WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.200 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.200 --> 00:00:05.230 align:middle line:84% All interested persons at a coffee hour 00:00:05.230 --> 00:00:10.810 align:middle line:84% Monday afternoon at 3:00, room 256 in the Student Union. 00:00:10.810 --> 00:00:12.880 align:middle line:84% Because he's here for only one day, 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:14.980 align:middle line:84% he will not be meeting with classes. 00:00:14.980 --> 00:00:17.110 align:middle line:84% So this is the only opportunity that people will 00:00:17.110 --> 00:00:18.580 align:middle line:90% have to come and talk with him. 00:00:18.580 --> 00:00:24.140 align:middle line:90% 00:00:24.140 --> 00:00:28.910 align:middle line:84% We'd like to get the first issue of the newsletter turned 00:00:28.910 --> 00:00:32.280 align:middle line:90% in to the printers next week. 00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:35.790 align:middle line:84% So if you haven't given me your good news for the newsletter, 00:00:35.790 --> 00:00:39.170 align:middle line:84% please do so and give it to me on a scrap of paper 00:00:39.170 --> 00:00:43.620 align:middle line:84% after the reading tonight if you like or give us a call. 00:00:43.620 --> 00:00:46.490 align:middle line:84% We especially like news of publications, honors, 00:00:46.490 --> 00:00:48.920 align:middle line:90% and awards. 00:00:48.920 --> 00:00:50.580 align:middle line:84% And you know we only print good news. 00:00:50.580 --> 00:00:52.506 align:middle line:84% We don't want to hear about your rejection. 00:00:52.506 --> 00:00:56.408 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:56.408 --> 00:00:57.950 align:middle line:84% I hope you can stay after the reading 00:00:57.950 --> 00:00:59.900 align:middle line:84% tonight to meet Marcia Southwick. 00:00:59.900 --> 00:01:02.030 align:middle line:84% We'll have the punch and cookies set up 00:01:02.030 --> 00:01:07.313 align:middle line:84% in the breezeway between the two sections of the building 00:01:07.313 --> 00:01:09.230 align:middle line:84% since they don't want us in the Student Union. 00:01:09.230 --> 00:01:13.480 align:middle line:90% 00:01:13.480 --> 00:01:15.970 align:middle line:84% Marcia Southwick is currently teaching 00:01:15.970 --> 00:01:19.670 align:middle line:84% at the writing workshop at the University of Iowa. 00:01:19.670 --> 00:01:23.740 align:middle line:84% She's also taught at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. 00:01:23.740 --> 00:01:27.360 align:middle line:90% 00:01:27.360 --> 00:01:31.180 align:middle line:84% She, with her husband, Larry Levis, 00:01:31.180 --> 00:01:34.450 align:middle line:84% founded and co-edited the Missouri Review. 00:01:34.450 --> 00:01:36.760 align:middle line:84% She's recently co-edited an anthology 00:01:36.760 --> 00:01:41.140 align:middle line:84% of women writers, which will be published soon by Macmillan. 00:01:41.140 --> 00:01:43.300 align:middle line:84% Her most recent book is The Night 00:01:43.300 --> 00:01:46.672 align:middle line:84% Won't Save Anyone from the University of Georgia Press. 00:01:46.672 --> 00:01:48.880 align:middle line:84% It's a great privilege to introduce Marcia Southwick. 00:01:48.880 --> 00:01:52.366 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:01:52.366 --> 00:02:05.780 align:middle line:90% 00:02:05.780 --> 00:02:06.280 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:08.280 align:middle line:90% It's nice to be here. 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:10.289 align:middle line:84% I think tonight what I'll do is I'll 00:02:10.289 --> 00:02:13.050 align:middle line:84% read from the second half of The Night Won't Save Anyone 00:02:13.050 --> 00:02:15.630 align:middle line:84% and then I'll read newer poems, because I'm 00:02:15.630 --> 00:02:17.940 align:middle line:84% more interested in what I'm doing now than what 00:02:17.940 --> 00:02:20.147 align:middle line:90% I was doing a few years back. 00:02:20.147 --> 00:02:22.230 align:middle line:84% But just to explain to you a little bit about what 00:02:22.230 --> 00:02:23.910 align:middle line:84% I'm trying to do now and was, I think, 00:02:23.910 --> 00:02:25.890 align:middle line:84% in the second half of the book, not so much 00:02:25.890 --> 00:02:27.960 align:middle line:90% in the first half of the book. 00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:31.170 align:middle line:84% I'm very interested in a philosophical argument 00:02:31.170 --> 00:02:37.560 align:middle line:84% that uses the image rather than statement in it. 00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:39.750 align:middle line:84% The first four poems I'd like to read 00:02:39.750 --> 00:02:42.540 align:middle line:84% are about the Connecticut River where I spent a lot of time 00:02:42.540 --> 00:02:46.185 align:middle line:84% as an adolescent where the river meets the sound. 00:02:46.185 --> 00:02:54.040 align:middle line:90% 00:02:54.040 --> 00:02:55.960 align:middle line:84% And the first of these is called "Upon Hearing 00:02:55.960 --> 00:03:00.250 align:middle line:84% of a Drowning in the Connecticut River," 00:03:00.250 --> 00:03:03.880 align:middle line:84% and it's addressed to the drowned man. 00:03:03.880 --> 00:03:07.330 align:middle line:84% "That you once lived here means nothing 00:03:07.330 --> 00:03:12.550 align:middle line:84% to the edge of the lawn nor to the shrubs grown wild 00:03:12.550 --> 00:03:15.130 align:middle line:90% beyond your dying. 00:03:15.130 --> 00:03:18.820 align:middle line:84% The marsh goes on surrounding the fishing boats 00:03:18.820 --> 00:03:24.460 align:middle line:84% and the boats keep drifting away past your terrible smile. 00:03:24.460 --> 00:03:28.180 align:middle line:84% Leaves are lost or they are scattered like the shadows 00:03:28.180 --> 00:03:31.130 align:middle line:90% around your address. 00:03:31.130 --> 00:03:36.550 align:middle line:84% Your language has come and gone like a knock at the door. 00:03:36.550 --> 00:03:41.650 align:middle line:84% So the time has come for the floorboards to be still 00:03:41.650 --> 00:03:47.170 align:middle line:84% and for the windows to let your breath go out into the rain, 00:03:47.170 --> 00:03:51.580 align:middle line:84% because you are walking somewhere else now. 00:03:51.580 --> 00:03:54.640 align:middle line:84% And between here and wherever you are, 00:03:54.640 --> 00:03:58.030 align:middle line:84% there is only this river freezing over. 00:03:58.030 --> 00:04:02.380 align:middle line:84% The water gradually hardening into obsidian. 00:04:02.380 --> 00:04:07.330 align:middle line:84% The stone bridge sprouting shadows like weeds. 00:04:07.330 --> 00:04:11.770 align:middle line:84% In the neighboring field, two brown and white spotted horses 00:04:11.770 --> 00:04:13.600 align:middle line:90% lean toward each other. 00:04:13.600 --> 00:04:18.940 align:middle line:84% The thin smoke of their breath rising in the cold. 00:04:18.940 --> 00:04:21.130 align:middle line:90% There is only this winter. 00:04:21.130 --> 00:04:26.200 align:middle line:84% You fell into it suddenly and now you were like the swallow 00:04:26.200 --> 00:04:30.580 align:middle line:84% those delicate bleached bones beneath the elm tree. 00:04:30.580 --> 00:04:35.800 align:middle line:84% Now you were like the fox, that tattered fur and black blood 00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:36.490 align:middle line:90% on snow." 00:04:36.490 --> 00:04:42.120 align:middle line:90% 00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:44.180 align:middle line:84% And one thing about landscape and 00:04:44.180 --> 00:04:47.060 align:middle line:84% about this particular landscape I'm writing about 00:04:47.060 --> 00:04:48.860 align:middle line:84% is that it has somehow the capacity 00:04:48.860 --> 00:04:51.770 align:middle line:84% to make you feel as if you're being witnessed by it as well 00:04:51.770 --> 00:04:53.660 align:middle line:90% as the reverse. 00:04:53.660 --> 00:04:56.750 align:middle line:84% And I think that enters my poems a lot, that feeling. 00:04:56.750 --> 00:04:58.565 align:middle line:84% This one is called "The Marsh" and it's 00:04:58.565 --> 00:05:00.440 align:middle line:84% about returning to the landscape after having 00:05:00.440 --> 00:05:02.570 align:middle line:90% been gone for a while. 00:05:02.570 --> 00:05:06.650 align:middle line:84% "The Marsh," and that feeling of being left out 00:05:06.650 --> 00:05:09.890 align:middle line:90% of the landscape. 00:05:09.890 --> 00:05:13.160 align:middle line:84% "Each time I returned to this place, 00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:18.200 align:middle line:84% I expect to find a recurring distance between myself 00:05:18.200 --> 00:05:21.200 align:middle line:84% and the huge trees as though I were 00:05:21.200 --> 00:05:26.060 align:middle line:84% in a dream in which I could run toward them forever and never 00:05:26.060 --> 00:05:28.490 align:middle line:90% get there. 00:05:28.490 --> 00:05:32.030 align:middle line:84% Right now, the marsh seems unfamiliar because the crickets 00:05:32.030 --> 00:05:35.960 align:middle line:90% have taken me by surprise. 00:05:35.960 --> 00:05:40.970 align:middle line:84% Their singing has entered my mind just now even though I've 00:05:40.970 --> 00:05:44.640 align:middle line:90% been hearing them all along. 00:05:44.640 --> 00:05:47.810 align:middle line:84% So I'm almost afraid because there 00:05:47.810 --> 00:05:53.990 align:middle line:84% must be other ways in which I am left out of the landscape. 00:05:53.990 --> 00:05:55.580 align:middle line:84% It's as if the mallards stay hidden 00:05:55.580 --> 00:05:59.460 align:middle line:90% in the grass for a purpose. 00:05:59.460 --> 00:06:02.360 align:middle line:84% But I don't think they're there to make me understand what 00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:06.650 align:middle line:84% I don't already know, only to point out 00:06:06.650 --> 00:06:10.280 align:middle line:90% how often I'm surprised. 00:06:10.280 --> 00:06:14.180 align:middle line:84% And that is why the mallards fly suddenly upward leaving 00:06:14.180 --> 00:06:19.040 align:middle line:90% the grass empty and essential. 00:06:19.040 --> 00:06:22.700 align:middle line:84% And when I try to summarize the difference between the tide 00:06:22.700 --> 00:06:25.370 align:middle line:84% and the way I remember it, I find 00:06:25.370 --> 00:06:32.270 align:middle line:84% myself unable to explain all that I have discarded-- 00:06:32.270 --> 00:06:36.740 align:middle line:84% the driftwood, fish skeletons, and chipped shells 00:06:36.740 --> 00:06:43.913 align:middle line:84% are remnants of a past life I can't possibly understand." 