WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.750 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.750 --> 00:00:03.930 align:middle line:84% Jane Miller is a great source of energy and inspiration 00:00:03.930 --> 00:00:06.570 align:middle line:90% for many of us here. 00:00:06.570 --> 00:00:12.510 align:middle line:84% And it's a great joy for me to introduce her to you tonight. 00:00:12.510 --> 00:00:15.840 align:middle line:84% She received a BA from Penn State and MA 00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:18.000 align:middle line:84% from California State University, 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.250 align:middle line:84% and an MFA from the Writers Workshop 00:00:20.250 --> 00:00:22.840 align:middle line:90% at the University of Iowa. 00:00:22.840 --> 00:00:25.290 align:middle line:84% She's taught here at the University of Arizona 00:00:25.290 --> 00:00:28.980 align:middle line:84% since 1986, and currently is director 00:00:28.980 --> 00:00:31.800 align:middle line:90% of the creative writing program. 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:36.480 align:middle line:84% She's the author of Many Hearts, Many Juniper's in 1980, 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:40.350 align:middle line:84% The Greater Leisures chosen by Stanley Plumly for the National 00:00:40.350 --> 00:00:43.980 align:middle line:90% Poetry series published in 1983. 00:00:43.980 --> 00:00:46.710 align:middle line:84% Black Holes, Black Stockings, the collaboration 00:00:46.710 --> 00:00:50.040 align:middle line:84% with Olga Broumas published in '85. 00:00:50.040 --> 00:00:55.230 align:middle line:84% American Odalisque from Copper Canyon in 1987. 00:00:55.230 --> 00:00:59.430 align:middle line:84% Memory at These Speeds: New and Selected Poems 00:00:59.430 --> 00:01:02.760 align:middle line:90% from Copper Canyon in 1996. 00:01:02.760 --> 00:01:08.760 align:middle line:84% And this year, Wherever You Lay Your Head from Copper Canyon. 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:11.850 align:middle line:84% Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEAs, 00:01:11.850 --> 00:01:15.750 align:middle line:84% and a Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Award, 00:01:15.750 --> 00:01:18.480 align:middle line:90% among other things. 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:20.940 align:middle line:84% Miller's experimental curricula have 00:01:20.940 --> 00:01:23.610 align:middle line:90% made her a legendary teacher. 00:01:23.610 --> 00:01:29.730 align:middle line:84% She's taught such seminars as "Line and Curve," "Discourse 00:01:29.730 --> 00:01:34.020 align:middle line:84% on Polaroid," "Improvisational Composition in Music 00:01:34.020 --> 00:01:37.500 align:middle line:84% and Poetry," "Feminism and Semiotics." 00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:42.300 align:middle line:84% And as I recall one called simply "Time." 00:01:42.300 --> 00:01:44.490 align:middle line:84% Her reading list is as likely to include 00:01:44.490 --> 00:01:47.010 align:middle line:84% Stephen Hawking or Jackson Pollock 00:01:47.010 --> 00:01:50.430 align:middle line:84% as Gertrude Stein or Adrienne Rich. 00:01:50.430 --> 00:01:57.060 align:middle line:84% And that eclecticism of mind is a lead in to her work. 00:01:57.060 --> 00:02:02.070 align:middle line:84% Miller has taken the passionate intensity of Sappho 00:02:02.070 --> 00:02:06.000 align:middle line:84% and exploded it into an encompassing 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:12.030 align:middle line:84% post-nuclear rhapsody, in which grief and love dance 00:02:12.030 --> 00:02:17.730 align:middle line:84% hand in hand as the millennium fades to black. 00:02:17.730 --> 00:02:24.030 align:middle line:84% The new book is pared back to more halting rhythms, 00:02:24.030 --> 00:02:29.940 align:middle line:84% inspired by the master Japanese printmaker, Ando Hiroshige. 00:02:29.940 --> 00:02:35.760 align:middle line:84% Poems in which the bondage between the American Southwest 00:02:35.760 --> 00:02:39.030 align:middle line:90% and Hiroshima is laid bare. 00:02:39.030 --> 00:02:44.070 align:middle line:84% And the perversity of technology's worst invention 00:02:44.070 --> 00:02:49.410 align:middle line:84% meets the beauty of art's transcendent dream. 00:02:49.410 --> 00:02:51.150 align:middle line:90% Please welcome Jane Miller. 