WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.860 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.860 --> 00:00:03.720 align:middle line:84% And then, like most people eventually do, 00:00:03.720 --> 00:00:05.760 align:middle line:90% I discovered my childhood. 00:00:05.760 --> 00:00:08.700 align:middle line:84% As Walker says, write about your childhood, and, boy, did I 00:00:08.700 --> 00:00:12.000 align:middle line:84% go to work on that one and wrote several poems 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:15.530 align:middle line:90% about my childhood. 00:00:15.530 --> 00:00:18.900 align:middle line:84% Fortunately, childhood is finite and the language is infinite, 00:00:18.900 --> 00:00:21.140 align:middle line:84% so there are things after your childhood 00:00:21.140 --> 00:00:25.190 align:middle line:84% and you can still write other poems. 00:00:25.190 --> 00:00:27.170 align:middle line:84% This poem is called Dog Creek Mainline, 00:00:27.170 --> 00:00:31.040 align:middle line:84% and it's the first poem that I'd written that I think probably 00:00:31.040 --> 00:00:33.740 align:middle line:84% no one else but me could have written, because. 00:00:33.740 --> 00:00:36.350 align:middle line:90% No one else sort of lived it. 00:00:36.350 --> 00:00:39.790 align:middle line:84% And it's about a town in North Carolina called 00:00:39.790 --> 00:00:42.980 align:middle line:90% Hiwassee Dam, North Carolina. 00:00:42.980 --> 00:00:44.600 align:middle line:84% The landscape, if you saw a movie 00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:47.180 align:middle line:84% called Deliverance, the James Dickey movie, 00:00:47.180 --> 00:00:50.810 align:middle line:84% that was filmed about 50 miles away from where this place is, 00:00:50.810 --> 00:00:56.390 align:middle line:84% and it's that kind of completely dense, lush landscape. 00:00:56.390 --> 00:01:00.890 align:middle line:84% And I lived there when I was five and six years old, 00:01:00.890 --> 00:01:04.430 align:middle line:84% and I liked the place very much, and I 00:01:04.430 --> 00:01:07.040 align:middle line:84% was trying to remember it, and, of course, 00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:09.530 align:middle line:84% as in all things with memory, you 00:01:09.530 --> 00:01:12.470 align:middle line:84% change it to fit your own situation, 00:01:12.470 --> 00:01:14.510 align:middle line:84% however you want to feel about it. 00:01:14.510 --> 00:01:18.155 align:middle line:84% And I kept trying to recall it, bring it back, and I did it-- 00:01:18.155 --> 00:01:21.080 align:middle line:84% at least in the poem, I was doing it imagistically and then 00:01:21.080 --> 00:01:26.930 align:middle line:84% geographically, and then I thought lyrically, 00:01:26.930 --> 00:01:29.510 align:middle line:84% and then I still couldn't do it, and so I'll make a comment 00:01:29.510 --> 00:01:30.920 align:middle line:84% on that and then I make a comment 00:01:30.920 --> 00:01:33.295 align:middle line:84% on the whole process of writing a poem, which, of course, 00:01:33.295 --> 00:01:37.070 align:middle line:84% you're never supposed to do, so I thought I'd do it. 00:01:37.070 --> 00:01:40.000 align:middle line:84% There are place names in here like Ducktown and Copper Hill, 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:42.140 align:middle line:84% real little towns around Hiwasseee Dam. 00:01:42.140 --> 00:01:45.590 align:middle line:90% 00:01:45.590 --> 00:01:50.330 align:middle line:84% I don't know why I called it Dog Creek instead of Hiwassee Dam, 00:01:50.330 --> 00:01:53.210 align:middle line:84% except I guess it sounds cooler to be Dog Creek. 00:01:53.210 --> 00:01:55.304 align:middle line:84% Hiwassee Dam's kind of weird sounding too. 00:01:55.304 --> 00:01:59.100 align:middle line:90% 00:01:59.100 --> 00:02:01.470 align:middle line:90% Dog Creek Mainline. 00:02:01.470 --> 00:02:02.640 align:middle line:90% Dog Creek. 