --> 00:56:25.250 align:middle line:84% feels the muscle bulge out behind the shoulder blade. 00:56:25.250 --> 00:56:27.290 align:middle line:90% Trotting's a matter of balance. 00:56:27.290 --> 00:56:31.640 align:middle line:84% You bounce around, unable to enter her motion as you will, 00:56:31.640 --> 00:56:34.010 align:middle line:84% when the trot breaks and she finally 00:56:34.010 --> 00:56:36.950 align:middle line:90% waltzes from two to three time. 00:56:36.950 --> 00:56:40.160 align:middle line:84% Nothing to be done at the trot, but grab again 00:56:40.160 --> 00:56:43.610 align:middle line:84% that mane that feels, though you don't yet know it, 00:56:43.610 --> 00:56:45.110 align:middle line:90% like pubic hair. 00:56:45.110 --> 00:56:48.950 align:middle line:84% And straddle her jolting spine with your seat bones. 00:56:48.950 --> 00:56:51.330 align:middle line:84% Knowing that when the canter comes, 00:56:51.330 --> 00:56:54.440 align:middle line:84% you will suddenly merge, you and that great, 00:56:54.440 --> 00:56:56.030 align:middle line:90% that powerful friend. 00:56:56.030 --> 00:56:59.960 align:middle line:84% She, bulging up behind, rocking across the fulcrum, 00:56:59.960 --> 00:57:03.830 align:middle line:84% exploding forward onto the leading leg and you 00:57:03.830 --> 00:57:07.040 align:middle line:84% digging your seat down into the sway of her back. 00:57:07.040 --> 00:57:11.960 align:middle line:84% Your whole body singing, we are one, we are one, we are one." 00:57:11.960 --> 00:57:17.800 align:middle line:90% 00:57:17.800 --> 00:57:20.440 align:middle line:84% I want to end with a poem that I wrote 00:57:20.440 --> 00:57:23.320 align:middle line:84% at a wonderful place called Cottages at Hedgebrook, which 00:57:23.320 --> 00:57:26.290 align:middle line:84% is a woman writer's retreat up on Whidbey Island, 00:57:26.290 --> 00:57:31.480 align:middle line:84% north of Seattle, where I was in 1988. 00:57:31.480 --> 00:57:35.620 align:middle line:84% And I got to be in a beautiful cottage that was brand new, 00:57:35.620 --> 00:57:38.710 align:middle line:84% and had just been built, made out of white oak. 00:57:38.710 --> 00:57:40.990 align:middle line:84% And somebody brought my lunch in a basket, 00:57:40.990 --> 00:57:45.640 align:middle line:84% and it was quite heavenly, the whole thing. 00:57:45.640 --> 00:57:48.790 align:middle line:84% And I got this poem in a way that I've never 00:57:48.790 --> 00:57:50.380 align:middle line:90% been given a poem before. 00:57:50.380 --> 00:57:52.000 align:middle line:84% It's one of those things that probably 00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:56.140 align:middle line:84% doesn't happen, probably never happens more than once to me. 00:57:56.140 --> 00:57:59.230 align:middle line:84% But I'd been there for three or four weeks, 00:57:59.230 --> 00:58:01.660 align:middle line:84% and I was very mellow and I was out in the woods. 00:58:01.660 --> 00:58:05.530 align:middle line:84% And I woke up one morning with this poem in my head, 00:58:05.530 --> 00:58:08.650 align:middle line:84% and I just walked to the keyboard and put it in. 00:58:08.650 --> 00:58:12.790 align:middle line:84% And I really only had to make a few adjustments, 00:58:12.790 --> 00:58:16.400 align:middle line:84% and tinker around with a few words, but it was there. 00:58:16.400 --> 00:58:18.970 align:middle line:84% And I think that the reason that happened or one 00:58:18.970 --> 00:58:20.350 align:middle line:84% of the reasons that happened was, 00:58:20.350 --> 00:58:22.240 align:middle line:84% what I was working on while I was up there, 00:58:22.240 --> 00:58:25.360 align:middle line:84% was trying to put the manuscript of this book together, History 00:58:25.360 --> 00:58:26.170 align:middle line:90% and Geography. 00:58:26.170 --> 00:58:28.540 align:middle line:84% So I had all my poems all over the floor, 00:58:28.540 --> 00:58:30.790 align:middle line:84% and I was trying to think, what are the themes? 00:58:30.790 --> 00:58:32.470 align:middle line:90% In what order should they go? 00:58:32.470 --> 00:58:34.480 align:middle line:84% And I had come to understand that one 00:58:34.480 --> 00:58:38.320 align:middle line:84% of the major themes in my work for this book, 00:58:38.320 --> 00:58:43.120 align:middle line:84% had been the whole question of leaving people, leaving 00:58:43.120 --> 00:58:46.270 align:middle line:90% places, leaving things behind. 