00:06:43.913 --> 00:06:45.830 align:middle line:84% Hey, you can come in and sit down if you want. 00:06:45.830 --> 00:06:46.330 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:06:46.330 --> 00:06:58.000 align:middle line:90% 00:06:58.000 --> 00:06:59.440 align:middle line:84% This next poem is "Winter Gulls." 00:06:59.440 --> 00:07:06.280 align:middle line:90% 00:07:06.280 --> 00:07:09.490 align:middle line:84% "At first, I narrow my eyes because I 00:07:09.490 --> 00:07:12.310 align:middle line:84% think that maybe the gulls want more from me 00:07:12.310 --> 00:07:15.880 align:middle line:84% than simply my observation of them, 00:07:15.880 --> 00:07:18.520 align:middle line:90% but then I realize I'm mistaken. 00:07:18.520 --> 00:07:22.570 align:middle line:84% It's just that they are usually thought of as beautiful 00:07:22.570 --> 00:07:25.960 align:middle line:84% while to me they look like scraps of dirty cloth 00:07:25.960 --> 00:07:32.770 align:middle line:84% as they flap about over a dead fish left on the dock. 00:07:32.770 --> 00:07:36.430 align:middle line:84% On another day, I might have exorcized them more easily 00:07:36.430 --> 00:07:40.720 align:middle line:84% from my mind or I might have walked out to the wet rocks 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:43.750 align:middle line:84% and thought again of all the years the rocks 00:07:43.750 --> 00:07:48.670 align:middle line:84% and the tide have stayed unmoved by each other. 00:07:48.670 --> 00:07:51.160 align:middle line:84% But today, it's as if the grass doesn't 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:55.430 align:middle line:84% want to be disturbed by anyone walking too quickly. 00:07:55.430 --> 00:08:00.460 align:middle line:84% So I stay in one place and keep staring at the gulls reeling 00:08:00.460 --> 00:08:03.640 align:middle line:90% over the fish. 00:08:03.640 --> 00:08:06.490 align:middle line:84% And I think of myself as elsewhere, 00:08:06.490 --> 00:08:10.600 align:middle line:84% how around me there are always other people. 00:08:10.600 --> 00:08:15.040 align:middle line:84% And to them, I am always there but never here. 00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:18.700 align:middle line:84% And it seems to me that this is a terrible tragedy like losing 00:08:18.700 --> 00:08:21.430 align:middle line:84% a best friend, though, everyone keeps 00:08:21.430 --> 00:08:25.390 align:middle line:84% talking nevertheless, or calling to each other over what 00:08:25.390 --> 00:08:30.400 align:middle line:84% they think is a not too serious distance between them. 00:08:30.400 --> 00:08:33.429 align:middle line:84% But sometimes, like now, I can feel 00:08:33.429 --> 00:08:37.450 align:middle line:90% that distance becoming acute. 00:08:37.450 --> 00:08:41.575 align:middle line:84% It's as if I were asleep and trying to open my mouth." 00:08:41.575 --> 00:08:47.750 align:middle line:90% 00:08:47.750 --> 00:08:52.117 align:middle line:84% This next poem is based on a story my mother told me. 00:08:52.117 --> 00:08:54.200 align:middle line:84% An acquaintance of hers thought that the marshland 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:56.300 align:middle line:84% was so beautiful that she decided 00:08:56.300 --> 00:09:00.380 align:middle line:84% she wanted to cast her husband's ashes out over the land. 00:09:00.380 --> 00:09:02.210 align:middle line:90% And my mother said, all right. 00:09:02.210 --> 00:09:04.552 align:middle line:84% But she was secretly angry about it 00:09:04.552 --> 00:09:06.260 align:middle line:84% because she didn't really like the woman, 00:09:06.260 --> 00:09:09.020 align:middle line:84% and it meant that the woman would keep visiting her. 00:09:09.020 --> 00:09:12.140 align:middle line:84% And she actually admitted to me that she was angry. 00:09:12.140 --> 00:09:14.523 align:middle line:84% So I said, I've got to write a poem about this. 00:09:14.523 --> 00:09:16.190 align:middle line:84% Now, of course, my mother is angry at me 00:09:16.190 --> 00:09:18.915 align:middle line:84% for having written a poem and it all accelerates like that. 00:09:18.915 --> 00:09:21.290 align:middle line:84% That's the way relationships between children and parents 00:09:21.290 --> 00:09:23.060 align:middle line:90% are. 00:09:23.060 --> 00:09:26.600 align:middle line:90% It's called "Owning a Dead Man." 00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:29.870 align:middle line:84% She really does own a dead man now. 00:09:29.870 --> 00:09:32.840 align:middle line:84% "The geese fly off, but sometimes they 00:09:32.840 --> 00:09:36.830 align:middle line:84% don't take their voices with them. 00:09:36.830 --> 00:09:39.380 align:middle line:84% Stretched out like this, I think my future 00:09:39.380 --> 00:09:44.450 align:middle line:84% is simple like a cornfield filling with light. 00:09:44.450 --> 00:09:48.230 align:middle line:84% I'm happy because of the way the geese have left their shadows, 00:09:48.230 --> 00:09:52.880 align:middle line:84% drawing on the lawn around me, and the way the long ducks 00:09:52.880 --> 00:09:57.140 align:middle line:84% lean out into the water letting the unpainted boats 00:09:57.140 --> 00:10:00.020 align:middle line:90% knock against them. 00:10:00.020 --> 00:10:03.620 align:middle line:84% Once my mother told me a woman came to this place 00:10:03.620 --> 00:10:07.790 align:middle line:84% with an urn that held her dead husband's ashes. 00:10:07.790 --> 00:10:09.680 align:middle line:84% The woman's pale hands tossed bits 00:10:09.680 --> 00:10:12.890 align:middle line:84% of gray white bone and soot under the marsh 00:10:12.890 --> 00:10:15.470 align:middle line:90% where the quail hid. 00:10:15.470 --> 00:10:20.330 align:middle line:84% My mother was angry that the bones had trespassed her land. 00:10:20.330 --> 00:10:26.120 align:middle line:84% In a way she said, I own a dead man. 00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:30.800 align:middle line:84% Now as I lie here I think of the coming winter of his bones 00:10:30.800 --> 00:10:33.980 align:middle line:84% mixed with the bones of the mouse and the gull, 00:10:33.980 --> 00:10:38.660 align:middle line:84% cleansed and shining in the new snow. 00:10:38.660 --> 00:10:41.030 align:middle line:84% But if I try to think too deeply, 00:10:41.030 --> 00:10:46.410 align:middle line:84% it's as if a bird were pulling straws from a dried out nest. 00:10:46.410 --> 00:10:49.820 align:middle line:84% So I wonder if I have ever witnessed the middle of winter. 00:10:49.820 --> 00:10:53.920 align:middle line:84% The birch trees' inability to lose anything more, 00:10:53.920 --> 00:10:57.860 align:middle line:84% or if I've ever seen myself as more irrelevant than 00:10:57.860 --> 00:11:00.110 align:middle line:90% in December. 00:11:00.110 --> 00:11:03.080 align:middle line:84% In that cold and stillness, my blood 00:11:03.080 --> 00:11:07.550 align:middle line:84% and my muscles contracting as I tramp through the snow 00:11:07.550 --> 00:11:11.120 align:middle line:90% couldn't possibly mean anything. 00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:14.180 align:middle line:84% And there are days when a landscape feels nothing 00:11:14.180 --> 00:11:19.970 align:middle line:84% for its real trees, only for what lies still in the snow 00:11:19.970 --> 00:11:21.890 align:middle line:90% or only for what has been. 00:11:21.890 --> 00:11:26.650 align:middle line:90% 00:11:26.650 --> 00:11:29.770 align:middle line:84% The next group of poems are landscapes also. 00:11:29.770 --> 00:11:32.910 align:middle line:90% 00:11:32.910 --> 00:11:36.120 align:middle line:84% It's an obsession, I think, but these 00:11:36.120 --> 00:11:38.910 align:middle line:84% don't have a specific landscape as the others did. 00:11:38.910 --> 00:11:41.310 align:middle line:84% And the first of these is a small incident 00:11:41.310 --> 00:11:43.842 align:middle line:84% that happened to me when I was five and to my brother, 00:11:43.842 --> 00:11:45.300 align:middle line:84% and it's called "The Burial Green." 00:11:45.300 --> 00:11:51.090 align:middle line:90% 00:11:51.090 --> 00:11:56.790 align:middle line:84% "It was afternoon and my brother split a turtle's head 00:11:56.790 --> 00:12:00.060 align:middle line:90% open in the rain. 00:12:00.060 --> 00:12:03.180 align:middle line:84% The tiny skull glistened and soon the ants 00:12:03.180 --> 00:12:07.950 align:middle line:84% knew every detail of cracked shell. 00:12:07.950 --> 00:12:09.930 align:middle line:84% For hours, he sat in the blue shade 00:12:09.930 --> 00:12:14.970 align:middle line:84% of the elm planning a burial for his small dead 00:12:14.970 --> 00:12:18.570 align:middle line:84% until the shadows knew each curve of grass 00:12:18.570 --> 00:12:23.610 align:middle line:84% around the green and orange spotted shell, a tiny helmet 00:12:23.610 --> 00:12:27.090 align:middle line:90% filling with air. 00:12:27.090 --> 00:12:30.360 align:middle line:84% It was spring and the bark on the dogwood trees 00:12:30.360 --> 00:12:32.760 align:middle line:90% was slick and wet. 00:12:32.760 --> 00:12:37.440 align:middle line:84% The cardinals twittered on the green feeder. 00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:40.890 align:middle line:84% And my brother thought it was ceremony the way 00:12:40.890 --> 00:12:45.780 align:middle line:84% the door to our white house opened and he entered, 00:12:45.780 --> 00:12:49.110 align:middle line:90% done with the spade and boots. 00:12:49.110 --> 00:12:52.740 align:middle line:84% The way my mother hovered in the doorway 00:12:52.740 --> 00:12:57.720 align:middle line:84% and touched his shoulder without a word like the rain." 00:12:57.720 --> 00:13:02.110 align:middle line:90% 00:13:02.110 --> 00:13:04.900 align:middle line:84% A friend of mine once told me, and I 00:13:04.900 --> 00:13:10.060 align:middle line:84% hadn't known this beforehand, that birds fly low before rain. 00:13:10.060 --> 00:13:12.100 align:middle line:84% And what impressed me about that statement 00:13:12.100 --> 00:13:16.150 align:middle line:84% was that landscape had the power, or things in landscape 00:13:16.150 --> 00:13:20.000 align:middle line:84% had the power to be ominous or to have omens to them. 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:22.750 align:middle line:84% So in this poem, I contain that idea 00:13:22.750 --> 00:13:25.390 align:middle line:84% and I wanted to get the ominous feeling of the landscape 00:13:25.390 --> 00:13:28.674 align:middle line:84% in also, and it's called "Landscape." 