WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.960 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.960 --> 00:00:08.000 align:middle line:84% If I think about what it means for me 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:11.060 align:middle line:84% to try to arrange consonants and vowels to make pictures 00:00:11.060 --> 00:00:16.970 align:middle line:84% of this place and try to associate with all 00:00:16.970 --> 00:00:22.310 align:middle line:84% the works of art I admire or what seems to be worth thinking 00:00:22.310 --> 00:00:24.560 align:middle line:84% about in this world of atrocities 00:00:24.560 --> 00:00:27.920 align:middle line:84% and brilliant works and all the other things, 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:32.678 align:middle line:90% I suppose it's to look at the-- 00:00:32.678 --> 00:00:34.220 align:middle line:84% I don't know that word to use for it. 00:00:34.220 --> 00:00:38.270 align:middle line:84% I would say history or culture or everything 00:00:38.270 --> 00:00:41.180 align:middle line:84% that underlies the ordinary things that had meaning for me 00:00:41.180 --> 00:00:42.920 align:middle line:90% when I was a child. 00:00:42.920 --> 00:00:45.140 align:middle line:84% The meaning comes from some-- it comes from history. 00:00:45.140 --> 00:00:50.000 align:middle line:90% That sounds too heroical word. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:54.060 align:middle line:84% But the very language in which I'm addressing you, 00:00:54.060 --> 00:00:59.810 align:middle line:84% it's the product of rape, invasion, expropriation, 00:00:59.810 --> 00:01:04.250 align:middle line:84% its richness, immigration in the case of many of us in the room. 00:01:04.250 --> 00:01:10.010 align:middle line:84% And everything to put it in one phrase 00:01:10.010 --> 00:01:12.200 align:middle line:84% is a beautiful evocative ruin that one 00:01:12.200 --> 00:01:15.080 align:middle line:84% of the traditions of poetry as you look at a ruin. 00:01:15.080 --> 00:01:18.860 align:middle line:84% And you think, Oh, once it was this, once it was that. 00:01:18.860 --> 00:01:22.250 align:middle line:90% Well, the computer is a ruin. 00:01:22.250 --> 00:01:23.480 align:middle line:90% If you get what I mean. 00:01:23.480 --> 00:01:25.250 align:middle line:90% It stinks of us. 00:01:25.250 --> 00:01:27.740 align:middle line:84% It would be different if we had a different history. 00:01:27.740 --> 00:01:29.270 align:middle line:90% The way we've designed it. 00:01:29.270 --> 00:01:30.470 align:middle line:90% The way its insides work. 00:01:30.470 --> 00:01:32.630 align:middle line:90% The whole concept of it. 00:01:32.630 --> 00:01:36.710 align:middle line:84% And every object you look at is a color 00:01:36.710 --> 00:01:42.290 align:middle line:84% or a shape where you see it away that comes from the past. 00:01:42.290 --> 00:01:47.970 align:middle line:84% And just as my body is the product of two people 00:01:47.970 --> 00:01:49.520 align:middle line:90% but behind them four. 00:01:49.520 --> 00:01:51.480 align:middle line:90% And its geometric progression. 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:54.920 align:middle line:84% Then, there's eight people just a couple of generations back. 00:01:54.920 --> 00:01:57.470 align:middle line:84% And you get into the thousands by the Renaissance, 00:01:57.470 --> 00:01:59.570 align:middle line:90% by Shakespeare's time. 00:01:59.570 --> 00:02:02.040 align:middle line:84% How ridiculous to anybody say my ancestors? 00:02:02.040 --> 00:02:04.820 align:middle line:90% So thousands, Tens of thousands. 00:02:04.820 --> 00:02:06.890 align:middle line:90% We are indeed all cousins. 00:02:06.890 --> 00:02:10.698 align:middle line:84% So we're all a product of this immense fan behind you 00:02:10.698 --> 00:02:11.990 align:middle line:90% that comes down to this moment. 00:02:11.990 --> 00:02:13.050 align:middle line:84% You say, "You're going to the party?" 00:02:13.050 --> 00:02:14.610 align:middle line:90% I don't think starting to study. 00:02:14.610 --> 00:02:17.210 align:middle line:90% It at all is behind it. 00:02:17.210 --> 00:02:20.030 align:middle line:90% 00:02:20.030 --> 00:02:22.025 align:middle line:84% just as my body has that ancestry. 00:02:22.025 --> 00:02:25.280 align:middle line:90% 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:29.335 align:middle line:84% My words and my ideas and my objects 00:02:29.335 --> 00:02:31.710 align:middle line:84% have the ancestry, which is not to say that I'm not free. 00:02:31.710 --> 00:02:34.340 align:middle line:84% It's not a deterministic thought. 