00:02:51.150 --> 00:02:54.629 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:54.629 --> 00:02:58.110 align:middle line:90% 00:02:58.110 --> 00:02:58.980 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:02:58.980 --> 00:03:00.120 align:middle line:90% Thanks, Alison. 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:02.070 align:middle line:90% Can you hear me? 00:03:02.070 --> 00:03:11.580 align:middle line:84% "In a long text on live TV, in an amphitheater, in the soil. 00:03:11.580 --> 00:03:16.170 align:middle line:84% After the postmoderns, after it's still proven 00:03:16.170 --> 00:03:19.740 align:middle line:84% you can get a kiss out of a pretty girl, 00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:23.190 align:middle line:84% after the meta ritual lectures and Heinz switches 00:03:23.190 --> 00:03:26.370 align:middle line:90% to plastic squeeze bottles. 00:03:26.370 --> 00:03:30.660 align:middle line:84% As one flies into St. Louis listening to Lorca's 00:03:30.660 --> 00:03:36.120 align:middle line:84% Luna, Luna, Luna, beyond Anacin time. 00:03:36.120 --> 00:03:40.560 align:middle line:84% After, God help us, the dishwasher is emptied again, 00:03:40.560 --> 00:03:44.100 align:middle line:84% and Ms. America, Ms. Mississippi reveals 00:03:44.100 --> 00:03:49.230 align:middle line:84% she has entered 100 pageants since age six. 00:03:49.230 --> 00:03:55.260 align:middle line:84% Packers ball, first down after a fumble, the corn detasseled, 00:03:55.260 --> 00:03:58.890 align:middle line:84% the assembly of enthusiasms awakened. 00:03:58.890 --> 00:04:04.710 align:middle line:84% And we meet in a car by a river, not not kissing, 00:04:04.710 --> 00:04:08.820 align:middle line:84% considering making love, visiting Jerusalem, 00:04:08.820 --> 00:04:11.190 align:middle line:84% the awful daily knowledge that we 00:04:11.190 --> 00:04:15.120 align:middle line:84% will have to die in a hospital on the sixth floor 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:19.140 align:middle line:84% or on live TV, or in an amphitheater at halftime, 00:04:19.140 --> 00:04:23.070 align:middle line:84% or at one's parent's condo over pasta, 00:04:23.070 --> 00:04:26.910 align:middle line:84% or in a strange relative's arms along the coast. 00:04:26.910 --> 00:04:31.440 align:middle line:84% The heart bumping, bumping the old pebble up the old spine, 00:04:31.440 --> 00:04:35.850 align:middle line:84% a squirrel scared up a sycamore by an infant. 00:04:35.850 --> 00:04:39.870 align:middle line:84% Along this stench of humility, along that highway 00:04:39.870 --> 00:04:44.850 align:middle line:84% of cum charge card in hand, I will give my time freely. 00:04:44.850 --> 00:04:48.360 align:middle line:84% And the more I dissemble, the more I resemble. 00:04:48.360 --> 00:04:51.360 align:middle line:84% The better, the faster I sleep, the more I 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:53.040 align:middle line:90% remember to go elsewhere. 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:55.830 align:middle line:84% A movie, excuse me, now I must whisper 00:04:55.830 --> 00:04:58.530 align:middle line:90% not to disturb the patrons. 00:04:58.530 --> 00:05:02.160 align:middle line:84% Now I must drive, park, tramp to the edge of the world, 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:06.270 align:middle line:84% roughness, ferocity, cannibalism, bite, chew, 00:05:06.270 --> 00:05:11.880 align:middle line:84% transmogrified inside the lungs, the little revolutionaries 00:05:11.880 --> 00:05:16.590 align:middle line:84% between the thighs, the reflex, it's too this, it's too that. 00:05:16.590 --> 00:05:18.520 align:middle line:90% It's not enough. 00:05:18.520 --> 00:05:24.120 align:middle line:84% Similarly and more particularly, it's raw twice over. 00:05:24.120 --> 00:05:28.350 align:middle line:84% It's the imagination draining its husks left handed, 00:05:28.350 --> 00:05:32.430 align:middle line:84% because comparison is motive, which is why 00:05:32.430 --> 00:05:35.599 align:middle line:90% one writes with one's desire. 00:05:35.599 --> 00:05:39.092 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:39.092 --> 00:05:45.590 align:middle line:90% 00:05:45.590 --> 00:05:46.590 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:05:46.590 --> 00:05:47.090 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:05:47.090 --> 00:05:50.750 align:middle line:84% That was called "Miami Heart" named after a hospital in South 00:05:50.750 --> 00:05:52.400 align:middle line:90% Florida. 