00:13:28.674 --> 00:13:33.780 align:middle line:90% 00:13:33.780 --> 00:13:37.500 align:middle line:84% "The grass is not yet drained of color 00:13:37.500 --> 00:13:42.750 align:middle line:84% and the birds are flying low as before rain. 00:13:42.750 --> 00:13:45.240 align:middle line:84% The landscape has the look of something 00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:51.780 align:middle line:84% looked at too long, a vanity by which things know themselves 00:13:51.780 --> 00:13:54.870 align:middle line:90% as a mirror knows. 00:13:54.870 --> 00:13:57.360 align:middle line:84% In August, you have found the day full 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:02.250 align:middle line:84% grown as a crop you are afraid to harvest. 00:14:02.250 --> 00:14:05.340 align:middle line:84% You are the raven afraid of the ash tree, 00:14:05.340 --> 00:14:08.160 align:middle line:84% or the snake which tries to coil itself 00:14:08.160 --> 00:14:12.160 align:middle line:90% around a stream of water. 00:14:12.160 --> 00:14:14.190 align:middle line:84% Though it tries and tries, the air 00:14:14.190 --> 00:14:19.110 align:middle line:90% is still as futile just as gray. 00:14:19.110 --> 00:14:22.530 align:middle line:84% Can you think of another landscape like this one, 00:14:22.530 --> 00:14:26.250 align:middle line:90% of a pond as black and obscure? 00:14:26.250 --> 00:14:30.360 align:middle line:84% The face is in the water flowed easily as leaves 00:14:30.360 --> 00:14:33.705 align:middle line:84% or now they're blown about like bits of burnt paper. 00:14:33.705 --> 00:14:36.210 align:middle line:90% 00:14:36.210 --> 00:14:40.860 align:middle line:84% This is the only landscape you know the wind obligated 00:14:40.860 --> 00:14:43.560 align:middle line:84% to fill the curtain by your window, 00:14:43.560 --> 00:14:46.140 align:middle line:84% and the ash is on the sill knowing 00:14:46.140 --> 00:14:47.610 align:middle line:90% vaguely what they were." 00:14:47.610 --> 00:14:57.310 align:middle line:90% 00:14:57.310 --> 00:14:59.560 align:middle line:84% Another friend told me, another piece of information-- 00:14:59.560 --> 00:15:01.570 align:middle line:84% I have more than one friend which now you 00:15:01.570 --> 00:15:05.950 align:middle line:84% know that, told me that filled my sleep in winter 00:15:05.950 --> 00:15:07.330 align:middle line:90% under the snow. 00:15:07.330 --> 00:15:10.570 align:middle line:84% And somehow being a poet, I took that extremely literally 00:15:10.570 --> 00:15:11.230 align:middle line:90% and worried. 00:15:11.230 --> 00:15:12.730 align:middle line:84% Every time I walked out on the snow, 00:15:12.730 --> 00:15:14.830 align:middle line:84% that I was going to crush a field mouse. 00:15:14.830 --> 00:15:16.480 align:middle line:84% So I thought that the least I could do 00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:17.710 align:middle line:90% is write a poem about it. 00:15:17.710 --> 00:15:21.873 align:middle line:84% But the poem transformed itself immediately into a poem 00:15:21.873 --> 00:15:23.290 align:middle line:84% about God, and I don't really know 00:15:23.290 --> 00:15:25.960 align:middle line:90% how those these things work. 00:15:25.960 --> 00:15:28.630 align:middle line:84% So it begins with mice and moves to God, and it's called "Dusk." 00:15:28.630 --> 00:15:31.300 align:middle line:90% 00:15:31.300 --> 00:15:36.130 align:middle line:84% "I cannot worry about what lies beneath the surface. 00:15:36.130 --> 00:15:39.730 align:middle line:84% So I walk into the fragile dusk, breaking 00:15:39.730 --> 00:15:46.810 align:middle line:84% the backs of field mice still asleep under the snow. 00:15:46.810 --> 00:15:49.570 align:middle line:84% The sunlight that does not reach me, 00:15:49.570 --> 00:15:55.750 align:middle line:84% illuminates the distance between this world and God's, where 00:15:55.750 --> 00:16:00.700 align:middle line:84% winter is simply the white of perfect concentration. 00:16:00.700 --> 00:16:02.950 align:middle line:84% I would like to believe in God just 00:16:02.950 --> 00:16:06.430 align:middle line:84% as I would like to believe there is an angel weeping 00:16:06.430 --> 00:16:09.430 align:middle line:90% beneath the Chinese elms. 00:16:09.430 --> 00:16:16.210 align:middle line:84% But he is an abstraction like forgetfulness or mathematics. 00:16:16.210 --> 00:16:18.610 align:middle line:84% In the mind of God, winter can be 00:16:18.610 --> 00:16:23.170 align:middle line:90% paraphrased as one dark tree. 00:16:23.170 --> 00:16:28.450 align:middle line:84% And yet as I walk out over the frozen pond, 00:16:28.450 --> 00:16:33.580 align:middle line:84% the pure white of this winter enters my mind. 00:16:33.580 --> 00:16:38.500 align:middle line:84% And I become more open like a clearing in the woods 00:16:38.500 --> 00:16:42.760 align:middle line:84% where light accentuates the dead underbrush without emphasizing 00:16:42.760 --> 00:16:45.760 align:middle line:90% its ugliness. 00:16:45.760 --> 00:16:48.640 align:middle line:84% And so I can live with my faults. 00:16:48.640 --> 00:16:52.105 align:middle line:84% I can be touched and not feel like a passing shadow." 00:16:52.105 --> 00:17:03.740 align:middle line:90% 00:17:03.740 --> 00:17:06.230 align:middle line:84% In the next poem, another landscape poem, 00:17:06.230 --> 00:17:08.180 align:middle line:84% I'm trying to use the landscape to convey 00:17:08.180 --> 00:17:13.190 align:middle line:84% a particular state of mind where it's a feeling of vulnerability 00:17:13.190 --> 00:17:16.490 align:middle line:84% as if your nerves have been exposed. 00:17:16.490 --> 00:17:21.440 align:middle line:84% And the poem is addressed for my mother and to my mother, 00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:22.400 align:middle line:90% but it's also to me. 00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:24.650 align:middle line:84% I didn't realize that till later that the poem is also 00:17:24.650 --> 00:17:27.340 align:middle line:84% to me and about a connection between my mother and I. 00:17:27.340 --> 00:17:29.090 align:middle line:84% And it's called "Beneath the Beech Trees." 00:17:29.090 --> 00:17:34.780 align:middle line:90% 00:17:34.780 --> 00:17:40.060 align:middle line:84% "In winter, you began to forget yourself. 00:17:40.060 --> 00:17:44.080 align:middle line:84% And little by little, you grew confident 00:17:44.080 --> 00:17:48.460 align:middle line:84% until you were no longer afraid of the future, which 00:17:48.460 --> 00:17:55.180 align:middle line:84% like a wheat field in snow seemed a place of exile. 00:17:55.180 --> 00:17:57.940 align:middle line:84% And every morning seemed new to you 00:17:57.940 --> 00:18:01.270 align:middle line:84% like the first day of marriage, and you 00:18:01.270 --> 00:18:06.190 align:middle line:84% spent those days quietly wrapped in the invisible chrysalis 00:18:06.190 --> 00:18:08.050 align:middle line:90% of yourself. 00:18:08.050 --> 00:18:11.890 align:middle line:84% But then one day, you began singing and the voice was sad 00:18:11.890 --> 00:18:14.590 align:middle line:90% as a prisoner's. 00:18:14.590 --> 00:18:16.540 align:middle line:84% As we walked through the winter garden, 00:18:16.540 --> 00:18:20.140 align:middle line:84% you pointed out that according to summer, we are extinct. 00:18:20.140 --> 00:18:22.600 align:middle line:84% And that each season is unable to acknowledge 00:18:22.600 --> 00:18:26.620 align:middle line:84% any other because they exist back to back. 00:18:26.620 --> 00:18:29.050 align:middle line:84% But soon you became quiet upon hearing 00:18:29.050 --> 00:18:32.020 align:middle line:84% the cries of the grackles as though you thought they'd 00:18:32.020 --> 00:18:35.770 align:middle line:90% flown here from another world. 00:18:35.770 --> 00:18:38.560 align:middle line:84% Or maybe you thought they had traveled the distance 00:18:38.560 --> 00:18:40.870 align:middle line:90% between you and the landscape. 00:18:40.870 --> 00:18:43.090 align:middle line:84% It didn't matter whether the grackles were 00:18:43.090 --> 00:18:45.700 align:middle line:90% meaningless or full of meaning. 00:18:45.700 --> 00:18:49.300 align:middle line:84% They weren't even a point of reference, 00:18:49.300 --> 00:18:51.640 align:middle line:84% nor does it matter now how lost you 00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:54.340 align:middle line:90% look beneath the beech trees. 00:18:54.340 --> 00:18:56.440 align:middle line:84% Though to you, the trees may seem prophetic 00:18:56.440 --> 00:18:59.050 align:middle line:84% because they live much longer than you do 00:18:59.050 --> 00:19:03.610 align:middle line:84% and have a more direct connection to the future. 00:19:03.610 --> 00:19:07.510 align:middle line:84% Yet here they are and here you are, 00:19:07.510 --> 00:19:08.800 align:middle line:90% and you're holding your own." 00:19:08.800 --> 00:19:17.630 align:middle line:90% 00:19:17.630 --> 00:19:21.940 align:middle line:84% This next poem began with an epigraph from Margaret, a poem 00:19:21.940 --> 00:19:22.900 align:middle line:90% by Margaret Atwood. 00:19:22.900 --> 00:19:28.880 align:middle line:84% And the epigraph is, I am a word in a foreign language. 00:19:28.880 --> 00:19:31.255 align:middle line:84% And the poem is called "Poem in which I am an Old Woman." 00:19:31.255 --> 00:19:35.880 align:middle line:90% 00:19:35.880 --> 00:19:38.760 align:middle line:84% I am a word in a foreign language, 00:19:38.760 --> 00:19:42.540 align:middle line:84% but I don't know what the word is. 00:19:42.540 --> 00:19:48.450 align:middle line:84% So I sit here quietly and alien to my name. 00:19:48.450 --> 00:19:51.990 align:middle line:84% Around me, the hedges rustle, finches 00:19:51.990 --> 00:19:54.690 align:middle line:84% settle on the roof unaware that nothing 00:19:54.690 --> 00:19:59.490 align:middle line:84% has changed that the field has been plowed again 00:19:59.490 --> 00:20:02.295 align:middle line:84% holding the seeds inside it like a secret. 00:20:02.295 --> 00:20:04.800 align:middle line:90% 00:20:04.800 --> 00:20:07.020 align:middle line:84% And if there were a secret to be told, 00:20:07.020 --> 00:20:10.200 align:middle line:84% it would be my name in another language 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:13.110 align:middle line:90% uttered like a prayer for rain. 00:20:13.110 --> 00:20:16.770 align:middle line:84% The rain that is falling beyond me in another country. 