WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.750 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.750 --> 00:00:03.840 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to change landscapes
now and come back and do

00:00:03.840 --> 00:00:06.780 align:middle line:84%
one last Montana
poem to close with.

00:00:06.780 --> 00:00:10.605 align:middle line:84%
In 1982 I finished my MFA at
the University of Montana,

00:00:10.605 --> 00:00:14.190 align:middle line:84%
where I studied with Dick
Hugo and some other people,

00:00:14.190 --> 00:00:20.980 align:middle line:84%
and went off to teach it at
LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

00:00:20.980 --> 00:00:22.920 align:middle line:90%
in their program down there.

00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:25.460 align:middle line:90%
And it's interesting.

00:00:25.460 --> 00:00:28.640 align:middle line:84%
I mean, not only did
I lose my landscape,

00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:33.410 align:middle line:84%
but I also found I lost
my language as well.

00:00:33.410 --> 00:00:35.480 align:middle line:84%
Diane Wakoski speculates
that so many of us

00:00:35.480 --> 00:00:39.740 align:middle line:84%
are writing about nature because
we're all displaced academics.

00:00:39.740 --> 00:00:41.210 align:middle line:84%
Academically, we're
all displaced,

00:00:41.210 --> 00:00:43.210 align:middle line:84%
and we're not in the place
we really want to be,

00:00:43.210 --> 00:00:44.810 align:middle line:84%
and we're longing
for that place.

00:00:44.810 --> 00:00:47.210 align:middle line:84%
I'm now back in the place,
more or less, I want to be.

00:00:47.210 --> 00:00:49.820 align:middle line:84%
But anyway, the
one thing that kept

00:00:49.820 --> 00:00:52.010 align:middle line:84%
coming to mind when
I moved down there

00:00:52.010 --> 00:00:54.968 align:middle line:84%
was that Huxley essay
Wordsworth in the Tropics

00:00:54.968 --> 00:00:56.510 align:middle line:84%
where he speculates
there never would

00:00:56.510 --> 00:00:59.720 align:middle line:84%
have been a romantic
poetry if the lake

00:00:59.720 --> 00:01:01.970 align:middle line:84%
poets, and particularly
Wordsworth, had lived closer

00:01:01.970 --> 00:01:03.230 align:middle line:90%
to the equator.

00:01:03.230 --> 00:01:05.630 align:middle line:84%
The basic idea being
you can't love nature

00:01:05.630 --> 00:01:06.920 align:middle line:90%
when it's growing on you.

00:01:06.920 --> 00:01:11.960 align:middle line:90%
And so this fed this poem.

00:01:11.960 --> 00:01:14.480 align:middle line:90%


00:01:14.480 --> 00:01:18.660 align:middle line:84%
"On the Veranda We
Drink Gin and Tonic."

00:01:18.660 --> 00:01:21.660 align:middle line:84%
"The elephant ears tired
of hearing witty stories

00:01:21.660 --> 00:01:23.520 align:middle line:90%
twist flat on their stems.

00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:27.630 align:middle line:84%
The flashy camellias drop to
the lawn like abandoned prom

00:01:27.630 --> 00:01:29.190 align:middle line:90%
dresses.

00:01:29.190 --> 00:01:32.400 align:middle line:84%
In Baton Rouge the
falling over begins.

00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:35.100 align:middle line:84%
Unmindful, we might
dissolve like aspirin

00:01:35.100 --> 00:01:38.340 align:middle line:90%
in this moist night air.

00:01:38.340 --> 00:01:41.370 align:middle line:84%
If it's not the falling
over, it's the standing up.

00:01:41.370 --> 00:01:44.430 align:middle line:84%
The bartender keeps a battalion
of rags in white uniform.

00:01:44.430 --> 00:01:48.000 align:middle line:84%
I've seen him beat a
peacock rug to bloody red.

00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:50.130 align:middle line:84%
Isn't that how
the Cubists began?

00:01:50.130 --> 00:01:52.560 align:middle line:84%
Separating the white
threads of canvas

00:01:52.560 --> 00:01:55.350 align:middle line:90%
into a field of broken glass?

00:01:55.350 --> 00:01:59.460 align:middle line:84%
"Nature Morte," shaping the
guitar from wood grain paper,

00:01:59.460 --> 00:02:05.290 align:middle line:84%
laying it flat so that one might
embrace every side at once.

00:02:05.290 --> 00:02:09.130 align:middle line:84%
Three women lean on their
elbows like collapsing tripods

00:02:09.130 --> 00:02:10.930 align:middle line:84%
and see how their
malaise fractures

00:02:10.930 --> 00:02:14.410 align:middle line:90%
into radiant blue prisms.

00:02:14.410 --> 00:02:18.500 align:middle line:84%
With a moment's stay
against geometry,

00:02:18.500 --> 00:02:23.090 align:middle line:84%
this landscape could
turn suddenly impolite.

00:02:23.090 --> 00:02:29.690 align:middle line:84%
We might break each other
open like the clear pink coat

00:02:29.690 --> 00:02:32.020 align:middle line:90%
of a shrimp.

00:02:32.020 --> 00:02:36.880 align:middle line:84%
Perhaps we'd become friends
the way cartoonists drew

00:02:36.880 --> 00:02:41.380 align:middle line:84%
Frankenstein's scars with
zippers, as if anyone

00:02:41.380 --> 00:02:45.690 align:middle line:90%
could enter his curious skin."