1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:13,056 --> 00:00:16,755 Reading the poets has been the dullest of things. 4 00:00:16,799 --> 00:00:19,497 Even reading the great novelists of the past 5 00:00:19,541 --> 00:00:24,415 I said Tolstoy is supposed to be special. 6 00:00:24,459 --> 00:00:27,810 I go to bed I read "War and Peace," 7 00:00:27,853 --> 00:00:32,858 I read it and say where's the specialness in War and Peace? 8 00:00:32,902 --> 00:00:35,513 I really try to understand. 9 00:00:37,211 --> 00:00:39,169 I mean many of the great poets 10 00:00:39,213 --> 00:00:41,171 of the past I've read their stuff, 11 00:00:41,215 --> 00:00:43,173 I've read it and all I get 12 00:00:43,217 --> 00:00:46,394 is a god damned headache and boredom. 13 00:00:46,437 --> 00:00:49,049 I really feel sickness in the pit of my stomach 14 00:00:49,092 --> 00:00:52,008 and I say there's some trick going on here 15 00:00:52,052 --> 00:00:55,446 this is not true this is not real it's not good. 16 00:00:57,970 --> 00:01:02,279 You see poetry itself contains 17 00:01:02,323 --> 00:01:05,978 as much energy as a Hollywood industry 18 00:01:06,022 --> 00:01:10,896 as much energy as a stage play on Broadway. 19 00:01:10,940 --> 00:01:14,857 All it needs is practitioners who are alive 20 00:01:14,900 --> 00:01:16,685 to bring it alive. 21 00:01:16,728 --> 00:01:20,471 Poetry's always been said to be a private hidden art 22 00:01:20,515 --> 00:01:22,386 not appreciated. 23 00:01:22,430 --> 00:01:24,780 The reason it's not appreciated because it hasn't shown 24 00:01:24,823 --> 00:01:27,522 any guts it hasn't shown any dance 25 00:01:27,565 --> 00:01:29,654 it hasn't shown any moxie. 26 00:01:55,463 --> 00:01:59,858 I don't care for my life or anyone else's I'm my own man 27 00:01:59,902 --> 00:02:03,210 and in 5 or 6 years I'll be falling apart 28 00:02:03,253 --> 00:02:06,517 so I want $100 pledges and I want them 29 00:02:06,561 --> 00:02:08,519 as fast as they can come. 30 00:02:09,390 --> 00:02:12,915 Poetry, politics, pragmatism 31 00:02:12,958 --> 00:02:17,659 and friends I'm 41 and I'm just turning a buck. 32 00:02:17,702 --> 00:02:23,969 There's been a mutation in the possibilities of poetry 33 00:02:24,013 --> 00:02:26,233 and the possibilities of what poetry may be. 34 00:02:26,276 --> 00:02:28,191 There's been a definite mutation, 35 00:02:28,235 --> 00:02:31,890 new doorways, portals new possibilities have been opened 36 00:02:31,934 --> 00:02:35,111 and there's also been reconnections with traditions 37 00:02:35,155 --> 00:02:39,507 that our standard formal academic poetry 38 00:02:39,550 --> 00:02:40,986 lost it's connections with. 39 00:02:41,030 --> 00:02:43,163 We've made many connections with the future 40 00:02:43,206 --> 00:02:46,209 and we've made many connections with the past. 41 00:02:46,253 --> 00:02:49,473 At sight of his opponent he turns a pale green 42 00:02:49,517 --> 00:02:54,957 with fear and sometimes looses control of his bowels. 43 00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:58,003 Well as an old adage in showbiz, 44 00:02:58,047 --> 00:03:03,270 the worse the stage fright the better the performance. 45 00:03:03,313 --> 00:03:05,794 I like performing because if you really take it seriously 46 00:03:05,837 --> 00:03:08,362 one thing I've decided to do is if you take 47 00:03:08,405 --> 00:03:10,233 every second of performing extremely seriously 48 00:03:10,277 --> 00:03:14,498 and when you do that it all becomes, everything focuses 49 00:03:14,542 --> 00:03:20,112 all your hassles, all your metaphysical everything boils 50 00:03:20,156 --> 00:03:23,115 and turmoils down to this one 20, 30, 40 minute period 51 00:03:23,159 --> 00:03:27,555 where you...bring your art everything you have to say 52 00:03:27,598 --> 00:03:29,513 with all your intensity all it's fervor, 53 00:03:29,557 --> 00:03:32,647 all it's meaning all it's desire and onwardness 54 00:03:32,690 --> 00:03:34,823 everything focuses and funnels. 55 00:03:34,866 --> 00:03:38,827 Dance the original dance the original aboriginal dance 56 00:03:38,870 --> 00:03:41,482 of all time, challenge the contraction 57 00:03:41,525 --> 00:03:43,832 of perfected the pirouette with the sly knowing 58 00:03:43,875 --> 00:03:46,095 of hips that do right. 59 00:03:46,138 --> 00:03:50,534 Stretch till all the stars and sands of all our lands 60 00:03:50,578 --> 00:03:54,886 abandoned mingle in the wet heat sweat and grow warm. 61 00:03:54,930 --> 00:04:00,065 The Gods demand of the system that a certain number 62 00:04:00,109 --> 00:04:04,331 of people sing like the birds do, and it somehow 63 00:04:04,374 --> 00:04:07,508 was given to me to be one of those people 64 00:04:07,551 --> 00:04:10,772 and I did have a choice I could've decided not to be 65 00:04:10,815 --> 00:04:14,515 a truck driver or make films but I liked doing that 66 00:04:14,558 --> 00:04:19,084 and I feel that probably the major reason I write 67 00:04:19,128 --> 00:04:22,349 is to because the Gods might destroy-- 68 00:04:22,392 --> 00:04:24,307 The whole thing would collapse. 69 00:04:24,351 --> 00:04:25,700 The whole thing would fall apart I mean 70 00:04:25,743 --> 00:04:28,224 I'd lose my voice and song. 71 00:04:29,399 --> 00:04:33,534 When I was young the freshness of a single moment 72 00:04:33,577 --> 00:04:38,321 came to me with all hope all tangent wonder 73 00:04:38,365 --> 00:04:43,413 now I am one inexpertly in this body in this time. 74 00:04:43,457 --> 00:04:49,332 All generality there is no one here but words. 75 00:04:49,376 --> 00:04:52,509 What has to do with words and their meanings 76 00:04:52,553 --> 00:04:56,121 their sounds the musicality of words how do you make 77 00:04:56,165 --> 00:04:59,429 a kind of speech that is a high speech I call it you know, 78 00:04:59,473 --> 00:05:02,824 and how do you relate that to the rhythms 79 00:05:02,867 --> 00:05:06,218 that animate everything and that's I guess 80 00:05:06,262 --> 00:05:09,352 to all poets it's such a close intimate thing 81 00:05:09,396 --> 00:05:12,007 that you're barely able to really speak about that 82 00:05:12,050 --> 00:05:14,314 but I know it has to do with word science. 83 00:05:16,359 --> 00:05:18,492 Rothas Capital! 84 00:05:20,189 --> 00:05:22,191 Authored the Bible! 85 00:05:24,324 --> 00:05:28,328 Wrote Howl, wrote The Wealth of Nations! 86 00:05:29,633 --> 00:05:32,636 Humanity just wants a dance! 87 00:05:33,811 --> 00:05:38,207 If you don't wanna lead anyone in any subjective sense 88 00:05:38,250 --> 00:05:40,731 like push anything onto them you know 89 00:05:40,775 --> 00:05:43,647 I mean you could say you teach in a certain way 90 00:05:43,691 --> 00:05:49,087 but it's like putting light in people's eyes, you know, 91 00:05:49,131 --> 00:05:51,394 just opening the door but not showing them around 92 00:05:51,438 --> 00:05:54,136 and telling them this is the chair, this is the table 93 00:05:54,179 --> 00:05:56,399 you know, you just say here's a room 94 00:05:56,443 --> 00:05:57,618 and turning on the light. 95 00:06:34,524 --> 00:06:36,178 Amiri Baraka. 96 00:06:36,221 --> 00:06:49,409 [cheers] 97 00:06:49,452 --> 00:06:52,150 This is a poem for Larry Neal and Bob Marley, 98 00:06:52,194 --> 00:06:58,635 two...black cultural workers that we lost in 1981. 99 00:06:58,679 --> 00:07:10,995 ♪ 100 00:07:11,039 --> 00:07:12,606 Wailers, are we. 101 00:07:13,433 --> 00:07:15,435 We are wailers. 102 00:07:18,438 --> 00:07:20,265 Don't get scared, 103 00:07:20,309 --> 00:07:23,312 nothing happening but out and way out. 104 00:07:25,532 --> 00:07:27,882 Nothing happening but the positive 105 00:07:27,925 --> 00:07:30,972 unless you the negative. 106 00:07:31,015 --> 00:07:34,758 Whalers, we whalers, yeah whalers! 107 00:07:34,802 --> 00:07:38,327 We whale we whale! 108 00:07:38,370 --> 00:07:40,721 We could dig Melville on his ship confronting 109 00:07:40,764 --> 00:07:45,552 the huge white mad beast speeding death across the sea. 110 00:07:45,595 --> 00:07:49,033 But we whalers we can kill whales, 111 00:07:49,077 --> 00:07:53,081 we could get on top of a whale and whale. 112 00:07:53,124 --> 00:07:57,389 Whalers undersea defense hot folk, 113 00:07:57,433 --> 00:08:00,784 blues babies humming when we arrive. 114 00:08:00,828 --> 00:08:04,440 Boogie ladies strumming our black violet souls. 115 00:08:04,484 --> 00:08:08,575 Rag Daddies come from the land of never say die. 116 00:08:08,618 --> 00:08:13,144 Reggae workers bringing the funk to the people of eye. 117 00:08:13,188 --> 00:08:17,671 We whalers alright. 118 00:08:17,714 --> 00:08:19,934 Hail to you Bob man 119 00:08:19,977 --> 00:08:23,372 we will ask your question all our lives, 120 00:08:23,415 --> 00:08:25,679 could you be loved? 121 00:08:29,509 --> 00:08:32,903 I and I understand we see the world, 122 00:08:32,947 --> 00:08:36,603 I's and I's say yes to transformation. 123 00:08:36,646 --> 00:08:39,780 Whalers I whalers! 124 00:08:39,823 --> 00:08:42,522 Subterranean night colour magize 125 00:08:42,565 --> 00:08:45,655 working inside the soul of the world. 126 00:08:45,699 --> 00:08:51,792 Whalers, eyes seeing the world's being. 127 00:08:51,835 --> 00:08:55,709 Hey Bob, whale on rock on ya'll come into us 128 00:08:55,752 --> 00:08:58,625 as real vision and action hey Larry, whale on with Lester 129 00:08:58,668 --> 00:09:00,975 and your pork pie whaling us energy 130 00:09:01,018 --> 00:09:04,718 for truth we whalers is all. 131 00:09:04,761 --> 00:09:06,415 Lie on me if you want to. 132 00:09:06,458 --> 00:09:10,071 Tell folks it's yours but for real whaling 133 00:09:10,114 --> 00:09:13,857 not tale telling the sensitive know who the whalers be. 134 00:09:13,901 --> 00:09:19,602 Be we, we we whalers blue blowers the real rhythm kings. 135 00:09:19,646 --> 00:09:23,867 We sing philosophy, hand bone precise findings, 136 00:09:23,911 --> 00:09:26,566 image master of the sincopater.. 137 00:09:26,609 --> 00:09:29,481 Whalers and drummers, whalers and trumpet stars, 138 00:09:29,525 --> 00:09:33,355 whalers and rocks cookers, whalers and sax players, 139 00:09:33,398 --> 00:09:37,794 whalers and bass thumpers. 140 00:09:37,838 --> 00:09:41,537 Whalers, hey whale we we whalers! 141 00:09:41,581 --> 00:09:44,235 Trombone benders, magic singers, 142 00:09:44,279 --> 00:09:49,371 illingtonians the only trains faster than rocket ships, 143 00:09:49,414 --> 00:09:51,765 shit put a rocket in our pocket and put a quart 144 00:09:51,808 --> 00:09:55,159 on the wall of the wind, whalers! 145 00:09:55,203 --> 00:09:57,161 Can you dig whaling? 146 00:09:57,205 --> 00:10:00,904 Call me Bud Powell. 147 00:10:00,948 --> 00:10:03,385 You wanna imitate this? 148 00:10:03,428 --> 00:10:05,387 Listen. 149 00:10:05,430 --> 00:10:08,042 [scatting] 150 00:10:10,479 --> 00:10:18,052 My calling card the dialectic of silence, sound approach. 151 00:10:18,095 --> 00:10:20,097 Life one day will be filled even further 152 00:10:20,141 --> 00:10:22,665 with the numbers we sung, but primitive place 153 00:10:22,709 --> 00:10:27,539 now we whaling be kept underground. 154 00:10:27,583 --> 00:10:30,455 But keep it in mind, call me something dukey 155 00:10:30,499 --> 00:10:36,636 something sassy call me by my real name. 156 00:10:36,679 --> 00:10:39,508 When the world change will whaling be in it, 157 00:10:39,551 --> 00:10:44,382 help make it for real time. 158 00:10:44,426 --> 00:10:49,649 Call me, I'll call you, we call we say hey whalers , 159 00:10:49,692 --> 00:10:52,390 hey whalers, hey hey hey whalers! 160 00:10:52,434 --> 00:10:54,001 Whale on! 161 00:10:54,044 --> 00:11:04,098 ♪ 162 00:11:04,098 --> 00:11:11,148 ♪ 163 00:11:11,409 --> 00:11:13,498 Narrator: Anne Waldman. 164 00:11:13,542 --> 00:11:16,980 Look what thoughts will do, look what words will do 165 00:11:17,024 --> 00:11:20,288 from nothing to the face from nothing to the root 166 00:11:20,331 --> 00:11:23,204 of the tounge from nothing to speaking of empty space 167 00:11:23,247 --> 00:11:27,512 I bind the ash tree I bind the you I bind the willow 168 00:11:27,556 --> 00:11:30,951 I bind uranium I bind the uneconomical 169 00:11:30,994 --> 00:11:33,823 unrenewable energy of uranium 170 00:11:33,867 --> 00:11:36,565 dash the uranium to empty space. 