WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.260 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.260 --> 00:00:10.375 align:middle line:90% I'll go back to the recent book. 00:00:10.375 --> 00:00:17.210 align:middle line:90% 00:00:17.210 --> 00:00:20.094 align:middle line:84% I'll read a poem called "Forgiveness." 00:00:20.094 --> 00:00:29.390 align:middle line:90% 00:00:29.390 --> 00:00:32.720 align:middle line:84% The mind skitters, its one rudder 00:00:32.720 --> 00:00:35.240 align:middle line:90% Being its own voice. 00:00:35.240 --> 00:00:36.290 align:middle line:90% The great 00:00:36.290 --> 00:00:38.480 align:middle line:90% Fascist poet-- The great 00:00:38.480 --> 00:00:43.160 align:middle line:84% Fascist poet taught me free verse. 00:00:43.160 --> 00:00:46.880 align:middle line:84% Trying to concentrate on "The forgiving 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:49.760 align:middle line:84% Of an unforgivable crime" in a lecture 00:00:49.760 --> 00:00:53.870 align:middle line:84% By Emmanuel Levinas, I drift into 00:00:53.870 --> 00:00:58.550 align:middle line:90% Keely Smith being a Cherokee. 00:00:58.550 --> 00:01:02.540 align:middle line:84% "The desire for vers libre," says Ezra Pound 00:01:02.540 --> 00:01:05.650 align:middle line:84% In his hectoring way, is "quantity 00:01:05.650 --> 00:01:08.500 align:middle line:90% Reasserting itself after years 00:01:08.500 --> 00:01:10.570 align:middle line:90% Of starvation. 00:01:10.570 --> 00:01:12.070 align:middle line:90% Quantity. 00:01:12.070 --> 00:01:13.750 align:middle line:90% Reading that, I 00:01:13.750 --> 00:01:17.180 align:middle line:84% Got the idea-- just like in music, 00:01:17.180 --> 00:01:20.710 align:middle line:90% Longer is different from higher. 00:01:20.710 --> 00:01:23.320 align:middle line:90% Like with long "ee"s, 00:01:23.320 --> 00:01:26.290 align:middle line:90% And it was called "quantity"-- 00:01:26.290 --> 00:01:27.790 align:middle line:90% I could hear it. 00:01:27.790 --> 00:01:29.410 align:middle line:90% The third syllable 00:01:29.410 --> 00:01:34.336 align:middle line:84% Longer, the first one stressed by pitch: Cherokee. 00:01:34.336 --> 00:01:36.940 align:middle line:90% 00:01:36.940 --> 00:01:39.015 align:middle line:90% Bitterness. 00:01:39.015 --> 00:01:39.515 align:middle line:90% Popinjay. 00:01:39.515 --> 00:01:42.730 align:middle line:90% 00:01:42.730 --> 00:01:45.500 align:middle line:84% I'm giving you a little free verse lesson. 00:01:45.500 --> 00:01:49.000 align:middle line:90% I'll read those lines again. 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:52.880 align:middle line:84% That son of a bitch, Ezra Pound, he was such a terrible person. 00:01:52.880 --> 00:01:55.120 align:middle line:90% He's right about so many things. 00:01:55.120 --> 00:01:57.410 align:middle line:84% The third syllable, I could hear it 00:01:57.410 --> 00:01:59.450 align:middle line:90% The third syllable longer 00:01:59.450 --> 00:02:01.720 align:middle line:90% The first one stressed by pitch 00:02:01.720 --> 00:02:03.470 align:middle line:90% Bitterness. 00:02:03.470 --> 00:02:05.290 align:middle line:90% Cherokee. 00:02:05.290 --> 00:02:07.690 align:middle line:90% Popinjay. 00:02:07.690 --> 00:02:09.400 align:middle line:90% I don't pretend I was thinking 00:02:09.400 --> 00:02:12.380 align:middle line:84% About the Trail of Tears or any other 00:02:12.380 --> 00:02:14.370 align:middle line:90% Unforgivable crime. 