WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:08.100 align:middle line:84% About three or four years ago, I embarked on the project 00:00:08.100 --> 00:00:10.530 align:middle line:84% having reached my early middle age 00:00:10.530 --> 00:00:14.598 align:middle line:84% of trying to become a minor American poet by doing 00:00:14.598 --> 00:00:16.140 align:middle line:84% what everybody was doing, then that's 00:00:16.140 --> 00:00:18.990 align:middle line:84% writing a long sequence, a long book like sequence 00:00:18.990 --> 00:00:20.220 align:middle line:90% of boring poems. 00:00:20.220 --> 00:00:24.780 align:middle line:84% [LAUGH] And fortunately this didn't work out, 00:00:24.780 --> 00:00:26.880 align:middle line:90% but some parts of it survived. 00:00:26.880 --> 00:00:28.470 align:middle line:84% And I want to read one part of it. 00:00:28.470 --> 00:00:30.262 align:middle line:84% It was to be called Lives of of the Saints, 00:00:30.262 --> 00:00:33.420 align:middle line:84% and the poems were little vignettes, 00:00:33.420 --> 00:00:37.997 align:middle line:84% most of them concerning artists, anything from painters to jazz 00:00:37.997 --> 00:00:40.080 align:middle line:84% musicians to whatever who at some point in my life 00:00:40.080 --> 00:00:41.163 align:middle line:90% had meant something to me. 00:00:41.163 --> 00:00:45.670 align:middle line:84% I wanted to say include some details about their own lives 00:00:45.670 --> 00:00:50.122 align:middle line:84% but also express something about what they've meant to me. 00:00:50.122 --> 00:00:52.080 align:middle line:84% These are five-- this is five sections from it, 00:00:52.080 --> 00:00:54.420 align:middle line:90% five fairly short sections. 00:00:54.420 --> 00:00:57.330 align:middle line:84% Each of the sections has a sort of an outer and inner voice 00:00:57.330 --> 00:00:59.910 align:middle line:90% so I could call and response. 00:00:59.910 --> 00:01:05.250 align:middle line:84% I suppose it's a poem and a kind of a comment on that poem, 00:01:05.250 --> 00:01:07.140 align:middle line:84% see what you have to know about them. 00:01:07.140 --> 00:01:09.930 align:middle line:84% Mozart, the first one concerns, and all you really 00:01:09.930 --> 00:01:15.420 align:middle line:84% have to know, if you didn't, is that Mozart was probably, 00:01:15.420 --> 00:01:22.320 align:middle line:84% along with Keats, the intuitive artist to whom the music just 00:01:22.320 --> 00:01:24.480 align:middle line:90% simply seemed to flow from him. 00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:28.110 align:middle line:84% But he died a pauper, was buried in a pauper's grave. 00:01:28.110 --> 00:01:30.060 align:middle line:84% The second concerns John Clare, who 00:01:30.060 --> 00:01:35.160 align:middle line:84% was an English poet about over a century ago, 00:01:35.160 --> 00:01:36.960 align:middle line:84% who spent the last half of his life 00:01:36.960 --> 00:01:41.610 align:middle line:84% in a madhouse where he was subject to fits of psychosis. 00:01:41.610 --> 00:01:44.230 align:middle line:84% The beginning of that section that begins "dear sir" 00:01:44.230 --> 00:01:48.960 align:middle line:84% is the last letter that Clare wrote from the madhouse. 00:01:48.960 --> 00:01:52.200 align:middle line:90% Tolstoy wanted to be a saint. 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:55.950 align:middle line:90% 00:01:55.950 --> 00:02:02.670 align:middle line:90% And he was, oh I'm sorry. 00:02:02.670 --> 00:02:05.120 align:middle line:84% I've forgotten what I wanted to say about this. 00:02:05.120 --> 00:02:07.470 align:middle line:84% Films are mentioned in the Tolstoy section. 