00:20:16.770 --> 00:20:21.370 align:middle line:84% The clouds drifting toward another year. 00:20:21.370 --> 00:20:26.040 align:middle line:84% Now the finches scatter all at once. 00:20:26.040 --> 00:20:31.290 align:middle line:84% There is a connection between myself and their cries. 00:20:31.290 --> 00:20:35.370 align:middle line:84% If bird cries, or shadows, or too many barns on a hillside 00:20:35.370 --> 00:20:37.500 align:middle line:84% are confusion, then maybe I should 00:20:37.500 --> 00:20:41.040 align:middle line:90% continue to live in confusion. 00:20:41.040 --> 00:20:45.490 align:middle line:84% But now it's as if the dusk doesn't have meaning anymore, 00:20:45.490 --> 00:20:47.760 align:middle line:84% which makes me want to turn inward 00:20:47.760 --> 00:20:52.800 align:middle line:84% like a rose turning to ashes, or become next to nothing 00:20:52.800 --> 00:20:55.350 align:middle line:90% like the thin reeds. 00:20:55.350 --> 00:20:58.440 align:middle line:84% Instead, I'm more like the brown snake. 00:20:58.440 --> 00:21:00.690 align:middle line:84% Its color so obvious that it seems 00:21:00.690 --> 00:21:04.650 align:middle line:84% to rub off a fine powder under the white stones 00:21:04.650 --> 00:21:08.160 align:middle line:84% until nothing of me is hidden, no part of me 00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:11.940 align:middle line:90% is crouched in the long grass. 00:21:11.940 --> 00:21:14.520 align:middle line:90% And yet I can't see everything. 00:21:14.520 --> 00:21:17.400 align:middle line:84% I can't know how exalted the owl feels 00:21:17.400 --> 00:21:21.510 align:middle line:84% as it becomes what it is by navigating the air, 00:21:21.510 --> 00:21:24.060 align:middle line:90% by closing in on the mouse. 00:21:24.060 --> 00:21:25.830 align:middle line:84% Though like the mouse, I have learned 00:21:25.830 --> 00:21:29.640 align:middle line:84% I am not acceptable to everything. 00:21:29.640 --> 00:21:33.840 align:middle line:84% I'm not acceptable to the grass, which in this wind 00:21:33.840 --> 00:21:37.500 align:middle line:84% seems to lean away from me and somehow 00:21:37.500 --> 00:21:39.525 align:middle line:90% closer to the end of my life." 00:21:39.525 --> 00:21:53.012 align:middle line:90% 00:21:53.012 --> 00:21:55.470 align:middle line:84% The last poem in the book is "The Night Won't Save Anyone," 00:21:55.470 --> 00:21:57.300 align:middle line:90% the title poem. 00:21:57.300 --> 00:22:00.340 align:middle line:84% I'm trying to think of a way to explain it. 00:22:00.340 --> 00:22:02.310 align:middle line:84% And the easiest way, I suppose, is 00:22:02.310 --> 00:22:05.940 align:middle line:84% to describe the sensation I had while writing it. 00:22:05.940 --> 00:22:09.930 align:middle line:84% I kept trying to put myself into a winter scene in the poem. 00:22:09.930 --> 00:22:14.070 align:middle line:84% And each time I did that, I was also aware 00:22:14.070 --> 00:22:16.560 align:middle line:84% that I wasn't in a winter scene, that I 00:22:16.560 --> 00:22:20.010 align:middle line:84% was in a warm kitchen in Missouri writing a poem. 00:22:20.010 --> 00:22:21.630 align:middle line:84% And for some reason in this poem, 00:22:21.630 --> 00:22:24.820 align:middle line:84% it seemed too artificial not to recognize that. 00:22:24.820 --> 00:22:26.640 align:middle line:84% And so somehow the poem, I think, 00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:30.990 align:middle line:84% works on these two levels of myself inside the scene 00:22:30.990 --> 00:22:34.380 align:middle line:84% and also myself outside of it writing the poem 00:22:34.380 --> 00:22:36.255 align:middle line:90% and a view of both somehow. 00:22:36.255 --> 00:22:39.385 align:middle line:90% 00:22:39.385 --> 00:22:40.635 align:middle line:90% "The Night Won't Save Anyone." 00:22:40.635 --> 00:22:44.090 align:middle line:90% 00:22:44.090 --> 00:22:47.850 align:middle line:84% "Someday our bodies will no longer matter 00:22:47.850 --> 00:22:52.790 align:middle line:84% and we will leave them in our sleep to travel easily. 00:22:52.790 --> 00:22:57.500 align:middle line:84% But until then, I will tramp like this through the woods 00:22:57.500 --> 00:23:02.930 align:middle line:84% and not worry that the snow falls gently between us. 00:23:02.930 --> 00:23:06.020 align:middle line:84% What separates people happens by accident 00:23:06.020 --> 00:23:07.730 align:middle line:90% like unexpected weather. 00:23:07.730 --> 00:23:10.220 align:middle line:84% And it is also caused by the fact 00:23:10.220 --> 00:23:13.610 align:middle line:84% that there's always another handshake to be done without, 00:23:13.610 --> 00:23:18.140 align:middle line:84% always another unnecessary embrace. 00:23:18.140 --> 00:23:20.690 align:middle line:84% It's the way there are those extra pear trees over there, 00:23:20.690 --> 00:23:25.550 align:middle line:84% next to those extra houses which one day will be abandoned. 00:23:25.550 --> 00:23:28.880 align:middle line:84% In one of them, a man and a woman are kissing, 00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:31.700 align:middle line:90% sun is pouring into the windows. 00:23:31.700 --> 00:23:34.100 align:middle line:84% And behind them, a gold paper fan 00:23:34.100 --> 00:23:38.120 align:middle line:84% is spread out on the mantelpiece. 00:23:38.120 --> 00:23:40.700 align:middle line:84% Now I realize they are my parents, 00:23:40.700 --> 00:23:45.110 align:middle line:84% and everything seems suddenly empty. 00:23:45.110 --> 00:23:46.970 align:middle line:84% Or maybe I'm afraid of losing what never 00:23:46.970 --> 00:23:50.510 align:middle line:90% happens by having it happen. 00:23:50.510 --> 00:23:52.310 align:middle line:90% I turn away. 00:23:52.310 --> 00:23:54.273 align:middle line:90% It has grown darker. 00:23:54.273 --> 00:23:55.940 align:middle line:84% The crows are where they aren't supposed 00:23:55.940 --> 00:23:58.610 align:middle line:90% to be on the scarecrow. 00:23:58.610 --> 00:24:02.180 align:middle line:84% The horses have already forgotten what daylight is. 00:24:02.180 --> 00:24:04.310 align:middle line:90% The swallows are leaving. 00:24:04.310 --> 00:24:08.180 align:middle line:84% A dried nest falls from the barn. 00:24:08.180 --> 00:24:13.550 align:middle line:84% The smell of damp hay, steam rising from manure. 00:24:13.550 --> 00:24:17.180 align:middle line:84% The boy ringing a bell doesn't care if I listen. 00:24:17.180 --> 00:24:19.310 align:middle line:84% He doesn't mind if I come up to the house 00:24:19.310 --> 00:24:24.290 align:middle line:84% or sleep each night on a torn sack in the barn. 00:24:24.290 --> 00:24:28.480 align:middle line:90% I admire his indifference. 00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:32.350 align:middle line:84% But how quickly the sun sets on this page. 00:24:32.350 --> 00:24:34.930 align:middle line:84% The night has a certain, how shall I say it? 00:24:34.930 --> 00:24:36.370 align:middle line:90% Style. 00:24:36.370 --> 00:24:41.080 align:middle line:84% It is not concise, and reminds me of my own poems. 00:24:41.080 --> 00:24:43.870 align:middle line:90% And the night won't save anyone. 00:24:43.870 --> 00:24:47.200 align:middle line:84% It has another life as I do outside the poem. 00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:50.350 align:middle line:84% And in that life, there isn't any landscape, 00:24:50.350 --> 00:24:52.930 align:middle line:90% just the mind doing its work. 00:24:52.930 --> 00:24:55.240 align:middle line:84% The mind which always wants to cling to such things 00:24:55.240 --> 00:24:58.750 align:middle line:90% as deer trotting through rain. 00:24:58.750 --> 00:25:03.010 align:middle line:84% While at the same time, wanting to be rid of them. 00:25:03.010 --> 00:25:05.650 align:middle line:84% It's the way I try to visualize my childhood friends 00:25:05.650 --> 00:25:09.430 align:middle line:84% and they grow smaller as if I am walking away from them. 00:25:09.430 --> 00:25:13.180 align:middle line:84% Their faces begin to dissolve in a spiral. 00:25:13.180 --> 00:25:15.340 align:middle line:90% I should have left them alone. 00:25:15.340 --> 00:25:17.200 align:middle line:90% This has happened before. 00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:20.470 align:middle line:84% Sometimes while I am sitting in my room reading, 00:25:20.470 --> 00:25:22.510 align:middle line:84% my mind will pass through the book 00:25:22.510 --> 00:25:25.090 align:middle line:84% the way water passes through a grid 00:25:25.090 --> 00:25:29.620 align:middle line:84% and eventually finds itself joining a river which silently 00:25:29.620 --> 00:25:35.650 align:middle line:84% passes from town to town by the factories and stockyards. 00:25:35.650 --> 00:25:40.225 align:middle line:84% I turn the page, the shade deepens on the lawn. 00:25:40.225 --> 00:25:43.930 align:middle line:90% 00:25:43.930 --> 00:25:47.320 align:middle line:84% I can remember the way I felt as a child 00:25:47.320 --> 00:25:49.090 align:middle line:84% when I would go out into the woods 00:25:49.090 --> 00:25:53.140 align:middle line:84% and think of myself as invisible. 00:25:53.140 --> 00:25:57.100 align:middle line:84% I was convinced I could become part of the foliage. 00:25:57.100 --> 00:26:00.850 align:middle line:84% Now I often feel the reverse, as though I stand out 00:26:00.850 --> 00:26:06.160 align:middle line:84% in a landscape, a scarecrow in a burned field. 00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:08.980 align:middle line:84% This makes me wonder if most people think that winter 00:26:08.980 --> 00:26:12.970 align:middle line:84% is like an equation to which they're being added, 00:26:12.970 --> 00:26:16.480 align:middle line:84% or maybe to them, the sky is just so much whiteness. 00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:18.760 align:middle line:84% If so, they're better off because they 00:26:18.760 --> 00:26:20.830 align:middle line:84% don't have to spend their time wanting 00:26:20.830 --> 00:26:25.120 align:middle line:84% to be the perfect silence after a long rain, 00:26:25.120 --> 00:26:27.280 align:middle line:84% nor do they have to worry about feeling 00:26:27.280 --> 00:26:31.030 align:middle line:90% overlooked by the birch trees. 00:26:31.030 --> 00:26:35.470 align:middle line:84% Instead, they can look into themselves. 00:26:35.470 --> 00:26:38.140 align:middle line:84% But when I look into myself, I feel 00:26:38.140 --> 00:26:41.530 align:middle line:84% as though I am looking into a pond in which the water is 00:26:41.530 --> 00:26:44.110 align:middle line:90% hiding something-- 00:26:44.110 --> 00:26:46.600 align:middle line:84% the bones from last year's drowning, 00:26:46.600 --> 00:26:51.340 align:middle line:84% the split jaw, the cracked skull. 