171 00:11:36,608 --> 00:11:39,742 I bind the colour red I seduce the colour red 172 00:11:39,786 --> 00:11:42,832 to empty space I put the sunset in empty space, 173 00:11:42,876 --> 00:11:46,183 I take the blue of his eyes and make an offering 174 00:11:46,227 --> 00:11:48,359 to empty space renewable blue. 175 00:11:48,403 --> 00:11:50,405 I take the green of everything coming to life, 176 00:11:50,448 --> 00:11:53,582 it grows and climbs into empty space, 177 00:11:53,625 --> 00:11:56,193 I put the white of the snow at the foot of empty space. 178 00:11:56,237 --> 00:11:58,369 I clasp the yellow of the cat's eyes 179 00:11:58,413 --> 00:12:01,372 sitting in the black space, I clasp them to my heart 180 00:12:01,416 --> 00:12:02,939 empty space. 181 00:12:02,983 --> 00:12:05,899 I want the brown of this floor to rise up into empty space, 182 00:12:05,942 --> 00:12:08,075 take the floor apart to find the brown 183 00:12:08,118 --> 00:12:10,860 bind it up again under spell of empty space. 184 00:12:10,904 --> 00:12:14,385 I wanna take this old wall apart I am rich in my mind 185 00:12:14,429 --> 00:12:16,997 thinking of this I am thinking of putting makeup 186 00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:21,392 on empty space everything crumbles around empty space 187 00:12:21,436 --> 00:12:26,049 the thin dry we crumbles the milk we blown into empty space 188 00:12:26,093 --> 00:12:29,618 I bind the stars reflected in your eye from nothing 189 00:12:29,661 --> 00:12:33,230 to these typing fingers from nothing to the legs 190 00:12:33,274 --> 00:12:36,581 of the elk from nothing to the neck of the deer 191 00:12:36,625 --> 00:12:38,975 from nothing to porcelain teeth from nothing 192 00:12:39,019 --> 00:12:42,457 to the fine stand of pine in the forrest. 193 00:12:42,500 --> 00:12:44,938 I keep the going when I put the water on 194 00:12:44,981 --> 00:12:47,592 when I let the water run sweeping together 195 00:12:47,636 --> 00:12:49,812 in empty space there is a better way 196 00:12:49,856 --> 00:12:51,727 to say empty space, 197 00:12:51,771 --> 00:12:54,686 turn yourself inside out and you might disappear 198 00:12:54,730 --> 00:12:57,602 you have a new definition in empty space. 199 00:12:57,646 --> 00:13:00,475 What I like about impermanence is the clash 200 00:13:00,518 --> 00:13:02,956 of my big body with empty space, 201 00:13:02,999 --> 00:13:05,393 I am putting a floor back together again, 202 00:13:05,436 --> 00:13:08,396 I am rebuilding the wall, I am slapping mortar 203 00:13:08,439 --> 00:13:10,833 on the bricks, I am fastening the machine together 204 00:13:10,877 --> 00:13:12,443 with delicate wire. 205 00:13:12,487 --> 00:13:16,273 There is no eternal thread but there is thread of pure gold, 206 00:13:16,317 --> 00:13:19,799 I am starting to sing inside about empty space 207 00:13:19,842 --> 00:13:23,585 there is some new detail every time I am taping the picture 208 00:13:23,628 --> 00:13:26,240 I love so well on the wall two parrots seated 209 00:13:26,283 --> 00:13:28,503 on a lampshade on a jungle flower 210 00:13:28,546 --> 00:13:31,071 everything illuminated out of empty space. 211 00:13:31,114 --> 00:13:33,725 I hang the black linen dress on my body, 212 00:13:33,769 --> 00:13:38,382 the hanging night, the drifting night the moaning night, 213 00:13:38,426 --> 00:13:41,472 daughter of troubled sleep this occurs to me 214 00:13:41,516 --> 00:13:45,563 I hang up a mirror to catch stars everything occurs to me 215 00:13:45,607 --> 00:13:48,871 out in the night in my skull of empty space. 216 00:13:48,915 --> 00:13:52,788 I go outside in starry ice, I build up the house again 217 00:13:52,832 --> 00:13:55,878 in memory of empty space, this occurs to me 218 00:13:55,922 --> 00:14:00,448 about empty space that it is never to be mentioned again. 219 00:14:00,491 --> 00:14:09,413 [cheers] 220 00:14:10,023 --> 00:14:12,373 I put my poems in a space between myself 221 00:14:12,416 --> 00:14:14,941 and other people and when I'm reading them 222 00:14:14,984 --> 00:14:17,857 I'm not the poet I'm the reader and my job 223 00:14:17,900 --> 00:14:21,382 is to read them correct with accurate right 224 00:14:21,425 --> 00:14:23,645 to do the justice to do them right. 225 00:14:25,647 --> 00:14:29,390 This is called "Whitman in Black." 226 00:14:29,433 --> 00:14:33,437 For my sins, I live in the city of New York. 227 00:14:33,481 --> 00:14:37,485 Whitman's City lived in in Melville's census. 228 00:14:37,528 --> 00:14:41,968 Urban inferno where love can stay for only a minute 229 00:14:42,011 --> 00:14:45,406 then has to go to get some work done. 230 00:14:45,449 --> 00:14:50,411 Here the detective and the small time criminal are one. 231 00:14:50,454 --> 00:14:55,416 And though the cases get solved the machine continues to run. 232 00:14:55,459 --> 00:14:59,159 Big town will weigh you down but it's only here 233 00:14:59,202 --> 00:15:05,513 you can turn around 360 degrees and everything is clear 234 00:15:05,556 --> 00:15:08,690 from here at the centre to every point 235 00:15:08,733 --> 00:15:11,519 along this circle of horizon. 236 00:15:11,562 --> 00:15:16,002 Here you can see for miles and miles and miles. 237 00:15:16,045 --> 00:15:22,443 Be born again daily die nightly for a change of style. 238 00:15:22,486 --> 00:15:27,535 Here, clearly here see with affection, 239 00:15:27,578 --> 00:15:30,668 bleakly cultivate compassion. 240 00:15:30,712 --> 00:15:34,542 Whitman's walk, unchanged after it's fashion. 241 00:15:39,590 --> 00:15:42,854 My poems can be indentified, they have a touch that is mine, 242 00:15:42,898 --> 00:15:46,989 several touches and you can't know anything more 243 00:15:47,033 --> 00:15:49,557 about any single poem of mine by knowing me 244 00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:54,388 than you can know from the poem 245 00:15:54,431 --> 00:15:57,347 though you can know something more from hearing my voice. 246 00:15:57,391 --> 00:16:00,002 If you've only ever seen the poems on the page 247 00:16:00,046 --> 00:16:03,397 and then you hear me read one of them that will-- 248 00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:04,354 Open up some-- 249 00:16:04,398 --> 00:16:06,052 That will open up something, 250 00:16:06,095 --> 00:16:08,141 I never thought Al Ginsburg was a very good poet 251 00:16:08,184 --> 00:16:09,446 until I heard him read. 252 00:16:09,490 --> 00:16:11,709 I mean his poems looked messy to me, sloppy, 253 00:16:11,753 --> 00:16:14,799 I was coming up in a tradition when still things were tighter 254 00:16:14,843 --> 00:16:18,281 and I wanted to change and be new as well 255 00:16:18,325 --> 00:16:21,197 but of course I thought well this guy's so wordy 256 00:16:21,241 --> 00:16:23,895 there's so many words and then I heard Alan Reid 257 00:16:23,939 --> 00:16:27,029 and then I suddenly recognized this is the bar, 258 00:16:27,073 --> 00:16:29,292 this was the great voice lifted. 259 00:16:36,169 --> 00:16:47,354 Kenward Elmslie. 260 00:16:47,397 --> 00:16:53,229 Used to be when it poured down cats and dogs, 261 00:16:56,711 --> 00:17:07,417 I'd go prop up apple branches and talk pretty to the hogs. 262 00:17:07,461 --> 00:17:11,987 Laughing at the thunder, watching lighting streak 263 00:17:12,031 --> 00:17:16,209 naked as a jay bird I plunge into the creek 264 00:17:16,252 --> 00:17:27,002 what I wanna know is when my high times way. 265 00:17:27,046 --> 00:17:34,444 Who propped me up in the rain? 266 00:17:36,838 --> 00:17:43,062 Used to be I'd find skulls with giant jaws. 267 00:17:46,543 --> 00:17:54,682 I'd find porcupines of bone, and old turkey buzzard claws. 268 00:17:57,076 --> 00:18:01,863 Prowling in the back woods through a dark ravine 269 00:18:01,906 --> 00:18:06,607 naked as a jay bird back when I was green. 270 00:18:06,650 --> 00:18:16,704 What I wanna know is when I'm dead and gone. 271 00:18:16,747 --> 00:18:24,668 Who'll shake it's head in the dawn. 272 00:18:26,540 --> 00:18:31,545 Some bumbling bird who picked me up 273 00:18:31,588 --> 00:18:36,463 turned me around peck a bit. 274 00:18:36,506 --> 00:18:48,170 Stare a while and start to smile at my remains. 275 00:18:48,214 --> 00:18:58,746 What I wanna know is when my high times way. 276 00:18:58,789 --> 00:19:06,536 Who propped me up in the rain? 277 00:19:12,412 --> 00:19:23,510 All I wanna know is when the good times end. 278 00:19:23,553 --> 00:19:33,607 Who'll say come on in my friend. 279 00:19:33,607 --> 00:19:39,308 Who'll say come on in my friend. 280 00:19:39,352 --> 00:19:46,359 [cheers] 281 00:19:46,402 --> 00:19:47,795 Narrator: Ed Sanders. 282 00:19:47,838 --> 00:19:50,580 The always redound triad you know there's phanopia, 283 00:19:50,624 --> 00:19:52,582 melopia and logopia. 284 00:19:54,280 --> 00:19:56,456 Phanopia's the way it looks on the page 285 00:19:56,499 --> 00:19:59,589 and I bring argils to that in drawing and stuff 286 00:19:59,633 --> 00:20:02,766 and melopia is how it sounds. 287 00:20:02,810 --> 00:20:06,683 Melopia's where the muse comes in 288 00:20:06,727 --> 00:20:10,034 I think there has to be another muse invented 289 00:20:10,078 --> 00:20:13,951 for the electromagnetic era what I call retentia 290 00:20:13,995 --> 00:20:16,476 for the retained image on tape or on film 291 00:20:16,519 --> 00:20:20,436 or on microdisk or whatever and I just think 292 00:20:20,480 --> 00:20:24,527 it's important to be able to perform your poetry well 293 00:20:24,571 --> 00:20:27,791 as well as for it to look good on the page 294 00:20:27,835 --> 00:20:31,360 which is phanopia and for it to appear 295 00:20:31,404 --> 00:20:33,623 well in the mind which is logopia. 296 00:20:48,247 --> 00:20:50,423 That's called a talking tie. 297 00:20:50,466 --> 00:20:51,815 It just goes back to performing, 298 00:20:51,859 --> 00:20:54,557 in ancient times they had a little 4 or 7 string 299 00:20:54,601 --> 00:20:56,516 tortoise shell liar the tortoise shell 300 00:20:56,559 --> 00:20:59,432 as the sounding board and little cow horn 301 00:20:59,475 --> 00:21:04,350 or wooden arms and then a crossbar 302 00:21:04,393 --> 00:21:06,308 for the strings and the poet would sit there 303 00:21:06,352 --> 00:21:11,531 with a plectrum or something to strum his keys the strings 304 00:21:11,574 --> 00:21:14,751 and would perform his poetry and it was this hypnotic, 305 00:21:14,795 --> 00:21:16,666 revering type of verse that people would listen 306 00:21:16,710 --> 00:21:22,150 to hours and hours these dactyls da da da da da da 307 00:21:22,193 --> 00:21:24,413 and they'd listen to it over and over 308 00:21:24,457 --> 00:21:28,548 and I was interested in building a modern instrument 309 00:21:28,591 --> 00:21:30,332 an electronic instrument that was small 310 00:21:30,376 --> 00:21:32,247 and wouldn't overwhelm the poetry, 311 00:21:32,291 --> 00:21:34,423 so I got these little tune synthesizers 312 00:21:34,467 --> 00:21:36,469 two of them one for each hand 313 00:21:36,512 --> 00:21:38,209 with the keyboards on the fingers. 314 00:21:38,514 --> 00:21:40,081 The genius was 81. 315 00:21:40,124 --> 00:21:42,475 [synthesizer] 316 00:21:42,518 --> 00:21:44,433 Fearful of blindness. 317 00:21:44,477 --> 00:21:45,826 [synthesizer] 318 00:21:45,869 --> 00:21:47,654 Caught in a wheelchair. 319 00:21:47,697 --> 00:21:49,525 [synthesizer] 320 00:21:49,569 --> 00:21:50,526 Staring at death. 321 00:21:50,570 --> 00:21:52,354 [synthesizer] 322 00:21:52,398 --> 00:21:53,834 But the angel of mercy, 323 00:21:53,877 --> 00:21:55,488 [synthesizer] 324 00:21:55,531 --> 00:21:56,967 had gave him a year 325 00:21:57,011 --> 00:21:58,752 [synthesizer] 326 00:21:58,795 --> 00:22:00,449 to scissor some shapes 327 00:22:00,493 --> 00:22:02,233 [synthesizer] 328 00:22:02,277 --> 00:22:04,497 to sooth the scythe. 329 00:22:04,540 --> 00:22:06,847 [synthesizer] 330 00:22:06,890 --> 00:22:09,632 One must study an object a long time the genious said 331 00:22:09,676 --> 00:22:12,548 to know what its sign is. 332 00:22:12,592 --> 00:22:20,687 [synthesizer] 333 00:22:20,730 --> 00:22:24,560 The scissors were his septor and the cutting 334 00:22:24,604 --> 00:22:28,521 was as the prow of a boat to sail him away. 335 00:22:28,564 --> 00:22:29,565 [synthesizer] 336 00:22:29,609 --> 00:22:30,392 To sail him away. 337 00:22:30,436 --> 00:22:31,698 [synthesizer] 338 00:22:31,741 --> 00:22:32,699 To sail him away. 339 00:22:32,742 --> 00:22:34,396 [synthesizer] 340 00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:36,572 There's a photographer which shows him. 341 00:22:36,616 --> 00:22:38,618 [synthesizer] 342 00:22:38,661 --> 00:22:40,097 Sitting in his wheelchair. 