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:07.140 align:middle line:84% Cat track and bird splay, spindrift and windfall, 00:02:07.140 --> 00:02:11.009 align:middle line:84% wood rot, odor of muscadine, the blue creep 00:02:11.009 --> 00:02:14.610 align:middle line:84% of kingsnake and copperhead, nightweed, 00:02:14.610 --> 00:02:18.630 align:middle line:84% frog spit and floating heart, backwash and snag pool. 00:02:18.630 --> 00:02:19.530 align:middle line:90% Dog Creek. 00:02:19.530 --> 00:02:23.250 align:middle line:84% Starts in the leaf reach and shoal run of the blood, 00:02:23.250 --> 00:02:26.760 align:middle line:84% starts in the falling light just back of the fingertips, 00:02:26.760 --> 00:02:29.010 align:middle line:84% starts forever in the black throat 00:02:29.010 --> 00:02:35.430 align:middle line:84% you ask redemption of, in wants you awaken to, the odd door. 00:02:35.430 --> 00:02:40.260 align:middle line:84% Its sky, old empty valise, stands open, departure in mind. 00:02:40.260 --> 00:02:43.080 align:middle line:84% Its three streets, Y-shaped and brown, 00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:45.570 align:middle line:90% go up the hills like a fever. 00:02:45.570 --> 00:02:48.690 align:middle line:90% Its houses link and deploy. 00:02:48.690 --> 00:02:54.210 align:middle line:84% This ointment, false flesh in another color. 00:02:54.210 --> 00:02:58.860 align:middle line:84% Five cutouts, five silhouettes against the American twilight. 00:02:58.860 --> 00:03:01.860 align:middle line:90% The year is 1941. 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:05.490 align:middle line:84% Remembered names, Rosendale, Perry, and Smith 00:03:05.490 --> 00:03:08.340 align:middle line:90% rise like dust in the deaf air. 00:03:08.340 --> 00:03:12.720 align:middle line:84% The tops spin, the poison swells in the arm. 00:03:12.720 --> 00:03:15.210 align:middle line:84% The trees in their jade death suits, 00:03:15.210 --> 00:03:18.210 align:middle line:84% the birds with their opal feet shimmer and weave 00:03:18.210 --> 00:03:20.010 align:middle line:90% on the shoreline. 00:03:20.010 --> 00:03:23.490 align:middle line:84% The moths, like forget-me-nots, blow up from the Earth, 00:03:23.490 --> 00:03:27.960 align:middle line:84% their wet teeth breaking the dark, the raw grain. 00:03:27.960 --> 00:03:31.380 align:middle line:84% The lake in its cradle hums the old songs. 00:03:31.380 --> 00:03:35.160 align:middle line:84% Out of its ooze, their heads like tomahawks, the turtles 00:03:35.160 --> 00:03:38.700 align:middle line:84% ascend and settle back, leaving their chill breath 00:03:38.700 --> 00:03:41.130 align:middle line:90% in blisters along the bank. 00:03:41.130 --> 00:03:46.550 align:middle line:84% Locked in their wide drawer, the pike lie still as knives. 00:03:46.550 --> 00:03:47.870 align:middle line:90% Hard freight. 00:03:47.870 --> 00:03:51.020 align:middle line:84% It's hard freight from Ducktown to Copper Hill, 00:03:51.020 --> 00:03:53.660 align:middle line:90% from Six to Piled High. 00:03:53.660 --> 00:03:57.440 align:middle line:84% Dog Creek is on this line, indigent spur. 00:03:57.440 --> 00:04:00.560 align:middle line:84% Cross-tie by cross-tie takes you back, 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:04.850 align:middle line:84% the red wind caught at your neck like a prize. 00:04:04.850 --> 00:04:07.100 align:middle line:90% The heart is a hieroglyph. 00:04:07.100 --> 00:04:09.170 align:middle line:84% The fingers, like praying mantises, 00:04:09.170 --> 00:04:11.960 align:middle line:84% poise over what they have once loved. 00:04:11.960 --> 00:04:14.360 align:middle line:84% The ear, cold cave, is an absence, 00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:17.089 align:middle line:90% tapping its own thin wires. 00:04:17.089 --> 00:04:20.089 align:middle line:90% The eye turns in on itself. 00:04:20.089 --> 00:04:22.490 align:middle line:90% The tongue is a white water. 00:04:22.490 --> 00:04:26.060 align:middle line:84% In its slick ceremonies, the light gathers and is refracted 00:04:26.060 --> 00:04:31.760 align:middle line:84% and moves outward over the lips, over the dry skin of the world. 00:04:31.760 --> 00:04:34.360 align:middle line:90% The tongue is a white water. 00:04:34.360 --> 00:04:36.010 align:middle line:90%