WEBVTT

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Colleague Steve Orlen
and to help usher him out

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of the stresses and
orders of administration

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back into the fold of a
working writer and teacher.

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He's been directing the MFA
program here, as you know,

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for six years, and I'm
sure he's glad to move back

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into the relative quiet of
his former role as a professor

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and writer here.

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Steve is from
Holyoke, Mass, went

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to the University
of Massachusetts

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and the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

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He's had most of the fellowships
that he can get, I'm afraid.

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I think he's had all
the NEAs they allow him.

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And he's also had some grants
from the Arizona Commission

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on the Arts.

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His books include Sleeping on
Doors, Permission to Speak,

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A Place at the Table, and last
year, The Bridge of Sighs.

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Steve describes his poems
as stories of friendship,

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family, and
marriage, poems which

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catch the ritual moment in
the ordinary, the touching

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of a cheek, the desire, but
the inability to give comfort.

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And the speaker in his
poems is a kind of acrobat

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who balances the complicated
and conflicting emotions that

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swim into one's intimate
and family relationships.

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Please welcome Steve Orlen.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you all for coming.

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Congratulations are due to
Alison Deming on the winning

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of the Walt Whitman award--

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[APPLAUSE]

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--for her new book,
Science and Other Poems.

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All right, as many of
you out in the audience

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are poets or students of
poetry or readers of poetry,

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I'm going to tell
you a little bit

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about the form of each
poem as I go along

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and a little bit about
the inspirations for them.

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The poems are lyrics
and narratives.

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The narratives are
less storytelling

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than they are
situational dramas.

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The poems I'm just going
to read from this one book.

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The poems are all poems of
either experience or imagination

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or a mixture of both.

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And they're about as intimate
and clear as I could make them.

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I've divided them up into
four sections to read.

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The first group of poems, I'll
read are poems of childhood,

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my own and my son's, poems
of love and marriage,

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poems of relationship
between men and women,

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and poems of grace.

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The first several of
the poems of childhood

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are fairly short,
in a single stanza

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in length with long lines.

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I now have permission to read
this first poem because my son,

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who's eight years old, was going
to come and I asked him if I

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could read this poem,
and he said I couldn't.

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But he's not here.

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He chickened out.

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And this is a comical poem.

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If it isn't, then
I'm in trouble.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Well, you'll see.

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"The Big Difference".

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"It all comes down to this, all
eyes upon it everywhere he goes,

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the pizzle.

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Mr. Peenie Weenie,
thing of many names,

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he hasn't plumbed the
thousandfold functions of yet.

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Not even the toes
when first discovered

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were so various in their
knobby repetitions.

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Mother doesn't have one.

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She's hiding it, he
says, and then insists,

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then moves it forward like
a torpedo through the water,

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trying to keep up
with it himself.

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Already it's an obsession,
more important than its uses,

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without which nothing
in his daily rounds

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would have meaning as he
waddles through the world

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like a bowlegged cowboy
with a brand new rope,

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stretching it, stroking it,
telling it stories, dragging it

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back and forth as though it
had an agenda of its own,

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not to be reasoned with,
something of a burden lately,

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like a baby brother.

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His mother smiles and tries
to yank his diaper up.

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Surprise, such a little thing
can become such a big event

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in the supermarket
as we hurried down

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the aisle to catch him, giggling
all of us, the men nodding.

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The women with their full carts
stopped in amusement, him,

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guessing what the fuss is all
about, watching it subside."

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[LAUGHTER]

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That's some of the fun
of being a little kid.

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The next poem is about
some of the difficulties

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of being a child.

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At this time, my boy
was of preschool age,

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I don't know, maybe
three years old.

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And we went to some
place for the summer

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up in Port Townsend, Washington.

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My wife's a painter,
and we both wanted

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to do some work for part of the
days while we were up there,

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and so we looked for child care.

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And if any of you've had
children in this generation,

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you know what it's like
to put a kid in a place

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where he doesn't
know any of the kids,

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and you just drop them off, and
you stay 10 minutes and bye-bye,

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and they're left to
fend for themselves.

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So this is about
that experience.

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"Child Care".

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"He doesn't want to
go there, but he goes

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into the mouth of the monster.

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In this case, this morning,
the new mother sort

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of person who welcomes him
at the door in that overly

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accustomed hearty necessarily
false way of all day mothers

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to the children of strangers.

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This is the life, kid.

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Every place you go, it's the
same shabby overused slightly

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greasy teddy bear, and the
TV tuned to the same cartoon

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characters banging
away at each other,

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and different faces with
similar names eyeing

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the new kid with his
thumb stuck in his mouth.

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Oh, they've almost got
your number already.

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They've got their
tongues hanging out.

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Isn't it convenient how
the world lays itself out

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into such predictable types,
the biter, and the whiner,

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and the gentle soul, the pouter
you can bend to your will?

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If only you knew
which one was which.

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It won't take long
individual mouths

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of mine clinging to my thigh to
discover what really matters,

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who's quick or slow to anger,
which is the tightest corner

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to defend."

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Next poem is called
"Porch Life".

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It's a lyric.

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I don't know what
to say about it.

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Lyrics are usually
irreducible poems.

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"Porch Life".

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"The old man and the young
man, shirtless down the street

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on the porch of the two-story
tenement, drink Coors from cans

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and pee as they require in
the dirt between the sidewalk

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and the street.

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They call, hello, as I
walk by with my toddler

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son, who says, how are
you, like a future member.

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Sometimes they call me Sir
as though they don't quite

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remember me, or as
though to a boss, a man

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to be reckoned with on a
job when they have a job.

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The group gets larger as
the weather gets warmer.

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Shirtless, shining
in the evening heat,

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they roar and stagger in
circles on the sidewalk.

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Snatches of their conversation
drift into my open window

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as I try to sleep, they
get the facts mostly loud,

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the past in tones of
losing and regret.

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Nothing changes but
an occasional body.

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They get their
checks on Fridays.

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The eldest grows daisies.

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The youngest is quietest."

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Thanks for the water.

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Everybody got
allergies right now?

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I got-- This next poem is called
"Standing in Line for the Pickle

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Family Circus".

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And it doesn't really
matter in the poem

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what you're standing
in line for,

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but that's such a great name
of a wonderful one ring circus

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that I thought I'd get it in.

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It's an experiential
poem, standing

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in line for the Pickle Family
Circus with my little boy.

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This was also up in Port
Townsend, Washington.

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And there was a retarded
girl, a young teenage girl,

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walking around the line.

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And the poem came
from the distress

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my son had in watching something
he wasn't accustomed to see.

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"You can tell it is bursting out
of her, some accusatory snarl,

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something to upset the children,
out of the teenage retarded

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girl in our midst as we
stand in a raggedy line

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for the small circus in
a small town ballpark

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by the sea among the gulls
who vie for the stray popcorn.

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She paces among us,
threading our line,

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tugging herself this way and
that like a bulldog on a leash.

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So my son clings tighter to my
thigh, to my leg, demanding,

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papa, hold me.

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All the parents
here are thinking,

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we would like to
hide her in a hole.

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And how lucky not to have a
child like that, a daily inexact

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puzzle to solve, with
huge teeth and huger

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gaps between and a huge slash
of a mouth and crossed eyes

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so she looks like
an angry laughing

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grizzly bear on the prowl,
asthmatic, drooling, sucking

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at the air around her, biting
at it sometimes until finally,

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she can hold it in no longer.

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She points to the
birds, and my son

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is calling, help, help, as
if I couldn't all along have

00:11:33.700 --> 00:11:35.065 align:middle line:90%
seen or heard."

00:11:35.065 --> 00:11:44.850 align:middle line:90%


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This is a poem
called "Pilgrims."

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and it's a little narrative
of travel in which you meet,

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you're out in the road, you
go to a restaurant or a diner

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or whatever.

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And you meet strangers and
you play a little geography

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game, where you from, where do
you live, where did you grow up.

00:12:04.310 --> 00:12:09.380 align:middle line:84%
And hoping that you'll make
some contact with a stranger

00:12:09.380 --> 00:12:13.580 align:middle line:84%
and maybe get a sense
of home out of it.

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"Pilgrims."

00:12:16.130 --> 00:12:20.810 align:middle line:84%
"I meet him in a diner near
Seattle, a man from Florida.

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Tucson, I tell him as we chew
the terrible food talking so as

00:12:25.730 --> 00:12:27.260 align:middle line:90%
not to taste.

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New York, he says confident
one stranger to another.

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Me?

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Holyoke mass, I say.

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Digging into my mashed potatoes,
buttering my soft roll shaped

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like a torpedo, wondering why
we even stopped at this place

00:12:43.490 --> 00:12:49.160 align:middle line:84%
except my son was whining in his
car seat and it was almost noon.

00:12:49.160 --> 00:12:52.040 align:middle line:84%
The man from Florida
shifts his bulk

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and raises one eyebrow
as if about to test

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some eternal verity.

00:12:57.860 --> 00:13:02.450 align:middle line:84%
I knew a guy from Holyoke,
in the army, in the war,

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and I am leaning forward getting
a sudden rush of photographs

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that begins with my
old yard and spreads

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as if from above
in a helicopter.

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The triple deckers,
the open porches,

00:13:15.380 --> 00:13:19.250 align:middle line:84%
the fathers in the early morning
swinging their black lunch

00:13:19.250 --> 00:13:23.990 align:middle line:84%
boxes down the narrow
walks click, click.

00:13:23.990 --> 00:13:28.880 align:middle line:84%
Then in that sly way older
people have of pulling rank.

00:13:28.880 --> 00:13:31.460 align:middle line:84%
He says, you wouldn't
know the guy,

00:13:31.460 --> 00:13:34.910 align:middle line:84%
I'm old enough to be
your uncle and winks.

00:13:34.910 --> 00:13:39.380 align:middle line:84%
Until at last he gives
it up, Jack Sullivan.