00:26:51.340 --> 00:26:53.980 align:middle line:84% I must go on admiring myself, though it's 00:26:53.980 --> 00:26:57.310 align:middle line:84% the same as admiring a sunset which is to be feared because 00:26:57.310 --> 00:27:00.010 align:middle line:90% of its nakedness. 00:27:00.010 --> 00:27:02.950 align:middle line:84% And I go on believing that these words are real, 00:27:02.950 --> 00:27:06.160 align:middle line:84% that they want to signify more than the rainy sky 00:27:06.160 --> 00:27:09.620 align:middle line:90% or the early October evening. 00:27:09.620 --> 00:27:14.650 align:middle line:84% But as I say each one, it looks for something concrete. 00:27:14.650 --> 00:27:19.780 align:middle line:84% The way grief goes looking for a dead loved one or the way 00:27:19.780 --> 00:27:23.140 align:middle line:84% a wind scavenges through yellow leaves, 00:27:23.140 --> 00:27:25.495 align:middle line:84% looking for the visible part of itself." 00:27:25.495 --> 00:27:29.722 align:middle line:90% 00:27:29.722 --> 00:27:32.656 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:27:32.656 --> 00:27:36.540 align:middle line:90% 00:27:36.540 --> 00:27:37.040 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:27:37.040 --> 00:27:40.920 align:middle line:90% 00:27:40.920 --> 00:27:42.510 align:middle line:84% Now I'll move on to some newer poems. 00:27:42.510 --> 00:27:47.780 align:middle line:90% 00:27:47.780 --> 00:27:49.340 align:middle line:84% A lot of times when I'm writing, I'll 00:27:49.340 --> 00:27:51.620 align:middle line:90% write in the present tense. 00:27:51.620 --> 00:27:53.900 align:middle line:84% And what happens when I'm writing 00:27:53.900 --> 00:27:57.800 align:middle line:84% the kind of meditative poem I do is that almost any feeling I 00:27:57.800 --> 00:28:01.130 align:middle line:84% happen to have it that moment can enter the poem at will. 00:28:01.130 --> 00:28:03.380 align:middle line:84% And it's hard to control that because sometimes you're 00:28:03.380 --> 00:28:05.340 align:middle line:90% feeling different things. 00:28:05.340 --> 00:28:08.510 align:middle line:84% But in this particular poem, doubt, the feeling of doubt 00:28:08.510 --> 00:28:10.160 align:middle line:90% may be about writing the poem. 00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:13.010 align:middle line:84% I think the act of writing the physical sensations of writing 00:28:13.010 --> 00:28:15.710 align:middle line:84% have a lot to do with what enters the poem. 00:28:15.710 --> 00:28:20.430 align:middle line:84% And anyway, doubt is the feeling that enters this poem. 00:28:20.430 --> 00:28:23.270 align:middle line:84% It's a purified emotion, though, because I don't 00:28:23.270 --> 00:28:26.510 align:middle line:90% describe what causes the doubt. 00:28:26.510 --> 00:28:29.600 align:middle line:84% It's not attached to a real scene. 00:28:29.600 --> 00:28:31.100 align:middle line:84% But then I always feel things that I 00:28:31.100 --> 00:28:32.750 align:middle line:90% don't know what the causes are. 00:28:32.750 --> 00:28:35.660 align:middle line:90% So "Small Difficulties." 00:28:35.660 --> 00:28:39.440 align:middle line:90% 00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:41.810 align:middle line:84% "Is there any difference between what I am 00:28:41.810 --> 00:28:46.640 align:middle line:90% thinking and the falling snow? 00:28:46.640 --> 00:28:50.870 align:middle line:84% The snow is covering what I will soon forget. 00:28:50.870 --> 00:28:54.950 align:middle line:84% The dry wheat fields, the pale leaves scattered everywhere 00:28:54.950 --> 00:28:58.460 align:middle line:84% like small mistakes, and the red house 00:28:58.460 --> 00:29:01.100 align:middle line:84% on the hill where the neighbors sleep 00:29:01.100 --> 00:29:04.970 align:middle line:84% too soundly like lovers who haven't yet 00:29:04.970 --> 00:29:09.230 align:middle line:90% considered each other's faults. 00:29:09.230 --> 00:29:13.100 align:middle line:84% To the snow, my footprints are small difficulties 00:29:13.100 --> 00:29:15.860 align:middle line:90% to be taken care of later. 00:29:15.860 --> 00:29:20.720 align:middle line:84% My breath and the cold air are a contradiction of terms, 00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:23.240 align:middle line:84% and these words are like bird cries 00:29:23.240 --> 00:29:27.860 align:middle line:84% that cluttered the air for a moment then die. 00:29:27.860 --> 00:29:31.490 align:middle line:84% If it's true that I exist in the shadow of my doubts 00:29:31.490 --> 00:29:35.240 align:middle line:84% that have appeared like bad weather out of nowhere, 00:29:35.240 --> 00:29:37.940 align:middle line:84% then this would explain why I feel like timber 00:29:37.940 --> 00:29:40.520 align:middle line:90% about to be cut down. 00:29:40.520 --> 00:29:43.880 align:middle line:84% It would explain why there is something not quite right 00:29:43.880 --> 00:29:48.050 align:middle line:84% about the ice on the pond which seems to give off 00:29:48.050 --> 00:29:52.940 align:middle line:84% a feeling of good intentions, even though it is dangerously 00:29:52.940 --> 00:29:57.260 align:middle line:84% thin and it would explain why the light of the moon 00:29:57.260 --> 00:30:02.060 align:middle line:84% out with me when it fails to enter my bedroom window. 00:30:02.060 --> 00:30:04.100 align:middle line:84% On the nights, I wake from sleep and need 00:30:04.100 --> 00:30:08.780 align:middle line:90% to know exactly where I am. 00:30:08.780 --> 00:30:12.200 align:middle line:84% It would also explain why tomorrow, as it comes closer, 00:30:12.200 --> 00:30:17.000 align:middle line:84% seems to have the look of already having been lived in. 00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:20.930 align:middle line:84% And yet the sun still bothers to rise and set 00:30:20.930 --> 00:30:25.370 align:middle line:84% over the dark barns and fields of disinterested cattle, 00:30:25.370 --> 00:30:29.990 align:middle line:84% and the wind still bothers to touch the abandoned silos 00:30:29.990 --> 00:30:35.250 align:middle line:84% as if to reassure them that they are still there. 00:30:35.250 --> 00:30:40.040 align:middle line:84% So perhaps it's true that not all is lost. 00:30:40.040 --> 00:30:45.920 align:middle line:84% The snow as it falls is repeating itself over and over. 00:30:45.920 --> 00:30:47.570 align:middle line:90% It repeats what it is." 00:30:47.570 --> 00:31:03.460 align:middle line:90% 00:31:03.460 --> 00:31:03.960 align:middle line:90% "The Body." 00:31:03.960 --> 00:31:07.080 align:middle line:90% 00:31:07.080 --> 00:31:12.210 align:middle line:84% "In my future, there are ashes that control me 00:31:12.210 --> 00:31:16.410 align:middle line:84% and yet I go on troubling the grass with my footsteps. 00:31:16.410 --> 00:31:19.830 align:middle line:84% I am reminded that this is a place, 00:31:19.830 --> 00:31:22.470 align:middle line:84% and that my body will never learn to speak 00:31:22.470 --> 00:31:25.870 align:middle line:90% the pale language of the sun. 00:31:25.870 --> 00:31:28.710 align:middle line:84% I am reminded that the light of each day 00:31:28.710 --> 00:31:31.650 align:middle line:84% will not pass through my personal history 00:31:31.650 --> 00:31:34.980 align:middle line:84% to clarify the events that have changed me. 00:31:34.980 --> 00:31:37.380 align:middle line:84% The night is obligatory, and there's 00:31:37.380 --> 00:31:40.650 align:middle line:84% no point in trying to investigate its origin in order 00:31:40.650 --> 00:31:43.860 align:middle line:90% to alter the state of things. 00:31:43.860 --> 00:31:46.110 align:middle line:84% Outside, the black birds will always 00:31:46.110 --> 00:31:49.980 align:middle line:84% peck at the seeds on the tough brown lawns, 00:31:49.980 --> 00:31:55.020 align:middle line:84% or disappear without worry into the sky, which 00:31:55.020 --> 00:31:59.100 align:middle line:84% makes me think that the sky must be pure as a future 00:31:59.100 --> 00:32:01.210 align:middle line:90% without sins. 00:32:01.210 --> 00:32:04.050 align:middle line:84% And that one day, I would like to go there too 00:32:04.050 --> 00:32:08.430 align:middle line:84% and be clear and shapeless without belongings, 00:32:08.430 --> 00:32:10.680 align:middle line:84% because I've had enough of my body 00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:14.460 align:middle line:84% that surrounds me with its blood, hair, and teeth. 00:32:14.460 --> 00:32:16.350 align:middle line:84% I've had enough of this autumn which 00:32:16.350 --> 00:32:19.440 align:middle line:84% is destined to fail as if the leaves contain 00:32:19.440 --> 00:32:22.770 align:middle line:84% within them the instructions for falling, 00:32:22.770 --> 00:32:26.030 align:middle line:84% or as if they will whirl in the next month on amazed 00:32:26.030 --> 00:32:28.590 align:middle line:90% that the new season. 00:32:28.590 --> 00:32:30.870 align:middle line:84% If it weren't for me, the coming night 00:32:30.870 --> 00:32:34.770 align:middle line:84% would be a chemistry of perfect shadows. 00:32:34.770 --> 00:32:38.080 align:middle line:84% And as I walk into the open field, 00:32:38.080 --> 00:32:41.580 align:middle line:84% I feel that the shy grass doesn't understand 00:32:41.580 --> 00:32:45.300 align:middle line:84% what it is like to be of solid weight and mass, 00:32:45.300 --> 00:32:48.090 align:middle line:84% to take up space, and to shiver in the cold." 00:32:48.090 --> 00:32:59.200 align:middle line:90% 00:32:59.200 --> 00:33:02.260 align:middle line:84% I usually don't begin a poem with the title in mind 00:33:02.260 --> 00:33:04.960 align:middle line:90% at first, but this one I did. 00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:07.240 align:middle line:90% And the title is "Solo." 00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:09.820 align:middle line:84% And it reminded me of three things-- 00:33:09.820 --> 00:33:15.160 align:middle line:84% soul as in spirit, sol as in sun, and solo as 00:33:15.160 --> 00:33:17.980 align:middle line:90% in singing or traveling alone. 00:33:17.980 --> 00:33:19.960 align:middle line:84% Luckily, I didn't think of the sole of one shoe 00:33:19.960 --> 00:33:22.690 align:middle line:84% or fillet of sole, because that would have been a disaster. 00:33:22.690 --> 00:33:24.760 align:middle line:90% I thought of those later. 00:33:24.760 --> 00:33:26.800 align:middle line:84% Anyway, I think I was trying to keep those three 00:33:26.800 --> 00:33:30.730 align:middle line:84% meanings of the word into the poem subconsciously though. 