00:02:14.370 --> 00:02:15.230 align:middle line:90% I was thinking 00:02:15.230 --> 00:02:17.450 align:middle line:90% About how well she imitates 00:02:17.450 --> 00:02:21.740 align:middle line:84% Louis Prima's pelvis-forward walk, mocking 00:02:21.740 --> 00:02:24.260 align:middle line:84% The magic of it while singing like 00:02:24.260 --> 00:02:26.660 align:middle line:84% An angel in a prom dress, and how 00:02:26.660 --> 00:02:28.970 align:middle line:84% Great it would be to write something 00:02:28.970 --> 00:02:32.870 align:middle line:90% That funny and impassioned. 00:02:32.870 --> 00:02:36.110 align:middle line:90% The cadences and qualities-- 00:02:36.110 --> 00:02:38.450 align:middle line:90% The cadences and quantities 00:02:38.450 --> 00:02:42.200 align:middle line:84% Of Pound's "Exile's Letter" break my heart 00:02:42.200 --> 00:02:45.080 align:middle line:90% As a ritual of truth, the remote 00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:49.190 align:middle line:90% Spoken ceremony of atonement. 00:02:49.190 --> 00:02:52.010 align:middle line:90% At the same time, I scorned 00:02:52.010 --> 00:02:55.100 align:middle line:84% The nostalgic celebration of drunken 00:02:55.100 --> 00:02:57.380 align:middle line:90% Friendship among exquisite 00:02:57.380 --> 00:03:01.490 align:middle line:84% Diplomats of an ancient ruling class. 00:03:01.490 --> 00:03:05.720 align:middle line:84% Starvation as a figure of speech! 00:03:05.720 --> 00:03:08.540 align:middle line:90% The airy dynamo of song 00:03:08.540 --> 00:03:12.080 align:middle line:90% Animates the shadows. 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:18.360 align:middle line:84% And speaking of shadows, who has a right to forgive? 00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:22.980 align:middle line:84% White soldiers took away the Arapahos' horses. 00:03:22.980 --> 00:03:26.220 align:middle line:84% In old Ukraine, the Nationalists first 00:03:26.220 --> 00:03:29.010 align:middle line:84% Mutilated some Jews, then made them 00:03:29.010 --> 00:03:31.470 align:middle line:90% Dance and sing naked before 00:03:31.470 --> 00:03:33.450 align:middle line:84% Killing them, as a way of showing 00:03:33.450 --> 00:03:36.130 align:middle line:84% What they'd like to do to the Poles, 00:03:36.130 --> 00:03:39.220 align:middle line:84% Or was it to the invading Germans. 00:03:39.220 --> 00:03:40.350 align:middle line:90% Is the point 00:03:40.350 --> 00:03:43.450 align:middle line:90% Humiliation beyond forgiveness? 00:03:43.450 --> 00:03:45.510 align:middle line:90% Do the damned impregnate 00:03:45.510 --> 00:03:47.220 align:middle line:90% The enslaved to make an 00:03:47.220 --> 00:03:49.120 align:middle line:90% Unforgivable point? 00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:52.080 align:middle line:90% Also to deny it? 00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:55.690 align:middle line:84% Even poor John Keats, in his letters, 00:03:55.690 --> 00:03:59.460 align:middle line:84% Enjoys a little minor Jew baiting. 00:03:59.460 --> 00:04:02.880 align:middle line:84% Who do I think I am to forgive him? 00:04:02.880 --> 00:04:05.550 align:middle line:90% After all, I am him. 00:04:05.550 --> 00:04:07.770 align:middle line:90% He too was the child 00:04:07.770 --> 00:04:11.370 align:middle line:84% Of a New Jersey optician and please do me 00:04:11.370 --> 00:04:14.280 align:middle line:84% A favor, don't tell me No he wasn't. 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:17.280 align:middle line:90% 00:04:17.280 --> 00:04:20.330 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:20.330 --> 00:04:22.000 align:middle line:90%