00:13:39.380 --> 00:13:43.550 align:middle line:84%
I wipe my son's face and fuss
with his filthy shirt front,

00:13:43.550 --> 00:13:47.480 align:middle line:84%
so as not to appear overly
eager, which is a way not

00:13:47.480 --> 00:13:50.600 align:middle line:90%
to be on the road in America.

00:13:50.600 --> 00:13:55.520 align:middle line:84%
I knew the guy, he was
my neighbor, a policeman,

00:13:55.520 --> 00:13:57.260 align:middle line:90%
says the man from Florida.

00:13:57.260 --> 00:14:00.500 align:middle line:84%
This Jack was a gym
instructor and then

00:14:00.500 --> 00:14:03.620 align:middle line:84%
the feeling goes away
of being somewhere,

00:14:03.620 --> 00:14:07.430 align:middle line:84%
of being anywhere as I
nibble at the fried chicken,

00:14:07.430 --> 00:14:12.260 align:middle line:84%
and the walls recede, and I
begin to lose the smiling wide,

00:14:12.260 --> 00:14:15.470 align:middle line:84%
and handsome face
of my Jack Sullivan.

00:14:15.470 --> 00:14:18.500 align:middle line:84%
The yellow house
eroding at the edges,

00:14:18.500 --> 00:14:24.650 align:middle line:84%
his mother in silver braids, his
sisters Rosalie, Sheila, Mary,

00:14:24.650 --> 00:14:27.830 align:middle line:84%
and the other whose
name I never knew.

00:14:27.830 --> 00:14:31.220 align:middle line:84%
The other sister was a sister--"
means a nun-- "the other sister

00:14:31.220 --> 00:14:33.080 align:middle line:90%
was a sister, he says.

00:14:33.080 --> 00:14:35.420 align:middle line:84%
Yes, Yes that's
my Jack Sullivan.

00:14:35.420 --> 00:14:36.530 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:14:36.530 --> 00:14:40.010 align:middle line:84%
And I'm almost crying with
the victory and the effort

00:14:40.010 --> 00:14:43.880 align:middle line:84%
to keep the picture whole
to take my wife and son,

00:14:43.880 --> 00:14:47.930 align:middle line:84%
and place them in that house
just after World War II,

00:14:47.930 --> 00:14:51.830 align:middle line:84%
beside the Sullivan clan
good people everyone.

00:14:51.830 --> 00:14:55.370 align:middle line:84%
But the man is not
convinced, he wipes his plate

00:14:55.370 --> 00:14:57.140 align:middle line:90%
with a slice of buttered bread."

00:14:57.140 --> 00:15:00.640 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:15:00.640 --> 00:15:06.140 align:middle line:90%


00:15:06.140 --> 00:15:08.330 align:middle line:84%
The next poem is the title
poem of this collection,

00:15:08.330 --> 00:15:11.740 align:middle line:84%
it's called "The
Bridge of Sighs."

00:15:11.740 --> 00:15:16.360 align:middle line:84%
And the poem is written in
basically rhymed triplets.

00:15:16.360 --> 00:15:21.320 align:middle line:90%


00:15:21.320 --> 00:15:25.700 align:middle line:84%
The Bridge of Sighs is an
actual bridge in Venice, Italy,

00:15:25.700 --> 00:15:28.280 align:middle line:84%
and when I wrote the poem,
I remembered the name--

00:15:28.280 --> 00:15:30.860 align:middle line:84%
I was looking for a
hyperbola to describe

00:15:30.860 --> 00:15:35.160 align:middle line:84%
the arch of my mother's foot,
which is something like that.

00:15:35.160 --> 00:15:35.660 align:middle line:90%
And--

00:15:35.660 --> 00:15:37.250 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:15:37.250 --> 00:15:40.070 align:middle line:84%
I didn't know much about
what the Bridge of Sighs

00:15:40.070 --> 00:15:43.310 align:middle line:84%
was except it's obviously a
very poetic and a pretty name.

00:15:43.310 --> 00:15:45.560 align:middle line:84%
And then I looked
it up and found

00:15:45.560 --> 00:15:47.690 align:middle line:84%
that it had a special
meaning and that it

00:15:47.690 --> 00:15:52.040 align:middle line:84%
fit in the poem in ways
that I hadn't thought of.

00:15:52.040 --> 00:15:53.690 align:middle line:84%
It's a poem about
pleasure and it's

00:15:53.690 --> 00:15:58.970 align:middle line:84%
a poem about a boy's, a little
boy's love for his mother.

00:15:58.970 --> 00:16:03.020 align:middle line:84%
And it turns out that
there's a double thing

00:16:03.020 --> 00:16:09.950 align:middle line:84%
in the Bridge of Sighs, it was--
it's a bridge where lovers go,

00:16:09.950 --> 00:16:13.940 align:middle line:84%
but it's also a bridge where in
the old days several years ago

00:16:13.940 --> 00:16:17.330 align:middle line:84%
in Italy, people who
are about to be executed

00:16:17.330 --> 00:16:18.980 align:middle line:90%
crossed that bridge.

00:16:18.980 --> 00:16:20.660 align:middle line:84%
So it has a certain
poignancy on it

00:16:20.660 --> 00:16:22.610 align:middle line:84%
and their lovers
wives, mistresses,

00:16:22.610 --> 00:16:25.520 align:middle line:84%
family, whatever would have
to wait on the other side.

00:16:25.520 --> 00:16:27.380 align:middle line:84%
It's also happens
to be a high bridge,

00:16:27.380 --> 00:16:30.740 align:middle line:84%
it's connects to buildings
rather than a low bridge

00:16:30.740 --> 00:16:32.240 align:middle line:90%
that goes over the canals.

00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:35.180 align:middle line:90%


00:16:35.180 --> 00:16:39.230 align:middle line:84%
I think this is a comic
poem too, it better be.

00:16:39.230 --> 00:16:41.510 align:middle line:90%
"The Bridge of Sighs."

00:16:41.510 --> 00:16:43.790 align:middle line:84%
"Believe me when
I tell you I have

00:16:43.790 --> 00:16:48.290 align:middle line:84%
tried to understand pleasure,
the beginning of pleasure.

00:16:48.290 --> 00:16:50.990 align:middle line:84%
How I watched my
mother that morning

00:16:50.990 --> 00:16:55.190 align:middle line:84%
lounging in the red plush
chair, in the gray submerging

00:16:55.190 --> 00:16:59.300 align:middle line:84%
shadows of the parlor as
she talked on the phone.

00:16:59.300 --> 00:17:02.510 align:middle line:84%
How I stared with
each of my five years

00:17:02.510 --> 00:17:05.450 align:middle line:84%
at the tender curve
of her ankle as

00:17:05.450 --> 00:17:10.730 align:middle line:84%
it moved down the high instep
of her dry, clean, pale,

00:17:10.730 --> 00:17:15.859 align:middle line:84%
and perfect foot, and over the
toes underneath to the arch.

00:17:15.859 --> 00:17:18.349 align:middle line:90%
Oh, it just leapt.

00:17:18.349 --> 00:17:21.770 align:middle line:84%
More delicate than the arches
of the bridges of Venice,

00:17:21.770 --> 00:17:24.589 align:middle line:84%
built by those
gentlemen, the Doges,

00:17:24.589 --> 00:17:28.010 align:middle line:84%
paved by the feet of
centuries of lovers,

00:17:28.010 --> 00:17:30.925 align:middle line:84%
and saved from destruction
by the American soldiers

00:17:30.925 --> 00:17:32.925 align:middle line:84%
on a similar moThe Bridge
of Sighs.Oxford, Ohio:

00:17:32.925 --> 00:17:34.342 align:middle line:84%
Miami University
Press, 1992.rning

00:17:34.342 --> 00:17:37.640 align:middle line:84%
as I watched my mother's
foot tense, and relax.

00:17:37.640 --> 00:17:41.000 align:middle line:84%
And when she smiled
down her long body at me

00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:46.790 align:middle line:84%
and stroked my hair and offered
me the smooth beauty of her foot

00:17:46.790 --> 00:17:50.840 align:middle line:84%
and asked me, yes, to
rub it just a little,

00:17:50.840 --> 00:17:55.250 align:middle line:84%
she said right into the
phone to whomever, ahh.

00:17:55.250 --> 00:17:57.050 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:17:57.050 --> 00:17:59.510 align:middle line:84%
The ahh of the
beginning of pleasure

00:17:59.510 --> 00:18:03.290 align:middle line:84%
that demands, even as
it gives itself up,

00:18:03.290 --> 00:18:07.040 align:middle line:84%
that leaves you always
ready to begin, always

00:18:07.040 --> 00:18:10.700 align:middle line:84%
on the lip of things, like
a young woman standing

00:18:10.700 --> 00:18:14.000 align:middle line:84%
by the Bridge of
Sighs, waving goodbye

00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:16.460 align:middle line:84%
to the soldiers of
the losing side,

00:18:16.460 --> 00:18:19.745 align:middle line:84%
waving hello to the soldiers
of the winning side."

00:18:19.745 --> 00:18:22.490 align:middle line:90%


00:18:22.490 --> 00:18:25.934 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:18:25.934 --> 00:18:42.200 align:middle line:90%


00:18:42.200 --> 00:18:44.030 align:middle line:84%
Next poem is called
"Religious Feeling."

00:18:44.030 --> 00:18:49.400 align:middle line:84%
It's in couplets with
long lines and it's

00:18:49.400 --> 00:18:53.750 align:middle line:84%
a drama of arm wrestling
between a teenage boy

00:18:53.750 --> 00:19:00.020 align:middle line:84%
and his father looked over by
the mother who has expressed

00:19:00.020 --> 00:19:02.840 align:middle line:90%
a certain feelings in the poem.

00:19:02.840 --> 00:19:05.420 align:middle line:90%
"Religious Feeling."

