WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.420 align:middle line:84% I'm going to be reading from a book that's coming out 00:00:10.420 --> 00:00:16.720 align:middle line:84% in the spring, the title of which will be "Flood" 00:00:16.720 --> 00:00:21.220 align:middle line:84% and begin by reading a poem which 00:00:21.220 --> 00:00:30.850 align:middle line:84% is one of my comparatively rare autobiographical poems. 00:00:30.850 --> 00:00:33.280 align:middle line:90% It dictates an early moral-- 00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:38.710 align:middle line:84% it comes from-- dictated by an early moral crisis in my life. 00:00:38.710 --> 00:00:41.875 align:middle line:84% When I was 11, I fell in love with twins. 00:00:41.875 --> 00:00:44.845 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:44.845 --> 00:00:48.310 align:middle line:90% 00:00:48.310 --> 00:00:50.770 align:middle line:90% The poem is called "Twins." 00:00:50.770 --> 00:00:53.680 align:middle line:84% It bears an epigraph from Marianne Moore, 00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:58.060 align:middle line:84% who wrote, "One may be a blameless Bachelor 00:00:58.060 --> 00:01:02.340 align:middle line:84% and it is but a step to Congreve." 00:01:02.340 --> 00:01:02.840 align:middle line:90% "Twins." 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:05.900 align:middle line:90% 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:09.650 align:middle line:84% "When I was 11 and they were 22-- 00:01:09.650 --> 00:01:12.530 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:12.530 --> 00:01:13.970 align:middle line:90% 00:01:13.970 --> 00:01:16.610 align:middle line:90% I fell in love with twins. 00:01:16.610 --> 00:01:21.950 align:middle line:84% That's how I thought of them in some five run on syllables-- 00:01:21.950 --> 00:01:24.500 align:middle line:90% Connie and Bonnie. 00:01:24.500 --> 00:01:30.440 align:middle line:84% They were so resolutely given as a pair, like father and mother. 00:01:30.440 --> 00:01:33.200 align:middle line:90% I never thought to prefer one. 00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:36.980 align:middle line:84% Warm in her matching bed like half an English muffin 00:01:36.980 --> 00:01:37.550 align:middle line:90% in a toaster. 00:01:37.550 --> 00:01:40.550 align:middle line:90% 00:01:40.550 --> 00:01:47.360 align:middle line:84% Bonnie was blond, lithe, wild eyed, angular, and fey. 00:01:47.360 --> 00:01:53.240 align:middle line:84% And Connie was brunette, shiny eyed, and shy, as most true 00:01:53.240 --> 00:01:57.608 align:middle line:84% flirts describe themselves over and over. 00:01:57.608 --> 00:02:00.680 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:04.970 align:middle line:84% And shouldn't love be an exclusive passion? 00:02:04.970 --> 00:02:10.100 align:middle line:84% To fall in love with twins made me unfaithful in advance. 00:02:10.100 --> 00:02:13.250 align:middle line:84% It made me paralyzed, or I made it. 00:02:13.250 --> 00:02:19.970 align:middle line:84% My love doubled forever into mathematical heaven paralysis. 00:02:19.970 --> 00:02:24.350 align:middle line:84% Frocks rhyme and names confuse, and the world 00:02:24.350 --> 00:02:28.250 align:middle line:84% is thicker with sad futures than lost pasts. 00:02:28.250 --> 00:02:33.120 align:middle line:84% And I, who hoarded names like marbles-- 00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:35.540 align:middle line:90% how could I say what I knew? 00:02:35.540 --> 00:02:39.080 align:middle line:90% Indeed, how can I say it now? 00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:42.260 align:middle line:84% I knew the two meanings of cleave. 00:02:42.260 --> 00:02:47.390 align:middle line:84% I looked into those eyes I loved, two brown two blue, 00:02:47.390 --> 00:02:50.690 align:middle line:84% and shut my own gray from any light but mine 00:02:50.690 --> 00:02:54.740 align:middle line:84% and walked straight home and kissed my parents equally 00:02:54.740 --> 00:02:58.820 align:middle line:84% and climbed my growing body's staircase to the very tip 00:02:58.820 --> 00:02:59.330 align:middle line:90% of sleep." 00:02:59.330 --> 00:03:01.850 align:middle line:90% 00:03:01.850 --> 00:03:05.024 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:05.024 --> 00:03:07.460 align:middle line:90% 00:03:07.460 --> 00:03:09.740 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:03:09.740 --> 00:03:11.750 align:middle line:84% I guess I'm going to ask you if you-- 00:03:11.750 --> 00:03:14.120 align:middle line:84% in the event that you should like another poem enough 00:03:14.120 --> 00:03:15.830 align:middle line:84% to applaud it, to hold it to the end 00:03:15.830 --> 00:03:19.220 align:middle line:84% because eventually, there'll be one you won't applaud. 00:03:19.220 --> 00:03:21.920 align:middle line:84% And I'll be driven crazy, wondering 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:24.280 align:middle line:90% why you didn't like it.