WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.600 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:04.800 align:middle line:90%
I'll read another serious one.

00:00:04.800 --> 00:00:05.550 align:middle line:90%
This is a poem--

00:00:05.550 --> 00:00:09.870 align:middle line:84%
I have a wonderful poetic
friendship with the poet Marie

00:00:09.870 --> 00:00:10.820 align:middle line:90%
Howe.

00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:14.100 align:middle line:84%
And one of those
friendships where

00:00:14.100 --> 00:00:15.840 align:middle line:84%
there don't seem
to be any barriers,

00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:18.660 align:middle line:84%
or if you encounter them, you
just keep going through them.

00:00:18.660 --> 00:00:20.628 align:middle line:90%
And you say it makes me nervous.

00:00:20.628 --> 00:00:22.170 align:middle line:84%
And one of the things
we talked about

00:00:22.170 --> 00:00:28.380 align:middle line:84%
is about male violence
to women and how strong

00:00:28.380 --> 00:00:31.940 align:middle line:84%
it is in our culture and
how strong it is in us.

00:00:31.940 --> 00:00:36.510 align:middle line:84%
And it's a subject
that we haven't

00:00:36.510 --> 00:00:38.580 align:middle line:84%
seen written about very
much, because, of course,

00:00:38.580 --> 00:00:43.320 align:middle line:84%
it's so dangerous
and that hatred

00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:48.270 align:middle line:84%
that is connected in some weird
circuitous way to violence

00:00:48.270 --> 00:00:52.680 align:middle line:84%
and mothers and the
whole fucking mess.

00:00:52.680 --> 00:00:58.650 align:middle line:84%
And anyway this is my attempt to
write a poem about that subject,

00:00:58.650 --> 00:01:00.180 align:middle line:90%
and it's called Adam and Eve.

00:01:00.180 --> 00:01:01.830 align:middle line:84%
It's a poem I'm kind
still working on.

00:01:01.830 --> 00:01:04.780 align:middle line:90%


00:01:04.780 --> 00:01:09.400 align:middle line:84%
I wanted to punch her right in
the face, and that's the truth.

00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:12.100 align:middle line:84%
After all, we'd gotten
from the station

00:01:12.100 --> 00:01:17.290 align:middle line:84%
of the flickering glances to the
station of the hungry mouths,

00:01:17.290 --> 00:01:21.190 align:middle line:84%
from the shoreline of
shirts and faded jeans

00:01:21.190 --> 00:01:26.140 align:middle line:84%
to the ocean of unencumbered
skin, from the perilous

00:01:26.140 --> 00:01:28.990 align:middle line:84%
mountaintop of the
apartment steps

00:01:28.990 --> 00:01:32.380 align:middle line:84%
to the sanctified
valley of the bed.

00:01:32.380 --> 00:01:34.750 align:middle line:84%
The candle flickering
on the dresser top,

00:01:34.750 --> 00:01:39.580 align:middle line:84%
its little yellow blade sending
up its whiff of waxy smoke,

00:01:39.580 --> 00:01:42.580 align:middle line:84%
and I could smell her
readiness like a dank

00:01:42.580 --> 00:01:46.800 align:middle line:90%
cloud poised above a field.

00:01:46.800 --> 00:01:51.690 align:middle line:84%
When at the crucial moment, the
all important moment, the moment

00:01:51.690 --> 00:01:56.460 align:middle line:84%
standing at attention, she held
her milk white hand agitated

00:01:56.460 --> 00:02:00.510 align:middle line:84%
leap over the entrance
to her body and said no,

00:02:00.510 --> 00:02:04.980 align:middle line:90%
and my brain burst into flame.

00:02:04.980 --> 00:02:09.960 align:middle line:84%
If I couldn't sink myself
into her like a dark spur

00:02:09.960 --> 00:02:14.670 align:middle line:84%
or dissolve into her like a
dirt clod thrown in a river,

00:02:14.670 --> 00:02:17.970 align:middle line:84%
can I go all the way
in the same and say

00:02:17.970 --> 00:02:21.430 align:middle line:84%
I wanted to punch her
right in the face?

00:02:21.430 --> 00:02:24.030 align:middle line:84%
Am I allowed to say that
that I wanted to punch

00:02:24.030 --> 00:02:26.970 align:middle line:90%
her right in her soft face?

00:02:26.970 --> 00:02:31.560 align:middle line:84%
Or is the saying just another
instance of rapaciousness, just

00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:37.590 align:middle line:84%
another way of doing what
I wanted then by saying it?