343 00:22:40,141 --> 00:22:42,317 [synthesizer] 344 00:22:42,361 --> 00:22:43,884 Bare foot touching the floor. 345 00:22:43,927 --> 00:22:45,929 [synthesizer] 346 00:22:45,973 --> 00:22:48,018 Drawing with crisscross steel. 347 00:22:48,062 --> 00:22:49,890 [synthesizer] 348 00:22:49,933 --> 00:22:51,195 A shape in the quash. 349 00:22:51,239 --> 00:22:56,549 [synthesizer] 350 00:22:56,592 --> 00:22:58,072 His helper sits near him. 351 00:22:58,115 --> 00:22:59,508 [synthesizer] 352 00:22:59,552 --> 00:23:00,770 Till he hands her the form. 353 00:23:00,814 --> 00:23:02,555 [synthesizer] 354 00:23:02,598 --> 00:23:03,947 To pin to the wall. 355 00:23:03,991 --> 00:23:05,253 [synthesizer] 356 00:23:05,296 --> 00:23:06,646 He points with a stick. 357 00:23:06,689 --> 00:23:08,212 [synthesizer] 358 00:23:08,256 --> 00:23:09,605 How he wants it adjusted. 359 00:23:09,649 --> 00:23:11,172 [synthesizer] 360 00:23:11,215 --> 00:23:12,434 This way and that. 361 00:23:12,478 --> 00:23:13,957 [synthesizer] 362 00:23:14,001 --> 00:23:15,611 My new todoness. 363 00:23:15,655 --> 00:23:17,004 [synthesizer] 364 00:23:17,047 --> 00:23:18,048 The last. 365 00:23:18,092 --> 00:23:19,136 [synthesizer] 366 00:23:19,180 --> 00:23:19,920 Blue. 367 00:23:19,963 --> 00:23:20,399 [synthesizer] 368 00:23:20,442 --> 00:23:21,312 Iris. 369 00:23:21,356 --> 00:23:21,965 [synthesizer] 370 00:23:22,009 --> 00:23:22,705 Blooms. 371 00:23:22,749 --> 00:23:23,576 [synthesizer] 372 00:23:23,619 --> 00:23:25,012 At the top of it's stock. 373 00:23:25,055 --> 00:23:34,064 [synthesizer] 374 00:23:35,326 --> 00:23:40,027 Scissor, septor, cutting, prow. 375 00:23:40,070 --> 00:23:44,684 Scissor, septor, cutting, prow. 376 00:23:44,727 --> 00:23:49,384 Scissor, septor, cutting, prow. 377 00:23:49,428 --> 00:23:58,698 [synthesizer] 378 00:23:58,741 --> 00:24:03,442 ♪ Keep those scissors flashing in the world ♪ 379 00:24:03,485 --> 00:24:12,755 ♪ of forms on remetice. ♪ 380 00:24:12,799 --> 00:24:21,503 ♪ Ahhhhhhhh... 381 00:24:21,547 --> 00:24:24,506 ♪ The cutting of the scissor was the prow ♪ 382 00:24:24,550 --> 00:24:30,077 ♪ of a boat to sail him away. ♪ 383 00:24:30,120 --> 00:24:34,037 ♪ The last blue iris blooms at the top ♪ 384 00:24:34,081 --> 00:24:38,564 ♪ on a warm spring day. ♪ 385 00:24:38,607 --> 00:24:43,046 ♪ Keep those scissors flashing in the world ♪ 386 00:24:43,090 --> 00:24:51,402 ♪ of forms on remetice. ♪ 387 00:24:51,446 --> 00:25:00,281 ♪ Ahhhhhhhh,,, 388 00:25:00,324 --> 00:25:09,725 ♪ Sitting in a wheelchair bare foot touching the floor. ♪ 389 00:25:09,769 --> 00:25:20,388 ♪ Angel of mercy pushed him over next to Plato's door. ♪ 390 00:25:20,431 --> 00:25:31,530 ♪ Ahhhhhhhhh... 391 00:25:31,573 --> 00:25:39,494 ♪ Scissor, septor, cutting, prow. ♪ 392 00:25:39,538 --> 00:25:46,980 ♪ Scissor, septor, cutting, prow. ♪ 393 00:25:47,023 --> 00:25:59,035 ♪ Scissor, septor, cutting, prow on remetice. ♪ 394 00:25:59,079 --> 00:26:05,607 ♪ On... 395 00:26:05,651 --> 00:26:10,830 ♪ On... 396 00:26:10,873 --> 00:26:15,617 ♪ Oooooooo... 397 00:26:15,661 --> 00:26:19,882 ♪ Ahhhhhh... 398 00:26:19,926 --> 00:26:24,365 ♪ Oooooooo... 399 00:26:24,408 --> 00:26:31,372 ♪ On remetice. 400 00:26:31,415 --> 00:26:40,424 ♪ Ahhhhhhhh. ♪ 401 00:26:42,035 --> 00:26:44,385 Narrator: Hellen Adam. 402 00:26:44,428 --> 00:26:48,258 Cheerless Junkie's song Seeking love upon the day 403 00:26:48,302 --> 00:26:53,046 a day of summer's pride, I left long island suburbs 404 00:26:53,089 --> 00:26:54,917 for lower east side. 405 00:26:54,961 --> 00:26:56,615 The train it roared and thundered 406 00:26:56,658 --> 00:26:59,095 and I sat above it's scream, 407 00:26:59,139 --> 00:27:00,967 there's a cockroach coming towards me 408 00:27:01,010 --> 00:27:03,665 but it cannot spoil my dream. 409 00:27:03,709 --> 00:27:11,325 Love love and LSD it shall not spoil my dream. 410 00:27:11,368 --> 00:27:15,677 Blue moonlight over Tompkins Square drop out into dawn. 411 00:27:15,721 --> 00:27:20,464 The village all around me and long island suburbs gone. 412 00:27:20,508 --> 00:27:25,818 In a pad far down on 4th street soon I welcome the approach 413 00:27:25,861 --> 00:27:27,907 of the rat that loves the twilight 414 00:27:27,950 --> 00:27:30,692 and the nimble footed roach. 415 00:27:30,736 --> 00:27:37,873 Love love at even tide the gray rat and the roach. 416 00:27:37,917 --> 00:27:42,617 I'm always where the action is I blow my mind 417 00:27:42,661 --> 00:27:46,447 all day while on long island's tennis courts 418 00:27:46,490 --> 00:27:48,579 the bland suburban's play. 419 00:27:48,623 --> 00:27:53,715 And I respond suburban who'd ever credit that. 420 00:27:53,759 --> 00:27:58,459 No chick who saw me frogging with the cockroach and the rat. 421 00:27:58,502 --> 00:28:03,899 It's ho for horse or methodrine to spark the swinging mood, 422 00:28:03,943 --> 00:28:07,424 while rats run up my trouser legs 423 00:28:07,468 --> 00:28:09,688 roaches share my food. 424 00:28:09,731 --> 00:28:14,780 Rats and roaches nuzzle me when it's dark and hot 425 00:28:14,823 --> 00:28:19,785 love love it's all the same mixing speed and pot 426 00:28:19,828 --> 00:28:26,182 first a rat and then a roach are both as light as not 427 00:28:26,226 --> 00:28:31,622 if I can't find a fix tonight my marrow bones will rot. 428 00:28:32,406 --> 00:28:38,499 Goodbye transcendent Tompkins Square I haven't long to stay 429 00:28:38,542 --> 00:28:43,765 a double jolt of heroin and I'll be on my way. 430 00:28:43,809 --> 00:28:49,031 Let rats and roaches bury me they'll bury me in state, 431 00:28:49,075 --> 00:28:55,211 as they march from their azono bridge down to the golden gate 432 00:28:55,255 --> 00:29:01,000 clear across the continent yonder let me lie. 433 00:29:01,043 --> 00:29:06,657 In the gutters of Hatashbury to freak the passers by 434 00:29:06,701 --> 00:29:14,796 till all the tourists gape and say brother he died. 435 00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:26,808 I...let rat tails write my epitaph brother he died high. 436 00:29:32,379 --> 00:29:34,816 In the old days before there were books, 437 00:29:34,860 --> 00:29:37,471 people would get together and sing ballads 438 00:29:37,514 --> 00:29:40,126 and then they would add someone in the audience they would-- 439 00:29:40,169 --> 00:29:41,605 Add another verse-- 440 00:29:41,649 --> 00:29:43,390 It was more spontaneous-- 441 00:29:43,433 --> 00:29:49,396 It was spontaneously collected by the ballad singers 442 00:29:49,439 --> 00:29:51,485 and this is think is wonderful in a way 443 00:29:51,528 --> 00:29:56,229 and I think part of the terrific success of say Bob Dylan 444 00:29:56,272 --> 00:29:59,188 --at his best, because he's really a poet at his best too-- 445 00:29:59,232 --> 00:30:04,280 was that it was the simple seeing words again 446 00:30:04,324 --> 00:30:07,675 and not the over intellectual point which is so difficult 447 00:30:07,718 --> 00:30:09,808 for so many people, including me, 448 00:30:09,851 --> 00:30:12,375 to really understand at all you know. 449 00:30:12,419 --> 00:30:15,814 And it's a spontaneous singing thing people have 450 00:30:15,857 --> 00:30:18,425 always responded to it and I guess they always will. 451 00:30:19,339 --> 00:30:21,123 Narrator: Tom Waits. 452 00:30:22,429 --> 00:30:29,349 ♪ Daggers moonlight murder the sheets. ♪ 453 00:30:29,392 --> 00:30:35,050 ♪ The stink of $4 room. 454 00:30:35,094 --> 00:30:42,101 ♪ Daddy's gone hunting for a dime bag of schoolboy ♪ 455 00:30:42,144 --> 00:30:46,583 ♪ tied up with a yellow balloon. ♪ 456 00:30:48,847 --> 00:30:55,549 ♪ So hush little baby daddy was cool, ♪ 457 00:30:55,592 --> 00:31:01,642 ♪ I'll cover you up with a blanket of snow. ♪ 458 00:31:01,685 --> 00:31:09,215 ♪ By the time I make Jersey you'll be in heaven ♪ 459 00:31:09,258 --> 00:31:13,436 ♪ in a pretty blue shoebox I know. ♪ 460 00:31:19,442 --> 00:31:22,663 ♪ So sing a song a song of $10,000 ♪ 461 00:31:22,706 --> 00:31:26,536 ♪ with a pocket full of dough. ♪ 462 00:31:26,580 --> 00:31:31,977 ♪ I can't take you to Baltimore ♪ 463 00:31:32,020 --> 00:31:35,154 ♪ wake God up in heaven ♪ 464 00:31:35,197 --> 00:31:39,593 ♪ have him look down below ♪ 465 00:31:39,636 --> 00:31:47,862 ♪ there's a little lost angel blooming in the snow. ♪♪ 466 00:32:01,963 --> 00:32:04,531 Poetry's generally very dull. 467 00:32:05,575 --> 00:32:07,577 Very pretensive. 468 00:32:12,843 --> 00:32:15,498 Those who say the poet is very private and precious 469 00:32:15,542 --> 00:32:18,545 personally I don't agree with. 470 00:32:18,588 --> 00:32:21,548 Generally he's just a dumb fiddling asshole 471 00:32:21,591 --> 00:32:27,293 writing insecure lines that don't come through 472 00:32:27,336 --> 00:32:30,644 believing he's immortal waiting for his immortality 473 00:32:30,687 --> 00:32:33,995 which never arrives because the poor fucker 474 00:32:34,039 --> 00:32:36,824 just can't write. 475 00:32:36,867 --> 00:32:42,612 Most poets, coets, hoets, carrots can't even write 476 00:32:42,656 --> 00:32:47,922 a simple line like "the dog walked down the street." 477 00:32:47,966 --> 00:32:49,489 Narrator: William Burrows. 478 00:32:49,532 --> 00:32:54,059 Kim is a morbid slimy youth of unwholesome proclivities 479 00:32:54,102 --> 00:32:59,107 with a sensational appetite for the extreme and sensational. 480 00:32:59,151 --> 00:33:03,894 He has a dark side to his character and he loves it. 481 00:33:03,938 --> 00:33:05,635 His mother had been into table tapping 482 00:33:05,679 --> 00:33:09,422 and Kim adores ectoplasm, crystal balls, 483 00:33:09,465 --> 00:33:11,772 spirit guides and auras. 484 00:33:11,815 --> 00:33:17,299 He wallows in abominations unspeakable rights, 485 00:33:17,343 --> 00:33:21,869 diseased demon lovers, ancient ruin sissies 486 00:33:21,912 --> 00:33:26,395 under a purple sky and the smell of unknown excrements. 487 00:33:26,439 --> 00:33:31,009 In short Kim is everything a normal decent America boy 488 00:33:31,052 --> 00:33:34,099 is taught to detest. 489 00:33:34,142 --> 00:33:37,798 The boy is rotten clear through and he stinks 490 00:33:37,841 --> 00:33:42,107 like a polecat judge Ferris pontificated. 491 00:33:42,150 --> 00:33:46,807 Now this was true, when angered or aroused or excited 492 00:33:46,850 --> 00:33:50,506 Kim flushed bright red and steamed off 493 00:33:50,550 --> 00:33:55,120 a rank rottish animal smell. 494 00:33:55,163 --> 00:33:58,775 "The child is not wholesome," said Mr. Kindheart 495 00:33:58,819 --> 00:34:01,952 with his usual restraint. 496 00:34:01,996 --> 00:34:06,218 Kim remembers his father's last words, 497 00:34:06,261 --> 00:34:11,701 "stay out of churches son and don't ever 498 00:34:11,745 --> 00:34:15,140 let a priest near you when you're dying." 499 00:34:15,749 --> 00:34:20,058 All they got a key to is the shit house 500 00:34:20,101 --> 00:34:26,107 and swear to me you will never wear a policeman's badge. 501 00:34:26,151 --> 00:34:27,630 As soon as Kim walks through 502 00:34:27,674 --> 00:34:30,981 the swinging door he knows this is it. 503 00:34:31,025 --> 00:34:33,201 Two men at the bar by the door, 504 00:34:33,245 --> 00:34:38,685 one is tall and thin with a dead sour wooden face 505 00:34:38,728 --> 00:34:43,385 the other tall and fattish and loose lip with lead gray eyes. 506 00:34:43,429 --> 00:34:47,259 They fan out blocking the door, 507 00:34:47,302 --> 00:34:51,654 loose lips smiles showing his awful yellow teeth 508 00:34:51,698 --> 00:34:54,875 now I don't like drinking in the same room with a fairy, 509 00:34:54,918 --> 00:34:57,095 do you Clim? 510 00:34:57,138 --> 00:35:00,533 Can't says I do, Cash. 511 00:35:00,576 --> 00:35:04,493 They wanna bat it around for a while but Kim doesn't. 512 00:35:04,537 --> 00:35:08,018 I don't want any trouble you gentlemen let my buy you 513 00:35:08,062 --> 00:35:11,370 a drink, Kim is still talking as his hand sweeps down 514 00:35:11,413 --> 00:35:15,156 to his belt and then up smooth and casual 515 00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,245 as if he's handing Clim a visiting card 516 00:35:17,289 --> 00:35:19,334 and shoots him in the stomach. 517 00:35:19,378 --> 00:35:21,902 Clim doubles forward and his false teeth 518 00:35:21,945 --> 00:35:24,731 fly out snapping in the air. 519 00:35:24,774 --> 00:35:28,343 Clim is 45 and barely clear of the holster 520 00:35:28,387 --> 00:35:30,824 plows a hole in the floor. 521 00:35:30,867 --> 00:35:34,393 Kim pivots both hands on the gun and shoots Cash 522 00:35:34,436 --> 00:35:36,569 in the hollow of the throat. 