00:05:52.400 --> 00:05:54.470 align:middle line:84% This next poem is set in California-- 00:05:54.470 --> 00:05:56.570 align:middle line:90% Northern California. 00:05:56.570 --> 00:06:00.230 align:middle line:84% I hope you'll recognize some of the landmarks there. 00:06:00.230 --> 00:06:03.140 align:middle line:84% The old Giants stadium and the airport. 00:06:03.140 --> 00:06:06.620 align:middle line:84% Although it begins many centuries ago before jumping up 00:06:06.620 --> 00:06:08.990 align:middle line:90% to our own time and place. 00:06:08.990 --> 00:06:11.870 align:middle line:84% It's addressed to many of us here tonight. 00:06:11.870 --> 00:06:13.040 align:middle line:90% It's called "The Poet." 00:06:13.040 --> 00:06:15.580 align:middle line:90% 00:06:15.580 --> 00:06:19.510 align:middle line:84% "You would procure the oil of forgiveness 00:06:19.510 --> 00:06:24.490 align:middle line:84% from the angel at the doors and get a small branch 00:06:24.490 --> 00:06:28.900 align:middle line:84% for a tree that finds no use until it 00:06:28.900 --> 00:06:31.810 align:middle line:90% becomes a bridge over a river. 00:06:31.810 --> 00:06:35.860 align:middle line:84% You have a premonition while crossing about the wood's fate 00:06:35.860 --> 00:06:40.270 align:middle line:84% and rather than go further cross on foot. 00:06:40.270 --> 00:06:43.570 align:middle line:84% The wood lies dormant for centuries until it's dug up 00:06:43.570 --> 00:06:48.670 align:middle line:84% and three victims die on it scattering the Jews, 00:06:48.670 --> 00:06:53.020 align:middle line:84% unable to discern the cross from those of two thieves. 00:06:53.020 --> 00:06:55.150 align:middle line:84% You place them in the pit of a city 00:06:55.150 --> 00:07:00.370 align:middle line:84% and in the early hours hold each above your head with the third 00:07:00.370 --> 00:07:04.000 align:middle line:84% are brought to life, zipping between buildings 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:07.120 align:middle line:84% at high speed, shifting into fifth 00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:09.970 align:middle line:90% out some disembodied ramp. 00:07:09.970 --> 00:07:13.600 align:middle line:84% The thrill in the air sexual, the ballpark 00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:18.280 align:middle line:84% darkened, the hologram of the shut airport glowing. 00:07:18.280 --> 00:07:22.390 align:middle line:84% Your headlamps trained on mall light in fog 00:07:22.390 --> 00:07:27.850 align:middle line:84% made more intimate and infinite by the collapse of time. 00:07:27.850 --> 00:07:32.050 align:middle line:84% Cement bits ceiling your swirled space 00:07:32.050 --> 00:07:35.110 align:middle line:90% to the strains of violins. 00:07:35.110 --> 00:07:41.110 align:middle line:84% It's the dawn of an era, and time does not improve it. 00:07:41.110 --> 00:07:45.220 align:middle line:84% You live in a sunny place and work in a sealed building. 00:07:45.220 --> 00:07:51.310 align:middle line:84% 10 miles per hour on interstate 405 by the year 2000. 00:07:51.310 --> 00:07:57.820 align:middle line:84% The 20th century begun in Vienna has ended in California. 00:07:57.820 --> 00:08:01.510 align:middle line:84% Gas meters on your left, electric meters on your right. 00:08:01.510 --> 00:08:03.850 align:middle line:90% The head out in the light. 00:08:03.850 --> 00:08:06.670 align:middle line:84% A flight of concrete stairs as you 00:08:06.670 --> 00:08:10.450 align:middle line:84% climb, you see the big towers of the financial district 50 00:08:10.450 --> 00:08:14.570 align:middle line:90% storeys high a few blocks away. 00:08:14.570 --> 00:08:17.500 align:middle line:84% The sense of entering a city nobly, 00:08:17.500 --> 00:08:21.370 align:middle line:84% walking the freeway at night before it's torn down, 00:08:21.370 --> 00:08:26.950 align:middle line:84% hearing Portuguese, German, Japanese, French, Chinese, 00:08:26.950 --> 00:08:30.880 align:middle line:84% seeing views of the Bay, metallic, choppy, 00:08:30.880 --> 00:08:34.960 align:middle line:84% and the suspension bridge and the ships. 