I just want to say briefly about this book,
just so you know what this is.
In fall 2018, I had been writing poems that eventually ended up
in the book Father's Day.
I'd been writing a lot of poems quickly,
kind of like a poem a day type thing.
And I'd sort of write one and either it would be keeper,
it wouldn't.
And I was moving fast.
And I just felt like I needed to slow down.
So I came up with this idea to write a poem as slowly as I
could, a single poem, and to write about writing it and do it
every day.
And that was sort of the idea behind generating
the material that eventually came into this book.
The other thing is that fall 2018 was a difficult time for us
nationally.
It was a time of turmoil that we're
seemed to be entering into, again, politically.
It was also a really tough time in the Bay Area where I live.
It was the first really bad fire season,
a lot of wearing of masks and just not
being able to breathe outside.
So the sort of reality of climate change
really hit very hard that year.
And just a few years before, my son had been diagnosed as being
on the autism spectrum, and which was a big change
in my parenting expectations and my wife's.
And so we were processing that.
And so that's also part of what I was
trying to work my way through.
And I also quit drinking at the same time.
So it was very exciting time.
It was a lot going on.
So it was either the perfect time or the worst possible time
to quit drinking.
I don't know.
But it was anyway.
So all that's happening.
So the book kind of traces this one poem.
And it has drafts in it, as you can see.
And so I write about writing and about parenting and about
reading and about all kinds of things.
And, Jody, I'm glad to hear it.
You think it holds together.
So I'll read a bit from it.
And then move into some poems and then do that.
So thank you again for listening.
I woke up in California.
First draft.
It's 5:00 AM, and the busy street is quiet.
Outside the window, the leaves of the trees are black.
Wires slice through the darkness, making dark shapes.
The sky gradually becomes visible.
I can feel Sarah and Simon still asleep in the rooms behind me.
For a moment, I can almost imagine
I'm at the prow of a ship,
Sitting still as the world rotates into unhelpful light.
A little tremor shakes the desk.
And I feel a flash of panic.
But it's not an earthquake, just a lone truck passing.
Last night, as I was putting him to bed,
I told him that something would happen in two sleeps.
It's something I've heard other parents say.
And I found it coming out of my mouth.
I didn't know if he'd heard me.
Lost as he so often was, in singing
one of his favorite songs.
Often, he will seem not to hear.
But then a few hours or days later,
Will repeat what was said, or answer a question
asked minutes or even hours ago.
Sometimes months later, he will repeat something
I said to him laughing.
It's as if he and I are in an endless conversation.
The pace of which is slower than I could ever have imagined.
All summer, I had been writing a new poem every morning
and emailing it to Matt.
He would send me a new poem back too.
I told myself and believed that these were just
practice for what would eventually be the real writing,
A neat trick impossible to deliberately replicate.
I never had a plan or any idea where to begin.
I would sometimes choose a phrase
that seemed to glow with at least a little potential.
This autumn morning, I remember Matt once
showed me how you can start a poem by putting one or two lines
in the middle of the page,
And then writing out from them, alternating a line
before then one after.
He said this method came to him in a dream.
Two sleeps, I type in the middle of the page.
Then roll the platon up one line to type above it,
Something that could make sense a line before.
Then back down, to type something that could go after.
In the redwoods, two sleeps watch over.
Watch over what?
I don't know.
It's just a beginning.
But as Bob Hass says, you can't revise nothing,
Not until nothing becomes a few words.
When you have no ideas or too many,
It's best to find a few words that seem to have potential,
For now inexplicable.
The painter Degas once said to his friend, Mallarmé,
I want to write poems, but I have too many ideas.
Mallarmé replied, poems, my dear Degas, are not made of ideas,
but of words.
Poetry makes nothing happen, W.H. Auden wrote,
Which doesn't mean it does nothing.
It makes nothing happen.
It activates the silence.
You begin, and now there's something to listen to.