WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.340 align:middle line:84% It's an unusual poem for me in that 00:00:02.340 --> 00:00:05.550 align:middle line:84% I can tell you quite a lot about the making of the poem. 00:00:05.550 --> 00:00:09.870 align:middle line:84% I happen to be able to remember the genesis of that poem. 00:00:09.870 --> 00:00:15.210 align:middle line:84% I started out wanting to write a poem about an imaginary artist. 00:00:15.210 --> 00:00:19.990 align:middle line:84% I invented this woman who was a sculptor. 00:00:19.990 --> 00:00:24.250 align:middle line:84% And when she's small, her mother does piecework 00:00:24.250 --> 00:00:27.400 align:middle line:84% at home on a treadle sewing machine. 00:00:27.400 --> 00:00:32.830 align:middle line:84% And one of my grandfathers was a sort of jack-- 00:00:32.830 --> 00:00:35.950 align:middle line:84% the one who was not the bootlegger, the gentler man-- 00:00:35.950 --> 00:00:37.960 align:middle line:90% he was a window washer. 00:00:37.960 --> 00:00:39.790 align:middle line:90% He would fix a clock. 00:00:39.790 --> 00:00:42.570 align:middle line:84% He used to cut hair for the other old men at the shul. 00:00:42.570 --> 00:00:44.260 align:middle line:90% They looked awful. 00:00:44.260 --> 00:00:47.440 align:middle line:84% He never quite had a profession or success in life. 00:00:47.440 --> 00:00:50.650 align:middle line:84% Amongst the things he did, almost well enough, 00:00:50.650 --> 00:00:52.450 align:middle line:90% was tailoring. 00:00:52.450 --> 00:00:55.240 align:middle line:90% And a sewing machine-- 00:00:55.240 --> 00:00:57.460 align:middle line:84% those old sewing machines are very sculptural. 00:00:57.460 --> 00:00:59.090 align:middle line:90% They're very beautiful. 00:00:59.090 --> 00:01:02.260 align:middle line:84% There's this gilt [INAUDIBLE] on that black arm. 00:01:02.260 --> 00:01:03.850 align:middle line:84% And the arm is like a human limb. 00:01:03.850 --> 00:01:06.880 align:middle line:84% It has almost a muscle, the way it tapers and expands. 00:01:06.880 --> 00:01:10.840 align:middle line:84% And the combination of the wood and the black metal, 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:16.060 align:middle line:84% and then that industrial design, the way the wheel, and the gear, 00:01:16.060 --> 00:01:20.320 align:middle line:84% and the black ironwork of the treadle-- 00:01:20.320 --> 00:01:21.730 align:middle line:90% it's all very beautiful. 00:01:21.730 --> 00:01:22.900 align:middle line:90% It is sculptural. 00:01:22.900 --> 00:01:26.620 align:middle line:84% And in my imagination, this woman 00:01:26.620 --> 00:01:32.380 align:middle line:84% is making works that are based on her mother's sewing machine. 00:01:32.380 --> 00:01:36.220 align:middle line:84% And the deprivation of her childhood 00:01:36.220 --> 00:01:38.290 align:middle line:84% and the caretaking of them, somehow it's 00:01:38.290 --> 00:01:41.140 align:middle line:90% all in the sculpture. 00:01:41.140 --> 00:01:43.410 align:middle line:84% This is rather too elaborate a plan for a poem. 00:01:43.410 --> 00:01:45.480 align:middle line:90% I never wrote that poem. 00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:49.910 align:middle line:84% But in the course of writing the poem, 00:01:49.910 --> 00:01:53.120 align:middle line:84% I started thinking about the vocabulary for the parts 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:54.680 align:middle line:90% of those machines. 