523 00:35:36,612 --> 00:35:40,050 The heavy slug tears through and spatters the wall 524 00:35:40,094 --> 00:35:43,402 with slivers of bloody bone. 525 00:35:43,445 --> 00:35:47,319 Cash's gun jumps back into its holster. 526 00:35:47,362 --> 00:35:51,845 Clim is weaving around trying to re-cock his 45 527 00:35:51,888 --> 00:35:57,242 with numb fingers, taking his time Kim shoots him forehead. 528 00:35:57,285 --> 00:36:01,594 Both assholes are dead before they hit the floor, 529 00:36:01,637 --> 00:36:03,900 Kim's arduous training has paid off 530 00:36:03,944 --> 00:36:08,209 in hard international currency. 531 00:36:08,253 --> 00:36:11,560 As Kim looks down at the two bodies crumbled there 532 00:36:11,604 --> 00:36:14,346 spilling blood and brains on the floor 533 00:36:14,389 --> 00:36:18,263 he experiences a rush of pure joy. 534 00:36:18,306 --> 00:36:21,788 Two enemies will never bother him again, 535 00:36:21,831 --> 00:36:25,357 two lousy sons of bitches melted into air 536 00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:27,054 and powder smoke. 537 00:36:31,841 --> 00:36:34,496 Because of a summer evening in 1954, 538 00:36:34,540 --> 00:36:38,239 it opened it's wings and I received its revelation 539 00:36:38,283 --> 00:36:40,415 because of summer nights behind the mosque 540 00:36:40,459 --> 00:36:42,678 because it signals the height of summer 541 00:36:42,722 --> 00:36:44,724 because of its mathematical precision 542 00:36:44,767 --> 00:36:47,553 at the infinite disposal of curiosity 543 00:36:47,596 --> 00:36:49,555 because it's markings are the summation 544 00:36:49,598 --> 00:36:53,733 of military helotry the olive green of the English military. 545 00:36:53,776 --> 00:36:57,519 Because it is a tropical species here in southwestern Ontario 546 00:36:57,563 --> 00:37:00,783 because they are nocturnal tropical thin points 547 00:37:00,827 --> 00:37:04,396 of extreme beauty, sculptural perfection 548 00:37:04,439 --> 00:37:06,267 in living and dense wood. 549 00:37:06,311 --> 00:37:08,487 Because their chrysalis resembles a vase, 550 00:37:08,530 --> 00:37:11,403 their humming flight and the unsalable intricacy 551 00:37:11,446 --> 00:37:13,361 of their June camouflage. 552 00:37:13,405 --> 00:37:15,450 Because of the size and geodic modeling 553 00:37:15,494 --> 00:37:18,323 of their pincers their chestnut brown elytra. 554 00:37:18,366 --> 00:37:21,587 Because it is so tiny it weighs as much as a dime 555 00:37:21,630 --> 00:37:24,416 because it is pale underneath, tawny above. 556 00:37:24,459 --> 00:37:26,156 Because it is the eyes of night. 557 00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:28,985 Because it is even larger like a fox bath. 558 00:37:29,029 --> 00:37:31,640 Because it is our largest and only cat. 559 00:37:31,684 --> 00:37:34,469 Because they are capricious night gliders. 560 00:37:34,513 --> 00:37:36,166 Because it is a predetor. 561 00:37:36,210 --> 00:37:39,779 Because of it's inky fur, tunnels twisting around roots. 562 00:37:39,822 --> 00:37:42,912 Because it is a southern species migrating northwards 563 00:37:42,956 --> 00:37:45,567 evidence for an interglacial warming trend. 564 00:37:45,611 --> 00:37:47,482 Because of their glowing eyes in the driveway 565 00:37:47,526 --> 00:37:50,442 at night the rasping marcupial cries. 566 00:37:50,485 --> 00:37:51,921 Because of the caves. 567 00:37:51,965 --> 00:37:53,793 Because of its unearthly face. 568 00:37:53,836 --> 00:37:55,534 Because it is all of night. 569 00:37:55,577 --> 00:37:56,883 Because it is a falcon. 570 00:37:56,926 --> 00:37:58,406 Because it is sub tropical. 571 00:37:58,450 --> 00:38:01,540 Because it is a stilted and accurate blue mist. 572 00:38:01,583 --> 00:38:04,891 Because it is the north unwarranted in an ox bow pond. 573 00:38:04,934 --> 00:38:08,547 Because it is a tropical species migrating slowly northwards 574 00:38:08,590 --> 00:38:10,200 starting at Point Pelee. 575 00:38:10,244 --> 00:38:13,508 Because it is a subtropical iridescent metal. 576 00:38:13,552 --> 00:38:15,467 Because it is the arctic migrating 577 00:38:15,510 --> 00:38:16,903 at the centre of blizzards. 578 00:38:16,946 --> 00:38:19,471 Because they are astonishing aerialists. 579 00:38:19,514 --> 00:38:22,038 Because the vacuum of space is so near. 580 00:38:22,082 --> 00:38:23,475 Because of a dream. 581 00:38:23,518 --> 00:38:25,172 Because they draw out the soul, 582 00:38:25,215 --> 00:38:27,566 anticipation, electric radiance, 583 00:38:27,609 --> 00:38:30,873 the irresistible approach of the ark hammer, 584 00:38:30,917 --> 00:38:33,354 excitation in the ion shadows. 585 00:38:33,398 --> 00:38:35,791 Because they come after you and seem to float 586 00:38:35,835 --> 00:38:38,272 in dreams the bend sinister. 587 00:38:38,316 --> 00:38:39,621 Because of the storm. 588 00:38:39,665 --> 00:38:41,884 Because of an erotic insularity in the moist 589 00:38:41,928 --> 00:38:43,364 almost tropical wind. 590 00:38:43,408 --> 00:38:46,236 Because they illuminate everything in a gray powdery 591 00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,065 light and turn the outside into a surreal theatre 592 00:38:49,109 --> 00:38:52,504 of marvelous intent the warmth allows spectators 593 00:38:52,547 --> 00:38:54,680 to remove their clothes. 594 00:38:54,723 --> 00:38:58,858 Lunacy and a Saturn alien trance of corporeal clarity. 595 00:38:58,901 --> 00:39:00,512 Because they are tropical. 596 00:39:00,555 --> 00:39:02,644 Because they are both out of place and welcome. 597 00:39:02,688 --> 00:39:05,995 Because they witnessed extinct races of fabulous creatures. 598 00:39:06,039 --> 00:39:07,997 Because it is carnivorous and wet. 599 00:39:08,041 --> 00:39:11,392 Because it is a carnivorous morning jewel in the sphagnum. 600 00:39:11,436 --> 00:39:14,613 Because they are full lips and vulvas and are all of summer. 601 00:39:14,656 --> 00:39:16,528 Because they are a tropical species 602 00:39:16,571 --> 00:39:18,225 here in southwestern Ontario. 603 00:39:18,268 --> 00:39:20,488 Because it has huge leaves and is tropical 604 00:39:20,532 --> 00:39:22,664 with cerised Jurassic fruit. 605 00:39:22,708 --> 00:39:24,927 Because it is fragrant and tropical. 606 00:39:24,971 --> 00:39:26,929 Because it's fruits are pungent. 607 00:39:26,973 --> 00:39:30,324 Because it's flowers are huge night glowing and perfumed. 608 00:39:30,368 --> 00:39:31,673 Because of the pools. 609 00:39:31,717 --> 00:39:33,632 Because their smooth mahogany pebbles 610 00:39:33,675 --> 00:39:35,938 are enclosed in vegetable geodes. 611 00:39:35,982 --> 00:39:38,027 Because of full viesentrellas. 612 00:39:38,071 --> 00:39:40,290 Because they flowered all of beneath into above 613 00:39:40,334 --> 00:39:42,336 and translated it perfectly. 614 00:39:42,380 --> 00:39:43,990 Because it is a living fossil. 615 00:39:44,033 --> 00:39:45,557 Because of the colour and smoothness 616 00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:48,429 of its bark the silence and live alone floor 617 00:39:48,473 --> 00:39:50,562 of the beach forest. 618 00:39:50,605 --> 00:39:52,607 Because of the fragrance of its gum. 619 00:39:52,651 --> 00:39:55,001 Because of the wooden pedals of their flowers. 620 00:39:55,044 --> 00:39:57,438 Because of the waterfalls and the morning glint. 621 00:39:57,482 --> 00:40:00,267 Because it is the memory capitol of Canada. 622 00:40:00,310 --> 00:40:02,443 Because I perceived an order there. 623 00:40:02,487 --> 00:40:06,578 Because of midsummer night's memories steeped in fire flies. 624 00:40:06,621 --> 00:40:08,884 Because it overlooks Lake Huron. 625 00:40:08,928 --> 00:40:11,104 Because the cedar pools are nearby 626 00:40:11,147 --> 00:40:13,236 for it was once submerged. 627 00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:16,152 Because it is a huge invisible river. 628 00:40:16,196 --> 00:40:18,459 Because of the collections and gray powdery light 629 00:40:18,503 --> 00:40:23,246 or Toronto winter afternoons spent in the Devonian era. 630 00:40:23,290 --> 00:40:25,945 Because it is a semi-tropical iridescent metal 631 00:40:25,988 --> 00:40:28,295 on the same latitude as California. 632 00:40:28,338 --> 00:40:30,210 Because it is a beautiful and glorious 633 00:40:30,253 --> 00:40:31,777 natural shrine of limestone. 634 00:40:31,820 --> 00:40:33,213 Because it is awesome. 635 00:40:33,256 --> 00:40:35,389 Because chronology was commenced there. 636 00:40:35,433 --> 00:40:37,391 Because of the black river formation 637 00:40:37,435 --> 00:40:39,567 last hold out of the white elm. 638 00:40:39,611 --> 00:40:41,787 Because of the beach forest and what came after. 639 00:40:41,830 --> 00:40:44,790 Because I got to know Lake Erie and glacial clay there. 640 00:40:44,833 --> 00:40:46,400 Because I grew up beside them 641 00:40:46,444 --> 00:40:48,489 and they taught me everything I know. 642 00:40:48,533 --> 00:40:52,885 Because it is a huge and silent underwater predator. 643 00:40:52,928 --> 00:40:55,453 Because it is huge and primitive. 644 00:40:55,496 --> 00:41:00,153 Because it cruises hovering long snouted crocodilian. 645 00:41:00,196 --> 00:41:01,807 Because it is primitive. 646 00:41:01,850 --> 00:41:03,199 Thank you. 647 00:41:03,243 --> 00:41:13,209 [cheers] 648 00:41:13,253 --> 00:41:14,820 Narrator: Michael McClure. 649 00:41:15,473 --> 00:41:18,084 A poet is someone who is obsessed with language, 650 00:41:18,127 --> 00:41:20,390 obsessed with liberating themselves 651 00:41:20,434 --> 00:41:23,611 the two have joined together and he's acting it out. 652 00:41:25,439 --> 00:41:27,267 Sure. 653 00:41:28,834 --> 00:41:34,535 Let me burst again and see who I am in this blackness 654 00:41:34,579 --> 00:41:39,105 seeking middle age, who I am by the star 655 00:41:39,148 --> 00:41:44,632 on this whirling ball where I can sense a billion galaxies 656 00:41:44,676 --> 00:41:50,943 and clusters and smell the lucid light around the cities tower 657 00:41:50,986 --> 00:41:56,470 while the sky dies in rosy layers and I remember 658 00:41:56,514 --> 00:42:01,823 all the soft soft feet and toes that crept 659 00:42:01,867 --> 00:42:06,654 across my childish life that stands as size less 660 00:42:06,698 --> 00:42:10,484 as the day dreams of a virus. 661 00:42:10,528 --> 00:42:15,271 I am a pouring flowing crystal, 662 00:42:15,315 --> 00:42:19,537 I'm the midnight voices of the mating swallows. 663 00:42:19,580 --> 00:42:23,497 I'm the tow truck of the soul that I create around me 664 00:42:23,541 --> 00:42:28,110 as I cross this blazing bridge. 665 00:42:28,154 --> 00:42:31,244 I am the wolf, the hummingbird, 666 00:42:31,287 --> 00:42:34,639 the boy child and the gray beard man. 667 00:42:37,424 --> 00:42:39,731 My poetry's quite pictographic, 668 00:42:39,774 --> 00:42:42,516 I've made very complex pictures that are put just 669 00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:49,610 around the page in visual ways to compliment the music of it. 670 00:42:49,654 --> 00:42:51,786 This allows me to feel like the poem 671 00:42:51,830 --> 00:42:53,396 is like an extension of myself. 672 00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:56,312 It's like an organism moving out into the world. 673 00:42:56,356 --> 00:42:59,968 As a device it gives me multiple options 674 00:43:00,012 --> 00:43:03,015 for breaking the line, I can break it at the breath line, 675 00:43:03,058 --> 00:43:06,105 I can swing over on it so that it carries the energy 676 00:43:06,148 --> 00:43:10,413 of the body, I can use it for the effect of impact or 677 00:43:10,457 --> 00:43:13,678 the very slender poem that runs down the page in a very 678 00:43:13,721 --> 00:43:17,595 narrow way almost like the poems are ideograms like 679 00:43:17,638 --> 00:43:19,422 Chinese or Japanese poetry. 680 00:43:19,466 --> 00:43:23,383 I read one at the cactus lounge that said: 681 00:43:23,426 --> 00:43:25,777 How. 682 00:43:25,820 --> 00:43:27,779 Sweet. 683 00:43:27,822 --> 00:43:29,868 To. 684 00:43:29,911 --> 00:43:31,957 Be. 685 00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,394 In. 686 00:43:34,437 --> 00:43:36,614 Rows. 687 00:43:36,657 --> 00:43:37,876 By. 688 00:43:37,919 --> 00:43:39,834 Candle. 689 00:43:39,878 --> 00:43:41,401 Light. 690 00:43:41,444 --> 00:43:44,230 Or a worm 691 00:43:44,273 --> 00:43:48,451 by full moon. 692 00:43:48,495 --> 00:43:52,542 See the hopping flight 693 00:43:52,586 --> 00:43:54,370 a cricket makes. 