WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.730 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.730 --> 00:00:03.980 align:middle line:84% So yeah, the stuff I wanted to try-- 00:00:03.980 --> 00:00:06.450 align:middle line:84% here, I'll try this one because I did read this one once. 00:00:06.450 --> 00:00:10.800 align:middle line:84% I did a thing with the poet, Yusef Komunyakaa, last week, 00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:16.079 align:middle line:84% and as part of it, I hung out with some of the Princeton kids. 00:00:16.079 --> 00:00:18.290 align:middle line:90% This is where it was. 00:00:18.290 --> 00:00:22.553 align:middle line:84% And I gave them some assignment for writing Yusefian odes. 00:00:22.553 --> 00:00:23.970 align:middle line:84% Do you guys know Yusef Komunyakaa? 00:00:23.970 --> 00:00:27.350 align:middle line:84% You must know the great Yusef Komunyakaa, 00:00:27.350 --> 00:00:29.575 align:middle line:90% one of our last lions. 00:00:29.575 --> 00:00:30.950 align:middle line:84% So I was like, I'm going to do it 00:00:30.950 --> 00:00:31.980 align:middle line:84% and I'm going to read it for him. 00:00:31.980 --> 00:00:33.813 align:middle line:84% So again, this is something I haven't really 00:00:33.813 --> 00:00:37.040 align:middle line:84% sent out anywhere yet, but it's how to write a Yusefian 00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:40.550 align:middle line:90% ode for Yusef Komunyakaa. 00:00:40.550 --> 00:00:44.150 align:middle line:84% You are pursuing a feeling like the dust 00:00:44.150 --> 00:00:48.530 align:middle line:84% and the voice of Bob Kaufman, plus the mud of the most fertile 00:00:48.530 --> 00:00:50.720 align:middle line:90% place you knew as a child. 00:00:50.720 --> 00:00:54.120 align:middle line:84% If you are unfamiliar with poet Bob Kaufman, 00:00:54.120 --> 00:00:55.790 align:middle line:84% you may use the dust from the grave 00:00:55.790 --> 00:01:00.560 align:middle line:84% of a grandfather plus your damp, nostalgic dirt 00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:04.420 align:middle line:84% to approximate the feel of the Yusefian ode. 00:01:04.420 --> 00:01:08.050 align:middle line:84% You are, pardon, the natural and unnatural abrasions 00:01:08.050 --> 00:01:11.800 align:middle line:84% acquired in living the life a Black boy born 00:01:11.800 --> 00:01:15.340 align:middle line:84% near enough to Mississippi to learn to spell it quickly 00:01:15.340 --> 00:01:16.845 align:middle line:90% by age five. 00:01:16.845 --> 00:01:17.720 align:middle line:90% Does that make sense? 00:01:17.720 --> 00:01:19.900 align:middle line:84% You are, pardon, the natural and unnatural abrasions 00:01:19.900 --> 00:01:23.830 align:middle line:84% acquired in living the life of a Black boy born near 00:01:23.830 --> 00:01:26.060 align:middle line:84% enough to Mississippi to spell it quickly 00:01:26.060 --> 00:01:30.070 align:middle line:84% by age five plus the abrasions acquired 00:01:30.070 --> 00:01:33.970 align:middle line:84% in living when Emmett Till was alive and living after. 00:01:33.970 --> 00:01:35.980 align:middle line:84% It is impossible to speak of the ode 00:01:35.980 --> 00:01:39.730 align:middle line:84% as it relates to the abrasions left by war. 00:01:39.730 --> 00:01:43.670 align:middle line:84% 1/2 a cup of backwoods Bogalusa moonshine, 00:01:43.670 --> 00:01:49.150 align:middle line:84% a thimble of communion wine, two tablespoons of honey and a cup 00:01:49.150 --> 00:01:52.040 align:middle line:84% of river water that has been struck by lightning, 00:01:52.040 --> 00:01:56.350 align:middle line:84% shaken with chunky ice in a metal martini tumbler should 00:01:56.350 --> 00:01:59.740 align:middle line:84% result in a flickering neon vernacular flowering 00:01:59.740 --> 00:02:03.400 align:middle line:84% in the mouth of the aspiring old writer. 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:07.620 align:middle line:84% Write nothing down for a week after returning from a three day 00:02:07.620 --> 00:02:12.700 align:middle line:84% tour retracing Komunyakaa's path around Bogalusa in the 1950s 00:02:12.700 --> 00:02:17.100 align:middle line:84% over a decade before he saw what an old writer sees in war. 00:02:17.100 --> 00:02:19.590 align:middle line:84% Store notes on the notes of jasmine 00:02:19.590 --> 00:02:22.440 align:middle line:84% saturating the air of Bogalusa behind the nose 00:02:22.440 --> 00:02:26.580 align:middle line:84% bridge between your eyes and just below your third eye. 00:02:26.580 --> 00:02:30.360 align:middle line:84% If you are unable to kill or locate a gazelle, 00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:35.430 align:middle line:84% kill time, kill two birds with one stone killed with kindness. 