00:19:05.420 --> 00:19:08.600 align:middle line:84%
"When the son challenged
his father to arm wrestle

00:19:08.600 --> 00:19:11.210 align:middle line:84%
at the kitchen
table and the father

00:19:11.210 --> 00:19:15.050 align:middle line:84%
allowed the challenge to
persist without acknowledgment,

00:19:15.050 --> 00:19:18.170 align:middle line:84%
spreading like an
after dinner stain.

00:19:18.170 --> 00:19:22.220 align:middle line:84%
The atmosphere got larger,
the room surrounding

00:19:22.220 --> 00:19:26.870 align:middle line:84%
them became like the air
released from a church organ,

00:19:26.870 --> 00:19:33.050 align:middle line:84%
booming suddenly into the
shuffling unrepentant silences.

00:19:33.050 --> 00:19:36.950 align:middle line:84%
The mother held their clamped
hands in her light grip

00:19:36.950 --> 00:19:41.330 align:middle line:84%
and glanced out the window
at a woman raking and a man

00:19:41.330 --> 00:19:46.070 align:middle line:84%
bending to retrieve a toddler
from a pile of leaves.

00:19:46.070 --> 00:19:49.220 align:middle line:84%
How calm and strong
her own husband

00:19:49.220 --> 00:19:52.250 align:middle line:84%
seemed, balanced
on a wooden chair,

00:19:52.250 --> 00:19:55.310 align:middle line:84%
knowing age would
erase this scene,

00:19:55.310 --> 00:19:59.030 align:middle line:84%
like a slow and steady
wave across a beach.

00:19:59.030 --> 00:20:02.690 align:middle line:84%
And her son, if only
he had the sense yet

00:20:02.690 --> 00:20:06.410 align:middle line:84%
to count the taken breaths
between the challenge

00:20:06.410 --> 00:20:08.480 align:middle line:90%
and the act.

00:20:08.480 --> 00:20:10.460 align:middle line:90%
She began to count.

00:20:10.460 --> 00:20:17.540 align:middle line:84%
1, 2, 3 holding her glance
out the window at the child,

00:20:17.540 --> 00:20:21.890 align:middle line:84%
still burrowing in the maze
of light and dark the wind

00:20:21.890 --> 00:20:23.945 align:middle line:90%
prepared itself to take away."

00:20:23.945 --> 00:20:33.370 align:middle line:90%


00:20:33.370 --> 00:20:36.730 align:middle line:84%
The next poem is called
"A Family of Three."

00:20:36.730 --> 00:20:40.150 align:middle line:84%
Most of my poems seem to
have dramatic situations.

00:20:40.150 --> 00:20:41.680 align:middle line:90%
This doesn't have one.

00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:44.500 align:middle line:90%


00:20:44.500 --> 00:20:48.070 align:middle line:84%
It was written as a
conscious imitation

00:20:48.070 --> 00:20:52.300 align:middle line:84%
some of the poems of the
English poet Craig Raine

00:20:52.300 --> 00:20:55.660 align:middle line:84%
whose poems have almost
no story and proceed

00:20:55.660 --> 00:21:00.800 align:middle line:84%
almost completely by images and
I wanted to give that a try.

00:21:00.800 --> 00:21:06.010 align:middle line:84%
It's a simple situation family
of three sitting down just

00:21:06.010 --> 00:21:08.200 align:middle line:84%
before going to sleep,
watching the sun go down,

00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:12.610 align:middle line:84%
watching three birds
outside the window.

00:21:12.610 --> 00:21:16.780 align:middle line:84%
"Supper done and dishes,
the bath, pajamas

00:21:16.780 --> 00:21:20.980 align:middle line:84%
and the evening glass of
milk, light in all the rooms

00:21:20.980 --> 00:21:26.320 align:middle line:84%
is waning from the pruned back
habits of the day stories.

00:21:26.320 --> 00:21:30.220 align:middle line:84%
We sit before the picture
window watching the last light

00:21:30.220 --> 00:21:34.810 align:middle line:84%
leave the backyard, darkening
the clothesline, the garden

00:21:34.810 --> 00:21:38.500 align:middle line:84%
hose, and a wishbone
of patio chairs,

00:21:38.500 --> 00:21:41.980 align:middle line:84%
and one blue skeletal
palo verde tree

00:21:41.980 --> 00:21:45.100 align:middle line:90%
with eked-out golden blooms.

00:21:45.100 --> 00:21:50.050 align:middle line:84%
And flocks of various birds
rush down from a cloudless sky,

00:21:50.050 --> 00:21:52.840 align:middle line:90%
and muddled greys, and browns.

00:21:52.840 --> 00:21:56.920 align:middle line:84%
All looking too much alike
to call them beautiful

00:21:56.920 --> 00:22:02.260 align:middle line:84%
or name them from the book of
birds open on the coffee table.

00:22:02.260 --> 00:22:06.970 align:middle line:84%
They line up at the house-like
opaque plastic window

00:22:06.970 --> 00:22:12.160 align:middle line:84%
feeder in a fast thrashing
of wings and knuckled beaks,

00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:14.800 align:middle line:90%
scrambling for seed.

00:22:14.800 --> 00:22:18.970 align:middle line:84%
We watch this every evening
through glass, three of them,

00:22:18.970 --> 00:22:23.620 align:middle line:84%
three of us, until the dark
takes them away from us,

00:22:23.620 --> 00:22:25.090 align:middle line:90%
and us from them."

00:22:25.090 --> 00:22:30.020 align:middle line:90%


00:22:30.020 --> 00:22:33.890 align:middle line:84%
The next group of poems
are of love and marriage.

00:22:33.890 --> 00:22:40.910 align:middle line:84%
The first one is it's
called "The Early Poetry"

00:22:40.910 --> 00:22:45.200 align:middle line:84%
and it's in couplets and it's
an extreme act of imagination.

00:22:45.200 --> 00:22:49.880 align:middle line:90%


00:22:49.880 --> 00:22:50.750 align:middle line:90%
"The Early Poetry."

00:22:50.750 --> 00:22:53.270 align:middle line:90%


00:22:53.270 --> 00:22:56.120 align:middle line:84%
"This morning on a
day bed several blocks

00:22:56.120 --> 00:23:01.250 align:middle line:84%
from here a woman you will
someday love is being conceived

00:23:01.250 --> 00:23:06.080 align:middle line:84%
and you lean to hear the moans,
the rhythmic bouncing slightly

00:23:06.080 --> 00:23:10.700 align:middle line:84%
embarrassed as you squint at
the tired faces of the salesman

00:23:10.700 --> 00:23:14.870 align:middle line:84%
and his wife, both immigrants,
both uncomfortable,

00:23:14.870 --> 00:23:19.010 align:middle line:84%
he on his lunch break,
she out of work.

00:23:19.010 --> 00:23:21.320 align:middle line:84%
And no matter how
quickly you rush

00:23:21.320 --> 00:23:25.340 align:middle line:84%
to protect the baby, the
little girl, the young woman,

00:23:25.340 --> 00:23:28.400 align:middle line:84%
your future wife,
she falls down,

00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:31.370 align:middle line:84%
she gets a forever
black scar on her knee,

00:23:31.370 --> 00:23:35.840 align:middle line:84%
she faints on the subway, a bum
thrusts his head up her skirt

00:23:35.840 --> 00:23:37.100 align:middle line:90%
and so on.

00:23:37.100 --> 00:23:41.300 align:middle line:84%
While you watch and wait like
a movie beginning in summer

00:23:41.300 --> 00:23:46.860 align:middle line:84%
and ending in spring with its
brief interludes, various dogs,

00:23:46.860 --> 00:23:50.390 align:middle line:84%
children, moments
of pensive regret,

00:23:50.390 --> 00:23:54.980 align:middle line:84%
until you suddenly remember that
you are an 18-year-old clerk,

00:23:54.980 --> 00:23:58.220 align:middle line:84%
in a white shirt, at
your clerical pace

00:23:58.220 --> 00:24:01.760 align:middle line:84%
with a fading and useless
history and hardly

00:24:01.760 --> 00:24:03.380 align:middle line:90%
a present tense.

00:24:03.380 --> 00:24:06.630 align:middle line:84%
And you are seized with
impatience for the future

00:24:06.630 --> 00:24:08.990 align:middle line:84%
you've glimpsed, so
you write it down

00:24:08.990 --> 00:24:14.690 align:middle line:84%
in rhymed couplets, the red
car, the intruder, the needle,

00:24:14.690 --> 00:24:20.120 align:middle line:84%
the phone call, the print of
Durer's on the yellow wall.

00:24:20.120 --> 00:24:25.760 align:middle line:84%
You tap your pencil once, twice,
three times on the metal desk.

00:24:25.760 --> 00:24:30.110 align:middle line:84%
Now, when you wait, you wait
with dignity for a future

00:24:30.110 --> 00:24:32.120 align:middle line:90%
enclosed with rhyme.

00:24:32.120 --> 00:24:37.280 align:middle line:84%
As it takes shape, you are
inside observing, inventing."

00:24:37.280 --> 00:24:50.090 align:middle line:90%


00:24:50.090 --> 00:24:52.670 align:middle line:84%
Your next poem is called
"The Older Woman."

00:24:52.670 --> 00:24:55.820 align:middle line:84%
It's in half rhymed
quatrains, there's

00:24:55.820 --> 00:24:59.630 align:middle line:84%
an allusion to Swan
Lake ballet in here

00:24:59.630 --> 00:25:01.340 align:middle line:90%
and I had forgotten what my--

00:25:01.340 --> 00:25:04.310 align:middle line:84%
I had to look it up at the
time it came into the poem

00:25:04.310 --> 00:25:07.940 align:middle line:84%
and I had to figure out what
it was doing in my imagination.

00:25:07.940 --> 00:25:10.520 align:middle line:84%
And today, I was on
the phone calling

00:25:10.520 --> 00:25:13.580 align:middle line:84%
a bunch of people
trying to figure out

00:25:13.580 --> 00:25:16.190 align:middle line:84%
what the allusion
meant, but in the--

00:25:16.190 --> 00:25:18.140 align:middle line:90%
'cause I forget it.