00:33:30.730 --> 00:33:34.520 align:middle line:84% I didn't really understand what I was doing till later. 00:33:34.520 --> 00:33:35.020 align:middle line:90% "Solo." 00:33:35.020 --> 00:33:39.780 align:middle line:90% 00:33:39.780 --> 00:33:45.990 align:middle line:84% "There are times that falter like flowers in front of me, 00:33:45.990 --> 00:33:52.110 align:middle line:84% and times that take root in my chest like a change of heart. 00:33:52.110 --> 00:33:54.780 align:middle line:84% Certain kinds of foliage respond to me. 00:33:54.780 --> 00:33:58.800 align:middle line:84% Ferns, for example, are onlookers. 00:33:58.800 --> 00:34:02.370 align:middle line:84% There are also flowers that have died only to be born again 00:34:02.370 --> 00:34:05.650 align:middle line:90% like old opinions. 00:34:05.650 --> 00:34:09.510 align:middle line:84% Perhaps it's true that my body won't always travel solo away 00:34:09.510 --> 00:34:11.909 align:middle line:90% from the place of my birth. 00:34:11.909 --> 00:34:15.960 align:middle line:84% I have come a long way through the serious underbrush, 00:34:15.960 --> 00:34:20.850 align:middle line:84% and will probably come to a clearing soon. 00:34:20.850 --> 00:34:23.560 align:middle line:84% I can't help thinking though of all the shadows 00:34:23.560 --> 00:34:29.489 align:middle line:84% I've left behind, and that were once very important to me. 00:34:29.489 --> 00:34:32.520 align:middle line:84% It would be useless to look for them now. 00:34:32.520 --> 00:34:35.760 align:middle line:84% The way it would be useless to keep track of my footsteps 00:34:35.760 --> 00:34:36.839 align:middle line:90% lost in the grass. 00:34:36.839 --> 00:34:39.870 align:middle line:90% 00:34:39.870 --> 00:34:42.389 align:middle line:84% And though I would like to be grass which 00:34:42.389 --> 00:34:45.179 align:middle line:84% doesn't defend itself but simply waits 00:34:45.179 --> 00:34:49.920 align:middle line:84% to become undeniably green, I know that there's 00:34:49.920 --> 00:34:53.670 align:middle line:90% nothing left to negotiate. 00:34:53.670 --> 00:34:56.670 align:middle line:84% The old roads that used to lead somewhere 00:34:56.670 --> 00:34:59.910 align:middle line:90% are now overgrown with weeds. 00:34:59.910 --> 00:35:02.820 align:middle line:84% And the sun aches to occupy everything." 00:35:02.820 --> 00:35:11.310 align:middle line:90% 00:35:11.310 --> 00:35:14.790 align:middle line:84% After writing a lot of these meditative poems, 00:35:14.790 --> 00:35:19.560 align:middle line:84% it occurred to me that I should, as antidote in a way, 00:35:19.560 --> 00:35:22.440 align:middle line:84% write something autobiographical. 00:35:22.440 --> 00:35:25.770 align:middle line:84% And so this next poem is an attempt to do that. 00:35:25.770 --> 00:35:31.320 align:middle line:84% It combines various scenes in my life together into one poem. 00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:34.050 align:middle line:84% Also, the other thing I was doing in the other poems 00:35:34.050 --> 00:35:36.660 align:middle line:84% is writing in a very long sentence. 00:35:36.660 --> 00:35:42.750 align:middle line:84% And as an antidote to that, I tried a fragment, no sentences. 00:35:42.750 --> 00:35:44.940 align:middle line:84% It's called "Doors Opening Here and There." 00:35:44.940 --> 00:35:47.040 align:middle line:84% The only thing you need to know about it 00:35:47.040 --> 00:35:50.820 align:middle line:84% is that my father who is a surgeon is also a sculptor 00:35:50.820 --> 00:35:53.550 align:middle line:84% and has been trying to move from one career to the other. 00:35:53.550 --> 00:35:55.830 align:middle line:84% And that's created some family turmoil. 00:35:55.830 --> 00:35:58.530 align:middle line:90% 00:35:58.530 --> 00:36:00.255 align:middle line:90% "Doors Opening Here and There." 00:36:00.255 --> 00:36:04.590 align:middle line:90% 00:36:04.590 --> 00:36:05.775 align:middle line:90% "A broken rain spout. 00:36:05.775 --> 00:36:09.000 align:middle line:90% 00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:14.220 align:middle line:84% The dream about water rising up the stairs. 00:36:14.220 --> 00:36:17.400 align:middle line:84% Mother and I trapped in a small rectangular room. 00:36:17.400 --> 00:36:19.950 align:middle line:90% 00:36:19.950 --> 00:36:23.370 align:middle line:84% Her bones turning to plaster when I touched them. 00:36:23.370 --> 00:36:27.360 align:middle line:90% 00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:29.475 align:middle line:84% A melon rotting on the kitchen sill. 00:36:29.475 --> 00:36:32.130 align:middle line:90% 00:36:32.130 --> 00:36:34.830 align:middle line:84% Doors opening here and there into rooms 00:36:34.830 --> 00:36:39.090 align:middle line:90% where no one is permitted. 00:36:39.090 --> 00:36:41.850 align:middle line:84% Mother pushing farther away without the use 00:36:41.850 --> 00:36:43.890 align:middle line:90% of physical force. 00:36:43.890 --> 00:36:47.260 align:middle line:84% She looks at him as if from a great height, 00:36:47.260 --> 00:36:50.550 align:middle line:84% the way one would look at stones on the ground 00:36:50.550 --> 00:36:52.005 align:middle line:84% from the point of view of a roof. 00:36:52.005 --> 00:36:54.570 align:middle line:90% 00:36:54.570 --> 00:36:59.490 align:middle line:84% All of this occurring over cups of coffee. 00:36:59.490 --> 00:37:02.670 align:middle line:84% A few clouds scattered like minor complaints. 00:37:02.670 --> 00:37:06.270 align:middle line:90% 00:37:06.270 --> 00:37:09.000 align:middle line:84% Mother's description of my brother's apartment-- 00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:12.150 align:middle line:84% no chairs, cardboard nailed over the windows, 00:37:12.150 --> 00:37:15.030 align:middle line:84% and a wife who cries when he returns from work 00:37:15.030 --> 00:37:18.690 align:middle line:90% and watches TV without speaking. 00:37:18.690 --> 00:37:23.130 align:middle line:84% Her possible description of me, how one morning my son 00:37:23.130 --> 00:37:26.790 align:middle line:84% carried handfuls of ashes out of the dead fire 00:37:26.790 --> 00:37:28.980 align:middle line:84% and rubbed them into my hair as I slept 00:37:28.980 --> 00:37:31.845 align:middle line:84% stretched out drunk on the white hatch. 00:37:31.845 --> 00:37:34.800 align:middle line:90% 00:37:34.800 --> 00:37:38.700 align:middle line:84% Open windows, the wind disturbing the stillness 00:37:38.700 --> 00:37:42.240 align:middle line:90% of the lamps and portraits. 00:37:42.240 --> 00:37:45.840 align:middle line:84% The feeling of being lost among familiar objects, 00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:49.080 align:middle line:84% of being unrecognized by the striped wallpaper 00:37:49.080 --> 00:37:50.190 align:middle line:90% and dried flowers. 00:37:50.190 --> 00:37:53.250 align:middle line:90% 00:37:53.250 --> 00:37:57.360 align:middle line:84% My husband in a closed room listening to Pachelbel in tears 00:37:57.360 --> 00:38:01.350 align:middle line:84% because his father, now dying, used to close himself in a room 00:38:01.350 --> 00:38:04.830 align:middle line:90% and listen to Pachelbel. 00:38:04.830 --> 00:38:06.930 align:middle line:84% A crack in the wall that never shows itself. 00:38:06.930 --> 00:38:09.780 align:middle line:90% 00:38:09.780 --> 00:38:12.930 align:middle line:84% My husband's father asleep in a chair in the blue living 00:38:12.930 --> 00:38:14.700 align:middle line:90% room in California. 00:38:14.700 --> 00:38:17.970 align:middle line:84% The wrong words that used to seize him, how will you 00:38:17.970 --> 00:38:21.990 align:middle line:84% get there, the four lane hospital. 00:38:21.990 --> 00:38:26.130 align:middle line:84% The calm white of the almond trees. 00:38:26.130 --> 00:38:30.720 align:middle line:84% The rain speaking in extinct syllables. 00:38:30.720 --> 00:38:33.390 align:middle line:84% Connecticut, what mother said to father 00:38:33.390 --> 00:38:35.610 align:middle line:90% about his change of career. 00:38:35.610 --> 00:38:39.120 align:middle line:84% I married a doctor not a sculptor. 00:38:39.120 --> 00:38:41.610 align:middle line:84% Father was measuring the distance between my hairline 00:38:41.610 --> 00:38:45.120 align:middle line:90% and my chin for the bust. 00:38:45.120 --> 00:38:49.530 align:middle line:84% What father said to me on a ferry from Maine to Canada, 00:38:49.530 --> 00:38:51.870 align:middle line:90% your mother's friends play golf. 00:38:51.870 --> 00:38:52.920 align:middle line:90% I hate golf. 00:38:52.920 --> 00:38:55.680 align:middle line:90% 00:38:55.680 --> 00:38:58.710 align:middle line:84% Noticed the apparent closeness of a couple 00:38:58.710 --> 00:39:01.500 align:middle line:84% walking down the rainy street just 00:39:01.500 --> 00:39:05.130 align:middle line:84% beyond the neatly trimmed hedges then 00:39:05.130 --> 00:39:07.380 align:middle line:84% realized the rain was responsible, 00:39:07.380 --> 00:39:11.020 align:middle line:84% not their emotions but the rain causing them to huddle together 00:39:11.020 --> 00:39:14.160 align:middle line:90% beneath the umbrella. 00:39:14.160 --> 00:39:17.250 align:middle line:84% No comfort in knowing the trees have flowered according 00:39:17.250 --> 00:39:20.070 align:middle line:90% to my belief that they would. 00:39:20.070 --> 00:39:22.935 align:middle line:84% A few blackbirds jarring the ear with insults." 00:39:22.935 --> 00:39:32.240 align:middle line:90% 00:39:32.240 --> 00:39:35.450 align:middle line:84% The next two poems I'll read are about a particular problem 00:39:35.450 --> 00:39:38.060 align:middle line:84% related to memory, and that is how 00:39:38.060 --> 00:39:41.240 align:middle line:84% do you ever really know the particular facts behind what 00:39:41.240 --> 00:39:44.060 align:middle line:84% you remember, whether they're true or not true. 00:39:44.060 --> 00:39:46.730 align:middle line:84% Because any time you have emotional attachment 00:39:46.730 --> 00:39:52.020 align:middle line:84% to a memory, it has the tendency to alter or change the facts. 00:39:52.020 --> 00:39:57.290 align:middle line:84% The first poem, the emotional attachment to the facts 00:39:57.290 --> 00:39:59.570 align:middle line:84% may have obscured them all together, 00:39:59.570 --> 00:40:00.995 align:middle line:84% and it's a poem called "The Liar." 00:40:00.995 --> 00:40:05.220 align:middle line:90% 00:40:05.220 --> 00:40:10.230 align:middle line:84% "Years ago, I hid beneath the porch of our white farmhouse 00:40:10.230 --> 00:40:14.430 align:middle line:84% hoping that someone would notice my absence. 