WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.200 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.200 --> 00:00:02.400 align:middle line:90% Here's my hunting story. 00:00:02.400 --> 00:00:09.920 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.920 --> 00:00:11.300 align:middle line:90% I did read this one last night. 00:00:11.300 --> 00:00:13.370 align:middle line:84% This is my hunting story about-- there's 00:00:13.370 --> 00:00:17.990 align:middle line:84% a line in here that says, "I'm not a savage, I'm not crazy, 00:00:17.990 --> 00:00:20.750 align:middle line:84% but come from a small town where I was no beauty dressed 00:00:20.750 --> 00:00:23.150 align:middle line:90% in a windowless room. 00:00:23.150 --> 00:00:26.000 align:middle line:84% And even then the boy next door knew the scar far 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:27.470 align:middle line:90% down my spine." 00:00:27.470 --> 00:00:32.390 align:middle line:84% And I grew up in South Bend, Indiana, which, 00:00:32.390 --> 00:00:34.790 align:middle line:84% the peeping Tom capital of America. 00:00:34.790 --> 00:00:41.030 align:middle line:84% So Pete was very nice when we moved into the Poetry Center. 00:00:41.030 --> 00:00:45.140 align:middle line:84% There's the room with the French doors that you can look into. 00:00:45.140 --> 00:00:49.880 align:middle line:84% He said, well, I guess you don't want to stay in there. 00:00:49.880 --> 00:00:53.870 align:middle line:84% So we didn't even have to flip for it. 00:00:53.870 --> 00:00:55.790 align:middle line:84% Anyway, this is my Halloween poem, 00:00:55.790 --> 00:01:00.290 align:middle line:84% my excursion into Keatsian Gothic, about a woman 00:01:00.290 --> 00:01:02.780 align:middle line:90% alone in a hunting-- 00:01:02.780 --> 00:01:06.980 align:middle line:84% in a cabin during hunting season. 00:01:06.980 --> 00:01:10.250 align:middle line:84% This poem, I have to say, I mean, now it's really, 00:01:10.250 --> 00:01:13.520 align:middle line:84% it brings catharsis and it's sort of a joke to me 00:01:13.520 --> 00:01:14.690 align:middle line:90% when I get to the meat-meat. 00:01:14.690 --> 00:01:17.990 align:middle line:84% But it was written out of pure terror. 00:01:17.990 --> 00:01:21.062 align:middle line:84% I mean, I lived in apartments in the Lower East 00:01:21.062 --> 00:01:21.770 align:middle line:90% Side of New York. 00:01:21.770 --> 00:01:23.020 align:middle line:90% I lived a lot of places alone. 00:01:23.020 --> 00:01:25.110 align:middle line:84% I lived in cabins alone, and so forth. 00:01:25.110 --> 00:01:29.600 align:middle line:84% But I bought this house up near the Selway Bitterroot, 00:01:29.600 --> 00:01:33.740 align:middle line:84% which is a place that Pete is writing about. 00:01:33.740 --> 00:01:34.760 align:middle line:90% It's a wilderness area. 00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:36.760 align:middle line:84% It was right at the beginning of hunting season. 00:01:36.760 --> 00:01:38.870 align:middle line:84% I was a graduate student and a TA. 00:01:38.870 --> 00:01:42.320 align:middle line:84% And I go in, and I teach classes, and take classes. 00:01:42.320 --> 00:01:46.780 align:middle line:84% And there was this guy in my class 00:01:46.780 --> 00:01:48.820 align:middle line:90% who was enormous and wore-- 00:01:48.820 --> 00:01:49.960 align:middle line:90% I think he was a welder. 00:01:49.960 --> 00:01:53.965 align:middle line:84% And he wore steel toed boots and he wrote these stories about, 00:01:53.965 --> 00:01:56.920 align:middle line:84% and then I went to the 7-Eleven and I shot the face 00:01:56.920 --> 00:01:58.090 align:middle line:90% off the Kotex box. 00:01:58.090 --> 00:02:00.250 align:middle line:84% And I'd go, oh please, don't let this guy 00:02:00.250 --> 00:02:01.450 align:middle line:90% and find out where I live. 00:02:01.450 --> 00:02:02.680 align:middle line:84% And I'd get home at night and there were 00:02:02.680 --> 00:02:04.000 align:middle line:90% guns going off in the woods. 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:05.780 align:middle line:90% And I go, I know he's out there. 00:02:05.780 --> 00:02:07.280 align:middle line:90% I know he's out there. 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:10.870 align:middle line:90% So this was written out of that. 00:02:10.870 --> 00:02:11.710 align:middle line:90% "Nightjar." 