00:25:18.140 --> 00:25:20.720 align:middle line:84%
I mean, everybody had to go see
Swan Lake when they were kids

00:25:20.720 --> 00:25:24.140 align:middle line:84%
and nobody remembers the story,
I checked about 20 people

00:25:24.140 --> 00:25:28.250 align:middle line:84%
in the English department
and nobody knew it.

00:25:28.250 --> 00:25:31.935 align:middle line:84%
Except for one person who told
me to call the music department

00:25:31.935 --> 00:25:32.435 align:middle line:90%
library.

00:25:32.435 --> 00:25:34.190 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:25:34.190 --> 00:25:36.938 align:middle line:90%
And I did.

00:25:36.938 --> 00:25:38.480 align:middle line:84%
I'm not going to
get the story right,

00:25:38.480 --> 00:25:40.070 align:middle line:84%
maybe somebody knows
it better than I,

00:25:40.070 --> 00:25:42.740 align:middle line:84%
but anyways a man is
in love with a woman

00:25:42.740 --> 00:25:46.850 align:middle line:84%
and she is transformed into
a swan, he goes out hunting,

00:25:46.850 --> 00:25:49.040 align:middle line:84%
there's a black swan
and a white swan,

00:25:49.040 --> 00:25:52.100 align:middle line:84%
and he's got his bow and arrow
and he shoots the wrong one,

00:25:52.100 --> 00:25:58.460 align:middle line:84%
so he kills the swan who is
really his girlfriend, wife,

00:25:58.460 --> 00:26:00.620 align:middle line:84%
lover, mistress, mother,
somebody I don't know

00:26:00.620 --> 00:26:03.080 align:middle line:90%
what, I don't know what she is.

00:26:03.080 --> 00:26:06.056 align:middle line:84%
It's only a small part of
this poem, but I figured I'd--

00:26:06.056 --> 00:26:07.880 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:10.400 align:middle line:90%
--do it.

00:26:10.400 --> 00:26:12.320 align:middle line:90%
"The Older Woman."

00:26:12.320 --> 00:26:14.630 align:middle line:84%
"Blurring at the
edges of her hips,

00:26:14.630 --> 00:26:18.320 align:middle line:84%
she rose from the bar
stool, took my hand

00:26:18.320 --> 00:26:23.910 align:middle line:84%
leading us down 12th Street,
up the elevator to her bed.

00:26:23.910 --> 00:26:26.700 align:middle line:84%
And because of the
sad pleasurable aching

00:26:26.700 --> 00:26:30.630 align:middle line:84%
of one stranger with another,
I wish I could have said,

00:26:30.630 --> 00:26:33.480 align:middle line:84%
I'd never seen a
more beautiful sight,

00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:38.100 align:middle line:84%
when she rose naked from the bed
and put Swan Lake on the record

00:26:38.100 --> 00:26:39.540 align:middle line:90%
player to try--

00:26:39.540 --> 00:26:43.500 align:middle line:84%
to dance the pas de
deux alone in her swan's

00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:47.760 align:middle line:84%
body with her socks
still on and her watch.

00:26:47.760 --> 00:26:54.360 align:middle line:84%
Black swan, white swan, back and
forth across the half lit room.

00:26:54.360 --> 00:26:58.770 align:middle line:84%
I didn't take my bow and arrow,
I didn't shoot her by mistake,

00:26:58.770 --> 00:27:03.550 align:middle line:84%
I didn't love her, I was young
and we didn't know each other.

00:27:03.550 --> 00:27:07.860 align:middle line:84%
So probably we tried to talk
after the record stopped.

00:27:07.860 --> 00:27:13.260 align:middle line:84%
By now, more mutually estranged
and desperate than before

00:27:13.260 --> 00:27:16.710 align:middle line:84%
and I moved closer and
we tried not to sleep."

00:27:16.710 --> 00:27:27.730 align:middle line:90%


00:27:27.730 --> 00:27:29.830 align:middle line:84%
The next poem is called
"Blame" and it's simply

00:27:29.830 --> 00:27:37.350 align:middle line:84%
a poem about that, in which
a man has wronged the woman

00:27:37.350 --> 00:27:39.240 align:middle line:90%
and she is letting him know it.

00:27:39.240 --> 00:27:42.900 align:middle line:90%


00:27:42.900 --> 00:27:47.550 align:middle line:84%
"I deserved it, every word,
blame and castigation,

00:27:47.550 --> 00:27:51.750 align:middle line:84%
the horribly precise words
knifing out of her mouth

00:27:51.750 --> 00:27:57.000 align:middle line:84%
as we sat on a curb one late
summer evening on Broadway.

00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:01.410 align:middle line:84%
She had a cold and blew her
nose incessantly, carefully,

00:28:01.410 --> 00:28:04.800 align:middle line:84%
ladylike from a box
of tissues in her lap,

00:28:04.800 --> 00:28:07.260 align:middle line:84%
then she'd ball them
up and stuff them

00:28:07.260 --> 00:28:09.540 align:middle line:90%
down the grating of a sewer.

00:28:09.540 --> 00:28:11.610 align:middle line:84%
It was almost,
though of course it

00:28:11.610 --> 00:28:16.710 align:middle line:84%
wasn't, impersonal, her mouth
moving steadily as if to push

00:28:16.710 --> 00:28:18.570 align:middle line:90%
silence out of the way.

00:28:18.570 --> 00:28:23.520 align:middle line:84%
One hand patting her nose
and me listening blank faced,

00:28:23.520 --> 00:28:26.070 align:middle line:90%
consuming, not speaking.

00:28:26.070 --> 00:28:31.260 align:middle line:84%
She repeating as if teaching
a dog the simplest restraint.

00:28:31.260 --> 00:28:36.300 align:middle line:84%
I with no answers, nothing to
say, but sorry, nothing to do,

00:28:36.300 --> 00:28:40.500 align:middle line:84%
but bear it and almost
excuse me enjoying it

00:28:40.500 --> 00:28:42.540 align:middle line:90%
and she too, I think.

00:28:42.540 --> 00:28:45.660 align:middle line:84%
A cool Manhattan
evening, people walking

00:28:45.660 --> 00:28:48.900 align:middle line:84%
briskly by at the
edge of autumn where

00:28:48.900 --> 00:28:53.340 align:middle line:84%
love loses the sharpness of its
light, letting the righteous

00:28:53.340 --> 00:28:57.780 align:middle line:84%
blame beam onto me its
lasting attention."

00:28:57.780 --> 00:29:04.390 align:middle line:90%


00:29:04.390 --> 00:29:06.370 align:middle line:84%
The next poem is
called "A House"

00:29:06.370 --> 00:29:10.270 align:middle line:84%
and it's basically
about how subtly love,

00:29:10.270 --> 00:29:13.360 align:middle line:84%
a love relationship
changes over time

00:29:13.360 --> 00:29:16.810 align:middle line:84%
and the house is a metaphor
for the marriage itself.

00:29:16.810 --> 00:29:22.080 align:middle line:90%


00:29:22.080 --> 00:29:23.910 align:middle line:90%
"A House."

00:29:23.910 --> 00:29:28.980 align:middle line:84%
"Their mouths blur like leaves
caught in a crosswind, lips

00:29:28.980 --> 00:29:33.210 align:middle line:84%
barely, softly touching
there, and behind the lips

00:29:33.210 --> 00:29:36.450 align:middle line:84%
the hard white teeth,
and further in,

00:29:36.450 --> 00:29:41.100 align:middle line:84%
pink membranes pulsing
to see the breath.

00:29:41.100 --> 00:29:43.290 align:middle line:90%
How deep is a mouth?

00:29:43.290 --> 00:29:47.560 align:middle line:84%
How far in before
you find the other?

00:29:47.560 --> 00:29:51.730 align:middle line:84%
Some nights they fall asleep
like that, then wake up,

00:29:51.730 --> 00:29:55.660 align:middle line:84%
walk out to check the
weather, breakfast together,

00:29:55.660 --> 00:29:58.920 align:middle line:90%
and off to the world for a day.

00:29:58.920 --> 00:30:03.420 align:middle line:84%
All morning and all afternoon
inside the house, shadows

00:30:03.420 --> 00:30:08.700 align:middle line:84%
change places with light,
noon then twilight, dusk,

00:30:08.700 --> 00:30:12.470 align:middle line:84%
until the shadows
become one darkness.

00:30:12.470 --> 00:30:16.760 align:middle line:84%
How thoughtless it looks
to a passerby room by room,

00:30:16.760 --> 00:30:20.570 align:middle line:84%
the lamps go on as
though to repair the harm

00:30:20.570 --> 00:30:22.880 align:middle line:90%
the hours have done.

00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:28.160 align:middle line:84%
But what can you say in dark
or light that hasn't been said.

00:30:28.160 --> 00:30:29.300 align:middle line:90%
Good morning?

00:30:29.300 --> 00:30:30.470 align:middle line:90%
Good night?

00:30:30.470 --> 00:30:32.420 align:middle line:90%
A kiss again?

00:30:32.420 --> 00:30:36.470 align:middle line:84%
Then in the body's
deepest place as in a room

00:30:36.470 --> 00:30:39.290 align:middle line:90%
revisited after years away.

00:30:39.290 --> 00:30:44.480 align:middle line:84%
Some space you thought of as
your own, same radio, same bed

00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:49.340 align:middle line:84%
and sink, same view, you
meet another passing through,

00:30:49.340 --> 00:30:54.270 align:middle line:84%
a pilgrim not quite familiar,
not quite a stranger.

00:30:54.270 --> 00:30:55.880 align:middle line:90%
What will you say?

00:30:55.880 --> 00:30:59.120 align:middle line:84%
This is where things
change sometimes,

00:30:59.120 --> 00:31:01.340 align:middle line:90%
this is how some people love."