00:40:14.430 --> 00:40:18.480 align:middle line:84% For hours, I tolerated the ants crawling over my legs 00:40:18.480 --> 00:40:20.520 align:middle line:84% because I wanted to hear my parents 00:40:20.520 --> 00:40:24.660 align:middle line:84% call out my name in worried voices. 00:40:24.660 --> 00:40:26.880 align:middle line:90% Nothing happened. 00:40:26.880 --> 00:40:29.790 align:middle line:84% My mother and father sat on the porch above me 00:40:29.790 --> 00:40:33.120 align:middle line:84% and talked about setting traps for the mice that 00:40:33.120 --> 00:40:36.780 align:middle line:90% invaded the house each spring. 00:40:36.780 --> 00:40:40.980 align:middle line:84% Once, I painted a black half moon beneath my eye. 00:40:40.980 --> 00:40:44.970 align:middle line:84% At school, I told a story that changed as the day wore on. 00:40:44.970 --> 00:40:47.910 align:middle line:84% I'd fallen from a tree, I've been chased by my brother 00:40:47.910 --> 00:40:53.640 align:middle line:84% with a stick, I had been slapped in the eye by my mother. 00:40:53.640 --> 00:40:56.290 align:middle line:84% Soon, the black eye seemed so real to me 00:40:56.290 --> 00:40:58.560 align:middle line:84% I didn't notice the black paint beginning 00:40:58.560 --> 00:41:01.500 align:middle line:90% to smudge across my cheek. 00:41:01.500 --> 00:41:05.070 align:middle line:84% Of course no one believed me, but the stories were true 00:41:05.070 --> 00:41:09.330 align:middle line:84% and the paint was simply an excuse to tell them. 00:41:09.330 --> 00:41:11.730 align:middle line:84% My mother had migraine headaches and used 00:41:11.730 --> 00:41:15.060 align:middle line:84% to slap our heads to ease the pain. 00:41:15.060 --> 00:41:17.640 align:middle line:84% Sometimes she chased us through the house 00:41:17.640 --> 00:41:19.920 align:middle line:84% with a pair of scissors in her hand. 00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:22.080 align:middle line:84% Later, when my eyes went bad, I was 00:41:22.080 --> 00:41:24.390 align:middle line:84% relieved because I thought the doctors would finally 00:41:24.390 --> 00:41:27.750 align:middle line:84% discover my concussions, but mother 00:41:27.750 --> 00:41:29.640 align:middle line:90% wouldn't let them test me. 00:41:29.640 --> 00:41:32.910 align:middle line:90% She didn't want anyone to know. 00:41:32.910 --> 00:41:36.750 align:middle line:84% Now my mother claims not to remember any of this. 00:41:36.750 --> 00:41:39.990 align:middle line:84% Either my mother is a mad woman or I am mad, 00:41:39.990 --> 00:41:42.670 align:middle line:90% and this story is a lie. 00:41:42.670 --> 00:41:45.130 align:middle line:90% Maybe it doesn't matter. 00:41:45.130 --> 00:41:48.360 align:middle line:84% It only matters that something irrevocable happened 00:41:48.360 --> 00:41:50.010 align:middle line:90% causing me to say all of this. 00:41:50.010 --> 00:41:52.992 align:middle line:90% 00:41:52.992 --> 00:41:55.974 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:41:55.974 --> 00:42:13.370 align:middle line:90% 00:42:13.370 --> 00:42:17.410 align:middle line:84% And here's another one about the same kind of problem, 00:42:17.410 --> 00:42:20.537 align:middle line:84% but it's more of an abstract poem. 00:42:20.537 --> 00:42:22.120 align:middle line:84% It's called "Why the Rain is Ignored." 00:42:22.120 --> 00:42:25.630 align:middle line:90% 00:42:25.630 --> 00:42:27.880 align:middle line:84% "The rain on the roof doesn't understand 00:42:27.880 --> 00:42:31.060 align:middle line:84% how complicated our memories are, 00:42:31.060 --> 00:42:35.320 align:middle line:84% how we can choose to remember a hot day in Moscow, 00:42:35.320 --> 00:42:39.580 align:middle line:84% and the faces of two peasants quarreling over a horse. 00:42:39.580 --> 00:42:43.480 align:middle line:84% But not the room of a hotel we spent an entire winter 00:42:43.480 --> 00:42:46.900 align:middle line:90% in nervous or drunk. 00:42:46.900 --> 00:42:48.730 align:middle line:84% Maybe we don't want to remember the day 00:42:48.730 --> 00:42:51.490 align:middle line:90% we saw two lovers quarreling. 00:42:51.490 --> 00:42:55.030 align:middle line:84% It was November, and the elm trees around them 00:42:55.030 --> 00:42:59.080 align:middle line:84% seemed unaware of the words flung like black coins 00:42:59.080 --> 00:43:02.170 align:middle line:90% into the snow. 00:43:02.170 --> 00:43:06.490 align:middle line:84% So we concentrate only on the floor in the thin layer of ice 00:43:06.490 --> 00:43:11.320 align:middle line:84% on the pond behind them and try to forget that one of them 00:43:11.320 --> 00:43:15.100 align:middle line:84% hurried out over the surface as the ice creaked 00:43:15.100 --> 00:43:19.480 align:middle line:84% with the sound of a pine tree about to fall. 00:43:19.480 --> 00:43:22.840 align:middle line:84% Once, I stood in a spring fog after hearing 00:43:22.840 --> 00:43:25.330 align:middle line:84% the news of a friend's disappearance 00:43:25.330 --> 00:43:28.220 align:middle line:84% I can't recall exactly how I felt. 00:43:28.220 --> 00:43:31.450 align:middle line:84% But the jungles on the lawn seemed uncomplicated 00:43:31.450 --> 00:43:35.680 align:middle line:84% as they tipped their heads in the sluggish gray air. 00:43:35.680 --> 00:43:40.180 align:middle line:84% And a few pink blossoms fell easily from the magnolias 00:43:40.180 --> 00:43:44.740 align:middle line:84% as if the trees were unafraid of their own nakedness. 00:43:44.740 --> 00:43:47.140 align:middle line:84% Maybe we were part of a long story 00:43:47.140 --> 00:43:49.240 align:middle line:84% to be told by someone who will purposefully 00:43:49.240 --> 00:43:51.700 align:middle line:90% misinterpret what has happened. 00:43:51.700 --> 00:43:55.510 align:middle line:84% So we shouldn't worry about the details of our lives. 00:43:55.510 --> 00:43:59.560 align:middle line:84% It won't matter finally if we die in a yellow field feeling 00:43:59.560 --> 00:44:02.740 align:middle line:84% the distance grow between ourselves and the flowers, 00:44:02.740 --> 00:44:05.830 align:middle line:84% or in an empty street beneath the neon 00:44:05.830 --> 00:44:10.000 align:middle line:84% sign of a bar in the silence just before someone touches 00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:13.570 align:middle line:90% the ivory keys of a piano. 00:44:13.570 --> 00:44:16.330 align:middle line:84% When we die, we do not reach a conclusion. 00:44:16.330 --> 00:44:18.520 align:middle line:84% In the minds of others, the memories of us 00:44:18.520 --> 00:44:22.420 align:middle line:84% will be altered or we will be ignored 00:44:22.420 --> 00:44:25.870 align:middle line:84% like rain falling to the open windows of a house 00:44:25.870 --> 00:44:26.905 align:middle line:90% where no one lives. 00:44:26.905 --> 00:44:33.760 align:middle line:90% 00:44:33.760 --> 00:44:36.190 align:middle line:84% Here's another little tearful poem. 00:44:36.190 --> 00:44:38.820 align:middle line:84% It's called "Boarded Windows," and it 00:44:38.820 --> 00:44:42.870 align:middle line:84% began when I was living in Iowa City and had mice in my house 00:44:42.870 --> 00:44:46.350 align:middle line:84% and was also feeling claustrophobic in this house. 00:44:46.350 --> 00:44:49.440 align:middle line:84% So it consulates around that emotion, 00:44:49.440 --> 00:44:50.910 align:middle line:84% and it's called "Boarded Windows." 00:44:50.910 --> 00:44:55.300 align:middle line:90% 00:44:55.300 --> 00:44:58.450 align:middle line:84% "Will I die while thinking of dull gray houses 00:44:58.450 --> 00:45:02.080 align:middle line:84% in the rain, attics where moss eat our clothes, 00:45:02.080 --> 00:45:04.420 align:middle line:90% closets where mice sleep. 00:45:04.420 --> 00:45:06.040 align:middle line:90% Drawers that won't open. 00:45:06.040 --> 00:45:08.200 align:middle line:84% Doors that have lost their knobs. 00:45:08.200 --> 00:45:13.030 align:middle line:84% Newspapers piled in the cellar or faded yellow wallpaper? 00:45:13.030 --> 00:45:16.330 align:middle line:84% Will I die while thinking of apples rotting on the kitchen 00:45:16.330 --> 00:45:21.670 align:middle line:84% table, white sheets on the line, dull knives, rattling pans, 00:45:21.670 --> 00:45:25.330 align:middle line:84% rugs asleep in the hall, shoes thrown in the corner, 00:45:25.330 --> 00:45:28.090 align:middle line:90% or red curtains pulled shut? 00:45:28.090 --> 00:45:31.060 align:middle line:84% I don't want to die in the silence of floorboards waiting 00:45:31.060 --> 00:45:34.480 align:middle line:84% for footsteps, old coats waiting to be worn, 00:45:34.480 --> 00:45:38.050 align:middle line:84% mirrors waiting for eyes to look at them, windows waiting 00:45:38.050 --> 00:45:40.630 align:middle line:84% for hands to close them, or flowers 00:45:40.630 --> 00:45:44.410 align:middle line:90% on a table waiting for water. 00:45:44.410 --> 00:45:46.750 align:middle line:84% I don't want to die because death reminds me 00:45:46.750 --> 00:45:50.710 align:middle line:84% of an abandoned secret wanting to be told. 00:45:50.710 --> 00:45:54.400 align:middle line:84% The secret is nothing can alter the sequence of events 00:45:54.400 --> 00:45:57.490 align:middle line:84% that have led me to make certain wrong decisions. 00:45:57.490 --> 00:46:00.880 align:middle line:84% The secret is my wrong decisions will crowd around me 00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:05.050 align:middle line:84% in the end like apologetic children trying to convince me 00:46:05.050 --> 00:46:07.490 align:middle line:90% of their good points. 00:46:07.490 --> 00:46:10.090 align:middle line:84% The secret is my past will seem suddenly less 00:46:10.090 --> 00:46:14.650 align:middle line:84% habitable like a quiet house with boarded windows. 00:46:14.650 --> 00:46:17.860 align:middle line:90% And so I will refuse to think. 00:46:17.860 --> 00:46:20.320 align:middle line:84% I will simply be aware of the rain falling 00:46:20.320 --> 00:46:24.430 align:middle line:84% into the empty street when I feel my body being pulled 00:46:24.430 --> 00:46:27.100 align:middle line:84% as if by gravity toward the end of things." 00:46:27.100 --> 00:46:33.840 align:middle line:90% 00:46:33.840 --> 00:46:37.200 align:middle line:84% And then I think I'll end with two very new poems. 00:46:37.200 --> 00:46:40.500 align:middle line:90% 00:46:40.500 --> 00:46:43.590 align:middle line:84% In fact, they may not quite be finished, but that's OK. 00:46:43.590 --> 00:46:45.510 align:middle line:84% I learn a lot about them from reading. 