00:02:34.340 --> 00:02:36.210 align:middle line:90% I'm free to do things with it. 00:02:36.210 --> 00:02:38.510 align:middle line:90% But it is an immensity. 00:02:38.510 --> 00:02:42.840 align:middle line:84% It's a bigness behind everything. 00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:45.780 align:middle line:84% Never more than when I'm completely unaware of it. 00:02:45.780 --> 00:02:49.060 align:middle line:84% That's when it's most operative on me. 00:02:49.060 --> 00:02:53.670 align:middle line:84% I tried to think of an image to represent that immensity 00:02:53.670 --> 00:02:58.590 align:middle line:90% of good and bad things in time. 00:02:58.590 --> 00:03:02.220 align:middle line:84% And I thought of the lights of an immense city 00:03:02.220 --> 00:03:03.810 align:middle line:84% if you're coming down in an airplane 00:03:03.810 --> 00:03:06.420 align:middle line:84% or if you're in a very high place. 00:03:06.420 --> 00:03:12.060 align:middle line:84% And every bowl is a human being that is either 00:03:12.060 --> 00:03:14.250 align:middle line:84% the literal ancestor of your body, 00:03:14.250 --> 00:03:18.910 align:middle line:84% or the ancestor of your speech, or your dress, or your music. 00:03:18.910 --> 00:03:24.380 align:middle line:90% And it's-- "The City Dark." 00:03:24.380 --> 00:03:27.650 align:middle line:90% 00:03:27.650 --> 00:03:31.570 align:middle line:90% "The City Dark" 00:03:31.570 --> 00:03:35.470 align:middle line:84% "In the early winter dusk, the broken city dark 00:03:35.470 --> 00:03:38.500 align:middle line:90% seeps from the tunnels. 00:03:38.500 --> 00:03:43.330 align:middle line:84% Up towers and in dusty alleys, the mathematical veil 00:03:43.330 --> 00:03:45.520 align:middle line:84% of generation has lit its torches 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:49.630 align:middle line:84% to light the rooms of the mated and unmated. 00:03:49.630 --> 00:03:53.170 align:middle line:84% The two fated behind you and four 00:03:53.170 --> 00:03:55.990 align:middle line:84% behind them in the matrix widening 00:03:55.990 --> 00:04:01.660 align:middle line:90% into the past, 8, 16, 32. 00:04:01.660 --> 00:04:07.510 align:middle line:84% Many as the crystal dream cells illuminating the city. 00:04:07.510 --> 00:04:13.730 align:middle line:84% Even for those who sleep in the street there are lights. 00:04:13.730 --> 00:04:18.140 align:middle line:84% Like a heavy winter sleep, the long flint cold of the past 00:04:18.140 --> 00:04:20.810 align:middle line:84% spreads over the glinting dream blisters 00:04:20.810 --> 00:04:24.530 align:middle line:90% of the sleep, asleep or awake. 00:04:24.530 --> 00:04:29.790 align:middle line:84% As if the streets were an image of the channels of time with 64, 00:04:29.790 --> 00:04:31.580 align:middle line:90% 128. 00:04:31.580 --> 00:04:35.360 align:middle line:84% The ancestral net of thousands only a couple of centuries 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:39.830 align:middle line:84% back with its migrations and fortunes and hungers. 00:04:39.830 --> 00:04:43.250 align:middle line:84% Like an image of the city, where the star dispelling 00:04:43.250 --> 00:04:45.210 align:middle line:84% lights have climbed and multiplied 00:04:45.210 --> 00:04:48.050 align:middle line:84% over the tenements and outlying suburbs. 00:04:48.050 --> 00:04:51.440 align:middle line:84% Like a far past of multitudes behind us 00:04:51.440 --> 00:04:56.180 align:middle line:84% in the glittering web of strands crossing thousands and Tens 00:04:56.180 --> 00:05:01.190 align:middle line:84% of thousands of lives coupled with their games, passions, 00:05:01.190 --> 00:05:04.130 align:middle line:90% misfortunes. 00:05:04.130 --> 00:05:09.340 align:middle line:84% Somewhere, in the tangled alleyways or rape. 00:05:09.340 --> 00:05:13.660 align:middle line:84% Somewhere, a spirit diffused wings like blind 00:05:13.660 --> 00:05:17.350 align:middle line:84% along the stretched wires branching the dark city air 00:05:17.350 --> 00:05:20.680 align:middle line:84% or bundled under the streets coursing surely 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:22.330 align:middle line:90% to some one face. 00:05:22.330 --> 00:05:32.230 align:middle line:84% Like an ancient song, do, re, re, la, so, so. 00:05:32.230 --> 00:05:34.810 align:middle line:90% Somewhere, misfortune. 