694 00:43:54,414 --> 00:44:00,246 Nature loves the absence of mistakes. 695 00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:02,814 Often times when people hear me read they say: 696 00:44:02,857 --> 00:44:05,817 "oh now I understand how to read your poetry, 697 00:44:05,860 --> 00:44:06,992 I've looked at it on the page and 698 00:44:07,035 --> 00:44:08,384 I didn't know what to make of it." 699 00:44:08,428 --> 00:44:10,430 Well it is in the performing of the page in a sense 700 00:44:10,473 --> 00:44:12,780 but it's not that different from other poetry 701 00:44:12,824 --> 00:44:15,696 being written in the 50's or 60's that have 702 00:44:15,740 --> 00:44:19,613 a very similar sets of poetics behind them. 703 00:44:19,657 --> 00:44:22,398 It's just that for me sliding to the centre 704 00:44:22,442 --> 00:44:25,663 making it symmetrical focused it for me it clicked in. 705 00:44:29,841 --> 00:44:31,059 Milton. 706 00:44:37,022 --> 00:44:38,458 THE WORKS! 707 00:44:39,807 --> 00:44:46,074 My near brutal love will grow. 708 00:44:46,118 --> 00:44:50,252 Taller than skyscrapers 709 00:44:50,296 --> 00:44:55,954 and more slurred in when you... 710 00:44:55,997 --> 00:44:57,999 RISE! 711 00:44:59,435 --> 00:45:00,828 Up! 712 00:45:02,438 --> 00:45:03,831 Above! 713 00:45:04,832 --> 00:45:08,444 A high help! 714 00:45:21,414 --> 00:45:23,372 Even if you have a small room 715 00:45:23,416 --> 00:45:26,419 you could find that poem useful...to you. 716 00:45:30,249 --> 00:45:31,816 Self portrait. 717 00:45:33,208 --> 00:45:36,646 He wants to be a brutal old man, 718 00:45:36,690 --> 00:45:39,562 an aggressive old man as dull, 719 00:45:39,606 --> 00:45:43,392 as brutal as the emptiness around him. 720 00:45:43,436 --> 00:45:48,833 He doesn't want compromise or to be ever nice to anyone 721 00:45:48,876 --> 00:45:52,445 just mean and final in his brutal 722 00:45:52,488 --> 00:45:56,014 his total rejection of it all. 723 00:45:56,057 --> 00:45:58,494 He tried the sweet the gentle 724 00:45:58,538 --> 00:46:02,107 the oh let's hold hands together 725 00:46:02,150 --> 00:46:07,068 and it was awful, dull, brutally inconsequential. 726 00:46:07,112 --> 00:46:11,333 Now he'll stand on his own two dwindling legs, 727 00:46:11,377 --> 00:46:14,510 his arms, his skin shrink daily 728 00:46:14,554 --> 00:46:18,427 and he loves but hates equally. 729 00:46:18,471 --> 00:46:22,475 That ambivalent oblique laconic way of speaking 730 00:46:22,518 --> 00:46:25,043 it's very self defensive but it thinks of itself 731 00:46:25,086 --> 00:46:26,609 as very upfront. 732 00:46:26,653 --> 00:46:28,742 A really charming guy last night one of the musicians said 733 00:46:28,786 --> 00:46:30,657 hey man you've got a really interesting voice, 734 00:46:30,700 --> 00:46:33,486 and I felt charmed he said yeah the way 735 00:46:33,529 --> 00:46:36,489 you really push it out there it's-- 736 00:46:36,532 --> 00:46:39,579 You could hear every beat that's terrific 737 00:46:39,622 --> 00:46:41,407 that's precisely the way I feel it. 738 00:46:42,016 --> 00:46:44,627 Reissuance movies. 739 00:46:44,671 --> 00:46:47,239 A movie of Robert Reissuance showed 740 00:46:47,282 --> 00:46:49,850 a yaght at evening on descend. 741 00:46:49,894 --> 00:46:52,897 All it's lights on watched by two young 742 00:46:52,940 --> 00:46:57,379 seemingly poor people on a bridge adjacent. 743 00:46:57,423 --> 00:47:00,382 The classic boy and girl of the story 744 00:47:00,426 --> 00:47:03,429 anyone one wants to tell. 745 00:47:03,472 --> 00:47:08,434 So years pass of course but I identified with the young 746 00:47:08,477 --> 00:47:12,133 and bittered French man knew his almost complacent 747 00:47:12,177 --> 00:47:16,703 anguish and the distance he felt from his girl. 748 00:47:16,746 --> 00:47:20,228 Yet another film of Reissuance has the aging 749 00:47:20,272 --> 00:47:24,276 Lancelot with his awkward armour standing 750 00:47:24,319 --> 00:47:29,020 in the woods of small trees dazed, bleeding, 751 00:47:29,063 --> 00:47:32,458 both he and his horse are trying to get back 752 00:47:32,501 --> 00:47:36,462 to the castle, itself of no great size. 753 00:47:36,505 --> 00:47:42,207 It moved me that life was after all like that 754 00:47:42,250 --> 00:47:46,254 you are in love you stand in the woods 755 00:47:46,298 --> 00:47:51,694 with a horse bleeding the story is true. 756 00:47:54,654 --> 00:47:57,396 Winds colder and colder. 757 00:47:57,439 --> 00:48:00,486 Grounds stiffening again. 758 00:48:00,529 --> 00:48:03,881 The brightest trees I see this moment 759 00:48:03,924 --> 00:48:08,537 are some aspens rising to the surface. 760 00:48:08,581 --> 00:48:13,673 Flowers are fast disappearing but few crickets are heard. 761 00:48:13,716 --> 00:48:16,676 This had one smirk and pleasure. 762 00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:21,028 Black bird as seen against the sky. 763 00:48:21,072 --> 00:48:24,075 Clintonia is abundant. 764 00:48:24,118 --> 00:48:29,602 Cannot see distant hills nor use my glass to advantage. 765 00:48:29,645 --> 00:48:33,519 Algonquin and Iroquois. 766 00:48:33,562 --> 00:48:35,825 The water might have risen there, 767 00:48:35,869 --> 00:48:39,264 whitens clothes with clean dirt. 768 00:48:39,307 --> 00:48:44,573 With a sharp whistling war, heard a white throated sparrow. 769 00:48:44,617 --> 00:48:47,576 Heaven had been washed beneath a white oak. 770 00:48:47,620 --> 00:48:51,363 Has the strict leafits in the axels. 771 00:48:51,406 --> 00:48:55,671 Anxious as ever, rushing with courage, 772 00:48:55,715 --> 00:48:59,066 gives expression to the face of nature. 773 00:48:59,110 --> 00:49:02,591 Reflections in still water. 774 00:49:02,635 --> 00:49:06,204 Great phenomenon these days is the water 775 00:49:06,247 --> 00:49:08,510 much sparkling light in the air, 776 00:49:08,554 --> 00:49:13,124 a pond was now a glorious, sort of changeable blue. 777 00:49:13,167 --> 00:49:18,390 See the first bird, weather beaten appearance. 778 00:49:18,433 --> 00:49:24,222 Trunks of trees whitened now and a more southerly side. 779 00:49:24,265 --> 00:49:28,704 Lighted upon the top looked around as before. 780 00:49:28,748 --> 00:49:32,534 Could find no nest, what doth he asked. 781 00:49:32,578 --> 00:49:35,798 To win on this ground to dwell. 782 00:49:35,842 --> 00:49:38,062 Like most everybody else I read Baldin 783 00:49:38,105 --> 00:49:43,632 probably when I was in school but it wasn't until 784 00:49:43,676 --> 00:49:49,943 I was in Cincinnati I think it was 67-68 that I met-- 785 00:49:49,987 --> 00:49:54,382 Um-- Um-- 786 00:49:54,426 --> 00:49:56,254 Wendell Berry. 787 00:49:56,297 --> 00:50:02,303 Kentucky poet near Cincinnati and I went to visit him 788 00:50:02,347 --> 00:50:06,264 and his family at the farm that they owned 789 00:50:06,307 --> 00:50:10,050 and that his great grandfather owned and after dinner 790 00:50:10,094 --> 00:50:15,403 he brought out the journal of Thorough and began reading. 791 00:50:15,447 --> 00:50:17,623 Just sort of opened it at random 792 00:50:17,666 --> 00:50:22,106 and the moment I heard the words 793 00:50:22,149 --> 00:50:27,981 I realized that I was hungry for Thorough. 794 00:50:29,678 --> 00:50:33,421 Very early in his life say 22 years old 795 00:50:33,465 --> 00:50:38,557 he was aware of silence and the fact that 796 00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:43,388 silence doesn't really exist, silence is sounds. 797 00:50:43,431 --> 00:50:45,694 If I stop talking for instance now 798 00:50:45,738 --> 00:50:50,177 we hear the sounds of 6th avenue. 799 00:50:50,221 --> 00:50:53,224 They continue night and day they never stop. 800 00:50:54,616 --> 00:50:59,012 And he said that what is central to this whole 801 00:50:59,056 --> 00:51:05,453 situation we live in is silence and that the sounds 802 00:51:05,497 --> 00:51:09,979 that we notice are merely bubbles on the surface 803 00:51:10,023 --> 00:51:12,634 of silence that burst. 804 00:51:15,463 --> 00:51:20,251 Ahhhhhh! 805 00:51:20,555 --> 00:51:22,644 Narrator: Four Horseman. 806 00:51:22,688 --> 00:51:32,741 [unintelligible noise] 807 00:51:32,741 --> 00:51:44,013 [unintelligible noise] 808 00:51:44,057 --> 00:51:49,541 Ahhhhhh! 809 00:51:50,150 --> 00:52:00,160 [unintelligible noise] 810 00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:08,516 [unintelligible noise] 811 00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:13,608 Ahhhhhh! 812 00:52:13,826 --> 00:52:23,879 [unintelligible noise] 813 00:52:23,879 --> 00:52:31,409 [unintelligible noise] 814 00:52:31,452 --> 00:52:37,371 Ahhhhhh! 815 00:52:37,415 --> 00:52:47,468 [unintelligible noise] 816 00:52:47,468 --> 00:53:01,613 [unintelligible noise] 817 00:53:01,656 --> 00:53:07,836 Ahhhhhh! 818 00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:13,451 [unintelligible noise] 819 00:53:13,451 --> 00:53:17,890 [unintelligible noise] 820 00:53:41,392 --> 00:53:48,834 Ahhhhhh! 821 00:53:55,406 --> 00:53:57,408 Narrator: Michael Ondaatje 822 00:53:57,451 --> 00:54:00,367 This is a poem I wrote for my niece in Sri Lanka 823 00:54:00,411 --> 00:54:03,196 who sang me some songs in a terrible voice 824 00:54:03,240 --> 00:54:05,981 and I came across some lines by Paul Bowls 825 00:54:06,025 --> 00:54:08,506 who said the singleties are beyond a doubt 826 00:54:08,549 --> 00:54:10,334 one of the least musical people in the world. 827 00:54:10,377 --> 00:54:12,597 It would be quite impossible to have less 828 00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:15,774 than self-pitch, line or rhythm. 829 00:54:15,817 --> 00:54:18,342 So this poem is called "Sweet Like A Crow." 830 00:54:18,385 --> 00:54:20,561 For Hetti Corea, 8 years old. 831 00:54:22,563 --> 00:54:25,000 Your voice sounds like a scorpion being pushed 832 00:54:25,044 --> 00:54:26,611 Through a glass tube 833 00:54:26,654 --> 00:54:29,135 Like someone has just trod on a peacock 834 00:54:29,178 --> 00:54:31,093 Like wind howling in a coconut 835 00:54:31,137 --> 00:54:34,271 Like a rusty bible, like someone pulling barbed wire 836 00:54:34,314 --> 00:54:37,491 Across a stone courtyard, like a pig drowning, 837 00:54:37,535 --> 00:54:40,320 A vattacka being fried A bone shaking hands 838 00:54:40,364 --> 00:54:42,931 A frog singing at Carnegie Hall. 839 00:54:42,975 --> 00:54:44,411 Like a crow swimming in milk, 840 00:54:44,455 --> 00:54:46,674 Like a nose being hit by a mango 841 00:54:46,718 --> 00:54:48,633 Like the crowd at the Royal-Thomian match, 842 00:54:48,676 --> 00:54:51,070 A womb full of twins, a pariah dog 843 00:54:51,113 --> 00:54:52,463 With a magpie in its mouth 844 00:54:52,506 --> 00:54:54,856 Like the midnight jet from Casablanca 845 00:54:54,900 --> 00:54:56,684 Like Air Pakistan curry, 846 00:54:56,728 --> 00:54:58,947 A typewriter on fire, like a spirit 847 00:54:58,991 --> 00:55:00,993 in the gas that cooks your dinner. 848 00:55:01,036 --> 00:55:02,995 like a hundred Pappadans being crunched, 849 00:55:03,038 --> 00:55:04,997 like someone uselessly trying to light matches 850 00:55:05,040 --> 00:55:06,564 in a dark room, 851 00:55:06,607 --> 00:55:08,392 The clicking sound of a reef 852 00:55:08,435 --> 00:55:10,350 when you put your head into the sea, 853 00:55:10,394 --> 00:55:13,527 A dolphin reciting epic poetry to a sleepy audience, 854 00:55:13,571 --> 00:55:16,356 The sound of a fan when someone throws brinjals at it, 855 00:55:16,400 --> 00:55:18,880 Like pineapples being sliced in the Pettah market 856 00:55:18,924 --> 00:55:22,536 Like betel juice hitting a butterfly in mid-air 857 00:55:22,580 --> 00:55:24,495 Like a whole village running naked onto the street 858 00:55:24,538 --> 00:55:26,975 And tearing their sarongs, like an angry family 859 00:55:27,019 --> 00:55:28,455 Pushing a jeep out of the mud, 860 00:55:28,499 --> 00:55:30,196 like dirt on the record needle, 861 00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:33,199 Like 8 sharks being carried on the back of a bicycle 862 00:55:33,242 --> 00:55:35,897 Like 3 old ladies locked in the lavatory 863 00:55:35,941 --> 00:55:38,944 Like the sound I heard when having an afternoon sleep 864 00:55:38,987 --> 00:55:42,556 And someone walked through my room in ankle bracelets. 