WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.910 align:middle line:84%
My first poem every time I
move is one of-- you'll see,

00:00:02.910 --> 00:00:05.760 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to read a San Diego
poem-- supreme alienation.

00:00:05.760 --> 00:00:09.990 align:middle line:90%


00:00:09.990 --> 00:00:14.010 align:middle line:84%
The whole-- the next book,
the whole first section,

00:00:14.010 --> 00:00:17.400 align:middle line:84%
I've been holding off
finishing it for a while.

00:00:17.400 --> 00:00:20.310 align:middle line:84%
Moving around
really displaces me,

00:00:20.310 --> 00:00:25.780 align:middle line:84%
and when Brighton said
they wanted to do something

00:00:25.780 --> 00:00:28.340 align:middle line:84%
the other day, they're a
wonderful organization,

00:00:28.340 --> 00:00:28.840 align:middle line:90%
by the way.

00:00:28.840 --> 00:00:30.700 align:middle line:90%
Look closely at their things.

00:00:30.700 --> 00:00:37.360 align:middle line:84%
They do these-- they have
a one book that's $4,000.

00:00:37.360 --> 00:00:40.120 align:middle line:84%
It's a one of a
kind illustration

00:00:40.120 --> 00:00:47.980 align:middle line:84%
of Zbigniew Herbert's
work that is exquisite.

00:00:47.980 --> 00:00:50.440 align:middle line:84%
But what they do is
they bring together

00:00:50.440 --> 00:00:53.770 align:middle line:84%
an artist and a writer,
and they don't necessarily

00:00:53.770 --> 00:00:55.000 align:middle line:90%
bring them together.

00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:57.340 align:middle line:84%
An artist and a writer
could go to them.

00:00:57.340 --> 00:01:01.180 align:middle line:84%
And if they want
to do it, they just

00:01:01.180 --> 00:01:03.410 align:middle line:90%
say, tell us what you want.

00:01:03.410 --> 00:01:05.538 align:middle line:84%
Tell us how you want
to-- a book doesn't

00:01:05.538 --> 00:01:06.580 align:middle line:90%
have to look like a book.

00:01:06.580 --> 00:01:08.260 align:middle line:90%
A book could be a room.

00:01:08.260 --> 00:01:15.010 align:middle line:84%
A book could be a one of a kind
Herbert illuminated manuscript.

00:01:15.010 --> 00:01:16.040 align:middle line:90%
Whatever it might be.

00:01:16.040 --> 00:01:18.380 align:middle line:84%
So anyway, they said they
wanted to do something.

00:01:18.380 --> 00:01:20.410 align:middle line:84%
So I said, OK, I'll print
out the stuff I have,

00:01:20.410 --> 00:01:22.570 align:middle line:84%
but it's not a book, it's
not a book, it's not a book.

00:01:22.570 --> 00:01:24.460 align:middle line:84%
And then when I got it
together and I was looking,

00:01:24.460 --> 00:01:25.690 align:middle line:90%
and I was like oh my God.

00:01:25.690 --> 00:01:27.700 align:middle line:90%
It is a book.

00:01:27.700 --> 00:01:30.333 align:middle line:84%
And I always thought that it
had a number of different things

00:01:30.333 --> 00:01:31.750 align:middle line:84%
that were
contradictions, but what

00:01:31.750 --> 00:01:33.458 align:middle line:84%
happened was there
are these two sections

00:01:33.458 --> 00:01:35.003 align:middle line:90%
and everything else fell away.

00:01:35.003 --> 00:01:37.420 align:middle line:84%
And that was great, because I
didn't like those poems that

00:01:37.420 --> 00:01:38.110 align:middle line:90%
well anyway.

00:01:38.110 --> 00:01:43.210 align:middle line:84%
So the first section is cold and
in the mountains in the north.

00:01:43.210 --> 00:01:48.160 align:middle line:84%
And the second section is
immediately north and south

00:01:48.160 --> 00:01:48.970 align:middle line:90%
of the equator.

00:01:48.970 --> 00:01:49.930 align:middle line:90%
It's tropical.

00:01:49.930 --> 00:01:53.140 align:middle line:84%
I wanted to have the sense of
walking through an oil painting

00:01:53.140 --> 00:01:55.690 align:middle line:90%
and it's not dry yet.

00:01:55.690 --> 00:01:59.770 align:middle line:84%
So this is one of
those, and I'm going

00:01:59.770 --> 00:02:02.020 align:middle line:84%
to read two poems from
that southern section.

00:02:02.020 --> 00:02:06.810 align:middle line:84%
This is a prose poem
called "Azaleas."

00:02:06.810 --> 00:02:08.970 align:middle line:84%
"Sisters climbed
the bedroom window,

00:02:08.970 --> 00:02:12.660 align:middle line:84%
lay themselves on the
night table like pink fish,

00:02:12.660 --> 00:02:18.510 align:middle line:84%
like negligees and soap slivers,
diaphanous, pale veined.

00:02:18.510 --> 00:02:22.320 align:middle line:84%
Wrapped through doors leopard
spotted nectar paths pour down

00:02:22.320 --> 00:02:25.830 align:middle line:90%
a wash of purple stars.