00:05:34.810 --> 00:05:37.750 align:middle line:90% Somewhere, recognition. 00:05:37.750 --> 00:05:41.230 align:middle line:84% Back here, one died of starvation. 00:05:41.230 --> 00:05:44.650 align:middle line:90% Here, one thrived. 00:05:44.650 --> 00:05:48.040 align:middle line:84% Descendant, the bitter city work and 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:51.550 align:middle line:84% the shimmering maternal burden of music uncoil 00:05:51.550 --> 00:05:55.000 align:middle line:84% outward on the avenues through smoky bars 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:57.700 align:middle line:90% by televisions beyond sleepers. 00:05:57.700 --> 00:06:00.760 align:middle line:84% While the oblivion of generation radiates 00:06:00.760 --> 00:06:04.810 align:middle line:84% backward and then forward homeward to the one voice 00:06:04.810 --> 00:06:05.800 align:middle line:90% or face. 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:09.430 align:middle line:84% Like an underground pool through its delicate light 00:06:09.430 --> 00:06:13.420 align:middle line:84% shaft moonlit a cistern of light. 00:06:13.420 --> 00:06:17.470 align:middle line:84% Echoing in a chamber cellared under the dark of the city 00:06:17.470 --> 00:06:20.470 align:middle line:84% pavement, the faintly glittering slabs." 00:06:20.470 --> 00:06:24.262 align:middle line:90% 00:06:24.262 --> 00:06:25.720 align:middle line:84% Ever since I was a kid, I've always 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:28.270 align:middle line:90% loved the way the pavement has-- 00:06:28.270 --> 00:06:30.670 align:middle line:84% I guess, its bits of flint in it, and a certain lights 00:06:30.670 --> 00:06:31.212 align:middle line:90% that glitter. 00:06:31.212 --> 00:06:37.030 align:middle line:84% And little kids go laughing, giggling to pick them up. 00:06:37.030 --> 00:06:38.050 align:middle line:90% You know, everyone does. 00:06:38.050 --> 00:06:39.820 align:middle line:84% Any horror you can imagine happening 00:06:39.820 --> 00:06:44.290 align:middle line:84% in a city or any horror you can imagine. 00:06:44.290 --> 00:06:47.680 align:middle line:84% Everyone has an ancestor who died of starvation. 00:06:47.680 --> 00:06:49.212 align:middle line:90% I'm sure. 00:06:49.212 --> 00:06:50.920 align:middle line:84% Just as everyone probably has an ancestor 00:06:50.920 --> 00:06:52.960 align:middle line:90% who was a king and a slave. 00:06:52.960 --> 00:06:55.855 align:middle line:84% And we're all the products of rape. 00:06:55.855 --> 00:06:57.730 align:middle line:84% I sometimes worried that people misunderstand 00:06:57.730 --> 00:07:00.280 align:middle line:84% when I use the word rape several times in these recent poems. 00:07:00.280 --> 00:07:02.650 align:middle line:84% That they think I'm sexually interested by it. 00:07:02.650 --> 00:07:05.360 align:middle line:84% I find it not at all interesting. 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:07.360 align:middle line:84% In fact, really quite appalling idea. 00:07:07.360 --> 00:07:13.220 align:middle line:84% But it's interesting to me as an image of who we are. 00:07:13.220 --> 00:07:17.830 align:middle line:84% That one is the product of calamity. 00:07:17.830 --> 00:07:20.590 align:middle line:84% Some ethnic groups more recently than others perhaps, 00:07:20.590 --> 00:07:23.710 align:middle line:84% or some families more recently than others. 00:07:23.710 --> 00:07:30.200 align:middle line:84% If your grandmother lived through the Armenian nightmare 00:07:30.200 --> 00:07:31.640 align:middle line:90% or whatever. 00:07:31.640 --> 00:07:35.330 align:middle line:84% But still we all do do share that. 00:07:35.330 --> 00:07:38.960 align:middle line:84% Just as in our ingenuity that makes beautiful colors. 00:07:38.960 --> 00:07:42.140 align:middle line:84% And music that this light that comes here. 00:07:42.140 --> 00:07:48.545 align:middle line:84% The same ingenuity does produce germ warfare and interrogation 00:07:48.545 --> 00:07:49.920 align:middle line:84% of people when you put electrodes 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:52.060 align:middle line:84% in their testicles or the fillings in their teeth. 00:07:52.060 --> 00:07:55.470 align:middle line:90% It's all our cleverness. 00:07:55.470 --> 00:07:59.000 align:middle line:84% Just like the heroic couplet, Charlie Parker.