865 00:55:51,043 --> 00:55:53,915 Nothing should ever be done that should be done 866 00:55:53,959 --> 00:55:57,528 it has to come out like a good hot beer shit. 867 00:55:58,833 --> 00:56:02,402 A good hot beer shit glorious, man. 868 00:56:02,446 --> 00:56:05,231 You get up you turn around you look at it 869 00:56:05,274 --> 00:56:06,580 and you're proud. 870 00:56:06,624 --> 00:56:09,670 The fumes the stink of the turd you look at them, 871 00:56:09,714 --> 00:56:13,108 you say God I did it I'm good. 872 00:56:13,152 --> 00:56:16,460 Then you flush it away and then there's the sense of sadness 873 00:56:16,503 --> 00:56:18,462 when just the water is there. 874 00:56:20,202 --> 00:56:23,641 It's like writing a good poem you just do it. 875 00:56:23,684 --> 00:56:25,512 It's a beer shit. 876 00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:29,777 Nothing to analyze nothing to say it's just done. 877 00:56:31,475 --> 00:56:32,389 Got it? 878 00:56:36,958 --> 00:56:40,440 I'm playing with the visual and the verbal connections, 879 00:56:40,484 --> 00:56:45,489 on paper and then when I'm reading then the verbal 880 00:56:45,532 --> 00:56:49,536 and the music come in together. 881 00:56:49,580 --> 00:56:51,538 It's sound, it's about sound. 882 00:56:51,582 --> 00:56:55,412 The sound of the poetry against the sound of the music. 883 00:56:55,455 --> 00:56:59,546 The way I work is improvised or invented off of the word 884 00:56:59,590 --> 00:57:02,636 is like the calling response pattern which is an old 885 00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:06,510 African pattern I am making statements where I'm asking 886 00:57:06,553 --> 00:57:10,296 questions and the music is responding to me and I'm 887 00:57:10,339 --> 00:57:13,995 responding back to them and we are listening to each other. 888 00:57:14,039 --> 00:57:16,389 Making not only comments on what you're doing 889 00:57:16,433 --> 00:57:19,479 but extending that, taking it out 890 00:57:19,523 --> 00:57:22,439 and exploring the possibilities of poetry 891 00:57:22,482 --> 00:57:24,092 and the music together. 892 00:57:25,442 --> 00:57:28,488 A very fine koonga of sweat. 893 00:57:28,532 --> 00:57:32,100 A very fine stomp of the right foot. 894 00:57:32,144 --> 00:57:35,495 A very fine platform of sticks. 895 00:57:35,539 --> 00:57:39,194 A very fine tube of frictional bronze. 896 00:57:39,238 --> 00:57:42,502 A very fine can of belligerent growls. 897 00:57:42,546 --> 00:57:46,419 A very fine hoop of baboonal yells. 898 00:57:46,463 --> 00:57:50,118 Very fine, very fine, very fine. 899 00:57:50,162 --> 00:57:53,295 Is their anyone finer? 900 00:57:53,339 --> 00:57:54,993 Hey! 901 00:57:55,036 --> 00:58:05,394 ♪ 902 00:58:05,438 --> 00:58:12,010 [speaking African] 903 00:58:12,053 --> 00:58:16,797 ♪ 904 00:58:16,841 --> 00:58:26,415 [speaking African] 905 00:58:26,459 --> 00:58:29,375 You're the one who made a tribal 906 00:58:29,418 --> 00:58:33,553 into a tattooed motivator of revolutionary spirits. 907 00:58:33,597 --> 00:58:34,772 You're the one. 908 00:58:34,815 --> 00:58:37,209 You're the one who made a baby into 909 00:58:37,252 --> 00:58:41,387 an aggravated slasher of life you're the one. 910 00:58:41,430 --> 00:58:44,085 You're the one that made dohno into an armpit 911 00:58:44,129 --> 00:58:47,567 of infamable explosives you're the one. 912 00:58:47,611 --> 00:58:51,310 You're the one who made Bono into a circle 913 00:58:51,353 --> 00:58:53,921 of signified snakes you're the one. 914 00:58:53,965 --> 00:58:55,923 You're the one! You're the one! 915 00:58:55,967 --> 00:58:59,536 You're the one who made a head strike against 916 00:58:59,579 --> 00:59:03,017 the head of a bird, every night every day 917 00:59:03,061 --> 00:59:04,889 in your crisscrossing chant 918 00:59:04,932 --> 00:59:07,631 in your cross river mouth you're the one. 919 00:59:07,674 --> 00:59:14,594 You're the one. You're the one! 920 00:59:14,638 --> 00:59:22,428 [speaking African] 921 00:59:22,471 --> 00:59:25,083 Okay, I say, 922 00:59:25,126 --> 00:59:29,348 Is there anyone finer than John Abozo? 923 00:59:29,391 --> 00:59:35,267 [speaking English and African] 924 00:59:35,267 --> 00:59:39,401 [speaking English and African] 925 00:59:59,421 --> 01:00:01,510 Did you hear it? Did you hear it? 926 01:00:01,554 --> 01:00:02,729 Did you hear it? 927 01:00:02,773 --> 01:00:05,602 Oh yeah! 928 01:00:05,645 --> 01:00:15,655 ♪ 929 01:00:15,655 --> 01:00:23,402 ♪ 930 01:00:23,445 --> 01:00:28,059 Oh yeah! I say! I see! 931 01:00:28,102 --> 01:00:34,631 [speaking African] 932 01:00:34,674 --> 01:00:42,290 ♪ 933 01:00:52,257 --> 01:00:54,563 Narrator: Diane Deprimo. 934 01:00:55,260 --> 01:00:56,478 Light poem. 935 01:00:57,828 --> 01:01:01,745 Light on dry hayfields, the cedars dark. 936 01:01:01,788 --> 01:01:03,572 Nested in gullies. 937 01:01:03,616 --> 01:01:07,533 Light blank on smog walls thrown glaring light 938 01:01:07,576 --> 01:01:10,275 riding the midst, a spray at the end of the city. 939 01:01:10,318 --> 01:01:12,451 Ocean. 940 01:01:12,494 --> 01:01:15,628 Light on waves, on cement wall, 941 01:01:15,672 --> 01:01:19,763 light like a passion at the back of the eyes. 942 01:01:19,806 --> 01:01:21,982 Red and white lights, a radio tower 943 01:01:22,026 --> 01:01:24,724 with the moon full between. 944 01:01:24,768 --> 01:01:27,640 His light on ten thousand faces in the sun. 945 01:01:27,684 --> 01:01:32,427 The way light glints off sweat. 946 01:01:32,471 --> 01:01:34,995 Blue light in a plastic pool. 947 01:01:35,039 --> 01:01:38,651 Inner lit spaces, dusty colors, transparent. 948 01:01:38,695 --> 01:01:42,786 This pink... these greens. 949 01:01:42,829 --> 01:01:45,353 Amber gels flash on saxophone. 950 01:01:45,397 --> 01:01:50,445 Mics red and yellow, green drums. 951 01:01:50,489 --> 01:01:54,711 The web of light in the sky like a net of wrinkles 952 01:01:54,754 --> 01:01:58,584 falling across the faces of loved poets. 953 01:01:58,627 --> 01:02:00,368 Jelly fish light. 954 01:02:00,412 --> 01:02:04,590 Nitroglycerin brightness, lavender pink sunset extending 955 01:02:04,633 --> 01:02:07,506 clear to the east filling the sky out of which 956 01:02:07,549 --> 01:02:10,639 an eternal moon, is that citron? 957 01:02:10,683 --> 01:02:13,468 How did you get those colors? 958 01:02:13,512 --> 01:02:18,038 Light of the hand in action, light of the hair, 959 01:02:18,082 --> 01:02:21,346 gleam on the point of this pen as I write. 960 01:02:21,389 --> 01:02:25,393 Defused spaces of light and darkened rooms. 961 01:02:25,437 --> 01:02:27,395 Swamp light. 962 01:02:27,439 --> 01:02:30,659 light out of flanders, cigarettes in the dark, 963 01:02:30,703 --> 01:02:36,883 a light that pours out of can vice and into the eye. 964 01:02:36,927 --> 01:02:41,366 Sending the light of the eye out into the world. 965 01:02:41,409 --> 01:02:43,760 Touch of the gays. 966 01:02:43,803 --> 01:02:46,588 poured essence through the eye, 967 01:02:46,632 --> 01:02:50,462 you catch in an upturned cup. 968 01:02:50,505 --> 01:02:56,729 Your eyes on mine, light crackling around the body. 969 01:02:56,773 --> 01:02:58,383 Field. 970 01:03:14,268 --> 01:03:16,227 I really hate reading the Worth 971 01:03:16,270 --> 01:03:20,535 because you're really getting up there. 972 01:03:20,579 --> 01:03:23,930 You've written poems that you really meant alone, 973 01:03:23,974 --> 01:03:26,411 you know, by your typewriter, 974 01:03:26,454 --> 01:03:29,501 then there's this crowd out there drinking beer and all 975 01:03:29,544 --> 01:03:32,286 that and you're reading it to them, 976 01:03:32,330 --> 01:03:35,942 it just doesn't click. 977 01:03:35,986 --> 01:03:38,945 You're a poet and there's an audience 978 01:03:38,989 --> 01:03:43,167 and whatever happens in between is the poem. 979 01:03:43,210 --> 01:03:45,169 It takes places on the page, it takes place in 980 01:03:45,212 --> 01:03:48,433 performance and it takes place in any sort of fashion 981 01:03:48,476 --> 01:03:49,913 that connects with an audience. 982 01:03:50,435 --> 01:03:51,958 Comrades! 983 01:03:52,002 --> 01:03:57,094 How long has it been since withdrawn our swords shining? 984 01:03:57,137 --> 01:04:05,363 [unintelligible screaming] 985 01:04:05,406 --> 01:04:08,192 I like to be really drunk and stoned when I work 986 01:04:08,235 --> 01:04:10,368 and it's like a blade it's actually seeing if 987 01:04:10,411 --> 01:04:14,502 that's exactly what I wanna say to somebody 988 01:04:14,546 --> 01:04:16,853 whoever it is you know and that's the beginning 989 01:04:16,896 --> 01:04:20,639 of that feeling I get, that later on if it performs well 990 01:04:20,682 --> 01:04:24,991 when completely is inside of a totally mad situation. 991 01:04:25,035 --> 01:04:26,993 But I think the audience is very important 992 01:04:27,037 --> 01:04:28,995 because one is performing all of the time 993 01:04:29,039 --> 01:04:31,041 that's one of the intentions of the poem. 994 01:04:31,432 --> 01:04:34,566 We got here yesterday we're here now 995 01:04:34,609 --> 01:04:38,222 and I can't wait to leave tomorrow. 996 01:04:38,265 --> 01:04:42,095 And you had nothing else to do today 997 01:04:42,139 --> 01:04:46,056 but wait around until it was time to see somebody 998 01:04:46,099 --> 01:04:49,929 and I didn't particularly care who it is I'm home. 999 01:04:49,973 --> 01:04:54,586 Nothing is more comfortable than watching TV 1000 01:04:54,629 --> 01:04:57,545 nothing is more comfortable than watching TV 1001 01:04:57,589 --> 01:05:01,245 nothing is more comfortable than watching TV 1002 01:05:01,288 --> 01:05:05,597 and I spent today sleeping in the bed sheets 1003 01:05:05,640 --> 01:05:07,686 changing the channels. 1004 01:05:07,729 --> 01:05:11,255 And when I meet somebody for the first time 1005 01:05:11,298 --> 01:05:14,345 I ask myself two questions: 1006 01:05:14,388 --> 01:05:17,217 What is your sexual preference? 1007 01:05:17,261 --> 01:05:19,524 And how much money do you have? 1008 01:05:19,567 --> 01:05:21,743 What is your sexual preference? 1009 01:05:21,787 --> 01:05:23,920 And how much money do you have? 1010 01:05:23,963 --> 01:05:28,185 And you wanna know the secret of this world? 1011 01:05:28,228 --> 01:05:32,580 Never trust anybody, never trust anybody 1012 01:05:32,624 --> 01:05:34,756 never tell anybody what you really think 1013 01:05:34,800 --> 01:05:37,324 never tell anybody what you really think, 1014 01:05:37,368 --> 01:05:39,370 particularily if it's true. 1015 01:05:39,413 --> 01:05:41,850 Never try to set anybody straight 1016 01:05:41,894 --> 01:05:43,504 never confide in anybody, 1017 01:05:43,548 --> 01:05:45,550 never confide in anybody. 1018 01:05:45,593 --> 01:05:49,249 Swallow it quietly and keep you mouth shut 1019 01:05:49,293 --> 01:05:53,601 while you're talking without interruption on the telephone. 1020 01:05:53,645 --> 01:05:55,516 Never tell your closest friend 1021 01:05:55,560 --> 01:05:58,824 cause they'll give you away sooner or later. 1022 01:05:58,867 --> 01:06:04,569 Friends always become enemies if you wait long enough. 1023 01:06:04,612 --> 01:06:07,006 Friends always become enemies 1024 01:06:07,050 --> 01:06:08,660 if you wait long enough. 1025 01:06:08,703 --> 01:06:10,575 Friends always 1026 01:06:10,618 --> 01:06:11,750 become enemies 1027 01:06:11,793 --> 01:06:13,621 if you wait long enough. 1028 01:06:14,448 --> 01:06:17,495 And you're back in room 703 with a red broad 1029 01:06:17,538 --> 01:06:20,933 and it's 2 in the morning you can't sleep, 1030 01:06:20,977 --> 01:06:23,457 there's nothing on TV, you're hungry 1031 01:06:23,501 --> 01:06:25,764 and there's no room service. 1032 01:06:25,807 --> 01:06:30,464 And getting laid is more trouble than it's worth 1033 01:06:30,508 --> 01:06:33,032 so you take the elevator down to the lobby 1034 01:06:33,076 --> 01:06:36,340 and work the machines peanut butter chocolate cups, 1035 01:06:36,383 --> 01:06:40,605 Three musketeers, Almond Joys and a Baby Ruth 1036 01:06:40,648 --> 01:06:43,390 and a couple of cans of Coke. 1037 01:06:43,434 --> 01:06:46,785 We bought it, we build it, we paid for it 1038 01:06:46,828 --> 01:06:48,569 it's our and we're gonna keep it. 1039 01:06:48,613 --> 01:06:51,355 We bought it, we built it, we paid for it 1040 01:06:51,398 --> 01:06:53,487 it's ours and we're gonna keep it. 1041 01:06:53,531 --> 01:06:55,794 We bought it, we built it, we paid for it 1042 01:06:55,837 --> 01:06:58,231 it's ours and we're gonna keep it. 1043 01:06:59,841 --> 01:07:03,236 But I'm on the long island railroad 420 express 1044 01:07:03,280 --> 01:07:05,586 and the first stop is great neck going out 1045 01:07:05,630 --> 01:07:09,460 to the suburbs for dinner where I grew up. 1046 01:07:09,503 --> 01:07:12,419 I'm sick I need it and I don't got it. 1047 01:07:12,463 --> 01:07:14,900 I'm sick, I need it and I don't got it. 1048 01:07:14,943 --> 01:07:17,381 I'm sick, I need it and I don't got it. 1049 01:07:17,424 --> 01:07:20,210 I'm sick I need it and I don't got it. 1050 01:07:21,863 --> 01:07:25,128 My father was the emperor of china 1051 01:07:25,171 --> 01:07:29,088 and my mother an Indian princess and I have 1052 01:07:29,132 --> 01:07:32,831 come here tonight to collect my inheritance. 