00:46:45.510 --> 00:46:48.480 align:middle line:84% I'll learn something by reading them. 00:46:48.480 --> 00:46:50.580 align:middle line:84% At a class in Iowa, I was talking 00:46:50.580 --> 00:46:53.100 align:middle line:84% to a student and I said, what would you most like 00:46:53.100 --> 00:46:54.280 align:middle line:90% to write about right now? 00:46:54.280 --> 00:46:55.740 align:middle line:90% And she said God. 00:46:55.740 --> 00:46:58.258 align:middle line:84% And I thought, that's thinking awfully big. 00:46:58.258 --> 00:47:00.300 align:middle line:84% Do you think he can really write a poem about it? 00:47:00.300 --> 00:47:01.680 align:middle line:84% And I was trying to argue her out of it. 00:47:01.680 --> 00:47:03.390 align:middle line:84% Well, of course, that night I went home 00:47:03.390 --> 00:47:08.385 align:middle line:84% and wrote a poem addressed to God, and it's called "Prayer." 00:47:08.385 --> 00:47:39.020 align:middle line:90% 00:47:39.020 --> 00:47:43.310 align:middle line:84% "It isn't up to something simple, dust, or poison 00:47:43.310 --> 00:47:46.160 align:middle line:90% to decide the plans for us. 00:47:46.160 --> 00:47:48.920 align:middle line:84% We were trying to fathom the desert white calendar you live 00:47:48.920 --> 00:47:54.200 align:middle line:84% by and the white leaves outside the mind and heaven that 00:47:54.200 --> 00:47:56.660 align:middle line:90% do not tell time. 00:47:56.660 --> 00:48:00.020 align:middle line:84% We're trying to solve the riddle of our own yawns, 00:48:00.020 --> 00:48:03.350 align:middle line:84% though we continue to yawn and call to you. 00:48:03.350 --> 00:48:06.410 align:middle line:84% We tap our secular forks on the table. 00:48:06.410 --> 00:48:10.130 align:middle line:84% We tap our feet on the wood floor. 00:48:10.130 --> 00:48:14.450 align:middle line:84% This is a very poor prayer as it's spoken by the exact moment 00:48:14.450 --> 00:48:16.640 align:middle line:90% half past 7:00. 00:48:16.640 --> 00:48:20.660 align:middle line:84% For you, there is no change, no wind on your face and hands. 00:48:20.660 --> 00:48:24.260 align:middle line:84% The wind that finds us here caught in our bodies 00:48:24.260 --> 00:48:27.920 align:middle line:90% and hoping that it's worth it. 00:48:27.920 --> 00:48:30.740 align:middle line:84% And what is lost, the connection between you 00:48:30.740 --> 00:48:34.250 align:middle line:84% and the dead branches outside the window, the cross 00:48:34.250 --> 00:48:37.610 align:middle line:84% and recross in the wind, between you 00:48:37.610 --> 00:48:41.660 align:middle line:84% and the tiny statue of lovers covered with ice in the yard, 00:48:41.660 --> 00:48:43.670 align:middle line:84% between you and the bird cries, which 00:48:43.670 --> 00:48:46.850 align:middle line:84% also seem to have nothing to do with the placid light 00:48:46.850 --> 00:48:48.410 align:middle line:90% of the moon. 00:48:48.410 --> 00:48:51.530 align:middle line:84% All of this must mean something, even if the meaning 00:48:51.530 --> 00:48:54.380 align:middle line:84% is being recorded somewhere in secret 00:48:54.380 --> 00:48:58.910 align:middle line:84% among the white pages of your personal winter. 00:48:58.910 --> 00:49:00.920 align:middle line:84% If you intend for us here on Earth 00:49:00.920 --> 00:49:04.160 align:middle line:84% not to be any closer to each other than the squat hills 00:49:04.160 --> 00:49:07.250 align:middle line:84% outside of town that roll in opposite directions 00:49:07.250 --> 00:49:10.430 align:middle line:84% toward the bland flat plains, then believing in you 00:49:10.430 --> 00:49:12.530 align:middle line:90% is unnecessary. 00:49:12.530 --> 00:49:15.860 align:middle line:84% Like believing that the snow could cover our ill feelings as 00:49:15.860 --> 00:49:19.640 align:middle line:84% if our ill feelings were a broken down hut, a last holdout 00:49:19.640 --> 00:49:22.790 align:middle line:84% or believing that the rain could be a solution, 00:49:22.790 --> 00:49:25.280 align:middle line:84% that it could somehow extinguish our anger. 00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:28.040 align:middle line:84% Our anger, a small brush fire beginning to 00:49:28.040 --> 00:49:31.640 align:middle line:84% sputter and blaze in the back woods. 00:49:31.640 --> 00:49:33.620 align:middle line:84% Yet even if we are no more important to you 00:49:33.620 --> 00:49:38.120 align:middle line:84% than roses thrown to an obscure fire that shrivel and turn 00:49:38.120 --> 00:49:41.000 align:middle line:84% to ashes more quickly than we can say, 00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:43.580 align:middle line:90% our lives have gone up in smoke. 00:49:43.580 --> 00:49:46.040 align:middle line:84% Even if nothing changes and we never 00:49:46.040 --> 00:49:49.130 align:middle line:84% know why the rain taps his undecipherable code 00:49:49.130 --> 00:49:52.400 align:middle line:84% on the rooftops, or why the patches of sunlight 00:49:52.400 --> 00:49:55.700 align:middle line:84% fall at random in the wrong places 00:49:55.700 --> 00:49:59.060 align:middle line:84% on condemned factory walls, on the floors of abandoned 00:49:59.060 --> 00:50:02.930 align:middle line:84% schools, on the unimportant back roads. 00:50:02.930 --> 00:50:05.930 align:middle line:84% And even if the hours continue to crowd around us 00:50:05.930 --> 00:50:08.390 align:middle line:84% like too many gray identical houses, 00:50:08.390 --> 00:50:10.410 align:middle line:90% we will try to talk to you. 00:50:10.410 --> 00:50:13.880 align:middle line:84% We will talk to you from where we live here 00:50:13.880 --> 00:50:16.310 align:middle line:90% between survival and surrender. 00:50:16.310 --> 00:50:25.252 align:middle line:90% 00:50:25.252 --> 00:50:26.960 align:middle line:84% And then the last poem is called "Blood." 00:50:26.960 --> 00:50:30.670 align:middle line:90% 00:50:30.670 --> 00:50:32.500 align:middle line:84% And it's weaving three incidents together. 00:50:32.500 --> 00:50:36.050 align:middle line:90% 00:50:36.050 --> 00:50:40.020 align:middle line:84% "We're are living according to a deadline. 00:50:40.020 --> 00:50:41.630 align:middle line:84% That's the only explanation I can 00:50:41.630 --> 00:50:43.850 align:middle line:84% find for the crowd that surrounded 00:50:43.850 --> 00:50:47.120 align:middle line:84% the victim on the walk outside the restaurant 00:50:47.120 --> 00:50:53.060 align:middle line:84% where I worked as a waitress in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1970. 00:50:53.060 --> 00:50:58.280 align:middle line:84% Nervousness passed from face to face as in the game telephone 00:50:58.280 --> 00:51:01.820 align:middle line:84% we used to play as children, where someone whispered us 00:51:01.820 --> 00:51:05.960 align:middle line:84% a secret and we passed it on until the last person 00:51:05.960 --> 00:51:10.640 align:middle line:84% in the circle said it and the secret changed. 00:51:10.640 --> 00:51:12.590 align:middle line:84% At some point in history, we must 00:51:12.590 --> 00:51:14.360 align:middle line:84% have received the original instructions 00:51:14.360 --> 00:51:17.300 align:middle line:84% for living but they are lost now. 00:51:17.300 --> 00:51:19.370 align:middle line:84% All the handwritten messages that 00:51:19.370 --> 00:51:21.500 align:middle line:84% explained what the years can't tell us 00:51:21.500 --> 00:51:26.000 align:middle line:84% have been torn to shreds, all the explanations as to why 00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.370 align:middle line:90% the years were out-- 00:51:28.370 --> 00:51:30.200 align:middle line:90% his blood on the walk. 00:51:30.200 --> 00:51:33.320 align:middle line:84% And I remember now that a two-year-old leaned away from 00:51:33.320 --> 00:51:36.170 align:middle line:84% her mother and placed a finger in the red pool near 00:51:36.170 --> 00:51:39.230 align:middle line:84% the man's head as if she wanted to know how warm a dead 00:51:39.230 --> 00:51:43.070 align:middle line:84% man's blood is has nothing to do with my life now, 00:51:43.070 --> 00:51:46.250 align:middle line:84% has nothing to do with the way my mind cannot hold its 00:51:46.250 --> 00:51:49.040 align:middle line:84% attention on what is directly in front of it. 00:51:49.040 --> 00:51:51.980 align:middle line:84% This fall, the redbud I am planning 00:51:51.980 --> 00:51:54.560 align:middle line:84% in the front yard and my own two ears 00:51:54.560 --> 00:51:57.620 align:middle line:84% old who has taken the shovel from my hands 00:51:57.620 --> 00:52:02.150 align:middle line:84% and is trying to dig, his face turning suddenly serious 00:52:02.150 --> 00:52:05.960 align:middle line:90% and persistent as a gray sky. 00:52:05.960 --> 00:52:08.330 align:middle line:84% That day I felt as though I'd walked out 00:52:08.330 --> 00:52:11.120 align:middle line:84% of my childhood as out of a burning house 00:52:11.120 --> 00:52:13.640 align:middle line:90% and into my 20th year. 00:52:13.640 --> 00:52:16.400 align:middle line:84% I was afraid of the body on the walk and I wanted 00:52:16.400 --> 00:52:19.010 align:middle line:84% to throw something heavy over, a coat, 00:52:19.010 --> 00:52:21.980 align:middle line:84% but the little girl's mother did. 00:52:21.980 --> 00:52:24.950 align:middle line:84% All my past fear seemed insignificant. 00:52:24.950 --> 00:52:28.190 align:middle line:84% The time my father and I sailed out to a lighthouse 00:52:28.190 --> 00:52:31.460 align:middle line:84% in the Chesapeake Bay, across rough water, 00:52:31.460 --> 00:52:34.820 align:middle line:84% and I was afraid of the spray which flew in my face. 00:52:34.820 --> 00:52:36.560 align:middle line:84% And of my father's laughter, which 00:52:36.560 --> 00:52:40.640 align:middle line:84% sounded like nails shaken in someone's hands; 00:52:40.640 --> 00:52:44.300 align:middle line:84% or the memory of trying to piece together a blue and white china 00:52:44.300 --> 00:52:48.440 align:middle line:84% vase I threw in anger against the wall when I was five, 00:52:48.440 --> 00:52:52.160 align:middle line:84% and the sudden fear I felt when the idea struck me 00:52:52.160 --> 00:52:56.990 align:middle line:84% as it struck me again at 20 and now that the essential shapes 00:52:56.990 --> 00:52:59.630 align:middle line:90% of things can all be lost. 00:52:59.630 --> 00:53:00.500 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:53:00.500 --> 00:53:03.850 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:53:03.850 --> 00:53:10.000 align:middle line:90%