00:02:07.470 --> 00:02:09.600 align:middle line:84% One of the earliest films that were made 00:02:09.600 --> 00:02:14.130 align:middle line:84% were of Tolstoy's funeral. A few quotes also 00:02:14.130 --> 00:02:16.200 align:middle line:84% from Tolstoy, short stories in it. 00:02:16.200 --> 00:02:19.710 align:middle line:84% Osip Mandelstam, Russian poet, died in exile 00:02:19.710 --> 00:02:22.860 align:middle line:84% in the labor camp, Stalin's Russia. 00:02:22.860 --> 00:02:29.040 align:middle line:84% And Robert Schumann, who was also something of an innocent, 00:02:29.040 --> 00:02:31.410 align:middle line:84% I guess as John Clare was and also spent 00:02:31.410 --> 00:02:32.940 align:middle line:90% the last part of his life mad. 00:02:32.940 --> 00:02:35.670 align:middle line:90% 00:02:35.670 --> 00:02:38.790 align:middle line:84% His music is so banal he must be so simple. 00:02:38.790 --> 00:02:42.150 align:middle line:84% [LAUGH] OK, "Lives of the Saints." 00:02:42.150 --> 00:02:48.440 align:middle line:90% 00:02:48.440 --> 00:02:53.330 align:middle line:84% "This is the rain on Mozart's grave, shearing to glissandi. 00:02:53.330 --> 00:02:56.540 align:middle line:84% Where do you little lie, exhausted, whole, and wholly 00:02:56.540 --> 00:02:57.980 align:middle line:90% done? 00:02:57.980 --> 00:03:02.240 align:middle line:84% Sweet Amadeus, when I sip my bourbon, weaving myself 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:05.750 align:middle line:84% toward pure abstraction, the recollection of emotion 00:03:05.750 --> 00:03:07.910 align:middle line:90% without the tired events-- 00:03:07.910 --> 00:03:11.360 align:middle line:84% I'd trade my part in this to bear your song. 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:15.950 align:middle line:84% Even the most, last, broken, human moan, 00:03:15.950 --> 00:03:20.090 align:middle line:84% you were so friendly, and your pillow was a stone. 00:03:20.090 --> 00:03:22.820 align:middle line:84% This is Mozart, a curtain of rain, 00:03:22.820 --> 00:03:24.950 align:middle line:84% the turning heads of certain women, 00:03:24.950 --> 00:03:28.190 align:middle line:84% the sweetness of bourbon, sweetness of music, 00:03:28.190 --> 00:03:31.850 align:middle line:84% the pure politeness of oblivion." 00:03:31.850 --> 00:03:33.650 align:middle line:90% And John Clare's letter. 00:03:33.650 --> 00:03:37.320 align:middle line:84% "Dear sir, I am in a madhouse and quite forget your name." 00:03:37.320 --> 00:03:38.900 align:middle line:90% He's replying to someone. 00:03:38.900 --> 00:03:41.180 align:middle line:84% "I'm in a mad house and quite forget your name 00:03:41.180 --> 00:03:42.500 align:middle line:90% or who you are. 00:03:42.500 --> 00:03:45.980 align:middle line:84% You must excuse me, for I have nothing to communicate or tell. 00:03:45.980 --> 00:03:48.800 align:middle line:84% And why I am shut up, I don't know. 00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:51.350 align:middle line:84% I have nothing to say so must conclude. 00:03:51.350 --> 00:03:55.490 align:middle line:90% Yours respectfully, John Clare. 00:03:55.490 --> 00:03:57.680 align:middle line:84% Was this his letter into the earth? 00:03:57.680 --> 00:04:00.990 align:middle line:84% Was it wholly composed of solitude? 00:04:00.990 --> 00:04:03.320 align:middle line:90% It was wholly composed. 00:04:03.320 --> 00:04:05.720 align:middle line:84% Did he bear extravagant pain whose 00:04:05.720 --> 00:04:09.230 align:middle line:84% poems of such light fragrance as to be-- 00:04:09.230 --> 00:04:12.560 align:middle line:90% dear sir, forgive us-- small? 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:15.830 align:middle line:84% You are minor, sir, and would not offend. 00:04:15.830 --> 00:04:18.125 align:middle line:90% I am respectfully yours. 