1053 01:07:32,874 --> 01:07:35,225 [cheers] 1054 01:07:35,268 --> 01:07:38,315 Sitting here watching you being oblivious 1055 01:07:38,358 --> 01:07:40,317 to anything but yourselves. 1056 01:07:40,360 --> 01:07:42,536 Sitting here watching you being oblivious 1057 01:07:42,580 --> 01:07:45,365 to anything but yourselves. 1058 01:07:45,409 --> 01:07:48,586 And you're standing at the stove in the kitchen 1059 01:07:48,629 --> 01:07:50,370 and you're frying eggs for yourself to eat, 1060 01:07:50,414 --> 01:07:53,460 you're frying eggs and butter. 1061 01:07:53,504 --> 01:07:57,551 And when you crack an egg and the yellow breaks 1062 01:07:57,595 --> 01:08:01,990 it is a bad sign and you know it is really a bad sign. 1063 01:08:02,034 --> 01:08:04,645 I don't wanna get married 1064 01:08:04,689 --> 01:08:07,387 I don't wanna be lovers with anyone 1065 01:08:07,431 --> 01:08:10,042 I just wanna make it whenever I want 1066 01:08:10,086 --> 01:08:13,089 the way I want, the way I'm doing 1067 01:08:13,132 --> 01:08:14,786 and be left alone. 1068 01:08:14,829 --> 01:08:17,658 Almost feeling it, almost feeling it, 1069 01:08:17,702 --> 01:08:21,097 almost feeling it, almost feeling it, 1070 01:08:21,140 --> 01:08:23,316 almost feeling it. 1071 01:08:25,405 --> 01:08:29,583 Listen baby, you gotta do it every once in a while 1072 01:08:29,627 --> 01:08:33,370 every year or two they say and it looks like there's 1073 01:08:33,413 --> 01:08:36,329 no way outta of it this time the coast is clear 1074 01:08:36,373 --> 01:08:39,724 and nobody's looking so let it go. 1075 01:08:39,767 --> 01:08:41,595 I'm crying, 1076 01:08:41,639 --> 01:08:44,294 I'm crying and I wanna keep crying. 1077 01:08:44,337 --> 01:08:46,383 And I wanna keep crying, 1078 01:08:46,426 --> 01:08:48,907 and I wanna keep crying. 1079 01:08:48,950 --> 01:08:52,040 And your lungs are locked and the swell is pulling in 1080 01:08:52,084 --> 01:08:54,173 like when someone kicks you in the stomach. 1081 01:08:54,217 --> 01:08:56,262 Like when someone kicks you in the stomach, 1082 01:08:56,306 --> 01:08:59,178 One more time I wanna keep doing it for another minute 1083 01:08:59,222 --> 01:09:01,572 it's my privilege and my pleasure. 1084 01:09:01,615 --> 01:09:04,227 It's my privilege and my pleasure. 1085 01:09:04,966 --> 01:09:08,144 Cause I prefer jerking off better. 1086 01:09:09,145 --> 01:09:11,190 And the rememberence of that moment 1087 01:09:11,234 --> 01:09:14,541 always gives me confidence in the dumber glimmer 1088 01:09:14,585 --> 01:09:18,110 suggesting something mistaken for something else. 1089 01:09:18,154 --> 01:09:20,547 And I know my approach is incorrect. 1090 01:09:20,591 --> 01:09:22,984 And I know my approach is incorrect, 1091 01:09:23,028 --> 01:09:26,074 and I know my approach is incorrect. 1092 01:09:26,118 --> 01:09:28,599 None of us here got enlightened. 1093 01:09:28,642 --> 01:09:30,470 None of us here got enlightened, 1094 01:09:30,514 --> 01:09:33,473 none of us here got enlightened. 1095 01:09:33,517 --> 01:09:36,998 Not that we knew of, sorry to say. 1096 01:09:37,042 --> 01:09:41,481 And I'm going to say goodnight cause I know 1097 01:09:41,525 --> 01:09:47,661 you're not into doing what I want you to do. 1098 01:09:47,705 --> 01:09:50,577 And I don't wanna find myself in your bed poking you 1099 01:09:50,621 --> 01:09:52,013 wishing we hadn't come here. 1100 01:09:52,057 --> 01:09:54,625 And I don't wanna find myself in your bed poking you 1101 01:09:54,668 --> 01:09:56,757 wishing we hadn't come here. 1102 01:09:56,801 --> 01:10:01,066 And I got no problem with it and I suspect that 1103 01:10:01,109 --> 01:10:03,895 since we are all here we have a lot to learn. 1104 01:10:03,938 --> 01:10:06,506 We got here yesterday we're here now 1105 01:10:06,550 --> 01:10:08,334 and I can't wait to leave tomorrow. 1106 01:10:08,378 --> 01:10:10,641 We got here yesterday, we're here now, 1107 01:10:10,684 --> 01:10:13,557 and I can't wait to leave tomorrow. 1108 01:10:13,600 --> 01:10:16,603 We got here yesterday, we're here now 1109 01:10:16,647 --> 01:10:20,041 and I can't wait to leave tomorrow. 1110 01:10:20,085 --> 01:10:21,782 And I'm going nowhere. 1111 01:10:21,826 --> 01:10:28,789 [cheers] 1112 01:10:28,833 --> 01:10:30,791 You're performing in front of an audience 1113 01:10:30,835 --> 01:10:34,491 it's that connection you know like that live moment 1114 01:10:34,534 --> 01:10:36,623 that live direct moment and it's just an instant 1115 01:10:36,667 --> 01:10:37,624 and if you can-- 1116 01:10:37,668 --> 01:10:39,496 And the thing that one works with 1117 01:10:39,539 --> 01:10:41,541 that I've been working with is that when one tries 1118 01:10:41,585 --> 01:10:44,457 to make those instants happen often 1119 01:10:44,501 --> 01:10:46,329 then you keep the connection going. 1120 01:10:48,069 --> 01:10:50,246 Narrator: Ntozake Shange. 1121 01:10:53,161 --> 01:10:56,382 What does it mean that Black folks could sing and dance? 1122 01:10:56,426 --> 01:10:58,819 Why do we say that so much? 1123 01:10:58,863 --> 01:11:00,560 We don't know what we mean? 1124 01:11:00,604 --> 01:11:02,301 I saw what that means. 1125 01:11:02,345 --> 01:11:03,824 Good God did I see it. 1126 01:11:03,868 --> 01:11:06,174 I could have walked on the water 1127 01:11:06,218 --> 01:11:08,089 fed the naked clothed the hungry 1128 01:11:08,133 --> 01:11:10,048 with what dance I saw today. 1129 01:11:10,091 --> 01:11:11,963 I don't mean dance I mean 1130 01:11:12,006 --> 01:11:13,878 like a "closer walk with thee" 1131 01:11:13,921 --> 01:11:16,794 a race through swamps that fall off in space 1132 01:11:16,837 --> 01:11:20,101 I mean I saw the Black people move the ground 1133 01:11:20,145 --> 01:11:22,408 and set the stars beneath they feet 1134 01:11:22,452 --> 01:11:25,455 So, What does it mean that Black folks could dance? 1135 01:11:25,498 --> 01:11:28,501 Well, How about a woman like Bernadine? 1136 01:11:28,545 --> 01:11:30,808 who can make her body the night-riders 1137 01:11:30,851 --> 01:11:32,549 and the runaways, the children hanging 1138 01:11:32,592 --> 01:11:33,898 on their mama's dresses 1139 01:11:33,941 --> 01:11:35,769 while their father's beat to death 1140 01:11:35,813 --> 01:11:37,858 The blood from the man's wounds, 1141 01:11:37,902 --> 01:11:39,512 his woman's tears the night-riders 1142 01:11:39,556 --> 01:11:41,384 going off in the darkness, 1143 01:11:41,427 --> 01:11:43,299 The silence of the night. 1144 01:11:44,822 --> 01:11:48,391 How about a woman whose body was all of that? 1145 01:11:48,434 --> 01:11:51,655 Whose very presence tumbled all but the drum, 1146 01:11:51,698 --> 01:11:54,353 Now that's a dance. 1147 01:11:54,397 --> 01:11:56,442 Like Fred careening 'cross the stage 1148 01:11:56,486 --> 01:11:57,965 on his stomach there fifty feet 1149 01:11:58,009 --> 01:12:00,403 Sounds like possums and rattle snakes 1150 01:12:00,446 --> 01:12:03,144 Mississippi undercurrent and steamin' 1151 01:12:03,188 --> 01:12:05,669 hog-malls tossing him from Decatur to south Texas 1152 01:12:05,712 --> 01:12:08,193 Tearing him from contractions to leaps 1153 01:12:08,236 --> 01:12:11,805 His body taking space now thirty Redwood trees, 1154 01:12:11,849 --> 01:12:16,157 And those sounds, those sounds kept pushing him. 1155 01:12:20,945 --> 01:12:24,427 Little racing motors like the cops was round the bend 1156 01:12:24,470 --> 01:12:26,472 Windows open and shut because there are 1157 01:12:26,516 --> 01:12:29,867 things others ought not hear 1158 01:12:29,910 --> 01:12:32,522 Feet on stairways of burned-out homes 1159 01:12:32,565 --> 01:12:34,567 The sounds just keep on pushing him, 1160 01:12:34,611 --> 01:12:36,395 the sounds just keep on pushing her. 1161 01:12:36,439 --> 01:12:39,398 And there was a dance that was a Black dance. 1162 01:12:40,617 --> 01:12:44,447 That's what it means that Black folks could dance. 1163 01:12:44,490 --> 01:12:46,405 It don't mean we got rhythm 1164 01:12:46,449 --> 01:12:48,625 It don't mean the slop or the hully-gully 1165 01:12:48,668 --> 01:12:51,976 Or this dance in Houston called the "white boy" 1166 01:12:52,019 --> 01:12:54,544 It don't' mean just what we do all the time 1167 01:12:54,587 --> 01:12:58,156 It's how we remember what cannot be said. 1168 01:12:58,199 --> 01:13:01,594 That's why the white folks say it ain't got no form. 1169 01:13:01,638 --> 01:13:04,597 What was the form of slavery? 1170 01:13:04,641 --> 01:13:08,340 What was the form of Jim Crow, 1171 01:13:08,384 --> 01:13:10,603 and how in the hell would they know? 1172 01:13:12,039 --> 01:13:14,477 Braided lady of subway Simpson 1173 01:13:14,520 --> 01:13:17,131 Magic rings and nose and wrists 1174 01:13:17,175 --> 01:13:20,439 music in the style of islands, laces and trains 1175 01:13:20,483 --> 01:13:23,529 dancing in tunnels of Haiti's Kajingle jingle, 1176 01:13:23,573 --> 01:13:25,792 kajingle jingle, kajingle juju kajingle jingle, 1177 01:13:25,836 --> 01:13:28,055 kajingle juju. 1178 01:13:36,063 --> 01:13:38,065 Narrator: Gary Snider. 1179 01:13:38,588 --> 01:13:41,155 One of the things that poets have always done 1180 01:13:41,199 --> 01:13:45,029 and at least some poets can and will continue to speak 1181 01:13:45,072 --> 01:13:47,597 for the great goddess mother earth, 1182 01:13:47,640 --> 01:13:50,426 planet gia and so forth. 1183 01:13:50,469 --> 01:13:56,910 And on even deeper and less mythological levels 1184 01:13:56,954 --> 01:14:00,523 speak for original mind, speak for Buddha nature, 1185 01:14:00,566 --> 01:14:05,397 speak for the clarity of mind without opinion 1186 01:14:05,441 --> 01:14:09,445 mind without concept mind without preconception. 1187 01:14:10,533 --> 01:14:12,752 Breasts. 1188 01:14:12,796 --> 01:14:19,411 That which makes milk can't help but concentrate 1189 01:14:19,455 --> 01:14:23,459 out of the food of the world right up to the point 1190 01:14:23,502 --> 01:14:29,813 where we suck it, poison, too but the breast 1191 01:14:29,856 --> 01:14:34,905 is a filter the poison stays there in the flesh. 1192 01:14:35,558 --> 01:14:37,821 Heavy metals in traces. 1193 01:14:37,864 --> 01:14:40,606 Deadly molecules hooked up in strings 1194 01:14:40,650 --> 01:14:43,000 that men dreamed of 1195 01:14:43,043 --> 01:14:46,482 never found in the world until today. 1196 01:14:46,525 --> 01:14:51,835 In your bosom petro chemical complex a stray. 1197 01:14:53,489 --> 01:14:58,842 So we celebrate breasts we all love to kiss them 1198 01:14:58,885 --> 01:15:02,149 they are like philosophers. 1199 01:15:02,193 --> 01:15:07,764 Who hold back the bitter in mind to let the more tasty wisdoms 1200 01:15:07,807 --> 01:15:11,332 slip through for the little ones who can't 1201 01:15:11,376 --> 01:15:15,206 take the poison so young. 1202 01:15:15,249 --> 01:15:19,558 The work that comes later after child raising 1203 01:15:19,602 --> 01:15:25,521 for the real self to be is to them burn the poison away. 1204 01:15:25,869 --> 01:15:31,396 Flat breasts tired buddies that will snap like old leather. 1205 01:15:31,439 --> 01:15:34,704 Tough enough for a few more good days 1206 01:15:34,747 --> 01:15:40,623 and the glittering eyes old mother, old father are gay. 1207 01:15:46,019 --> 01:15:50,720 The writer has no responsibility except 1208 01:15:50,763 --> 01:15:55,768 to jack off in bed alone and then type a good page. 1209 01:15:59,816 --> 01:16:01,513 Narrator: Alan Ginsberg. 1210 01:16:01,557 --> 01:16:11,567 ♪ 1211 01:16:11,567 --> 01:16:17,398 ♪ 1212 01:16:17,442 --> 01:16:19,923 If you want to learn how to meditate. 