00:02:35.430 --> 00:02:37.920 align:middle line:84% Eavesdrop on other people's prayer 00:02:37.920 --> 00:02:40.980 align:middle line:84% like dogwood scratching at a church window. 00:02:40.980 --> 00:02:45.130 align:middle line:84% If you are afraid of who will target who in this new world, 00:02:45.130 --> 00:02:47.460 align:middle line:90% the ode says how to prepare. 00:02:47.460 --> 00:02:51.180 align:middle line:84% The wine of heaven is the color of brass and honey 00:02:51.180 --> 00:02:53.250 align:middle line:90% turning air to music. 00:02:53.250 --> 00:02:55.800 align:middle line:84% The Yusefian ode asks you to sound 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:58.560 align:middle line:84% like you're talking deeply to your spirit, something 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:01.200 align:middle line:84% beyond the body but made in the wild 00:03:01.200 --> 00:03:03.870 align:middle line:90% and wrestled with faith in hand. 00:03:03.870 --> 00:03:05.230 align:middle line:90% Address your pet. 00:03:05.230 --> 00:03:07.100 align:middle line:90% Address your childhood pet. 00:03:07.100 --> 00:03:08.960 align:middle line:90% Address your alter ego. 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:10.610 align:middle line:90% Address your ghost. 00:03:10.610 --> 00:03:12.020 align:middle line:90% Address your maggot. 00:03:12.020 --> 00:03:13.640 align:middle line:90% Address your lust. 00:03:13.640 --> 00:03:16.720 align:middle line:84% Watch your creature in its setting, preyed on 00:03:16.720 --> 00:03:20.920 align:middle line:84% or preying with a version of God casting the odor of death. 00:03:20.920 --> 00:03:25.600 align:middle line:84% Recall yourself as a child in new weather, fangs and stingers 00:03:25.600 --> 00:03:28.510 align:middle line:84% at your borders, grasping your first toy 00:03:28.510 --> 00:03:31.720 align:middle line:84% as sunlight throws your shadow on the grass. 00:03:31.720 --> 00:03:35.090 align:middle line:84% A seed bed of secrets troubles the soil. 00:03:35.090 --> 00:03:39.070 align:middle line:84% Wind and rumor swirl in the drum of each ear. 00:03:39.070 --> 00:03:43.100 align:middle line:84% The compass of vision turns on a swivel of questions. 00:03:43.100 --> 00:03:46.570 align:middle line:84% Break the seals, paste it with history. 00:03:46.570 --> 00:03:50.320 align:middle line:84% Use the switchblade taken from your grandmother's ashtray 00:03:50.320 --> 00:03:54.820 align:middle line:84% just after she was buried to Jimmy, her locked desk drawer. 00:03:54.820 --> 00:03:57.070 align:middle line:84% Your ode should echo the language 00:03:57.070 --> 00:04:00.790 align:middle line:84% inside her bills, private and professional letters, scratched 00:04:00.790 --> 00:04:02.360 align:middle line:90% notes and poems. 00:04:02.360 --> 00:04:04.990 align:middle line:84% If you lack such a resource, the ode 00:04:04.990 --> 00:04:07.620 align:middle line:84% may praise the idea of your grandmother 00:04:07.620 --> 00:04:11.550 align:middle line:84% with the switchblade and handwritten poems down her bra. 00:04:11.550 --> 00:04:14.280 align:middle line:84% Your first night in Bogalusa you must 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:16.800 align:middle line:84% sleep with a pair of leeches pressed gently 00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:20.709 align:middle line:84% against your eyelids to receive Yusefian visions. 00:04:20.709 --> 00:04:23.550 align:middle line:84% I saw a fishhook piercing a pomegranate 00:04:23.550 --> 00:04:25.830 align:middle line:90% stuffed in the mouth of a boar. 00:04:25.830 --> 00:04:29.830 align:middle line:84% You have to let the ode climb from the well in the wasteland. 00:04:29.830 --> 00:04:34.000 align:middle line:84% The water in the ode promises another season of pomegranate, 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:37.290 align:middle line:84% but must never be used to savor the boar. 00:04:37.290 --> 00:04:41.490 align:middle line:84% The Yusefian elegy lives in the cool and vulnerable falling 00:04:41.490 --> 00:04:43.090 align:middle line:90% shadow of the ode. 00:04:43.090 --> 00:04:46.500 align:middle line:84% Say something that hangs over the burial ground just 00:04:46.500 --> 00:04:48.730 align:middle line:90% between the boughs and bowing. 00:04:48.730 --> 00:04:51.840 align:middle line:84% A way of keeping faith is what the ode is after, 00:04:51.840 --> 00:04:54.750 align:middle line:84% at least at the beginning of the poem's foray. 00:04:54.750 --> 00:04:57.240 align:middle line:84% A way of finding the truth seems to be 00:04:57.240 --> 00:05:02.730 align:middle line:84% an offshoot, a root with no ending at the end of the day. 00:05:02.730 --> 00:05:04.620 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:05:04.620 --> 00:05:06.920 align:middle line:90% So we'll go around. 00:05:06.920 --> 00:05:10.000 align:middle line:90%