00:01:54.680 --> 00:02:01.970 align:middle line:84% And poems-- as in that famous dialogue between who is it, 00:02:01.970 --> 00:02:04.940 align:middle line:84% Degas and Valéry, Degas and Mallarmé where Degas says, 00:02:04.940 --> 00:02:07.190 align:middle line:84% we should collaborate on some poems, Stéphane, 00:02:07.190 --> 00:02:09.139 align:middle line:84% because I get a lot of good ideas for poems. 00:02:09.139 --> 00:02:12.350 align:middle line:84% And Mallarmé says, what a shame, poems aren't made out of ideas. 00:02:12.350 --> 00:02:14.570 align:middle line:90% They're made out of words. 00:02:14.570 --> 00:02:16.455 align:middle line:84% So the idea for the poem is not the poem. 00:02:16.455 --> 00:02:18.830 align:middle line:84% The poem starts being a poem when the sounds of the words 00:02:18.830 --> 00:02:19.910 align:middle line:90% mean something to you. 00:02:19.910 --> 00:02:21.770 align:middle line:84% And I had in mind, what are the parts? 00:02:21.770 --> 00:02:23.690 align:middle line:90% There's a bobbin. 00:02:23.690 --> 00:02:25.940 align:middle line:90% There's a needle, a treadle-- 00:02:25.940 --> 00:02:28.770 align:middle line:90% needle, treadle. 00:02:28.770 --> 00:02:33.360 align:middle line:84% What might go with bobbin the way needle goes with treadle? 00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:35.430 align:middle line:90% Union. 00:02:35.430 --> 00:02:39.720 align:middle line:84% And then I remembered the Shirtwaist fire. 00:02:39.720 --> 00:02:41.700 align:middle line:84% In the poem, I sort of plagiarize. 00:02:41.700 --> 00:02:44.510 align:middle line:84% I lift whole phrases from an account-- 00:02:44.510 --> 00:02:47.010 align:middle line:84% it's one of those wonderful things that might have happened, 00:02:47.010 --> 00:02:49.050 align:middle line:90% but might not have happened. 00:02:49.050 --> 00:02:51.390 align:middle line:84% There's a newspaper reporter who says 00:02:51.390 --> 00:02:54.930 align:middle line:84% an eyewitness, in a building across the street, 00:02:54.930 --> 00:02:55.920 align:middle line:90% saw a young man. 00:02:55.920 --> 00:02:58.500 align:middle line:84% No one has ever found that eyewitness. 00:02:58.500 --> 00:03:02.130 align:middle line:84% No one has ever determined whether that happened or not. 00:03:02.130 --> 00:03:05.060 align:middle line:84% I actually met a survivor of the fire. 00:03:05.060 --> 00:03:08.660 align:middle line:84% She was 100 years old when I met her-- 00:03:08.660 --> 00:03:10.460 align:middle line:90% Rose Friedman. 00:03:10.460 --> 00:03:15.030 align:middle line:84% And as an interesting footnote, she told me how she survived. 00:03:15.030 --> 00:03:18.410 align:middle line:84% She survived, she said, I followed the bosses. 00:03:18.410 --> 00:03:21.440 align:middle line:84% Certain guys went up a certain stairway, and then down-- 00:03:21.440 --> 00:03:23.840 align:middle line:84% she followed, she walked where they went. 00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:25.760 align:middle line:84% This is a little tip for you all. 00:03:25.760 --> 00:03:26.510 align:middle line:90% Follow the bosses. 00:03:26.510 --> 00:03:29.580 align:middle line:90% 00:03:29.580 --> 00:03:33.720 align:middle line:84% There's a wonderful book by Hobsbawm-- an English guy-- 00:03:33.720 --> 00:03:37.890 align:middle line:84% called The Invention of Tradition, in which he says, 00:03:37.890 --> 00:03:40.930 align:middle line:84% things people think are ancient and that pretend to be very, 00:03:40.930 --> 00:03:44.070 align:middle line:84% very ancient-- like the regalia and ceremony for the investiture 00:03:44.070 --> 00:03:46.660 align:middle line:84% of the King or Queen of England-- 00:03:46.660 --> 00:03:49.240 align:middle line:90% invented in the 19th century-- 00:03:49.240 --> 00:03:51.850 align:middle line:90% capitalistic fabrications. 