00:31:01.340 --> 00:31:06.750 align:middle line:90%


00:31:06.750 --> 00:31:10.380 align:middle line:84%
In the next few poems
are about relationships

00:31:10.380 --> 00:31:17.080 align:middle line:84%
between men and women in
general whatever that means.

00:31:17.080 --> 00:31:19.950 align:middle line:84%
And they're not
marriage poems, I guess.

00:31:19.950 --> 00:31:25.250 align:middle line:90%


00:31:25.250 --> 00:31:28.430 align:middle line:84%
This poem is called "Life
Drawing," it's in four sections

00:31:28.430 --> 00:31:32.570 align:middle line:84%
and it's a little bit longer
than most of the other poems.

00:31:32.570 --> 00:31:36.320 align:middle line:84%
It's basically about sitting
in a life drawing class

00:31:36.320 --> 00:31:41.270 align:middle line:84%
and seeing the human body
as an art object in a sense

00:31:41.270 --> 00:31:46.420 align:middle line:84%
and as more than that
as the poem develops.

00:31:46.420 --> 00:31:54.070 align:middle line:84%
This is a reference in the
first line, first sentence that

00:31:54.070 --> 00:31:56.530 align:middle line:84%
indicates that these are
not professional artists,

00:31:56.530 --> 00:32:00.850 align:middle line:84%
these are just working people
who are taking an art class late

00:32:00.850 --> 00:32:06.550 align:middle line:84%
at night or in the
evening on life drawing.

00:32:06.550 --> 00:32:09.340 align:middle line:84%
"At night in the
museum art school,

00:32:09.340 --> 00:32:14.290 align:middle line:84%
the men and women whose daily
jobs don't require their hands

00:32:14.290 --> 00:32:18.220 align:middle line:84%
or eyes to surrender
to such intimacy.

00:32:18.220 --> 00:32:21.670 align:middle line:84%
And the instructor passing
over us and everything

00:32:21.670 --> 00:32:24.340 align:middle line:84%
around the room
in shadow gathers

00:32:24.340 --> 00:32:29.200 align:middle line:84%
to intensify light on the
model's body, a stranger's,

00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:31.120 align:middle line:90%
a woman.

00:32:31.120 --> 00:32:35.620 align:middle line:84%
The charcoal starts erratically
almost of its own accord,

00:32:35.620 --> 00:32:38.890 align:middle line:84%
though we're hardly
aware of time anymore,

00:32:38.890 --> 00:32:45.370 align:middle line:84%
hands moving to match body part
to body whole, nipple to breast,

00:32:45.370 --> 00:32:50.740 align:middle line:84%
the long waist to the shadowy
haunch like a blue whale rising,

00:32:50.740 --> 00:32:54.430 align:middle line:84%
falling back into
the feeding dark.

00:32:54.430 --> 00:32:56.530 align:middle line:90%
Her eyes are closed.

00:32:56.530 --> 00:32:59.140 align:middle line:90%
What could she be thinking of?

00:32:59.140 --> 00:33:03.580 align:middle line:84%
Her boundaries shift
between each taken breath.

00:33:03.580 --> 00:33:06.760 align:middle line:84%
More sure of their
universe than we,

00:33:06.760 --> 00:33:11.110 align:middle line:84%
the old masters drew her
as an angel descended,

00:33:11.110 --> 00:33:16.645 align:middle line:84%
walking across a country road
lost, not in thought but motion.

00:33:16.645 --> 00:33:20.340 align:middle line:90%


00:33:20.340 --> 00:33:23.280 align:middle line:84%
Sundays, the men who
hang out at the park

00:33:23.280 --> 00:33:26.370 align:middle line:84%
love to describe
women, the young men

00:33:26.370 --> 00:33:30.240 align:middle line:84%
sweep the air with huge
motions, like liars

00:33:30.240 --> 00:33:34.050 align:middle line:84%
after hours of no bass
at the county reservoir,

00:33:34.050 --> 00:33:36.870 align:middle line:84%
with a wink to the boy
who caught the fish,

00:33:36.870 --> 00:33:40.320 align:middle line:84%
but doesn't know yet a
woman's figure matters

00:33:40.320 --> 00:33:43.050 align:middle line:90%
enough to tell lies.

00:33:43.050 --> 00:33:46.320 align:middle line:84%
The old men's hands
seem to stutter,

00:33:46.320 --> 00:33:51.240 align:middle line:84%
they might be shaping the lost
map of Thrace, stone house,

00:33:51.240 --> 00:33:55.690 align:middle line:84%
stone wall, a horse
nibbling grass,

00:33:55.690 --> 00:33:58.540 align:middle line:90%
clouds from the long neigh.

00:33:58.540 --> 00:34:02.260 align:middle line:84%
Hands that labored in
stone or wood or dirt

00:34:02.260 --> 00:34:06.130 align:middle line:84%
for years, when they're
about to fly off the wrists,

00:34:06.130 --> 00:34:07.675 align:middle line:90%
vanish into their pockets.

00:34:07.675 --> 00:34:10.500 align:middle line:90%


00:34:10.500 --> 00:34:15.540 align:middle line:84%
All the postures of flesh blur
in the overhead light, the model

00:34:15.540 --> 00:34:19.380 align:middle line:84%
stretches, she puts on
her glasses and pads

00:34:19.380 --> 00:34:24.210 align:middle line:84%
naked and noisily among us
like a silvery carp stranded

00:34:24.210 --> 00:34:27.360 align:middle line:84%
on a beach or water
as it overflows

00:34:27.360 --> 00:34:30.540 align:middle line:90%
its banks seeking a new shape.

00:34:30.540 --> 00:34:34.020 align:middle line:84%
She wants to see just
how we have depicted her,

00:34:34.020 --> 00:34:38.280 align:middle line:84%
then bends to pick up her
clothes and with her back to us

00:34:38.280 --> 00:34:40.230 align:middle line:90%
puts them on slowly.

00:34:40.230 --> 00:34:45.960 align:middle line:84%
Bra, panties, and a shirt,
blue jeans, rubber thongs.

00:34:45.960 --> 00:34:49.469 align:middle line:84%
What lay there in a
stillness older than statues

00:34:49.469 --> 00:34:54.510 align:middle line:84%
of gods made from clay
and spit is a teenager

00:34:54.510 --> 00:34:56.220 align:middle line:90%
in a Rolling Stones t-shirt.

00:34:56.220 --> 00:34:58.860 align:middle line:90%


00:34:58.860 --> 00:35:01.680 align:middle line:84%
If she could have walked
the lumps of charcoal

00:35:01.680 --> 00:35:06.660 align:middle line:84%
careful to reproduce, she might
have thought: child playing dead

00:35:06.660 --> 00:35:11.580 align:middle line:84%
at sunset after supper on the
front lawn under the privet.

00:35:11.580 --> 00:35:17.130 align:middle line:84%
Horizon, hill, hill after hill
someone cares enough about

00:35:17.130 --> 00:35:19.620 align:middle line:90%
to sit and draw.

00:35:19.620 --> 00:35:23.880 align:middle line:84%
We all love to look and
as we can't always touch,

00:35:23.880 --> 00:35:27.270 align:middle line:84%
we walk home to more
familiar shapes.

00:35:27.270 --> 00:35:31.140 align:middle line:84%
The curves follow the
light from the open door

00:35:31.140 --> 00:35:36.450 align:middle line:84%
and even as I sit on the bed
and stare and wake my wife,

00:35:36.450 --> 00:35:40.230 align:middle line:84%
even as my breathing
starts to echo hers,

00:35:40.230 --> 00:35:43.260 align:middle line:90%
there is something I can't have.

00:35:43.260 --> 00:35:47.100 align:middle line:84%
The drowsy neck, the
hollow back of the knees,

00:35:47.100 --> 00:35:52.470 align:middle line:84%
the ear that goes around,
the feet like a slum at dusk.

00:35:52.470 --> 00:35:57.240 align:middle line:84%
There is also the body as a
version of habit, skin deep,

00:35:57.240 --> 00:36:03.300 align:middle line:84%
body going deeper, pleasuring
itself, even as it pleasures us.

00:36:03.300 --> 00:36:08.550 align:middle line:84%
Body the hotel of the spirit,
elusive and presiding,

00:36:08.550 --> 00:36:11.370 align:middle line:84%
belonging to nothing
and to no one."

00:36:11.370 --> 00:36:14.268 align:middle line:90%


00:36:14.268 --> 00:36:17.649 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:36:17.649 --> 00:36:25.380 align:middle line:90%


00:36:25.380 --> 00:36:28.710 align:middle line:84%
The next poem I also
had to ask at the music

00:36:28.710 --> 00:36:30.930 align:middle line:90%
library about a reference to--

00:36:30.930 --> 00:36:35.230 align:middle line:84%
I've got the references here,
I just forgot what they meant.

00:36:35.230 --> 00:36:38.880 align:middle line:84%
The poem is called "Carmen"
and in brief, the history

00:36:38.880 --> 00:36:42.540 align:middle line:84%
is that originally it was
a play by Mérimée, then

00:36:42.540 --> 00:36:45.900 align:middle line:84%
an opera by Bizet, that's
the opera we all know.

00:36:45.900 --> 00:36:50.400 align:middle line:84%
Carmen, by the way,
means song or poem in--

00:36:50.400 --> 00:36:54.510 align:middle line:84%
in Latin, in the derivation
of it, but that's the part

00:36:54.510 --> 00:36:57.660 align:middle line:90%
I found in the dictionary.