00:02:37.590 --> 00:02:42.720 align:middle line:84%
Is a man just an animal, and
is a woman not an animal?

00:02:42.720 --> 00:02:46.020 align:middle line:90%
Is the name of the animal power?

00:02:46.020 --> 00:02:49.440 align:middle line:84%
Is it true the man wishes
to see the woman hurt

00:02:49.440 --> 00:02:53.220 align:middle line:84%
with her own pleasure,
and the woman wishes

00:02:53.220 --> 00:02:57.120 align:middle line:84%
to see the expression on the
man's face of someone falling

00:02:57.120 --> 00:03:00.840 align:middle line:84%
from great height,
that the woman thrills

00:03:00.840 --> 00:03:04.920 align:middle line:84%
with the power of her weakness,
and the man is astonished

00:03:04.920 --> 00:03:08.250 align:middle line:90%
by the weakness of his power?

00:03:08.250 --> 00:03:13.410 align:middle line:84%
Is the sexual chase a hunt
where the animal inside

00:03:13.410 --> 00:03:18.300 align:middle line:84%
drags the human down into
a jungle made of vowels,

00:03:18.300 --> 00:03:22.500 align:middle line:84%
hormonal undergrowth,
sweat, and hair,

00:03:22.500 --> 00:03:25.620 align:middle line:84%
or is this an
obsolete idea lodged

00:03:25.620 --> 00:03:28.560 align:middle line:84%
like a fossil in the
brain of the ape who

00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:31.470 align:middle line:90%
lives inside the man?

00:03:31.470 --> 00:03:34.980 align:middle line:84%
Can the fossil be
surgically removed

00:03:34.980 --> 00:03:38.910 align:middle line:84%
or dissolved or
redesigned so the man can

00:03:38.910 --> 00:03:43.350 align:middle line:90%
be a human being like a woman?

00:03:43.350 --> 00:03:46.830 align:middle line:84%
Does the woman see
the man as a house

00:03:46.830 --> 00:03:50.430 align:middle line:84%
where she might live in
safety, and does the man

00:03:50.430 --> 00:03:55.020 align:middle line:84%
see the woman as a door through
which he might escape the hated

00:03:55.020 --> 00:03:57.810 align:middle line:90%
prison of himself?

00:03:57.810 --> 00:04:02.130 align:middle line:84%
And when the door is locked,
does he hate the door instead?

00:04:02.130 --> 00:04:05.960 align:middle line:90%
Does he learn to hate all doors?

00:04:05.960 --> 00:04:10.920 align:middle line:84%
I've seen rain turn into
snow then back to rain,

00:04:10.920 --> 00:04:15.060 align:middle line:84%
and I've seen making love
turn into fucking then back

00:04:15.060 --> 00:04:17.010 align:middle line:90%
to making love.

00:04:17.010 --> 00:04:20.399 align:middle line:84%
And no one covered up
their faces out of shame.

00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:25.470 align:middle line:84%
No one rose and walked into
the lonely mall of night,

00:04:25.470 --> 00:04:30.010 align:middle line:84%
but where was there
in fact to go?

00:04:30.010 --> 00:04:32.260 align:middle line:90%
Oh, be careful people.

00:04:32.260 --> 00:04:34.840 align:middle line:90%
Mustn't we be careful?

00:04:34.840 --> 00:04:38.350 align:middle line:84%
Shouldn't we tiptoe
everywhere we go

00:04:38.350 --> 00:04:43.480 align:middle line:84%
and carefully replay each
word before it leaves the lips

00:04:43.480 --> 00:04:46.480 align:middle line:90%
so that nobody gets hurt?

00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:50.200 align:middle line:84%
Are some things
better left unsaid?

00:04:50.200 --> 00:04:53.630 align:middle line:84%
Have you noticed I haven't
got back to the woman?

00:04:53.630 --> 00:04:55.970 align:middle line:90%
Should I tell you her name?

00:04:55.970 --> 00:05:01.180 align:middle line:84%
Can I say it again that I wanted
to punch her right in the face?

00:05:01.180 --> 00:05:06.640 align:middle line:84%
Naked and wrong in a
strange bed far from home

00:05:06.640 --> 00:05:11.610 align:middle line:84%
you could find out something you
would rather not have learned.

00:05:11.610 --> 00:05:15.770 align:middle line:84%
Until we say the truth,
there can be no tenderness.

00:05:15.770 --> 00:05:19.040 align:middle line:84%
As long as there is desire,
we will not be safe.

00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:20.890 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:05:20.890 --> 00:05:30.000 align:middle line:90%