00:08:34.960 --> 00:08:36.909 align:middle line:90% This is over. 00:08:36.909 --> 00:08:40.000 align:middle line:84% About the demolition, a few warnings 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:42.970 align:middle line:90% like those about the earthquake. 00:08:42.970 --> 00:08:47.230 align:middle line:84% The clack in the streets of Vienna, a carriage door 00:08:47.230 --> 00:08:51.520 align:middle line:84% slamming and a continuous fountain, though far away, 00:08:51.520 --> 00:08:55.360 align:middle line:84% seem no farther than the broken freeway. 00:08:55.360 --> 00:09:00.400 align:middle line:84% The bells of the tower quiet, the stone smooth and brilliant 00:09:00.400 --> 00:09:02.200 align:middle line:90% in moonlight. 00:09:02.200 --> 00:09:07.480 align:middle line:84% You are in a car with music and air conditioning 00:09:07.480 --> 00:09:13.730 align:middle line:84% and the phone, softly the classical station massages you. 00:09:13.730 --> 00:09:16.240 align:middle line:84% You know in the back of your head, 00:09:16.240 --> 00:09:20.050 align:middle line:84% the best of your creative life has been siphoned away 00:09:20.050 --> 00:09:25.030 align:middle line:84% by desire and money, desire in general and money 00:09:25.030 --> 00:09:29.380 align:middle line:84% in comparison with others, yet between one abstraction 00:09:29.380 --> 00:09:34.300 align:middle line:84% and another, uou yourself quietly and fiercely 00:09:34.300 --> 00:09:38.080 align:middle line:84% participate in a disappearing place. 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:43.720 align:middle line:84% One you loved and were prepared to enter with great humility, 00:09:43.720 --> 00:09:47.566 align:middle line:90% bathed in tears and barefoot." 00:09:47.566 --> 00:09:51.052 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:09:51.052 --> 00:09:56.530 align:middle line:90% 00:09:56.530 --> 00:09:59.380 align:middle line:84% I'd like to present a few poems now from my new book 00:09:59.380 --> 00:10:02.620 align:middle line:84% that Alison mentioned, Wherever You Lay Your Head, which 00:10:02.620 --> 00:10:06.160 align:middle line:84% regards the making of weapons of mass destruction 00:10:06.160 --> 00:10:10.360 align:middle line:84% here in our own Southwest and in California. 00:10:10.360 --> 00:10:13.810 align:middle line:84% And the dropping of those bombs on the Japanese 00:10:13.810 --> 00:10:16.930 align:middle line:84% during the middle of the century. 00:10:16.930 --> 00:10:19.660 align:middle line:84% This first poem is set on the campus of the University 00:10:19.660 --> 00:10:21.770 align:middle line:90% of California Davis. 00:10:21.770 --> 00:10:24.130 align:middle line:84% Although it opens with the shipment 00:10:24.130 --> 00:10:28.660 align:middle line:84% of some nuclear weapons along the California coast. 00:10:28.660 --> 00:10:31.420 align:middle line:90% Actually, it's about some dogs. 00:10:31.420 --> 00:10:34.510 align:middle line:84% "The Voiceless Beagles of Davis." 00:10:34.510 --> 00:10:38.760 align:middle line:90% 00:10:38.760 --> 00:10:43.050 align:middle line:84% "A barge steams from Concord station 00:10:43.050 --> 00:10:47.040 align:middle line:84% under six bridges through the Carquinez Strait 00:10:47.040 --> 00:10:52.080 align:middle line:84% and into San Pablo Bay with another safe delivery 00:10:52.080 --> 00:10:57.360 align:middle line:84% by ancient sailors who project in golden sunset 00:10:57.360 --> 00:11:02.430 align:middle line:84% the silhouette of youth next to the latest small bazooka 00:11:02.430 --> 00:11:08.220 align:middle line:84% like device, Davy Crockett representing America. 00:11:08.220 --> 00:11:12.570 align:middle line:84% Such that when I step out on my porch in ancient summer 00:11:12.570 --> 00:11:19.290 align:middle line:84% light in spring Wednesday at the end of the century in which, 00:11:19.290 --> 00:11:24.390 align:middle line:84% with few exceptions, those who favored a prior warning 00:11:24.390 --> 00:11:28.350 align:middle line:84% to the enemy later argued for more weapons, 00:11:28.350 --> 00:11:30.900 align:middle line:84% while those who recommended the bomb 00:11:30.900 --> 00:11:34.470 align:middle line:90% spoke after war of disarmament. 