WEBVTT

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I just want to say
briefly about this book,

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just so you know what this is.

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In fall 2018, I had been writing
poems that eventually ended up

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in the book Father's Day.

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I'd been writing a
lot of poems quickly,

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kind of like a poem
a day type thing.

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And I'd sort of write one and
either it would be keeper,

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it wouldn't.

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And I was moving fast.

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And I just felt like
I needed to slow down.

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So I came up with this idea
to write a poem as slowly as I

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could, a single poem, and to
write about writing it and do it

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every day.

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And that was sort of the
idea behind generating

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the material that eventually
came into this book.

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The other thing is that fall
2018 was a difficult time for us

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nationally.

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It was a time of
turmoil that we're

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seemed to be entering
into, again, politically.

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It was also a really tough time
in the Bay Area where I live.

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It was the first
really bad fire season,

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a lot of wearing of
masks and just not

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being able to breathe outside.

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So the sort of reality
of climate change

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really hit very hard that year.

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And just a few years before, my
son had been diagnosed as being

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on the autism spectrum,
and which was a big change

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in my parenting
expectations and my wife's.

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And so we were processing that.

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And so that's also
part of what I was

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trying to work my way through.

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And I also quit drinking
at the same time.

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So it was very exciting time.

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It was a lot going on.

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So it was either the perfect
time or the worst possible time

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to quit drinking.

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I don't know.

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But it was anyway.

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So all that's happening.

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So the book kind of
traces this one poem.

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And it has drafts in
it, as you can see.

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And so I write about writing
and about parenting and about

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reading and about
all kinds of things.

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And, Jody, I'm glad to hear it.

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You think it holds together.

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So I'll read a bit from it.

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And then move into some
poems and then do that.

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So thank you again
for listening.

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I woke up in California.

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First draft.

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It's 5:00 AM, and the
busy street is quiet.

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Outside the window, the
leaves of the trees are black.

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Wires slice through the
darkness, making dark shapes.

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The sky gradually
becomes visible.

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I can feel Sarah and Simon still
asleep in the rooms behind me.

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For a moment, I
can almost imagine

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I'm at the prow of a ship,

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Sitting still as the world
rotates into unhelpful light.

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A little tremor shakes the desk.

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And I feel a flash of panic.

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But it's not an earthquake,
just a lone truck passing.

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Last night, as I was
putting him to bed,

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I told him that something
would happen in two sleeps.

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It's something I've
heard other parents say.

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And I found it coming
out of my mouth.

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I didn't know if he'd heard me.

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Lost as he so often
was, in singing

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one of his favorite songs.

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Often, he will seem not to hear.

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But then a few
hours or days later,

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Will repeat what was
said, or answer a question

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asked minutes or even hours ago.

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Sometimes months later,
he will repeat something

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I said to him laughing.

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It's as if he and I are in
an endless conversation.

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The pace of which is slower
than I could ever have imagined.

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All summer, I had been writing
a new poem every morning

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and emailing it to Matt.

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He would send me a
new poem back too.

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I told myself and believed
that these were just

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practice for what would
eventually be the real writing,

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A neat trick impossible
to deliberately replicate.

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I never had a plan or
any idea where to begin.

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I would sometimes
choose a phrase

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that seemed to glow with at
least a little potential.

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This autumn morning,
I remember Matt once

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showed me how you can start a
poem by putting one or two lines

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in the middle of the page,

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And then writing out from
them, alternating a line

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before then one after.

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He said this method
came to him in a dream.

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Two sleeps, I type in
the middle of the page.

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Then roll the platon up
one line to type above it,

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Something that could
make sense a line before.

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Then back down, to type
something that could go after.

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In the redwoods, two
sleeps watch over.

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Watch over what?

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I don't know.

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It's just a beginning.

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But as Bob Hass says,
you can't revise nothing,

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Not until nothing
becomes a few words.

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When you have no
ideas or too many,

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It's best to find a few words
that seem to have potential,

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For now inexplicable.

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The painter Degas once said
to his friend, Mallarmé,

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I want to write poems,
but I have too many ideas.

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Mallarmé replied, poems, my dear
Degas, are not made of ideas,

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but of words.

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Poetry makes nothing
happen, W.H. Auden wrote,

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Which doesn't mean
it does nothing.

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It makes nothing happen.

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It activates the silence.

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You begin, and now there's
something to listen to.

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