WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.880 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.880 --> 00:00:07.160 align:middle line:84%
So the next three poems I had a
little more fun with, I can say.

00:00:07.160 --> 00:00:10.160 align:middle line:90%


00:00:10.160 --> 00:00:12.200 align:middle line:90%
These are very fresh.

00:00:12.200 --> 00:00:13.135 align:middle line:90%
They're still damp.

00:00:13.135 --> 00:00:16.850 align:middle line:90%


00:00:16.850 --> 00:00:20.130 align:middle line:84%
I talked about this in the
class that I visited, actually,

00:00:20.130 --> 00:00:20.990 align:middle line:90%
in Claire's class.

00:00:20.990 --> 00:00:28.150 align:middle line:84%
And I talked about giving
myself assignments.

00:00:28.150 --> 00:00:31.383 align:middle line:90%
And I was on Cape Cod.

00:00:31.383 --> 00:00:32.800 align:middle line:84%
And I was teaching
in the morning.

00:00:32.800 --> 00:00:34.210 align:middle line:84%
In the afternoons,
I had time off.

00:00:34.210 --> 00:00:35.502 align:middle line:90%
And so I would go to the beach.

00:00:35.502 --> 00:00:37.530 align:middle line:84%
And as I walked
down the beach, I

00:00:37.530 --> 00:00:41.010 align:middle line:84%
would give myself the
assignment to come up

00:00:41.010 --> 00:00:42.318 align:middle line:90%
with a first line of a poem.

00:00:42.318 --> 00:00:44.110 align:middle line:84%
And then when I found
my spot on the beach,

00:00:44.110 --> 00:00:45.940 align:middle line:84%
I would sit down
and write that poem.

00:00:45.940 --> 00:00:48.910 align:middle line:84%
And these next three
poems are ones that I did.

00:00:48.910 --> 00:00:50.800 align:middle line:90%
They don't really have titles.

00:00:50.800 --> 00:00:52.180 align:middle line:90%
The first poems were composed.

00:00:52.180 --> 00:00:55.510 align:middle line:84%
And so the beach figures
into these as you read them.

00:00:55.510 --> 00:00:58.660 align:middle line:84%
And I've given them
a not so great title.

00:00:58.660 --> 00:01:03.180 align:middle line:84%
But it's from Herring
Cove, number 1.

00:01:03.180 --> 00:01:09.570 align:middle line:84%
Just a gloss, I refer to a
film, Luchino Visconti's film

00:01:09.570 --> 00:01:14.760 align:middle line:84%
of Death in Venice, in which
the character of Aschenbach

00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:17.180 align:middle line:90%
goes into a great decline.

00:01:17.180 --> 00:01:19.710 align:middle line:90%
It's a fabulous film.

00:01:19.710 --> 00:01:21.870 align:middle line:90%
From Herring Cove.

00:01:21.870 --> 00:01:24.960 align:middle line:84%
The dead are so
much easier to love.

00:01:24.960 --> 00:01:30.040 align:middle line:84%
They don't appear uninvited
in your yard, ask for favors,

00:01:30.040 --> 00:01:31.620 align:middle line:90%
get mad.

00:01:31.620 --> 00:01:34.410 align:middle line:84%
Instead, they are
a bit like the seal

00:01:34.410 --> 00:01:36.540 align:middle line:90%
I barely glimpsed at the beach.

00:01:36.540 --> 00:01:37.750 align:middle line:90%
No one with me.

00:01:37.750 --> 00:01:39.430 align:middle line:90%
So mine alone.

00:01:39.430 --> 00:01:42.030 align:middle line:90%
Black head cresting from a wave.

00:01:42.030 --> 00:01:43.510 align:middle line:90%
And so big.

00:01:43.510 --> 00:01:46.840 align:middle line:84%
I thought it was a
serpent, or a small whale.

00:01:46.840 --> 00:01:50.650 align:middle line:84%
But no, just a
seal just revealed

00:01:50.650 --> 00:01:55.290 align:middle line:84%
emerging from its vast,
unknowable realm of wet salt,

00:01:55.290 --> 00:01:58.340 align:middle line:90%
tide's force.

00:01:58.340 --> 00:02:01.400 align:middle line:84%
My first time in
Venice, I hardly

00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:05.450 align:middle line:84%
ever knew what I was
looking at except for lunch.

00:02:05.450 --> 00:02:09.320 align:middle line:84%
Sometimes I had an eerie
hunch I was being followed

00:02:09.320 --> 00:02:12.180 align:middle line:84%
as I went up one
wet little bridge,

00:02:12.180 --> 00:02:17.830 align:middle line:84%
then down, taking my slick, and
clueless walk to some church.

00:02:17.830 --> 00:02:21.440 align:middle line:84%
Later, I would lie in
a humid and narrow bed.

00:02:21.440 --> 00:02:26.560 align:middle line:84%
My face melting like Visconti's
Aschenbach, my mind sketching

00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:31.180 align:middle line:84%
in a stranger waiting for me
next to the green fetid waterway

00:02:31.180 --> 00:02:32.470 align:middle line:90%
downstairs.

00:02:32.470 --> 00:02:34.820 align:middle line:90%
Who cares if ghosts exist?

00:02:34.820 --> 00:02:36.590 align:middle line:90%
They're still dead.

00:02:36.590 --> 00:02:39.870 align:middle line:84%
Only our attention
keeps them fed.

00:02:39.870 --> 00:02:41.000 align:middle line:90%