WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.900 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.900 --> 00:00:09.185 align:middle line:84% It seems to me that a lot of poetry comes from not poetry. 00:00:09.185 --> 00:00:12.730 align:middle line:90% 00:00:12.730 --> 00:00:17.410 align:middle line:84% Often for me, my poems come from other art forms 00:00:17.410 --> 00:00:20.860 align:middle line:84% that aren't literary art forms, the visual arts, 00:00:20.860 --> 00:00:23.710 align:middle line:84% the kinds of things that we see in museums. 00:00:23.710 --> 00:00:30.580 align:middle line:84% And because of that, a number of the poems in my manuscript 00:00:30.580 --> 00:00:33.760 align:middle line:84% are about paintings and sculptures. 00:00:33.760 --> 00:00:39.280 align:middle line:84% And this one that I'll read to you is called "Museum Frieze." 00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:43.810 align:middle line:84% And for me, I'm attempting in the poem 00:00:43.810 --> 00:00:48.550 align:middle line:84% to characterize the fact that if you go to a museum of modern art 00:00:48.550 --> 00:00:51.760 align:middle line:84% or postmodern art, it's possible to have all 00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:54.640 align:middle line:90% of the museums in one museum. 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:59.440 align:middle line:84% You have the archaeological museum there. 00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:02.530 align:middle line:84% You have in the layers and the icons 00:01:02.530 --> 00:01:06.760 align:middle line:84% and the images that the artist use, you have the social history 00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:10.480 align:middle line:84% and you have the natural history. 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:15.070 align:middle line:84% And so there's a kind of kaleidoscope effect for me 00:01:15.070 --> 00:01:15.940 align:middle line:90% in that. 00:01:15.940 --> 00:01:19.490 align:middle line:84% And this poem is attempting to get to that. 00:01:19.490 --> 00:01:25.210 align:middle line:84% It's called "Museum Frieze," and frieze is spelled F-R-I-E-Z-E. 00:01:25.210 --> 00:01:33.770 align:middle line:84% It's that band of stone, sometimes underneath the roof 00:01:33.770 --> 00:01:36.670 align:middle line:84% of a building where there's often an illustration 00:01:36.670 --> 00:01:38.815 align:middle line:90% or a relief. 00:01:38.815 --> 00:01:42.570 align:middle line:90% 00:01:42.570 --> 00:01:45.720 align:middle line:84% "Showing the rise and fall of long years 00:01:45.720 --> 00:01:51.930 align:middle line:84% in the daytime, the museum's outer face exists as a frieze. 00:01:51.930 --> 00:01:55.740 align:middle line:84% An angel waves to a crowd of dancers with both wings, 00:01:55.740 --> 00:01:57.930 align:middle line:90% her lips trembling. 00:01:57.930 --> 00:02:01.170 align:middle line:84% Then The Actual shows up as sweet swallows' nests 00:02:01.170 --> 00:02:04.140 align:middle line:90% and silent doorway pockets. 00:02:04.140 --> 00:02:06.570 align:middle line:90% I'm whipped about by wind. 00:02:06.570 --> 00:02:09.150 align:middle line:90% I'm heavy with expectation. 00:02:09.150 --> 00:02:12.030 align:middle line:84% I'm an easily broken private citizen 00:02:12.030 --> 00:02:15.090 align:middle line:84% on a boulevard of groomed poplars. 00:02:15.090 --> 00:02:18.150 align:middle line:84% Soon the high season clientele will 00:02:18.150 --> 00:02:22.020 align:middle line:84% ingest the conceptual enigma du jour served 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:25.140 align:middle line:90% in a light visual buffet. 00:02:25.140 --> 00:02:28.590 align:middle line:84% It's unclear, for example, in the bathhouse scene 00:02:28.590 --> 00:02:32.010 align:middle line:84% whether two men, half hidden by a third, 00:02:32.010 --> 00:02:35.940 align:middle line:84% are touching each other or themselves. 00:02:35.940 --> 00:02:38.940 align:middle line:84% Or it's unclear in the bathhouse scene 00:02:38.940 --> 00:02:41.940 align:middle line:84% whether two men, half hidden by a door, 00:02:41.940 --> 00:02:45.720 align:middle line:84% are touching each other or a third. 