00:11:34.470 --> 00:11:37.740 align:middle line:90% So all clear is the dusk 00:11:37.740 --> 00:11:43.050 align:middle line:84% it can drown the silent howling of the beagles being zapped 00:11:43.050 --> 00:11:48.210 align:middle line:84% with 60 millirems of radiation at the nearby campus, 00:11:48.210 --> 00:11:52.050 align:middle line:84% their cords cut so they won't bark 00:11:52.050 --> 00:11:57.840 align:middle line:84% their sacrifice at bicyclists going by, 00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:03.840 align:middle line:84% whereas the vacuum of the moon prevents life. 00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:07.500 align:middle line:84% I shall lay a spray of small flowers 00:12:07.500 --> 00:12:13.320 align:middle line:84% down at the end of advanced time because I want someone 00:12:13.320 --> 00:12:18.090 align:middle line:84% to recognize the bergamot, orange blossom, 00:12:18.090 --> 00:12:24.390 align:middle line:84% peach, and rose in the humble gardens on the streets of Venus 00:12:24.390 --> 00:12:28.185 align:middle line:84% when we are forced to kill again with clubs." 00:12:28.185 --> 00:12:30.910 align:middle line:90% 00:12:30.910 --> 00:12:36.940 align:middle line:84% These poems move back and forth from the states over to Japan. 00:12:36.940 --> 00:12:39.260 align:middle line:84% And the more I read and the more I learned, 00:12:39.260 --> 00:12:41.590 align:middle line:90% the shorter my poems got. 00:12:41.590 --> 00:12:48.730 align:middle line:84% This next one is pretty short and takes as its title "A Line 00:12:48.730 --> 00:12:50.740 align:middle line:90% From A Military Pamphlet." 00:12:50.740 --> 00:12:54.630 align:middle line:90% 00:12:54.630 --> 00:13:03.970 align:middle line:84% "In such a way that nothing could go wrong, 00:13:03.970 --> 00:13:08.530 align:middle line:84% a low stratum of mushroom cloud begins slowly 00:13:08.530 --> 00:13:13.150 align:middle line:84% to move over the park in a North northwesterly direction, 00:13:13.150 --> 00:13:18.400 align:middle line:84% and 20 or 30 minutes later terrain radioactive building 00:13:18.400 --> 00:13:24.520 align:middle line:84% block and human remains onto still living stick figures. 00:13:24.520 --> 00:13:28.360 align:middle line:84% And thus with a fireball to evaporate 00:13:28.360 --> 00:13:32.830 align:middle line:90% a paradise of hackberry trees. 00:13:32.830 --> 00:13:39.460 align:middle line:84% Two waitresses pedaling to a noodle shop downtown 00:13:39.460 --> 00:13:43.990 align:middle line:84% see the last of the freshness of dawn fume 00:13:43.990 --> 00:13:49.060 align:middle line:84% into the regular traffic and trade of oblivion. 00:13:49.060 --> 00:13:55.780 align:middle line:84% 100,000 fall in the city like blossoms along a riverbank. 00:13:55.780 --> 00:14:01.180 align:middle line:84% Some crawl, burned and faceless, into the rising river. 00:14:01.180 --> 00:14:07.210 align:middle line:84% Poor memory, too tired to rest, especially in summer 00:14:07.210 --> 00:14:08.050 align:middle line:90% or in the sun." 00:14:08.050 --> 00:14:12.950 align:middle line:90% 00:14:12.950 --> 00:14:17.450 align:middle line:84% Back in the States again, back in our own backyard-- 00:14:17.450 --> 00:14:20.450 align:middle line:90% 300 miles or so from here. 00:14:20.450 --> 00:14:21.290 align:middle line:90% "Dave's Dream." 00:14:21.290 --> 00:14:24.420 align:middle line:90% 00:14:24.420 --> 00:14:28.920 align:middle line:84% "From where he stands over the ubiquitous flames 00:14:28.920 --> 00:14:34.230 align:middle line:84% 300 and some odd miles away, layering mesquite 00:14:34.230 --> 00:14:39.180 align:middle line:84% among his toxic coals for the perfect finish, 00:14:39.180 --> 00:14:43.380 align:middle line:84% it looks like somebody opened a refrigerator at night 00:14:43.380 --> 00:14:48.090 align:middle line:84% in daylight, and this purplish pink glow 00:14:48.090 --> 00:14:50.760 align:middle line:84% like the light from home appliances 00:14:50.760 --> 00:14:57.540 align:middle line:84% throughout the remote Southwest and beyond, Vegas, et cetera. 00:14:57.540 --> 00:15:02.430 align:middle line:84% This hot light from which he's divided by a cyclone fence 00:15:02.430 --> 00:15:08.370 align:middle line:84% is another successful experiment to etch the retinas of rabbits 00:15:08.370 --> 00:15:12.690 align:middle line:84% and desert rats, many of which lurch blindly 00:15:12.690 --> 00:15:18.150 align:middle line:84% now toward his barbecue, his miniature smoking Earth, 00:15:18.150 --> 00:15:21.570 align:middle line:84% curl up on his radioactive chaise 00:15:21.570 --> 00:15:27.900 align:middle line:84% and beg for the remaining pierced, marinated, charred, 00:15:27.900 --> 00:15:32.580 align:middle line:84% spit-flamed, and rotated on this Earth to be saved. 