00:36:57.660 --> 00:36:59.640 align:middle line:90%
But in this case, it's about--

00:36:59.640 --> 00:37:03.510 align:middle line:84%
the poem called "Carmen"
comes not from those sources,

00:37:03.510 --> 00:37:05.310 align:middle line:84%
but rather from a
Spanish movie that

00:37:05.310 --> 00:37:10.620 align:middle line:84%
came out about 10 years ago
also called Carmen in which

00:37:10.620 --> 00:37:14.760 align:middle line:90%
a troupe of--

00:37:14.760 --> 00:37:17.130 align:middle line:84%
a director and troupe
of actors and actresses

00:37:17.130 --> 00:37:19.920 align:middle line:84%
are about to put on
a flamenco, Carmen.

00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:24.360 align:middle line:84%
And as you know Carmen
is about a love triangle.

00:37:24.360 --> 00:37:27.090 align:middle line:84%
But in the movie
within the movie

00:37:27.090 --> 00:37:32.100 align:middle line:84%
in the play in the
background, the two actresses

00:37:32.100 --> 00:37:33.750 align:middle line:84%
are both in love
with the director,

00:37:33.750 --> 00:37:35.760 align:middle line:84%
and the director's
sort of dictating

00:37:35.760 --> 00:37:39.030 align:middle line:84%
the action of the performance
they're going to do,

00:37:39.030 --> 00:37:44.190 align:middle line:84%
but also the complexities of
all their love for one another.

00:37:44.190 --> 00:37:48.070 align:middle line:90%


00:37:48.070 --> 00:37:49.630 align:middle line:90%
That's all.

00:37:49.630 --> 00:37:51.920 align:middle line:90%
"Carmen."

00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:53.930 align:middle line:84%
"This is the scene
in the factory

00:37:53.930 --> 00:37:58.340 align:middle line:84%
with the women, the older women
who aren't burning anymore,

00:37:58.340 --> 00:38:02.090 align:middle line:84%
but slowly burning
out even in repose.

00:38:02.090 --> 00:38:06.560 align:middle line:84%
And the young women luscious
and giggling at the long tables

00:38:06.560 --> 00:38:08.750 align:middle line:90%
in their work clothes.

00:38:08.750 --> 00:38:13.070 align:middle line:84%
This is Spain and not the
opera, but the movie in which

00:38:13.070 --> 00:38:15.830 align:middle line:90%
two women love one man.

00:38:15.830 --> 00:38:20.030 align:middle line:84%
The first is dignified,
and steady, and aging,

00:38:20.030 --> 00:38:22.400 align:middle line:90%
and the other is Carmen.

00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:24.680 align:middle line:84%
In such a world
the question might

00:38:24.680 --> 00:38:30.590 align:middle line:84%
be this, which is the stronger
force, love or passion, and who

00:38:30.590 --> 00:38:32.270 align:middle line:90%
decides?

00:38:32.270 --> 00:38:36.440 align:middle line:84%
In the movie, it's supposed
to build slowly and stay hot,

00:38:36.440 --> 00:38:37.850 align:middle line:90%
the director says.

00:38:37.850 --> 00:38:42.680 align:middle line:84%
And in response, the older women
moan out little untranslatable

00:38:42.680 --> 00:38:43.850 align:middle line:90%
complaints.

00:38:43.850 --> 00:38:47.390 align:middle line:84%
And the young women who
don't know any better slap

00:38:47.390 --> 00:38:50.600 align:middle line:84%
the dusty floor with
their feet then start

00:38:50.600 --> 00:38:55.670 align:middle line:84%
the dry sulfurous clicking
of flamenco castanets.

00:38:55.670 --> 00:38:57.650 align:middle line:90%
The dance begins.

00:38:57.650 --> 00:39:01.100 align:middle line:84%
Carmen will fight
Christina to the death,

00:39:01.100 --> 00:39:06.500 align:middle line:84%
the knife hidden along a hip
will slash Christina's throat.

00:39:06.500 --> 00:39:11.600 align:middle line:84%
All the women know that now by
heart, it is so in the opera,

00:39:11.600 --> 00:39:14.990 align:middle line:84%
in the play by Mérimée,
it is happening

00:39:14.990 --> 00:39:19.880 align:middle line:84%
in the story behind the scenes
that echoes the film's story,

00:39:19.880 --> 00:39:25.560 align:middle line:84%
it is directed by a man who is
himself the lover in question.

00:39:25.560 --> 00:39:30.300 align:middle line:84%
In real life, the fight would
have been ugly but inconclusive.

00:39:30.300 --> 00:39:33.750 align:middle line:84%
Probably, they would have just
stood up during lunch break

00:39:33.750 --> 00:39:35.520 align:middle line:90%
and cursed.

00:39:35.520 --> 00:39:39.570 align:middle line:84%
What would you do and
whose story are you living?

00:39:39.570 --> 00:39:43.080 align:middle line:84%
The dancer dabbing at
her throat in the mirror,

00:39:43.080 --> 00:39:47.760 align:middle line:84%
slowly changing in the
changing light or the dancer

00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:53.610 align:middle line:84%
kept young and available by the
gods and perpetual punishment.

00:39:53.610 --> 00:39:56.880 align:middle line:84%
Or are you searching
the story's one weakness

00:39:56.880 --> 00:40:01.335 align:middle line:84%
that would loose both women in
quick stabs upon the world."

00:40:01.335 --> 00:40:21.240 align:middle line:90%


00:40:21.240 --> 00:40:27.270 align:middle line:84%
The next poem takes place in a
bar and two people are talking.

00:40:27.270 --> 00:40:31.950 align:middle line:84%
And the poem is about
basically the mutual curiosity

00:40:31.950 --> 00:40:35.955 align:middle line:84%
of love life between a lesbian
and a heterosexual male.

00:40:35.955 --> 00:40:39.340 align:middle line:90%


00:40:39.340 --> 00:40:40.390 align:middle line:90%
It's called "Buddies."

00:40:40.390 --> 00:40:43.630 align:middle line:90%


00:40:43.630 --> 00:40:47.950 align:middle line:84%
"If you saw us talking in the
crowded bar knees touching,

00:40:47.950 --> 00:40:52.420 align:middle line:84%
leaning to whisper, you'd
probably think lovers,

00:40:52.420 --> 00:40:54.970 align:middle line:90%
but no, she likes women.

00:40:54.970 --> 00:40:57.910 align:middle line:84%
She's talking along
like my best buddy,

00:40:57.910 --> 00:41:01.060 align:middle line:84%
with great delight,
some decorum.

00:41:01.060 --> 00:41:04.990 align:middle line:84%
And as our conversation
escalates with the Scotch,

00:41:04.990 --> 00:41:08.800 align:middle line:84%
I get incredibly
curious and ask for more

00:41:08.800 --> 00:41:13.420 align:middle line:84%
to imagine one female
body against another.

00:41:13.420 --> 00:41:17.350 align:middle line:84%
The plump one, she says
and the one with the shoe

00:41:17.350 --> 00:41:19.570 align:middle line:90%
and then it all goes blank.

00:41:19.570 --> 00:41:21.400 align:middle line:90%
Now tell me, she says.

00:41:21.400 --> 00:41:25.060 align:middle line:84%
It's only fair and
despite myself I'm

00:41:25.060 --> 00:41:28.180 align:middle line:84%
confiding, whispering
the good parts,

00:41:28.180 --> 00:41:31.420 align:middle line:84%
she's laughing, I'm
taking in her hair,

00:41:31.420 --> 00:41:35.140 align:middle line:84%
her perfume, which
doesn't end but flowers

00:41:35.140 --> 00:41:36.550 align:middle line:90%
in a touching muskiness.

00:41:36.550 --> 00:41:41.830 align:middle line:84%
My whispers draw her
closer, her blouse flutters

00:41:41.830 --> 00:41:45.880 align:middle line:84%
in the bar's smoky chatter,
she holds her breath,

00:41:45.880 --> 00:41:49.240 align:middle line:84%
so I can see into
the narrow width that

00:41:49.240 --> 00:41:53.290 align:middle line:84%
represents our differences,
she rears her head back

00:41:53.290 --> 00:41:54.265 align:middle line:90%
and she roars."

00:41:54.265 --> 00:42:01.940 align:middle line:90%


00:42:01.940 --> 00:42:09.700 align:middle line:84%
The next poem is called
"Shame" and it's about--

00:42:09.700 --> 00:42:11.320 align:middle line:90%
oops, spilling water over.

00:42:11.320 --> 00:42:14.530 align:middle line:90%


00:42:14.530 --> 00:42:18.580 align:middle line:90%
As Charlie Chaplin used to say.

00:42:18.580 --> 00:42:20.950 align:middle line:84%
It's about a
mistake in childhood

00:42:20.950 --> 00:42:24.580 align:middle line:84%
and a misunderstanding
that followed it

00:42:24.580 --> 00:42:27.310 align:middle line:84%
and basically it's a
mistake of language.

00:42:27.310 --> 00:42:30.520 align:middle line:84%
But it's also a mistake
of a mistaken intention.

00:42:30.520 --> 00:42:34.070 align:middle line:90%


00:42:34.070 --> 00:42:35.390 align:middle line:90%
"Shame."

00:42:35.390 --> 00:42:39.980 align:middle line:84%
"I must have called him queer or
said it to someone who knew him

00:42:39.980 --> 00:42:44.960 align:middle line:84%
and it got around because his
mother forbade my company.

00:42:44.960 --> 00:42:49.760 align:middle line:84%
I couldn't have meant it as we
mean it now, but rather weirdo,

00:42:49.760 --> 00:42:54.230 align:middle line:84%
nerd, oddball, dork,
which was bad enough

00:42:54.230 --> 00:42:58.130 align:middle line:84%
and which he was I thought
in the seventh grade sense.

00:42:58.130 --> 00:43:02.780 align:middle line:84%
Though, even as my mother
spoke in low admonishing tones

00:43:02.780 --> 00:43:05.360 align:middle line:84%
across the living room
from the telephone

00:43:05.360 --> 00:43:09.560 align:middle line:84%
call and I denied the
accusation vehemently

00:43:09.560 --> 00:43:11.930 align:middle line:90%
and for days afterwards.