00:02:45.720 --> 00:02:50.820 align:middle line:84% Your own observation might bend to a peripheral view, a slow sex 00:02:50.820 --> 00:02:53.910 align:middle line:90% scene along the river. 00:02:53.910 --> 00:02:57.720 align:middle line:84% This preoccupation with history: a horse world 00:02:57.720 --> 00:03:01.320 align:middle line:84% like a spectral carousel opens a row 00:03:01.320 --> 00:03:04.900 align:middle line:84% of canvas miniatures on the side. 00:03:04.900 --> 00:03:07.680 align:middle line:84% No one knows that this beautiful city 00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:11.580 align:middle line:84% is the model for that beautiful city. 00:03:11.580 --> 00:03:15.420 align:middle line:84% The interval between the lines grows larger and larger 00:03:15.420 --> 00:03:19.830 align:middle line:84% traversing the entire floor until the viewer walks steadily 00:03:19.830 --> 00:03:23.040 align:middle line:90% on the surface of the globe. 00:03:23.040 --> 00:03:28.410 align:middle line:84% The female voiceover declares, I am Adam's sculptor in his dream. 00:03:28.410 --> 00:03:31.890 align:middle line:84% I am the bamboo coverings with black fringe. 00:03:31.890 --> 00:03:34.890 align:middle line:84% I capped the entire tent with finials, 00:03:34.890 --> 00:03:42.240 align:middle line:84% then draped the folds into slow ripples skirting his lagoon. 00:03:42.240 --> 00:03:45.120 align:middle line:84% Because we started out in shadows, 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:48.030 align:middle line:84% because our mothers hunched and weary looking 00:03:48.030 --> 00:03:51.960 align:middle line:84% plod along the edge, feeling like pioneers. 00:03:51.960 --> 00:03:56.400 align:middle line:84% Because crowds pass, because men gather in harmony 00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:59.220 align:middle line:90% and graze like sheep and fawns. 00:03:59.220 --> 00:04:03.690 align:middle line:84% Because photo and text essays, plant field atriums, 00:04:03.690 --> 00:04:07.860 align:middle line:84% art under siege, and sparsely hung exhibitions 00:04:07.860 --> 00:04:10.740 align:middle line:90% chronicle our own reflections. 00:04:10.740 --> 00:04:16.140 align:middle line:84% Because functional aspects, eating, washing, sleeping, 00:04:16.140 --> 00:04:20.730 align:middle line:84% give way to two views of her torso in private relation 00:04:20.730 --> 00:04:24.780 align:middle line:90% to eating, washing, sleeping. 00:04:24.780 --> 00:04:29.970 align:middle line:84% Because the entire facade must be replaced, several versions, 00:04:29.970 --> 00:04:32.850 align:middle line:84% doves caught in the frescoed reeds 00:04:32.850 --> 00:04:39.210 align:middle line:84% vie for ascendance, Adam's tent as the tentative negotiation 00:04:39.210 --> 00:04:44.640 align:middle line:84% between the sea and the sky, as opulent casino, 00:04:44.640 --> 00:04:47.640 align:middle line:84% as the machete of his nomadic heart embossed 00:04:47.640 --> 00:04:52.500 align:middle line:84% on the blank-th century, grandeur of the city. 00:04:52.500 --> 00:04:57.360 align:middle line:84% Long local breaths, louder in succession, 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:00.960 align:middle line:84% characteristic of the sleeping man, 00:05:00.960 --> 00:05:05.040 align:middle line:84% Lorenzo on the breath of Flora, Emilio 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:09.870 align:middle line:84% in a world of blood and white palms, Enrique in the ant, 00:05:09.870 --> 00:05:14.550 align:middle line:84% in the sea, in the vacuous eyes of the birds. 00:05:14.550 --> 00:05:18.270 align:middle line:84% Later that same day, when the Emperor ordered the autumn 00:05:18.270 --> 00:05:23.670 align:middle line:84% leaves to lie down, the execution of the artist shocked 00:05:23.670 --> 00:05:24.330 align:middle line:90% the world." 00:05:24.330 --> 00:05:30.170 align:middle line:90% 00:05:30.170 --> 00:05:34.970 align:middle line:84% And in the last line there I adapt a few sentences from Lorca 00:05:34.970 --> 00:05:37.600 align:middle line:90% you might have recognized. 00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:38.103 align:middle line:90%