00:15:32.580 --> 00:15:37.460 align:middle line:90% 00:15:37.460 --> 00:15:39.320 align:middle line:90% Well, the Millers go to Japan. 00:15:39.320 --> 00:15:42.980 align:middle line:84% My mother, my father, my brother and me. 00:15:42.980 --> 00:15:47.300 align:middle line:84% The sushi eaters: we are the bourgeoisie 00:15:47.300 --> 00:15:51.170 align:middle line:84% in clean cotton kimonos with lacquered plates 00:15:51.170 --> 00:15:53.090 align:middle line:90% and chopsticks. 00:15:53.090 --> 00:15:57.680 align:middle line:84% Our deceased father Walt pinches a California roll. 00:15:57.680 --> 00:16:00.770 align:middle line:84% Our mother Florence nibbles yellow tail 00:16:00.770 --> 00:16:03.390 align:middle line:90% on a torpedo of rice. 00:16:03.390 --> 00:16:07.220 align:middle line:84% We wear cool sunglasses to the parade on the fifth day 00:16:07.220 --> 00:16:08.750 align:middle line:90% of the fifth month. 00:16:08.750 --> 00:16:12.230 align:middle line:84% Boys hoist banners of painted carp. 00:16:12.230 --> 00:16:16.370 align:middle line:84% Citizens throw back their catch off crowded bridges 00:16:16.370 --> 00:16:18.350 align:middle line:90% into cold streams. 00:16:18.350 --> 00:16:22.790 align:middle line:84% Lost souls surface in ceremonial robes. 00:16:22.790 --> 00:16:27.230 align:middle line:84% Our host dresses in strips of kelp with an upside down basket 00:16:27.230 --> 00:16:31.130 align:middle line:84% on his head on the brim of which sits citrus. 00:16:31.130 --> 00:16:34.250 align:middle line:84% Huge wood pestle stuck in his sash, 00:16:34.250 --> 00:16:38.060 align:middle line:84% white puffs of plum blossom peep from the garden 00:16:38.060 --> 00:16:39.920 align:middle line:90% behind the teahouse. 00:16:39.920 --> 00:16:43.220 align:middle line:84% The paddies beyond are still rubble. 00:16:43.220 --> 00:16:47.030 align:middle line:84% Young Dr. Teller's face like tuna 00:16:47.030 --> 00:16:51.740 align:middle line:84% illumined with wasabi and soy, suntanned an oiled 00:16:51.740 --> 00:16:55.010 align:middle line:84% with protection against his test bomb-- 00:16:55.010 --> 00:17:00.080 align:middle line:84% fire eaters, one is forced to travel on crutches." 00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:08.630 align:middle line:90% 00:17:08.630 --> 00:17:11.329 align:middle line:84% Well as I started saying my poems got shorter and shorter; 00:17:11.329 --> 00:17:13.159 align:middle line:90% these then turned into haiku. 00:17:13.159 --> 00:17:17.000 align:middle line:90% 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:19.910 align:middle line:84% I think you recognize whether we're over here or over there. 00:17:19.910 --> 00:17:23.750 align:middle line:84% Although, it is getting quite the same, isn't it? 00:17:23.750 --> 00:17:26.569 align:middle line:84% "Shopping in the mall for exercise equipment, 00:17:26.569 --> 00:17:29.150 align:middle line:90% large ships drift ashore. 00:17:29.150 --> 00:17:31.760 align:middle line:90% Invention or fantasy? 00:17:31.760 --> 00:17:33.845 align:middle line:90% Men with large exploding guns. 00:17:33.845 --> 00:17:36.720 align:middle line:90% 00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:41.790 align:middle line:84% Hot dogs on the wharf, braised chicken cacciatore, tourists 00:17:41.790 --> 00:17:43.530 align:middle line:90% bloat North Beach. 00:17:43.530 --> 00:17:48.330 align:middle line:84% One who criticizes here may well be ephemeral. 00:17:48.330 --> 00:17:52.590 align:middle line:84% Sailing in the Bay, beauty the great poet's dream, 00:17:52.590 --> 00:17:58.620 align:middle line:84% danger, rescue, all drunken tradesmen, idlers, popes, 00:17:58.620 --> 00:18:03.270 align:middle line:84% lashed to poles for safe passage. 00:18:03.270 --> 00:18:08.700 align:middle line:84% One may sigh and primp, one may analyze one soul, warheads 00:18:08.700 --> 00:18:13.470 align:middle line:84% transported, offshore glide non-stop wake up, 00:18:13.470 --> 00:18:15.485 align:middle line:90% foragers find their morels. 