00:43:11.930 --> 00:43:17.840 align:middle line:84%
I understood what pain it caused
the boy, how such remarks enter

00:43:17.840 --> 00:43:22.700 align:middle line:84%
the bone, settle in, become
another circle in a person's

00:43:22.700 --> 00:43:28.160 align:middle line:84%
character, and felt ashamed
and never did see him again.

00:43:28.160 --> 00:43:30.320 align:middle line:90%
That was 30 years ago.

00:43:30.320 --> 00:43:34.340 align:middle line:84%
Never again is punishment
enough for an adolescent,

00:43:34.340 --> 00:43:37.770 align:middle line:84%
though I have heard he
is a happy family man,

00:43:37.770 --> 00:43:42.950 align:middle line:84%
a famous sociologist, somebody
I would like to talk with now.

00:43:42.950 --> 00:43:45.740 align:middle line:84%
Usually, I will be
sitting among people

00:43:45.740 --> 00:43:49.250 align:middle line:84%
and it will strike me, the
slight wrenching in the gut,

00:43:49.250 --> 00:43:52.350 align:middle line:84%
the brief argument
with my younger self,

00:43:52.350 --> 00:43:54.860 align:middle line:84%
I didn't mean it
quite like that.

00:43:54.860 --> 00:43:57.920 align:middle line:84%
Then the urge to
track him down, to

00:43:57.920 --> 00:44:01.640 align:middle line:84%
phone him, to
explain, apologize,

00:44:01.640 --> 00:44:04.640 align:middle line:90%
analyze like sensible adults.

00:44:04.640 --> 00:44:07.850 align:middle line:84%
Then I will have to
rise and walk off

00:44:07.850 --> 00:44:12.650 align:middle line:84%
as though I were the one cast
out, wrapped in a strangeness

00:44:12.650 --> 00:44:14.255 align:middle line:90%
I'd tried to give away.

00:44:14.255 --> 00:44:17.450 align:middle line:90%


00:44:17.450 --> 00:44:20.810 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:44:20.810 --> 00:44:26.090 align:middle line:90%


00:44:26.090 --> 00:44:27.500 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to read
four more poems

00:44:27.500 --> 00:44:29.210 align:middle line:90%
and these are poems of grace.

00:44:29.210 --> 00:44:32.450 align:middle line:84%
I wrote that down I thought,
well, what do I mean by that.

00:44:32.450 --> 00:44:37.050 align:middle line:90%


00:44:37.050 --> 00:44:40.970 align:middle line:84%
There poems in a sense
of moments in which we

00:44:40.970 --> 00:44:44.930 align:middle line:90%
rid ourselves of ourselves.

00:44:44.930 --> 00:44:46.580 align:middle line:84%
The first one is
called "Celebrity" it

00:44:46.580 --> 00:44:51.500 align:middle line:90%
takes place in Kennedy Airport.

00:44:51.500 --> 00:44:55.070 align:middle line:90%
And they have these long--

00:44:55.070 --> 00:44:57.410 align:middle line:84%
what do you call them,
the long walkways

00:44:57.410 --> 00:45:00.260 align:middle line:84%
and you walk by all these
lounges and at one point,

00:45:00.260 --> 00:45:02.840 align:middle line:84%
I looked up and there was
Tony Bennett walking by

00:45:02.840 --> 00:45:04.790 align:middle line:84%
and everybody looks
up and everybody

00:45:04.790 --> 00:45:09.020 align:middle line:84%
waves to him and really
that's all this poem's about.

00:45:09.020 --> 00:45:12.900 align:middle line:90%


00:45:12.900 --> 00:45:13.620 align:middle line:90%
"Celebrity."

00:45:13.620 --> 00:45:16.380 align:middle line:84%
Tony Bennett, you all
know who Tony Bennett was?

00:45:16.380 --> 00:45:17.430 align:middle line:90%
No, you don't know.

00:45:17.430 --> 00:45:18.870 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER] He was--

00:45:18.870 --> 00:45:21.330 align:middle line:84%
he was always the
older guy, he was--

00:45:21.330 --> 00:45:25.620 align:middle line:84%
he was a-- he was the next
down from Frank Sinatra

00:45:25.620 --> 00:45:28.380 align:middle line:90%
of another generation.

00:45:28.380 --> 00:45:29.490 align:middle line:90%
Who's Frank Sinatra?

00:45:29.490 --> 00:45:33.900 align:middle line:84%
He was the next down from
Enrico Caruso, I don't know.

00:45:33.900 --> 00:45:37.890 align:middle line:84%
So he's a man and he's probably
in his late 50s or early 60s now

00:45:37.890 --> 00:45:39.360 align:middle line:90%
and he was--

00:45:39.360 --> 00:45:41.175 align:middle line:90%
he was a famous crooner.

00:45:41.175 --> 00:45:44.010 align:middle line:90%


00:45:44.010 --> 00:45:46.125 align:middle line:90%
I'm really before my time also.

00:45:46.125 --> 00:45:49.200 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHS]

00:45:49.200 --> 00:45:52.380 align:middle line:84%
He wasn't no Elvis,
I'll tell you that.

00:45:52.380 --> 00:45:54.840 align:middle line:90%
"Celebrity, Tony Bennett."

00:45:54.840 --> 00:45:59.100 align:middle line:84%
"He shines through the airport
like a retreating star,

00:45:59.100 --> 00:46:02.280 align:middle line:84%
through lounge after
lounge, he is a slowly

00:46:02.280 --> 00:46:06.570 align:middle line:84%
disappearing glow as
our faces rise nodding,

00:46:06.570 --> 00:46:09.240 align:middle line:90%
we raise our voices, we wave.

00:46:09.240 --> 00:46:13.680 align:middle line:84%
It's like one of those waves at
a football game, all the bodies

00:46:13.680 --> 00:46:17.220 align:middle line:84%
part of the rhythm of
what we missed and had not

00:46:17.220 --> 00:46:18.480 align:middle line:90%
known we missed.

00:46:18.480 --> 00:46:20.760 align:middle line:90%
And finally, we belong.

00:46:20.760 --> 00:46:24.000 align:middle line:84%
And he too in his
way, with his deep

00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:28.620 align:middle line:84%
immutable tan and hair
hardly a shade too dark,

00:46:28.620 --> 00:46:33.330 align:middle line:84%
walking somehow too slowly
like an aging ex champ

00:46:33.330 --> 00:46:37.680 align:middle line:84%
who enters the ring and
shadow boxes for the crowd.

00:46:37.680 --> 00:46:40.890 align:middle line:84%
Dressed in a dark
blue suit that shows

00:46:40.890 --> 00:46:44.880 align:middle line:84%
just how large and
powerful he really is.

00:46:44.880 --> 00:46:46.470 align:middle line:90%
Larger than any of us."

00:46:46.470 --> 00:47:07.420 align:middle line:90%


00:47:07.420 --> 00:47:10.090 align:middle line:84%
The next poem is
called "Acts Of Will"

00:47:10.090 --> 00:47:14.320 align:middle line:84%
and it's in rhymed
six line stanzas.

00:47:14.320 --> 00:47:16.300 align:middle line:84%
And it's basically
about the experience

00:47:16.300 --> 00:47:19.900 align:middle line:84%
of entering one's own
despair as an act of will

00:47:19.900 --> 00:47:22.735 align:middle line:84%
to see what happens when you
come out on the other side.

00:47:22.735 --> 00:47:29.090 align:middle line:90%


00:47:29.090 --> 00:47:31.610 align:middle line:90%
"Acts of Will."

00:47:31.610 --> 00:47:36.050 align:middle line:84%
"Uncertain nights, the bad
mood takes you by surprise

00:47:36.050 --> 00:47:40.130 align:middle line:84%
and all the faces you meet
shrink to the bleakest, farthest

00:47:40.130 --> 00:47:41.660 align:middle line:90%
stars.

00:47:41.660 --> 00:47:46.190 align:middle line:84%
Oh, take a bus as far as
it goes to the city's edge,

00:47:46.190 --> 00:47:50.690 align:middle line:84%
that no man's land where it
idles, breathing like a house

00:47:50.690 --> 00:47:53.900 align:middle line:90%
alone in an empty field.

00:47:53.900 --> 00:47:57.590 align:middle line:84%
You don't of course, and
the night shoves you along

00:47:57.590 --> 00:48:00.800 align:middle line:84%
in unhooked trains
of association.

00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:06.920 align:middle line:84%
Old regrets, blunders,
humiliations, loves, the dead,

00:48:06.920 --> 00:48:11.660 align:middle line:84%
and nothing stops you until
the end defeats the mind's

00:48:11.660 --> 00:48:14.280 align:middle line:90%
self-repairing chemistry.

00:48:14.280 --> 00:48:17.430 align:middle line:84%
What draws us into
such a narrow place,

00:48:17.430 --> 00:48:21.840 align:middle line:84%
a nameless cordless
heartless chasm.

00:48:21.840 --> 00:48:24.750 align:middle line:84%
Doubts, we thought
we'd overcome,

00:48:24.750 --> 00:48:28.980 align:middle line:84%
our body's occasional
need for despair,

00:48:28.980 --> 00:48:34.140 align:middle line:84%
or is it the numb bliss,
oblivion, we desire.

00:48:34.140 --> 00:48:36.990 align:middle line:84%
Wouldn't it be better
to talk to ourselves

00:48:36.990 --> 00:48:42.180 align:middle line:84%
in a dark of our own
choosing go home, phone a pal

00:48:42.180 --> 00:48:48.430 align:middle line:84%
or read a book, dance to the
radio's late ballast of music?

00:48:48.430 --> 00:48:51.400 align:middle line:84%
How long you stand
there fascinated?

00:48:51.400 --> 00:48:54.700 align:middle line:84%
You touch your cheek,
you need a shave.

00:48:54.700 --> 00:48:58.660 align:middle line:84%
What casual truths
such moments absorb,

00:48:58.660 --> 00:49:02.800 align:middle line:84%
those small decisions
arrived at in the dark?