00:02:11.710 --> 00:02:14.490 align:middle line:90% 00:02:14.490 --> 00:02:18.150 align:middle line:84% "I worked the whole day naked, bees and dry knapweed, 00:02:18.150 --> 00:02:21.150 align:middle line:84% aspen leaves jingling on their stems, 00:02:21.150 --> 00:02:23.820 align:middle line:90% a forest of copper earrings. 00:02:23.820 --> 00:02:27.690 align:middle line:84% I slit zucchini, nail the green skins to dry, 00:02:27.690 --> 00:02:31.440 align:middle line:84% split kindling, tweez splinters from my wrist. 00:02:31.440 --> 00:02:36.660 align:middle line:90% Nothing in daylight can harm me. 00:02:36.660 --> 00:02:38.640 align:middle line:84% At 5 o'clock the flies are quiet, 00:02:38.640 --> 00:02:40.710 align:middle line:84% blades come to life in the pine forest. 00:02:40.710 --> 00:02:44.130 align:middle line:84% I gather the afternoon's tools, try them on-- 00:02:44.130 --> 00:02:47.130 align:middle line:90% hatchet, maul, rusty nails-- 00:02:47.130 --> 00:02:49.440 align:middle line:90% lock them away. 00:02:49.440 --> 00:02:52.600 align:middle line:84% Locked, I say to the door behind me. 00:02:52.600 --> 00:02:56.070 align:middle line:90% Locked, the day is over. 00:02:56.070 --> 00:02:58.320 align:middle line:84% In an hour, the windows go black as mica, 00:02:58.320 --> 00:03:00.750 align:middle line:84% two lights flicker far down the road. 00:03:00.750 --> 00:03:03.540 align:middle line:84% They move in a triangle, lips to fingers, 00:03:03.540 --> 00:03:07.190 align:middle line:90% the cigarettes of hunters. 00:03:07.190 --> 00:03:11.510 align:middle line:84% One bends over a dead animal, its throat curled open. 00:03:11.510 --> 00:03:17.210 align:middle line:84% He carves out a broadhead of five blades, shaped for bear. 00:03:17.210 --> 00:03:18.920 align:middle line:90% It's a mistake. 00:03:18.920 --> 00:03:20.780 align:middle line:90% A neighbor's goat. 00:03:20.780 --> 00:03:23.120 align:middle line:90% My own imagination. 00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:26.460 align:middle line:90% A car moving deep in the valley. 00:03:26.460 --> 00:03:27.510 align:middle line:90% I write my mother. 00:03:27.510 --> 00:03:28.650 align:middle line:90% She writes back. 00:03:28.650 --> 00:03:30.510 align:middle line:90% "You are my rare bird. 00:03:30.510 --> 00:03:34.500 align:middle line:84% You must build blinds and hide behind them." 00:03:34.500 --> 00:03:36.030 align:middle line:90% Rare? 00:03:36.030 --> 00:03:39.600 align:middle line:84% I'm a raven that flaps about, tasting carrion. 00:03:39.600 --> 00:03:44.340 align:middle line:84% When I enter a room, the air wrinkles in my hands. 00:03:44.340 --> 00:03:47.850 align:middle line:84% I'm not a savage, I'm not crazy, but come 00:03:47.850 --> 00:03:51.030 align:middle line:84% from a small town where I was no beauty, dressed 00:03:51.030 --> 00:03:54.540 align:middle line:84% in a windowless room, and still the boy next door 00:03:54.540 --> 00:03:58.930 align:middle line:90% knew the scar far down my spine. 00:03:58.930 --> 00:04:00.310 align:middle line:90% It's midnight. 00:04:00.310 --> 00:04:03.160 align:middle line:90% I sit by a flame and listen. 00:04:03.160 --> 00:04:06.490 align:middle line:84% Rats clack in the kitchen, traps raised on their necks 00:04:06.490 --> 00:04:08.860 align:middle line:84% like pleated Elizabethan collars. 00:04:08.860 --> 00:04:09.880 align:middle line:90% Truce. 00:04:09.880 --> 00:04:12.190 align:middle line:90% I want no more tools. 00:04:12.190 --> 00:04:16.649 align:middle line:90% Steel is awkward in my hands. 00:04:16.649 --> 00:04:19.140 align:middle line:84% The moon half risen illuminates new clouds. 00:04:19.140 --> 00:04:22.079 align:middle line:84% They belly across the timberline like dark cats. 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:25.740 align:middle line:84% I chose this cabin on the lip of a canyon surrounded 00:04:25.740 --> 00:04:27.390 align:middle line:90% by fierce winds. 00:04:27.390 --> 00:04:30.780 align:middle line:84% In summer, I live on inky caps and blackberries. 00:04:30.780 --> 00:04:32.880 align:middle line:90% Now it is hunting season. 00:04:32.880 --> 00:04:36.750 align:middle line:84% The men dress in bright coats and their boots chant 00:04:36.750 --> 00:04:38.430 align:middle line:90% meat, meat. 00:04:38.430 --> 00:04:41.250 align:middle line:84% I pull my hair back like an old woman. 00:04:41.250 --> 00:04:43.560 align:middle line:90% I cannot dance in my own cabin. 00:04:43.560 --> 00:04:46.500 align:middle line:84% I wear a loose kimono and black bedroom slippers. 00:04:46.500 --> 00:04:51.320 align:middle line:84% I do not move my hips or shoulders."