00:18:15.485 --> 00:18:18.120 align:middle line:90% 00:18:18.120 --> 00:18:22.200 align:middle line:84% Entertaining guests dragonflies love 00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:28.520 align:middle line:84% to alight on water buckets, show off in the defense lab, 00:18:28.520 --> 00:18:30.830 align:middle line:90% Nova laser misfires." 00:18:30.830 --> 00:18:34.250 align:middle line:90% 00:18:34.250 --> 00:18:38.320 align:middle line:84% I'm going to close with a poem that is really a fairy tale, 00:18:38.320 --> 00:18:42.020 align:middle line:84% and like most fairy tales a lot of this is true, for example, 00:18:42.020 --> 00:18:45.730 align:middle line:84% my father makes an appearance in this poem. 00:18:45.730 --> 00:18:48.190 align:middle line:84% And in fact, I'd like to dedicate this poem tonight 00:18:48.190 --> 00:18:49.990 align:middle line:90% to my mother who is here. 00:18:49.990 --> 00:18:53.690 align:middle line:90% And hi, mom, glad to see you. 00:18:53.690 --> 00:18:55.870 align:middle line:90% Thanks for coming. 00:18:55.870 --> 00:18:57.790 align:middle line:84% She's not in this one, but that's OK. 00:18:57.790 --> 00:19:01.590 align:middle line:90% 00:19:01.590 --> 00:19:10.080 align:middle line:84% "Two shops dealing in tie-dyed fabrics: a fairy tale. 00:19:10.080 --> 00:19:15.180 align:middle line:84% In a town famous long ago for its field of irises 00:19:15.180 --> 00:19:19.860 align:middle line:84% and its bridge with seven sections like a poem, 00:19:19.860 --> 00:19:24.690 align:middle line:84% and an annual horse market and scattered clouds, 00:19:24.690 --> 00:19:28.500 align:middle line:84% I stroll on holiday with my wife. 00:19:28.500 --> 00:19:33.570 align:middle line:84% I have brought her here for a rest and to buy her silk. 00:19:33.570 --> 00:19:37.650 align:middle line:84% She worked so hard thinking for so little, 00:19:37.650 --> 00:19:41.220 align:middle line:84% and for untoward people for whom a kindness is 00:19:41.220 --> 00:19:43.950 align:middle line:84% a mysterious thing they must acquiesce 00:19:43.950 --> 00:19:48.330 align:middle line:84% to like a wild animal, a monkey or deer. 00:19:48.330 --> 00:19:53.610 align:middle line:84% All day on the hunt for mushrooms, chestnuts and bugs. 00:19:53.610 --> 00:19:58.470 align:middle line:84% It's true, the office has made them sad. 00:19:58.470 --> 00:20:01.350 align:middle line:84% We stroll the shops along the quay. 00:20:01.350 --> 00:20:03.540 align:middle line:84% She takes my hand and for that honor, 00:20:03.540 --> 00:20:06.540 align:middle line:84% I blush and set my shoulders square 00:20:06.540 --> 00:20:09.150 align:middle line:84% and smile at children for only they 00:20:09.150 --> 00:20:11.730 align:middle line:90% aren't embarrassed by my joy. 00:20:11.730 --> 00:20:14.760 align:middle line:84% Nine years of good luck such that silks 00:20:14.760 --> 00:20:17.370 align:middle line:84% are not enough, but must suffice for I 00:20:17.370 --> 00:20:20.550 align:middle line:84% have spent much on this trip already 00:20:20.550 --> 00:20:24.190 align:middle line:90% on an inn and meals and wine. 00:20:24.190 --> 00:20:28.000 align:middle line:84% The wine, especially, made my wife fiery and pure. 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:31.360 align:middle line:84% Last night she whispered and sang original lyrics 00:20:31.360 --> 00:20:34.930 align:middle line:84% to old tunes, taking my name on a rhyming 00:20:34.930 --> 00:20:37.960 align:middle line:90% tour of gardens and oceans. 00:20:37.960 --> 00:20:43.120 align:middle line:84% The sea especially made me weep and her, too, and in that bath 00:20:43.120 --> 00:20:44.650 align:middle line:90% we slept. 00:20:44.650 --> 00:20:49.420 align:middle line:84% She begs me not approach the stall for already she is full, 00:20:49.420 --> 00:20:52.420 align:middle line:84% but lemon and orange silks and the watermelon 00:20:52.420 --> 00:20:55.960 align:middle line:84% reds of her youth burst from a passing cloud. 00:20:55.960 --> 00:21:00.160 align:middle line:84% So too, her face squints in the lights 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:05.110 align:middle line:84% and the owner on one leg because of the war 00:21:05.110 --> 00:21:07.220 align:middle line:90% is so happy to see her. 00:21:07.220 --> 00:21:10.930 align:middle line:84% She has the price and doubles the shawls. 