00:49:02.800 --> 00:49:09.070 align:middle line:84%
Stall a moment longer, then
whistle, sing, grin, my friend,

00:49:09.070 --> 00:49:13.300 align:middle line:84%
welcome to the loneliest
communion, an act of will

00:49:13.300 --> 00:49:16.015 align:middle line:84%
from which you won't
return quite whole."

00:49:16.015 --> 00:49:24.610 align:middle line:90%


00:49:24.610 --> 00:49:26.650 align:middle line:84%
Next poem is called
"Acts Of Grace"

00:49:26.650 --> 00:49:32.890 align:middle line:84%
and it's two narratives really
two basically unlinked events

00:49:32.890 --> 00:49:36.130 align:middle line:84%
that I hope come
together in a gesture

00:49:36.130 --> 00:49:38.260 align:middle line:90%
of some sort in the poem.

00:49:38.260 --> 00:49:42.850 align:middle line:84%
The first narrative
is of working

00:49:42.850 --> 00:49:46.900 align:middle line:84%
in a factory as a teenager
and with the monotonous work

00:49:46.900 --> 00:49:50.800 align:middle line:84%
of standing in front
of a machine all day,

00:49:50.800 --> 00:49:53.080 align:middle line:90%
of meditating on God.

00:49:53.080 --> 00:49:56.920 align:middle line:84%
And the second
narrative is much--

00:49:56.920 --> 00:50:01.060 align:middle line:84%
years later, of walking down
the street on an afternoon

00:50:01.060 --> 00:50:04.900 align:middle line:84%
and seeing a very old woman
standing on a little balcony

00:50:04.900 --> 00:50:08.770 align:middle line:84%
dancing with a photograph,
doing a little waltz

00:50:08.770 --> 00:50:11.350 align:middle line:90%
with a photograph.

00:50:11.350 --> 00:50:15.010 align:middle line:90%
This is called "Acts of Grace."

00:50:15.010 --> 00:50:19.600 align:middle line:84%
"All one summer I thought about
God, this in the factories

00:50:19.600 --> 00:50:21.670 align:middle line:84%
and at an age when
I just as soon

00:50:21.670 --> 00:50:26.260 align:middle line:84%
have felt like any ordinary
apprentice machinist, a recently

00:50:26.260 --> 00:50:30.790 align:middle line:84%
graduated high school kid, no
different from anyone else.

00:50:30.790 --> 00:50:35.890 align:middle line:84%
All around us the din of huge
machines, routers and lathes

00:50:35.890 --> 00:50:39.230 align:middle line:84%
that cast the high
windows with metal dust.

00:50:39.230 --> 00:50:42.490 align:middle line:84%
And now and then, the
random lap of waves

00:50:42.490 --> 00:50:48.340 align:middle line:84%
off a nearby canal creating
a timeless sanctuary baffle.

00:50:48.340 --> 00:50:50.950 align:middle line:84%
I'd let my mind work
until the thought

00:50:50.950 --> 00:50:53.530 align:middle line:90%
broke when the whistle blew.

00:50:53.530 --> 00:50:55.930 align:middle line:84%
One time, one of
the men must have

00:50:55.930 --> 00:51:00.070 align:middle line:84%
sensed the burden of my thought
because he asked a question so

00:51:00.070 --> 00:51:02.740 align:middle line:90%
generalized it felt intimate.

00:51:02.740 --> 00:51:05.080 align:middle line:84%
I don't remember
what, but I must

00:51:05.080 --> 00:51:10.270 align:middle line:84%
have been amazed as I am now
by any unexpected heartfelt

00:51:10.270 --> 00:51:13.030 align:middle line:90%
endlessly answerable question.

00:51:13.030 --> 00:51:16.870 align:middle line:84%
Maybe I felt that slurring in
the brain that happens a split

00:51:16.870 --> 00:51:18.970 align:middle line:90%
second into an accident.

00:51:18.970 --> 00:51:22.330 align:middle line:84%
Anyway, I didn't so
much decide to quit

00:51:22.330 --> 00:51:27.790 align:middle line:84%
as I drifted into other
jobs than college and so on.

00:51:27.790 --> 00:51:32.710 align:middle line:84%
I thought about it just a while
ago, probably, I was so shy back

00:51:32.710 --> 00:51:35.230 align:middle line:90%
then God kept me company.

00:51:35.230 --> 00:51:40.270 align:middle line:84%
Or God was pure attention,
abstract like a mantra.

00:51:40.270 --> 00:51:43.180 align:middle line:84%
It hardly matters
now, it's so happens

00:51:43.180 --> 00:51:45.970 align:middle line:84%
the poplars are
in leaf, bordering

00:51:45.970 --> 00:51:51.100 align:middle line:84%
each yard, the white perennial
African daisies and poppies

00:51:51.100 --> 00:51:56.110 align:middle line:84%
whose languid yellow petals
seem to palpitate, like flesh.

00:51:56.110 --> 00:51:59.800 align:middle line:90%
I was out walking, I glanced up.

00:51:59.800 --> 00:52:02.410 align:middle line:84%
On a balcony above
the avenue stood

00:52:02.410 --> 00:52:06.250 align:middle line:84%
a very old woman dressed
in a robe and slippers.

00:52:06.250 --> 00:52:09.790 align:middle line:84%
I saw that in the raised
circle of her arm,

00:52:09.790 --> 00:52:12.400 align:middle line:90%
she held a photo in a frame.

00:52:12.400 --> 00:52:16.720 align:middle line:84%
Then she was moving, she was
dancing with the photo, a waltz,

00:52:16.720 --> 00:52:19.810 align:middle line:84%
as though she'd heard
the call while ironing

00:52:19.810 --> 00:52:24.760 align:middle line:84%
and it just fell on her like
old clothes or spring snow.

00:52:24.760 --> 00:52:27.340 align:middle line:84%
And just as suddenly
as she began,

00:52:27.340 --> 00:52:30.010 align:middle line:84%
she stopped and
bent her body out

00:52:30.010 --> 00:52:35.270 align:middle line:84%
a little over the neighboring
yards, rows of houses, trees,

00:52:35.270 --> 00:52:37.360 align:middle line:90%
flowers in their beds.

00:52:37.360 --> 00:52:41.590 align:middle line:84%
Sometimes, this world's almost
the safest place to be."

00:52:41.590 --> 00:52:45.640 align:middle line:90%


00:52:45.640 --> 00:52:49.390 align:middle line:84%
And this is the last poem, it's
called "At the Indoor Shopping

00:52:49.390 --> 00:52:56.410 align:middle line:84%
Mall" and I don't know what
to say about it, except it's

00:52:56.410 --> 00:52:58.270 align:middle line:90%
a lyric moment expanded.

00:52:58.270 --> 00:53:01.500 align:middle line:90%


00:53:01.500 --> 00:53:04.650 align:middle line:90%
"At the Indoor Shopping Mall."

00:53:04.650 --> 00:53:07.830 align:middle line:84%
"Either the snow's
persistence or inertia

00:53:07.830 --> 00:53:10.980 align:middle line:84%
sat me down after
I'd run my errands

00:53:10.980 --> 00:53:15.270 align:middle line:84%
beside a blue tiled fountain,
and wherever I looked,

00:53:15.270 --> 00:53:18.700 align:middle line:84%
young couples wheeled
their sleeping infants.

00:53:18.700 --> 00:53:21.690 align:middle line:84%
And in and out of
shops went wives

00:53:21.690 --> 00:53:27.240 align:middle line:84%
with trailing identical husbands
in brightly colored trousers.

00:53:27.240 --> 00:53:28.620 align:middle line:90%
Isn't it lovely?

00:53:28.620 --> 00:53:32.070 align:middle line:84%
said an elderly woman
beside me on the bench

00:53:32.070 --> 00:53:34.860 align:middle line:90%
beside the circular fountain.

00:53:34.860 --> 00:53:37.590 align:middle line:84%
Her dress was a
field of flowers.

00:53:37.590 --> 00:53:40.740 align:middle line:84%
Over the flowers, the
spray from the water

00:53:40.740 --> 00:53:44.400 align:middle line:84%
was blue as the waters
of a bottomless lagoon

00:53:44.400 --> 00:53:50.790 align:middle line:84%
and I there beside them emptied
of need and happy at last.

00:53:50.790 --> 00:53:56.460 align:middle line:84%
Until I saw way down below what
seemed the movement of a fish,

00:53:56.460 --> 00:54:01.410 align:middle line:84%
lantern jawed, and
glowering, eyeless as a rock.

00:54:01.410 --> 00:54:04.530 align:middle line:84%
And the slow muffling
weight of water

00:54:04.530 --> 00:54:08.520 align:middle line:84%
burying itself in
water, breathing it in.

00:54:08.520 --> 00:54:14.460 align:middle line:84%
And further down like a vast and
stupid secret, the plain bottom

00:54:14.460 --> 00:54:20.190 align:middle line:84%
we can never see but no, isn't
it getting late? she said.

00:54:20.190 --> 00:54:23.760 align:middle line:84%
She rose from the bench,
a field of endlessly

00:54:23.760 --> 00:54:27.630 align:middle line:84%
intricate wild
flowering weeds, then

00:54:27.630 --> 00:54:33.030 align:middle line:84%
came the soft and airy whoosh of
revolving doors and shopping--

00:54:33.030 --> 00:54:37.200 align:middle line:84%
shoppers coming through
with armfuls of packages.

00:54:37.200 --> 00:54:40.410 align:middle line:84%
And it was December
again in the north,

00:54:40.410 --> 00:54:44.580 align:middle line:84%
in the windowless light
of perpetual waters."

00:54:44.580 --> 00:54:45.630 align:middle line:90%
Thanks for coming.

00:54:45.630 --> 00:54:48.980 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:54:48.980 --> 00:54:59.000 align:middle line:90%