00:02:25.830 --> 00:02:27.750 align:middle line:84%
I remember women in
New Orleans, some

00:02:27.750 --> 00:02:31.020 align:middle line:84%
driven through the humid hours
like orchids in a cooler,

00:02:31.020 --> 00:02:35.460 align:middle line:84%
and others all azalea,
wild pink shrubs that

00:02:35.460 --> 00:02:40.560 align:middle line:84%
trumpeted in hot places,
flagrant and profuse.

00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:43.080 align:middle line:84%
Night came on so
strong there the smear

00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:45.930 align:middle line:84%
of color, the neon
grass, the mournful owls,

00:02:45.930 --> 00:02:48.090 align:middle line:90%
and funereal perfume.

00:02:48.090 --> 00:02:52.710 align:middle line:84%
Every bloom corpulent
on flood and rain.

00:02:52.710 --> 00:02:55.770 align:middle line:84%
My friend and I walked the
quarter eating butter pastry

00:02:55.770 --> 00:02:56.940 align:middle line:90%
and oysters.

00:02:56.940 --> 00:03:00.420 align:middle line:84%
Six feet tall, she glowed
against the courtyards

00:03:00.420 --> 00:03:04.590 align:middle line:84%
like Venus, that marble goddess
who tasted the world's saliva

00:03:04.590 --> 00:03:07.980 align:middle line:90%
as if it were champagne.

00:03:07.980 --> 00:03:11.340 align:middle line:84%
Sax men poured
tunes like hot cane

00:03:11.340 --> 00:03:15.430 align:middle line:90%
just to make my friend laugh.

00:03:15.430 --> 00:03:17.800 align:middle line:84%
When Venus danced,
flowers opened,

00:03:17.800 --> 00:03:20.770 align:middle line:84%
freaks spun round her
like multicolored ribbons

00:03:20.770 --> 00:03:23.240 align:middle line:84%
as if she groomed her
handsome children,

00:03:23.240 --> 00:03:28.540 align:middle line:84%
my friend embraced men with
faces shaped like figs.

00:03:28.540 --> 00:03:32.560 align:middle line:84%
She kept a pond for beasts
behind a black iron fence,

00:03:32.560 --> 00:03:35.440 align:middle line:84%
behind the quarter
on Lessop Street,

00:03:35.440 --> 00:03:37.960 align:middle line:90%
and a gravestone in the grass.

00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:42.040 align:middle line:84%
Near dawn I slept on her guest
bed, sweating against red satin

00:03:42.040 --> 00:03:45.250 align:middle line:84%
while a silver fan
clapped overhead.

00:03:45.250 --> 00:03:48.280 align:middle line:84%
Sun cut through leaded
windows and spun the air

00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:51.490 align:middle line:84%
to hot glass, black
coffee with thick cream,

00:03:51.490 --> 00:03:55.030 align:middle line:84%
huge strawberries in a
mahogany dining room.

00:03:55.030 --> 00:03:58.420 align:middle line:84%
We hid from the heat
and talked of dying.

00:03:58.420 --> 00:04:01.110 align:middle line:90%


00:04:01.110 --> 00:04:03.210 align:middle line:84%
The flickering boats
are father's road

00:04:03.210 --> 00:04:07.350 align:middle line:84%
to the spirit world, the
little shells of morphine.

00:04:07.350 --> 00:04:09.240 align:middle line:84%
As the air began
to wave and drip,

00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:12.510 align:middle line:84%
we walked the streets again
both dressed in white gauze

00:04:12.510 --> 00:04:18.899 align:middle line:84%
with crisp straw hats,
then wispy, drooping, damp,

00:04:18.899 --> 00:04:22.019 align:middle line:84%
we headed for her levee
shack, three wilting

00:04:22.019 --> 00:04:23.280 align:middle line:90%
rooms of bird nests.

00:04:23.280 --> 00:04:26.760 align:middle line:84%
Water, the dissolving river
lapped the back porch.

00:04:26.760 --> 00:04:28.050 align:middle line:90%
The pilings.

00:04:28.050 --> 00:04:32.400 align:middle line:84%
Tell me about a lover, she'd
say, causing a lip of wine

00:04:32.400 --> 00:04:35.930 align:middle line:90%
to sing under her index finger.

00:04:35.930 --> 00:04:38.990 align:middle line:84%
We never touched but in the
tuberous wave of our voices

00:04:38.990 --> 00:04:41.480 align:middle line:90%
we drifted for days.

00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:45.290 align:middle line:84%
As I drove north one dark past
St Charles and into the bayou,

00:04:45.290 --> 00:04:50.210 align:middle line:84%
a rainstorm changed the livid
horizon to brown, then bruise.

00:04:50.210 --> 00:04:52.850 align:middle line:84%
How sweet azaleas
at the beginning,

00:04:52.850 --> 00:04:56.930 align:middle line:84%
breathing in the swamps,
breathing in the streets.

00:04:56.930 --> 00:05:00.590 align:middle line:84%
Their fuchsia bodies
covering our feet.

00:05:00.590 --> 00:05:04.130 align:middle line:84%
How brief our beauty
and sugared heat.

00:05:04.130 --> 00:05:07.850 align:middle line:84%
Our dresses lifted
and fell those hours

00:05:07.850 --> 00:05:12.770 align:middle line:84%
between the wicker and dying
rafters like opulent clouds

00:05:12.770 --> 00:05:14.500 align:middle line:90%
of steam."

00:05:14.500 --> 00:05:15.000 align:middle line:90%