WEBVTT

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OK, the subtext of money
worries there will lead directly

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to this poem, "Money."

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There's an epigraph
by Gertrude Stein.

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"I am I because my
little dog knows me."

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There's lots of
Monopoly references,

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which everybody knows.

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You do have another reference
here that I'll explain.

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Fair use is a term
specifying how many lines

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you can quote from
copyrighted poetry

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without having to
pay the publisher.

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If you go over fair use,
you're supposed to pay.

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And the opening thing
that Wallace Stevens

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says in this poem is a
quote from Wallace Stevens.

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And I guess you also need to
know that Wallace Stevens is

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no longer alive.

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OK, "Money."

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"I am I because my
little dog knows me.

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Wallace Stevens says
money is a kind of poetry.

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So I offered to trade him
Tennessee, States, and Water

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Works for Boardwalk and Park
Place and the four Railroads.

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He thinks he'll pass.

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Do it, I say, and
I'll quote you.

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Do, says he.

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Mesdames, one might believe that
Shelley lies less in the stars

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than in their earthly wake,
since the radiant disclosures

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that you make are of an eternal
vista, manqué, and gold,

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and brown, an Italy
of the mind, a place

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of fear before the
disorder of the strange,

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a time in which
the poet's politics

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will rule in a poet's world.

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Yet that will be a world
impossible for poets,

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who complain and prophesy,
in their complaints,

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and are never of the
world in which they live.

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Yes, he says.

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Gorgeous.

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I'm throwing in Pacific, North
Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

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Go on.

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I can't, I say.

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But do, says he.

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Fair use, I say.

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But all use is fair to
one such as I, says he.

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Con-tin-u-e.

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No, I say.

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11 lines.

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Any more and I'll have to write
to Vintage, which I really

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don't want to do.

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But that's nothing, he says.

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11 lines out of 187.

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He says, I'll give you Marvin
Gardens, Ventnor, Atlantic.

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That was the present,
the poetic present tense,

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a nonfinancial play
space, overheard.

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Money has tenses.

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It has absolute meaning
in the present, no past,

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and its future meaning,
interest rates,

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reflects the degree to
which the future is expected

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to resemble the present.

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Writing has tenses.

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The past tense makes
the most money--

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novels, reporting.

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The future is for
prophecy-- crop forecasts,

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pennant predictions.

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The present continually
has to borrow credit.

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I am I because I say so and
my little audience knows me.

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Wow, says Basket.

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Wow, wow, wow.

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How much money does
it cost to know

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that Basket was a series of
dogs owned by Gertrude Stein?

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Nothing now.

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I give-- I will give
Basket the following bone.

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All past tense.

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There once was a man,
a very poor poet,

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who used to write
poems that no one read.

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One evening, after working all
day on an especially poor poem,

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he fell asleep in despair at
the sterility of his imagination

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and the bleakness of his chances
of making it as a writer.

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He had just typed the lines,
'The sky was mauve and as far

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away as a $10 bill.'

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He awoke with a start.

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The dim light from
a small full moon

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was shining down at
a 45-degree angle

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on his hands and the
typewriter keyboard.

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He had slept two or three hours.

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Instinctively, he
looked up to the page.

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It was his last piece of
paper, but it was gone.

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The moon shone on
the bare roller.

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Then he saw the page
beside the typewriter.

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He must have taken it out
before he dozed off, he thought.

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When he picked it up to put
it back in the typewriter,

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he noticed a small slip of
paper sliding off the top.

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Money!

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He stood up and
snapped on the light.

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A real $10 bill,
green and crisp.

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He felt elated.

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His first reader, a
realist who nevertheless

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appreciated his metaphors or
similes or whatever they were.

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Real money!

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Still inspired,
the next morning he

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bought The Selected
Poems of Emily Dickinson

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and two pieces of paper.

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That evening, he wrote
a careful 20-line poem

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and went to sleep expectantly.

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The next morning, nothing.

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He put the last piece of paper
in the machine and began a poem.

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'The girl took $20 from
her mother's purse.'

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It was followed by 49 more lines
describing an approach to sex

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and the experience
of alienation.

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It ended, 'Dew beaded
the windshield.'

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Sure enough, the next morning
there was a $20 bill on the page

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and a check mark next
to the final line,

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which he took to mean 'good.'

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He went out and bought Ulysses
and The Words and, confidently,

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a single piece of paper.

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One was all he would need.

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Late in the afternoon,
he popped open a Bud

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and began to type away cheerily.

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He waited until he
was 2/3 of the way

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to the bottom of the page before
mentioning the sum of $40, which

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of course, he received the
next morning, the two 20's

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placed neatly on top of the page
lying beside the typewriter.

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There was no check mark,
but he didn't mind so much.

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He did have a slight
headache from the beer.

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Needless to say, he
made lots of money.

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The check marks were
irregular and, in truth,

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not all that plentiful.

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Many of what he thought
of as his best passages

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remain checkless, while
some of the low watermarks

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apparently went over well.

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But he was pretty
stoic about it.

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He was always paid in cash,
even when he mentioned sums

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in five figures.

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One day, when his library
was almost complete,

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he had bought My Life
and Vice that afternoon.

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He felt a strange
stirring in his stomach

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or teeth or forearms.

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He couldn't pin it down.

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He wanted to shop.

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He grabbed the $1,600
from the night before,

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stuffed it in his
billfold, and went out

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to find a grocery store
and an electronics store.

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Food and TV, why not?

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He was productive, well off.

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His work was read.

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Why not relax?

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His first stop
was The Good Guys.

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He had a long talk with a
salesman about the makes.

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It boiled down to
Mitsubishi versus Sony.

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He was naive, but the
salesman was there to help.

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He decided on a Sony.

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He wasn't going to
get remote control,

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but it was part of the package.

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How was he going to pay?

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Cash, he said.

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He worried that it would draw
a funny look, but it didn't.

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He reached into his pocket.

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And to his horror, the
bills he saw in his billfold

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were Monopoly money--

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two orange 500's, four yellow
100's, and four blue 50's.

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He looked at the
salesman, whose hair he

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noticed was exceptionally neat.

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The poor poet thought of
the sheet of white paper

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waiting for him in the roller.

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He had been thinking of getting
a computer sometime soon.

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But now he just wanted
to get out of the store

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and relate to the somber
physicality of the typewriter.

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He had already waited a couple
of seconds too long to pay.

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He gave the salesman
an orange 500.

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Where are you
parked? the salesman

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asked, as he handed the sales
slip and the bill to a woman

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at one of the cash registers.

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Oh, said the poet,
truly at a loss.

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I didn't bring a car.

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You can pick it up
tomorrow, said the salesman.

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Just bring your sales slip.

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Wow, says Basket,
but only one wow.

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I ask him about Gertrude.

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He says, she wrote
for money too.

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Every word."

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