WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.560 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.560 --> 00:00:10.605 align:middle line:84% Then I picked up the wrong book, and I went from adolescence 00:00:10.605 --> 00:00:11.355 align:middle line:90% back to childhood. 00:00:11.355 --> 00:00:16.680 align:middle line:84% And it's a book called The Bloodlines, 00:00:16.680 --> 00:00:22.380 align:middle line:84% where I wrote some more poems about my growing up. 00:00:22.380 --> 00:00:25.970 align:middle line:84% Mostly my battle with the Episcopal Church. 00:00:25.970 --> 00:00:31.440 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] was one as always. 00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:33.420 align:middle line:84% I think it'll probably win in the end. 00:00:33.420 --> 00:00:35.724 align:middle line:84% It usually does so what the hell? 00:00:35.724 --> 00:00:39.550 align:middle line:90% 00:00:39.550 --> 00:00:43.360 align:middle line:84% The book is organized around two long poems. 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:46.750 align:middle line:84% 24 poems, which I will spare you this evening. 00:00:46.750 --> 00:00:49.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:49.600 --> 00:00:50.540 align:middle line:90% But they're terrific. 00:00:50.540 --> 00:00:51.700 align:middle line:90% You should read them. 00:00:51.700 --> 00:00:53.350 align:middle line:90% But go ahead and buy the book. 00:00:53.350 --> 00:00:55.660 align:middle line:84% Well, I want to read three, I guess 00:00:55.660 --> 00:00:59.650 align:middle line:84% three, three poems that are sort of divisional poems 00:00:59.650 --> 00:01:02.300 align:middle line:84% in the book, the first one, and one in the middle 00:01:02.300 --> 00:01:05.510 align:middle line:90% and then one of the last ones. 00:01:05.510 --> 00:01:10.180 align:middle line:84% The first one was a poem called "Virgo Descending," 00:01:10.180 --> 00:01:13.210 align:middle line:84% because it's about my family, my father. 00:01:13.210 --> 00:01:16.030 align:middle line:84% And I'm a Virgo, and I was born on his birthday. 00:01:16.030 --> 00:01:21.100 align:middle line:84% So how much more Virgo can you get than that? 00:01:21.100 --> 00:01:23.200 align:middle line:84% He was a construction engineer, which 00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:28.850 align:middle line:84% is why there's so much construction imagery going on. 00:01:28.850 --> 00:01:35.740 align:middle line:84% And it's about going down into the Earth 00:01:35.740 --> 00:01:38.110 align:middle line:84% to find the ghosts of one's past. 00:01:38.110 --> 00:01:42.130 align:middle line:84% The original idea was me, of course, and Dante, and Homer 00:01:42.130 --> 00:01:44.770 align:middle line:90% and everybody else--Pound, and so on. 00:01:44.770 --> 00:01:47.920 align:middle line:84% Well, that's why it's the first poem in the book. 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:53.470 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] No, I guess that's no. 00:01:53.470 --> 00:01:54.880 align:middle line:90% "Virgo Descending." 00:01:54.880 --> 00:01:58.990 align:middle line:84% "Through the viridian and black for the burnt match, 00:01:58.990 --> 00:02:03.220 align:middle line:84% through oxblood and ochre, the ham-colored clay, through plate 00:02:03.220 --> 00:02:07.150 align:middle line:84% after plate down, where the worm and the mole will not go, 00:02:07.150 --> 00:02:13.060 align:middle line:84% through ore-seam and fire-seam, my grandmother, senile and 89, 00:02:13.060 --> 00:02:15.460 align:middle line:84% crimp-backed, stands like a door ajar 00:02:15.460 --> 00:02:19.720 align:middle line:84% on