00:03:51.850 --> 00:03:56.900 align:middle line:90% And according to him, the kilt-- 00:03:56.900 --> 00:03:59.540 align:middle line:84% he says the Highland Scots were not 00:03:59.540 --> 00:04:02.610 align:middle line:84% viewed as quite human by the English and the Lowland Scots. 00:04:02.610 --> 00:04:05.920 align:middle line:84% They were considered a kind of semi-human animal. 00:04:05.920 --> 00:04:08.170 align:middle line:84% And that's why after the Battle of Culloden, 00:04:08.170 --> 00:04:11.350 align:middle line:84% they could kill the children and women without a bat-- 00:04:11.350 --> 00:04:13.810 align:middle line:90% They were dangerous vermin. 00:04:13.810 --> 00:04:18.399 align:middle line:84% Then they tried to tame these animals to work in the mills. 00:04:18.399 --> 00:04:21.040 align:middle line:90% [GRUNTS]-- Highland Scots. 00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:23.410 align:middle line:84% And they wore these big bathrobes. 00:04:23.410 --> 00:04:25.600 align:middle line:84% They were accustomed to wearing big woolen robes. 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:28.950 align:middle line:84% Well, the robe would get stuck in the machinery. 00:04:28.950 --> 00:04:30.865 align:middle line:84% Then you get body parts in the machinery. 00:04:30.865 --> 00:04:31.740 align:middle line:90% You could lose hours. 00:04:31.740 --> 00:04:33.907 align:middle line:84% You could lose half a day getting the body parts out 00:04:33.907 --> 00:04:36.100 align:middle line:90% of the machinery. 00:04:36.100 --> 00:04:41.130 align:middle line:84% So they designed little mini skirts for them 00:04:41.130 --> 00:04:44.230 align:middle line:84% so they wouldn't get stuck in the mill machinery. 00:04:44.230 --> 00:04:48.210 align:middle line:84% And we always sentimentalize people that we oppress 00:04:48.210 --> 00:04:49.295 align:middle line:90% or exterminate. 00:04:49.295 --> 00:04:50.670 align:middle line:84% That's why we're very sentimental 00:04:50.670 --> 00:04:54.600 align:middle line:84% about the Native American, who loved the ecology, never hurt 00:04:54.600 --> 00:04:56.500 align:middle line:90% the environment. 00:04:56.500 --> 00:04:58.500 align:middle line:84% First of all, there's so many different nations. 00:04:58.500 --> 00:05:00.635 align:middle line:84% And were they really that nice to the environment? 00:05:00.635 --> 00:05:02.010 align:middle line:84% Were the grass fires good or not? 00:05:02.010 --> 00:05:04.080 align:middle line:90% It's a sentimentalization. 00:05:04.080 --> 00:05:08.020 align:middle line:84% That's why there's, today, Yiddish theater in Germany, 00:05:08.020 --> 00:05:12.190 align:middle line:84% performed in Yiddish by mostly Gentile actors. 00:05:12.190 --> 00:05:15.430 align:middle line:84% After we exterminate you, we sentimentalize you. 00:05:15.430 --> 00:05:19.423 align:middle line:84% So the Prince of Wales sees the little skirts. 00:05:19.423 --> 00:05:20.590 align:middle line:90% He says, oh, those are cool. 00:05:20.590 --> 00:05:23.020 align:middle line:84% I want my regiment to wear those. 00:05:23.020 --> 00:05:28.720 align:middle line:84% And the idea that each clan has a separate tartan-- 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:31.210 align:middle line:90% according to Hobsbawm, no. 00:05:31.210 --> 00:05:32.680 align:middle line:90% They made all kinds of patterns. 00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:33.940 align:middle line:90% It was marketing. 