00:21:10.930 --> 00:21:13.300 align:middle line:84% I feel I know her from some other world, 00:21:13.300 --> 00:21:18.220 align:middle line:84% but drifting unintentionally to her single shoe. 00:21:18.220 --> 00:21:22.420 align:middle line:90% I lose her glance to a shyness. 00:21:22.420 --> 00:21:28.420 align:middle line:84% My love wishes to see the irises; not many this year. 00:21:28.420 --> 00:21:31.150 align:middle line:90% We muse about the weather. 00:21:31.150 --> 00:21:35.320 align:middle line:84% At the far end, a second shop of tie-dyed ware, 00:21:35.320 --> 00:21:39.070 align:middle line:84% the owner strangely again familiar. 00:21:39.070 --> 00:21:42.640 align:middle line:84% This time, I meet his eyes with my heart 00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:46.990 align:middle line:84% and recognize my father back from his losing war 00:21:46.990 --> 00:21:48.460 align:middle line:90% with cancer. 00:21:48.460 --> 00:21:52.480 align:middle line:84% Father, Walter, I try a rush of names, 00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:57.400 align:middle line:84% sailor, lover, I take him on a rhyming tour. 00:21:57.400 --> 00:22:01.300 align:middle line:84% But he vanishes across the first of many bridges, which 00:22:01.300 --> 00:22:04.840 align:middle line:84% are hoisted by hand when a boat with high masts 00:22:04.840 --> 00:22:08.390 align:middle line:84% passes by men of humble birth, scarved 00:22:08.390 --> 00:22:10.960 align:middle line:90% in baggy purple and green pants. 00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:13.930 align:middle line:84% And though I run like a wave over the seven 00:22:13.930 --> 00:22:18.850 align:middle line:84% bridges of the town of the world, he is nowhere. 00:22:18.850 --> 00:22:21.190 align:middle line:84% My wife loves me through my loss, 00:22:21.190 --> 00:22:23.800 align:middle line:84% which because of my selfishness, she 00:22:23.800 --> 00:22:27.700 align:middle line:84% describes as a short passage from here to there. 00:22:27.700 --> 00:22:32.170 align:middle line:84% I ought to let him take a loan without thinking that death 00:22:32.170 --> 00:22:34.870 align:middle line:90% is like dying and suffering. 00:22:34.870 --> 00:22:37.540 align:middle line:84% This draws me ever closer to my wife. 00:22:37.540 --> 00:22:40.960 align:middle line:84% My father's light blue light wraps around us. 00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:43.870 align:middle line:84% We hear distant hooves and earthquakes 00:22:43.870 --> 00:22:46.660 align:middle line:90% as if a giant bridge is lifting. 00:22:46.660 --> 00:22:50.560 align:middle line:84% Not a single horse, but 100, 200 haunches flying 00:22:50.560 --> 00:22:55.000 align:middle line:84% and dust mingling with clouds all eternity 00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:58.510 align:middle line:84% in an afternoon of snorting and neighing 00:22:58.510 --> 00:23:02.420 align:middle line:90% nostrils of song and prayer. 00:23:02.420 --> 00:23:06.430 align:middle line:84% This is a fairytale town on a route paved 00:23:06.430 --> 00:23:10.180 align:middle line:84% for an emperor painted in afternoon light 00:23:10.180 --> 00:23:14.920 align:middle line:84% where the poor wear silk because merchants give it for a song. 00:23:14.920 --> 00:23:19.450 align:middle line:84% Horses leap over water to pasture and bridges 00:23:19.450 --> 00:23:22.900 align:middle line:90% rise and fall on heart and soul. 00:23:22.900 --> 00:23:25.780 align:middle line:84% I sing my love, I take her on a rhyming 00:23:25.780 --> 00:23:30.310 align:middle line:84% tour among the few white irises of poetry, 00:23:30.310 --> 00:23:34.030 align:middle line:84% most honored subjects of early spring 00:23:34.030 --> 00:23:39.620 align:middle line:84% as I am found here romancing among lost grasses." 00:23:39.620 --> 00:23:40.120 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:23:40.120 --> 00:23:43.340 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:23:43.340 --> 00:23:45.640 align:middle line:90% 00:23:45.640 --> 00:23:46.660 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:23:46.660 --> 00:23:49.630 align:middle line:84% Thank you for joining Eleni and for joining me tonight. 00:23:49.630 --> 00:23:50.200 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:23:50.200 --> 00:23:53.550 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:23:53.550 --> 00:24:10.267 align:middle line:90%