WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.050 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.050 --> 00:00:02.820 align:middle line:84% The next poem is a kind of attempt 00:00:02.820 --> 00:00:10.420 align:middle line:84% to take an ordinary artifact, and test the idea 00:00:10.420 --> 00:00:12.670 align:middle line:84% that if you look at it and think about its history 00:00:12.670 --> 00:00:15.823 align:middle line:84% and what made it, you find all this beauty and ugliness 00:00:15.823 --> 00:00:16.990 align:middle line:90% and everything that's human. 00:00:16.990 --> 00:00:18.820 align:middle line:84% That if you could understand enough 00:00:18.820 --> 00:00:23.410 align:middle line:84% about any ordinary conversation or theme, 00:00:23.410 --> 00:00:25.210 align:middle line:84% you would get-- finally you'd get down 00:00:25.210 --> 00:00:26.890 align:middle line:84% to the tortoise that supports the world. 00:00:26.890 --> 00:00:29.710 align:middle line:84% You would see everything through it-- 00:00:29.710 --> 00:00:30.520 align:middle line:90% underneath it. 00:00:30.520 --> 00:00:36.355 align:middle line:90% 00:00:36.355 --> 00:00:36.855 align:middle line:90% "Shirt." 00:00:36.855 --> 00:00:39.960 align:middle line:90% 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:42.990 align:middle line:84% This poem is in iambic pentameter for someone 00:00:42.990 --> 00:00:44.970 align:middle line:90% that has been-- 00:00:44.970 --> 00:00:46.380 align:middle line:90% you hardly get that anymore. 00:00:46.380 --> 00:00:49.835 align:middle line:90% 00:00:49.835 --> 00:00:50.335 align:middle line:90% "Shirt." 00:00:50.335 --> 00:00:53.020 align:middle line:90% 00:00:53.020 --> 00:00:58.810 align:middle line:90% The back, the yoke, the yardage. 00:00:58.810 --> 00:01:03.130 align:middle line:84% Lapped seams, the nearly invisible stitches 00:01:03.130 --> 00:01:05.470 align:middle line:84% along the collar turned in a sweatshop 00:01:05.470 --> 00:01:09.490 align:middle line:84% by Koreans or Malaysians gossiping over tea and noodles 00:01:09.490 --> 00:01:12.790 align:middle line:84% on their break or talking money or politics 00:01:12.790 --> 00:01:16.330 align:middle line:84% while one fitted this armpiece with its overseam 00:01:16.330 --> 00:01:21.080 align:middle line:84% to the band of cuff I button at my wrist. 00:01:21.080 --> 00:01:28.020 align:middle line:84% The presser, the cutter, the wringer, the mangle. 00:01:28.020 --> 00:01:34.890 align:middle line:84% The needle, the union, the treadle, the bobbin. 00:01:34.890 --> 00:01:36.660 align:middle line:90% The code. 00:01:36.660 --> 00:01:41.070 align:middle line:84% The infamous blaze at the Triangle Factory in 1911. 00:01:41.070 --> 00:01:46.260 align:middle line:84% 146 died in the flames on the ninth floor, 00:01:46.260 --> 00:01:50.460 align:middle line:90% no hydrants, no fire escapes-- 00:01:50.460 --> 00:01:53.220 align:middle line:84% The witness in the building across the street who 00:01:53.220 --> 00:01:55.740 align:middle line:84% watched how a young man helped a girl 00:01:55.740 --> 00:01:58.590 align:middle line:84% to step up to the windowsill, then 00:01:58.590 --> 00:02:04.130 align:middle line:84% held her out away from the masonry wall and let her drop. 00:02:04.130 --> 00:02:06.830 align:middle line:90% And then another. 00:02:06.830 --> 00:02:10.580 align:middle line:84% As if he were helping them up to enter a streetcar, 00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:13.790 align:middle line:90% and not eternity. 00:02:13.790 --> 00:02:18.860 align:middle line:84% A third before he dropped her put her arms around his neck 00:02:18.860 --> 00:02:21.260 align:middle line:90% and kissed him. 00:02:21.260 --> 00:02:27.380 align:middle line:84% Then he held her into space, and dropped her. 00:02:27.380 --> 00:02:33.800 align:middle line:84% Almost at once he stepped to the sill himself, his jacket flared 00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:38.960 align:middle line:84% and fluttered up from his shirt as he came down, air filling up 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:42.050 align:middle line:90% the legs of his gray trousers-- 00:02:42.050 --> 00:02:46.790 align:middle line:84% like Hart Crane's Bedlamite, "shrill shirt ballooning." 00:02:46.790 --> 00:02:49.360 align:middle line:90% 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:53.290 align:middle line:84% Wonderful how the pattern matches perfectly 00:02:53.290 --> 00:02:57.520 align:middle line:84% across the packet and over the twin bar-tacked corners 00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:03.720 align:middle line:84% of both pockets, like a strict rhyme or a major chord. 00:03:03.720 --> 00:03:11.880 align:middle line:84% Prints, plaids, checks, houndstooth, Tattersall, 00:03:11.880 --> 00:03:13.770 align:middle line:90% Madras. 00:03:13.770 --> 00:03:17.670 align:middle line:84% The clan tartans invented by mill-owners inspired 00:03:17.670 --> 00:03:21.360 align:middle line:84% by the hoax of Ossian, to control their savage Scottish 00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:25.380 align:middle line:84% workers, tamed by a fabricated heraldry-- 00:03:25.380 --> 00:03:29.730 align:middle line:90% MacGregor, Bailey, MacMartin. 00:03:29.730 --> 00:03:34.380 align:middle line:84% The kilt, devised for workers to wear among the dusty clattering 00:03:34.380 --> 00:03:36.300 align:middle line:90% looms. 00:03:36.300 --> 00:03:41.630 align:middle line:90% Weavers, carders, spinners. 00:03:41.630 --> 00:03:46.190 align:middle line:84% The loader, the docker, the navvy. 00:03:46.190 --> 00:03:49.730 align:middle line:84% The planter, the picker, the sorter sweating 00:03:49.730 --> 00:03:52.130 align:middle line:84% at her machine in a litter of cotton 00:03:52.130 --> 00:03:57.630 align:middle line:84% as slaves in calico headrags sweated in fields-- 00:03:57.630 --> 00:04:00.540 align:middle line:84% George Herbert, your descendant is 00:04:00.540 --> 00:04:04.410 align:middle line:84% a Black lady in South Carolina, her name is Irma 00:04:04.410 --> 00:04:07.950 align:middle line:90% and she inspected my shirt. 00:04:07.950 --> 00:04:12.360 align:middle line:84% Its color and fit and feel and its clean smell 00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:16.190 align:middle line:90% have satisfied both her and me. 00:04:16.190 --> 00:04:18.649 align:middle line:84% We have culled its cost and quality 00:04:18.649 --> 00:04:22.940 align:middle line:84% down to the buttons of simulated bone, the buttonholes, 00:04:22.940 --> 00:04:26.570 align:middle line:84% the sizing, the facing, the characters printed 00:04:26.570 --> 00:04:29.660 align:middle line:90% in black on neckband and tail. 00:04:29.660 --> 00:04:37.050 align:middle line:84% The shape, the label, the labor, the color, the shade. 00:04:37.050 --> 00:04:37.550 align:middle line:90% The shirt. 00:04:37.550 --> 00:04:40.832 align:middle line:90% 00:04:40.832 --> 00:04:44.311 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:44.311 --> 00:04:46.310 align:middle line:90% 00:04:46.310 --> 00:04:48.160 align:middle line:90% Thank you.