00:04:18.125 --> 00:04:20.930 align:middle line:90% 00:04:20.930 --> 00:04:23.030 align:middle line:84% Under the gathering luminous clouds, 00:04:23.030 --> 00:04:26.720 align:middle line:84% he walked his ground, thought, another reigns. 00:04:26.720 --> 00:04:27.830 align:middle line:90% I must not-- 00:04:27.830 --> 00:04:31.880 align:middle line:84% Tolstoy-- be myself, and fled from home. 00:04:31.880 --> 00:04:35.780 align:middle line:84% We have the early flickering films, the morning strangers, 00:04:35.780 --> 00:04:37.130 align:middle line:90% waving. 00:04:37.130 --> 00:04:39.770 align:middle line:84% All day he lay at Astapovo Station. 00:04:39.770 --> 00:04:41.180 align:middle line:90% Over and over-- 00:04:41.180 --> 00:04:45.830 align:middle line:84% I do not understand what it is I have to do. 00:04:45.830 --> 00:04:49.940 align:middle line:84% Yes, one good deed, a cup of water given-- 00:04:49.940 --> 00:04:54.920 align:middle line:84% prevailed his gentleness, his pride who would not bow-- 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:58.100 align:middle line:84% the light, a small tin lamp without a shade-- 00:04:58.100 --> 00:05:00.050 align:middle line:90% to read himself. 00:05:00.050 --> 00:05:01.760 align:middle line:90% I have no passport. 00:05:01.760 --> 00:05:02.975 align:middle line:90% I am a servant of God. 00:05:02.975 --> 00:05:05.560 align:middle line:90% 00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:08.140 align:middle line:90% The age demanded acquiescence. 00:05:08.140 --> 00:05:10.690 align:middle line:90% Stalin's cock, a stone. 00:05:10.690 --> 00:05:15.490 align:middle line:84% The heart of Mandelstam, in exile, pumps and dries. 00:05:15.490 --> 00:05:18.550 align:middle line:84% The bells of Petrograd, the bells of Leningrad 00:05:18.550 --> 00:05:21.250 align:middle line:90% limed with ice, are hollow. 00:05:21.250 --> 00:05:25.510 align:middle line:90% Silent stalks the frozen snow. 00:05:25.510 --> 00:05:28.600 align:middle line:84% We throw our matches three times in our Yankee vodka, 00:05:28.600 --> 00:05:30.520 align:middle line:90% hoping for a conflagration. 00:05:30.520 --> 00:05:31.540 align:middle line:90% Anger! 00:05:31.540 --> 00:05:35.890 align:middle line:84% For Mandelstam, for Mayakovsky, Anna Akhmatova! 00:05:35.890 --> 00:05:39.160 align:middle line:84% For timid Mandelstam, three times a fool, 00:05:39.160 --> 00:05:41.440 align:middle line:90% accused and blessed-- 00:05:41.440 --> 00:05:43.630 align:middle line:90% poet, Russian, Jew. 00:05:43.630 --> 00:05:46.930 align:middle line:90% 00:05:46.930 --> 00:05:48.310 align:middle line:90% I am Chopin. 00:05:48.310 --> 00:05:50.020 align:middle line:90% I enclose a little time. 00:05:50.020 --> 00:05:52.360 align:middle line:90% I bow and play. 00:05:52.360 --> 00:05:56.050 align:middle line:84% The sea, the chandelier, this room, the sky, 00:05:56.050 --> 00:06:00.490 align:middle line:84% the cliffs at Sourash, even the whole of Europe blown black, 00:06:00.490 --> 00:06:01.960 align:middle line:90% spin-- 00:06:01.960 --> 00:06:04.630 align:middle line:90% the music speeds, retreats. 00:06:04.630 --> 00:06:08.320 align:middle line:84% And I'm Robert Schumann, mad and done. 00:06:08.320 --> 00:06:13.390 align:middle line:90% Yet must a little time, go on. 00:06:13.390 --> 00:06:15.880 align:middle line:84% Now at the hour, we lately lie awake. 00:06:15.880 --> 00:06:20.830 align:middle line:84% Give us that surety on which our fragile art depends. 00:06:20.830 --> 00:06:23.290 align:middle line:84% I am Robert Schumann, bewildered, 00:06:23.290 --> 00:06:27.640 align:middle line:84% woken by a strange sonata in a foreign bed. 00:06:27.640 --> 00:06:32.640 align:middle line:84% Give me a little time, eternity, and I will mend." 00:06:32.640 --> 00:06:34.000 align:middle line:90%