1213 01:16:19,966 --> 01:16:22,578 I'll tell you now 'cause it's never too late. 1214 01:16:22,621 --> 01:16:25,102 Never too late, never too late. 1215 01:16:25,145 --> 01:16:27,670 I can't te-- I can't, I can't wait. 1216 01:16:28,845 --> 01:16:30,150 Audience: Can you hear him? 1217 01:16:30,194 --> 01:16:31,587 Can you hear them? 1218 01:16:31,630 --> 01:16:34,024 Audience: Turn your guitar down. 1219 01:16:34,067 --> 01:16:36,417 Turn this mic up, turn the guitar down-- 1220 01:16:36,461 --> 01:16:39,551 I have a Chilean nostic Buddhist notion 1221 01:16:39,595 --> 01:16:44,295 which is that the art is wild but the inside is wild 1222 01:16:44,338 --> 01:16:46,863 and the behavior may be wild but there's that thing 1223 01:16:46,906 --> 01:16:53,391 called crazy wisdom which is breaking up an old form 1224 01:16:53,434 --> 01:16:56,176 but as gently as possible and doing it in a way 1225 01:16:56,220 --> 01:16:59,179 that you leave space for a new form to rise. 1226 01:16:59,223 --> 01:17:01,617 Or giving space for people to come out 1227 01:17:01,660 --> 01:17:06,317 from behind their cover and speak more frankly. 1228 01:17:06,360 --> 01:17:08,406 So it would be radical thought I don't think 1229 01:17:08,449 --> 01:17:10,495 it would be violently revolutionary. 1230 01:17:11,931 --> 01:17:17,502 ♪ I don't like Nationalist Supremacy White or Black ♪ 1231 01:17:17,545 --> 01:17:22,594 ♪ I don't like the Narcs and Mafia marketing Smack ♪ 1232 01:17:22,638 --> 01:17:26,554 ♪ The General bullying Congress in his tweed vest ♪ 1233 01:17:28,426 --> 01:17:31,951 ♪ The President building up his Armies in the East and West ♪ 1234 01:17:33,431 --> 01:17:37,565 ♪ I don't like Argentine Police assasinating jews ♪ 1235 01:17:38,828 --> 01:17:42,440 ♪ Government terrorist takeover Salvador news ♪ 1236 01:17:44,224 --> 01:17:48,446 ♪ I don't like Zionist acting Nazi Storm Troop ♪ 1237 01:17:49,490 --> 01:17:53,016 ♪ Palestine Liberation cooking Israel into Muslim soup ♪ 1238 01:17:54,495 --> 01:17:58,543 ♪ I don't like the Crown's Official Secrets Act ♪ 1239 01:17:59,849 --> 01:18:03,983 ♪ You can get away with murder in Government that's a fact ♪ 1240 01:18:05,811 --> 01:18:09,641 ♪ Security cops teargassing radical kids ♪ 1241 01:18:11,469 --> 01:18:14,907 ♪ In Switzerland and Czechoslovakia God forbids ♪ 1242 01:18:16,561 --> 01:18:20,608 ♪ In America it's Attica in Russia it's Lubianka Wall ♪ 1243 01:18:21,827 --> 01:18:25,744 ♪ in China if you disappear you wouldn't know yourself at all ♪ 1244 01:18:27,572 --> 01:18:31,576 ♪ Arise Arise you citizens of the world use your lungs ♪ 1245 01:18:32,446 --> 01:18:34,448 ♪ Talk back to the Tyrants 1246 01:18:34,492 --> 01:18:36,581 ♪ all they're afraid of is your tongues ♪ 1247 01:18:38,452 --> 01:18:43,501 ♪ Two hundred Billion dollars inflates World War ♪ 1248 01:18:43,544 --> 01:18:47,635 ♪ In the United States every year They're asking for more ♪ 1249 01:18:48,985 --> 01:18:53,250 ♪ Russia's got as much in tanks and laser planes ♪ 1250 01:18:53,816 --> 01:18:55,774 ♪ Give or take Fifty Billion ♪ 1251 01:18:55,818 --> 01:18:58,429 ♪ we can blow out eveybody's brains. ♪ 1252 01:18:59,952 --> 01:19:03,826 ♪ School's broke down 'cause History changes every night ♪ 1253 01:19:05,436 --> 01:19:08,787 ♪ Half the Free World nations are Dictatorships of the Right ♪ 1254 01:19:10,658 --> 01:19:14,619 ♪ The only place socialism worked was in Gdansk, Bud ♪ 1255 01:19:16,447 --> 01:19:19,972 ♪ The Communist worlds stuck together with prisoner's blood ♪ 1256 01:19:20,016 --> 01:19:30,069 ♪ 1257 01:19:30,069 --> 01:19:42,821 ♪ 1258 01:19:42,865 --> 01:19:46,216 ♪ Bishop Romero wrote President Carter to stop ♪ 1259 01:19:48,261 --> 01:19:51,612 ♪ Sending guns to El Salvador's Junta so he got shot ♪ 1260 01:19:53,266 --> 01:19:57,575 ♪Ambassador White blew the whistle on the White House lies♪ 1261 01:19:58,881 --> 01:20:00,404 ♪ Reagan called him home 1262 01:20:00,447 --> 01:20:03,189 ♪ cause he looked in the dead nun's eyes ♪ 1263 01:20:04,974 --> 01:20:07,890 ♪ Half the voters didn't vote they knew it was too late ♪ 1264 01:20:09,805 --> 01:20:13,460 ♪ Newspaper headlines called it a big Mandate ♪ 1265 01:20:15,375 --> 01:20:18,901 ♪ Some people voted for Reagan eyes wide open ♪ 1266 01:20:20,511 --> 01:20:24,428 ♪ 3 out of 4 didn't vote for him That's a Landslide ♪ 1267 01:20:26,038 --> 01:20:29,955 ♪ Truth may be hard to find but falsehood's easy ♪ 1268 01:20:31,870 --> 01:20:34,917 ♪ Read between the lines our Imperialism is sleazy ♪ 1269 01:20:36,832 --> 01:20:41,184 ♪ But if you think the People's State is your Heart's Desire ♪ 1270 01:20:42,489 --> 01:20:46,189 ♪ Jump right back in the frying pan from the fire ♪ 1271 01:20:47,973 --> 01:20:51,629 ♪ The System the System in Russia and China the same ♪ 1272 01:20:52,935 --> 01:20:57,069 ♪ Critisize the System in Budapest lost your name ♪ 1273 01:20:58,549 --> 01:21:02,640 ♪ Coca Cola Pepsi Cola in Russia and China come true ♪ 1274 01:21:04,207 --> 01:21:07,993 ♪ Krushchev yelled in Hollywood "We will bury You" ♪ 1275 01:21:09,473 --> 01:21:13,694 ♪ America and Russia want to bomb themselves Okay ♪ 1276 01:21:15,044 --> 01:21:19,091 ♪ Everybody dead on both sides Everybody pray ♪ 1277 01:21:20,223 --> 01:21:24,140 ♪ All except the Generals in caves where they can hide ♪ 1278 01:21:25,663 --> 01:21:29,797 ♪ And fuck each other in the ass waiting for the next free ride ♪ 1279 01:21:31,582 --> 01:21:36,108 ♪ No hope Communism no hope Capitalism Yeah ♪ 1280 01:21:36,979 --> 01:21:41,984 ♪ everybody's lying on both sides Nyeah nyeah nyeah ♪ 1281 01:21:42,506 --> 01:21:46,118 ♪ The bloody iron curtain of American Military power ♪ 1282 01:21:47,554 --> 01:21:51,602 ♪ Is a mirror image of Russia's red Babel-Tower ♪ 1283 01:21:51,645 --> 01:21:57,347 ♪ Aware Aware where ever you are No Fear No fear. ♪ 1284 01:21:57,390 --> 01:22:01,177 ♪ Trust in your heart Don't ride your paranoia dear ♪ 1285 01:22:02,265 --> 01:22:06,791 ♪ Breathe together with an ordinary mind ♪ 1286 01:22:08,619 --> 01:22:15,539 ♪ Armed with Humor Feed and Help Enlighten Woe Mankind ♪♪ 1287 01:22:15,582 --> 01:22:26,854 ♪ 1288 01:22:38,388 --> 01:22:40,564 The whole point is that it's all poets 1289 01:22:40,607 --> 01:22:43,480 all writers all actors making up their own prose 1290 01:22:43,523 --> 01:22:47,527 their own scenario so the poet is in a position 1291 01:22:47,571 --> 01:22:48,702 to make up a scenario that's 1292 01:22:48,746 --> 01:22:53,446 a lot more vivid actually 1293 01:22:53,490 --> 01:22:56,058 because it's based on an accurate observation. 1294 01:23:01,846 --> 01:23:02,847 [coughing] 1295 01:23:04,414 --> 01:23:05,850 This is a piece 1296 01:23:05,893 --> 01:23:10,333 from "The Book of Nods" called "Just Visiting." 1297 01:23:13,292 --> 01:23:15,207 When the shooting broke I decided to vault 1298 01:23:15,251 --> 01:23:18,689 the teller's window and face the fire from the other side. 1299 01:23:18,732 --> 01:23:22,258 I saw my forearm tighten across the throat of the cashier 1300 01:23:22,301 --> 01:23:25,087 Ms. Ladermore and as my browning was raised 1301 01:23:25,130 --> 01:23:29,482 to her temples they took it back, it all fell dead. 1302 01:23:29,526 --> 01:23:31,919 With the silence I felt a distance between 1303 01:23:31,963 --> 01:23:34,748 my trigger and the man. 1304 01:23:34,792 --> 01:23:37,534 I heard the reverberation of the last stray bullet's 1305 01:23:37,577 --> 01:23:40,450 muffled ring, moved out through my brain in circles 1306 01:23:40,493 --> 01:23:43,844 of jagged light expanding like still water broken 1307 01:23:43,888 --> 01:23:45,629 by broken by the stone. 1308 01:23:45,672 --> 01:23:49,720 Some smart young lieutenant arrived to take things over, 1309 01:23:49,763 --> 01:23:51,765 he leaned his eyes a moment through the doors 1310 01:23:51,809 --> 01:23:56,379 in front and then went around back. 1311 01:23:56,422 --> 01:24:00,383 Went inside a small light room and threw the switch. 1312 01:24:00,426 --> 01:24:03,429 All the lights rolled out of thin vapour tubes 1313 01:24:03,473 --> 01:24:06,432 from right to left the darkness absorbed more silence 1314 01:24:06,476 --> 01:24:09,479 I could here the details being assigned. 1315 01:24:09,522 --> 01:24:12,786 The tone of the head man's voice was clear, 1316 01:24:12,830 --> 01:24:15,354 they were hot to blow me away. 1317 01:24:15,398 --> 01:24:17,922 I didn't expect my hostage would go down as a deal 1318 01:24:17,965 --> 01:24:21,491 I knew she signed that paper when she took the job. 1319 01:24:21,534 --> 01:24:24,320 But I just wanted some last contact, 1320 01:24:24,363 --> 01:24:28,063 I would've rather some sweet clever music. 1321 01:24:28,106 --> 01:24:30,543 I slit the strap to her bra, I reached under I felt my 1322 01:24:30,587 --> 01:24:34,678 palm rinse her breast it could've been a radio. 1323 01:24:34,721 --> 01:24:38,160 I moved my lips close so that only she could hear me, 1324 01:24:38,203 --> 01:24:40,597 it should've been a radio. 1325 01:24:40,640 --> 01:24:43,339 I whispered in my codine voice I told her 1326 01:24:43,382 --> 01:24:47,125 you see all my life the women I've been with 1327 01:24:47,169 --> 01:24:49,606 and that's more than you can imagine really, 1328 01:24:49,649 --> 01:24:52,478 I always bypassed their breasts I went down you know? 1329 01:24:52,522 --> 01:24:55,307 I went to the sauce, I honestly don't think 1330 01:24:55,351 --> 01:24:57,135 you're gonna die so don't be afraid listen, 1331 01:24:57,179 --> 01:25:01,270 I wanted the thunder on my fingers on my lips. 1332 01:25:01,313 --> 01:25:05,187 What are a woman's breasts its just so much adornment 1333 01:25:05,230 --> 01:25:08,799 they're like chalices on an alter waiting for adoration. 1334 01:25:08,842 --> 01:25:12,019 Like the writing on the scroll the handles on the erne, 1335 01:25:12,063 --> 01:25:14,544 the gold that lines a vessel. 1336 01:25:14,587 --> 01:25:17,155 I wanted the mystery inside the thunder 1337 01:25:17,199 --> 01:25:20,724 and the darkest light, I mean I feel the sharpness 1338 01:25:20,767 --> 01:25:22,856 of your nipple it's flawless 1339 01:25:22,900 --> 01:25:24,902 there's no doubt about that. 1340 01:25:24,945 --> 01:25:28,775 Just let me move it over, oh it came out it's so red. 1341 01:25:28,819 --> 01:25:31,648 You must be younger than you appear. 1342 01:25:31,691 --> 01:25:34,694 I know about that kind of thing really. 1343 01:25:34,738 --> 01:25:37,393 Once I told this girl that she had breasts 1344 01:25:37,436 --> 01:25:40,178 like bleeding lemons she thought that was 1345 01:25:40,222 --> 01:25:43,529 a beautiful thing to say. 1346 01:25:43,573 --> 01:25:46,271 But what are they, it's just architecture 1347 01:25:46,315 --> 01:25:48,273 where's the wetness and why are they 1348 01:25:48,317 --> 01:25:50,362 so white so terribly white, 1349 01:25:50,406 --> 01:25:52,625 whiteness frightens me horribly. 1350 01:25:52,669 --> 01:25:55,367 When I was 14 years old I went to my friends house 1351 01:25:55,411 --> 01:25:58,370 at the beach in Long Island, the sun there 1352 01:25:58,414 --> 01:26:01,417 and the sand I remember it was terrible 1353 01:26:01,460 --> 01:26:03,897 too much whiteness I couldn't stand it 1354 01:26:03,941 --> 01:26:07,292 I stayed in my friend's room for days listening to music. 1355 01:26:07,336 --> 01:26:10,600 His mother and his fat sister they thought me quite insane. 1356 01:26:10,643 --> 01:26:14,299 I wanted to teach myself to play the drums. 1357 01:26:14,343 --> 01:26:16,997 The sister was 36 years old and so fat that 1358 01:26:17,041 --> 01:26:20,349 the mother had to tie the laces on her shoes, 1359 01:26:20,392 --> 01:26:23,569 I hated her and she hated me but I was just visiting 1360 01:26:23,613 --> 01:26:25,397 so it wasn't fair. 1361 01:26:29,619 --> 01:26:33,492 So really why I continued writing even though 1362 01:26:33,536 --> 01:26:37,931 it came back and I got drunk for 10 years 1363 01:26:37,975 --> 01:26:43,502 I felt there was nothing out there so I had continue 1364 01:26:43,546 --> 01:26:45,156 because they were so bad 1365 01:26:45,200 --> 01:26:47,593 not because I was so good. 1366 01:26:50,205 --> 01:26:54,470 And I'm still not so good but they're still very bad. 1367 01:26:56,515 --> 01:27:01,346 There's still room for somebody to step in here you see. 1368 01:27:01,651 --> 01:27:04,480 And I hope he arrives or she. 1369 01:27:06,264 --> 01:27:09,267 That should be enough right there but that bottle 1370 01:27:09,311 --> 01:27:12,923 of 55 poets that should cure them. 1371 01:27:13,793 --> 01:27:17,406 With their malady but it won't. 1372 01:27:20,278 --> 01:27:21,845 Goodnight... 1373 01:27:22,280 --> 01:27:23,847 Goodbye... 1374 01:27:25,849 --> 01:27:27,851 And happy reading.