00:58:46.270 --> 00:58:50.740 align:middle line:84% And what I came to understand was 00:58:50.740 --> 00:58:54.070 align:middle line:84% that, this poem resolved that issue for me 00:58:54.070 --> 00:58:55.960 align:middle line:84% and it belonged at the end of the book. 00:58:55.960 --> 00:58:57.850 align:middle line:84% And part of understanding that, came 00:58:57.850 --> 00:58:59.890 align:middle line:90% from talking to the craftsman. 00:58:59.890 --> 00:59:03.040 align:middle line:84% The man who had built my cottage, who was still there 00:59:03.040 --> 00:59:05.320 align:middle line:90% and building another one. 00:59:05.320 --> 00:59:07.420 align:middle line:84% And he told me that the reason I was 00:59:07.420 --> 00:59:09.265 align:middle line:84% hearing sounds in my cottage at night, 00:59:09.265 --> 00:59:11.890 align:middle line:84% was because they were using this wood that had not been steamed 00:59:11.890 --> 00:59:15.130 align:middle line:84% dried, so basically the wood was still alive and was still 00:59:15.130 --> 00:59:16.000 align:middle line:90% part of the forest. 00:59:16.000 --> 00:59:18.340 align:middle line:84% It was still being a tree, while it 00:59:18.340 --> 00:59:25.250 align:middle line:84% was being my cottage and that message [AUDIO OUT] important. 00:59:25.250 --> 00:59:28.480 align:middle line:84% And I put together that you don't leave things behind, 00:59:28.480 --> 00:59:31.146 align:middle line:90% that you take them with you. 00:59:31.146 --> 00:59:32.525 align:middle line:90% The poem is called "Listen." 00:59:32.525 --> 00:59:35.330 align:middle line:90% 00:59:35.330 --> 00:59:38.870 align:middle line:84% "If you walk north from the cottage into deep woods, 00:59:38.870 --> 00:59:42.200 align:middle line:84% and happen to look up at just the right moment, 00:59:42.200 --> 00:59:44.840 align:middle line:84% and if when you look up there, your heart 00:59:44.840 --> 00:59:48.410 align:middle line:84% is full of what you do not yet know, then 00:59:48.410 --> 00:59:52.040 align:middle line:84% perhaps you may see the owl crouched like a cat 00:59:52.040 --> 00:59:55.570 align:middle line:90% in the fork of the tallest fir. 00:59:55.570 --> 00:59:57.850 align:middle line:84% If you stand at the west window, there 00:59:57.850 --> 01:00:03.010 align:middle line:84% may be a blue heron fishing beside the bench at the pond. 01:00:03.010 --> 01:00:06.940 align:middle line:84% If you decide to learn patience today and wait with her, 01:00:06.940 --> 01:00:10.360 align:middle line:84% motionless, for the careless fish, 01:00:10.360 --> 01:00:13.450 align:middle line:84% soon you will find your eyes piercing weed, 01:00:13.450 --> 01:00:16.780 align:middle line:84% as one shadowy carp slides below. 01:00:16.780 --> 01:00:21.580 align:middle line:84% And everything, but it's gliding flesh, falls away. 01:00:21.580 --> 01:00:25.630 align:middle line:84% The cedar tree close to the south window is never still. 01:00:25.630 --> 01:00:28.670 align:middle line:84% She shakes from the tips of her fronds. 01:00:28.670 --> 01:00:31.600 align:middle line:84% She drapes branches across the view, 01:00:31.600 --> 01:00:34.870 align:middle line:84% but it is her trunk that has reassured me morning 01:00:34.870 --> 01:00:37.930 align:middle line:84% after morning, its huge weight soaring. 01:00:37.930 --> 01:00:41.200 align:middle line:84% It's two perfect female fissures moist again, 01:00:41.200 --> 01:00:44.630 align:middle line:90% with the secretions of the dew. 01:00:44.630 --> 01:00:47.300 align:middle line:84% If you lie at night by the east windows, 01:00:47.300 --> 01:00:51.170 align:middle line:84% where the roof slopes down, and if your heart is 01:00:51.170 --> 01:00:54.740 align:middle line:84% full of what you might one day know, 01:00:54.740 --> 01:00:57.890 align:middle line:84% you will hear the oak beams sing. 01:00:57.890 --> 01:01:00.710 align:middle line:84% For seven years, the sap will move, 01:01:00.710 --> 01:01:04.310 align:middle line:84% as the wood lovingly shaped to its new task 01:01:04.310 --> 01:01:07.640 align:middle line:84% sings of the forest it left behind. 01:01:07.640 --> 01:01:10.640 align:middle line:84% If you listen, you will learn there 01:01:10.640 --> 01:01:14.500 align:middle line:90% is no such thing as leaving." 01:01:14.500 --> 01:01:15.670 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 01:01:15.670 --> 01:01:17.520 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 01:01:17.520 --> 01:01:40.000 align:middle line:90%