00:05:33.940 --> 00:05:36.820 align:middle line:84% It was a 19th century marketing genius who said, oh, 00:05:36.820 --> 00:05:39.130 align:middle line:84% that's the McGregor, this is the McCallum, 00:05:39.130 --> 00:05:42.160 align:middle line:84% so that then if you have any Scots descent or a Scots 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:45.670 align:middle line:84% surname, you can go into a snob clothing store somewhere like 00:05:45.670 --> 00:05:49.402 align:middle line:84% Princeton, New Jersey and say, oh, well I'm a McCallum. 00:05:49.402 --> 00:05:50.860 align:middle line:84% So I would like those jockey shorts 00:05:50.860 --> 00:05:52.150 align:middle line:90% with the McCallum pattern. 00:05:52.150 --> 00:05:54.960 align:middle line:90% It's all made up. 00:05:54.960 --> 00:05:59.940 align:middle line:84% So there was the Triangle Shirtwaist fire account. 00:05:59.940 --> 00:06:01.620 align:middle line:84% There was The Invention of Tradition, 00:06:01.620 --> 00:06:03.750 align:middle line:84% which then reminded me of the invention of Aschen, 00:06:03.750 --> 00:06:06.450 align:middle line:84% who was sort of an 18th century Carlos Castaneda. 00:06:06.450 --> 00:06:09.240 align:middle line:84% It's this ancient sage, who wasn't really an ancient sage, 00:06:09.240 --> 00:06:10.530 align:middle line:90% and poet. 00:06:10.530 --> 00:06:15.750 align:middle line:84% And making is a big part of the interest of that poem. 00:06:15.750 --> 00:06:20.910 align:middle line:84% It mentioned several poets, and by implication, how one is made. 00:06:20.910 --> 00:06:23.770 align:middle line:84% One is made of one's ancestors, but figurative, as well as 00:06:23.770 --> 00:06:24.270 align:middle line:90% literal. 00:06:24.270 --> 00:06:29.700 align:middle line:84% That is I am made by Jewish people, 00:06:29.700 --> 00:06:32.220 align:middle line:84% but I'm also made by George Herbert and everybody 00:06:32.220 --> 00:06:35.460 align:middle line:84% else who makes my language and my speech. 00:06:35.460 --> 00:06:38.830 align:middle line:84% So ancestry comes into it as well. 00:06:38.830 --> 00:06:42.153 align:middle line:84% And you may not be able to tell it at the moment, 00:06:42.153 --> 00:06:42.945 align:middle line:90% but I like clothes. 00:06:42.945 --> 00:06:46.970 align:middle line:90% 00:06:46.970 --> 00:06:51.300 align:middle line:84% You see before you a straight man who likes to shop. 00:06:51.300 --> 00:06:54.680 align:middle line:84% People ask me, did I do research for the poem "Shirt?" 00:06:54.680 --> 00:06:57.060 align:middle line:90% No, I know what a placket is-- 00:06:57.060 --> 00:07:02.180 align:middle line:84% Jack's shirt has a placket on it, and Gail's does not-- 00:07:02.180 --> 00:07:05.450 align:middle line:84% and bar tacking, and what a yoke is. 00:07:05.450 --> 00:07:08.150 align:middle line:84% I think poets, generally, tend to be interested in names 00:07:08.150 --> 00:07:09.770 align:middle line:90% of parts of things. 00:07:09.770 --> 00:07:13.340 align:middle line:84% Even though that's quite a modern light, 00:07:13.340 --> 00:07:16.850 align:middle line:84% the casement there, it has mullions. 00:07:16.850 --> 00:07:19.700 align:middle line:84% The vertical parts there are [INAUDIBLE]. 00:07:19.700 --> 00:07:23.690 align:middle line:84% And it doesn't have a parting bead because it doesn't move. 00:07:23.690 --> 00:07:26.000 align:middle line:90% But it does have a jamb-- 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:28.730 align:middle line:84% J-A-M-B. It has a head jamb and side jambs. 00:07:28.730 --> 00:07:32.030 align:middle line:84% And because its steel, it doesn't have big casing-- 00:07:32.030 --> 00:07:33.815 align:middle line:90% but blah, blah, blah. 00:07:33.815 --> 00:07:34.315 align:middle line:90%