her soft bed, the open beams and bare studs of the hall, 00:02:19.720 --> 00:02:23.230 align:middle line:84% pink as an infant skin in the floating dark. 00:02:23.230 --> 00:02:25.960 align:middle line:84% Shavings and curl swing down like snowflakes 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:28.520 align:middle line:90% across her face. 00:02:28.520 --> 00:02:31.600 align:middle line:90% My aunt and I walk past. 00:02:31.600 --> 00:02:34.210 align:middle line:84% As always, my father is planning rooms, 00:02:34.210 --> 00:02:36.820 align:middle line:84% dragging his lame leg, stroke-straightened and 00:02:36.820 --> 00:02:38.950 align:middle line:90% foreign, behind him. 00:02:38.950 --> 00:02:43.040 align:middle line:84% An aberrant 2 by 4, he can't fit snug. 00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:46.610 align:middle line:84% I lay my head on my aunt's shoulder, feeling at home, 00:02:46.610 --> 00:02:48.800 align:middle line:90% and walk on. 00:02:48.800 --> 00:02:52.010 align:middle line:84% Through arches and door jambs, the spidery wires 00:02:52.010 --> 00:02:56.540 align:middle line:84% and coiled cables, the blueprint takes shape. 00:02:56.540 --> 00:02:59.870 align:middle line:84% My mother's room to the left, the door closed. 00:02:59.870 --> 00:03:03.480 align:middle line:84% My father's room to the left, the door closed. 00:03:03.480 --> 00:03:05.540 align:middle line:84% Ahead, my brother's room, unfinished. 00:03:05.540 --> 00:03:07.790 align:middle line:90% Behind my sister's room, also. 00:03:07.790 --> 00:03:09.170 align:middle line:90% Unfinished. 00:03:09.170 --> 00:03:12.920 align:middle line:84% Buttresses, winches, block-and-tackle, the scale 00:03:12.920 --> 00:03:15.020 align:middle line:90% of everything is enormous. 00:03:15.020 --> 00:03:16.820 align:middle line:90% We keep on walking. 00:03:16.820 --> 00:03:21.080 align:middle line:84% And past my aunt's room, almost complete, the curtain's up, 00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:23.180 align:middle line:84% the lamp and the medicine arranged 00:03:23.180 --> 00:03:28.790 align:middle line:84% in their proper places, in arm's reach of where the bed will go. 00:03:28.790 --> 00:03:30.500 align:middle line:90% The next one is mine. 00:03:30.500 --> 00:03:34.610 align:middle line:84% Now more than half done, cloyed by the scent of jasmine, 00:03:34.610 --> 00:03:40.310 align:middle line:84% white-gummed and anxious, their mouths sucking the air dry. 00:03:40.310 --> 00:03:43.070 align:middle line:84% Home is what you lie in or hang above, 00:03:43.070 --> 00:03:46.730 align:middle line:84% the house your father made or keeps on making, 00:03:46.730 --> 00:03:52.250 align:middle line:84% the dirt you moisten, the sap you push up and nourish. 00:03:52.250 --> 00:03:56.270 align:middle line:84% I enter the living room, It too unfinished, its far wall 00:03:56.270 --> 00:04:00.140 align:middle line:84% not there, opening on to a radiance I can't begin 00:04:00.140 --> 00:04:03.530 align:middle line:84% to imagine, a light my father walks from, 00:04:03.530 --> 00:04:07.370 align:middle line:84% approaching me, dragging his right leg, rolling his plans 00:04:07.370 --> 00:04:09.500 align:middle line:90% into a perfect curl. 00:04:09.500 --> 00:04:13.010 align:middle line:84% That light, he mutters, that damned light, 00:04:13.010 --> 00:04:14.330 align:middle line:90% we can't keep it out. 00:04:14.330 --> 00:04:15.830 align:middle line:90% It keeps on filling your room. 00:04:15.830 --> 00:04:20.990 align:middle line:90% 00:04:20.990 --> 00:04:23.770 align:middle line:84% That's the light of hell, boys and girls." 00:04:23.770 --> 00:04:26.000 align:middle line:90%