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This episode has two guests, not one.
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Ada Leone and Joy Harjo, and they're the two most recent poet laurates for the United States of America.
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They're like the secretaries of rhythm and rhyme.
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Poetry is one of the oldest art forms, right?
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It goes back to the Greeks with singing and dancing, people memorizing the wisdom of a society.
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But now, if you ask the average person about poetry, they'll be like, "Ah, I don't really read poetry.
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It sounds too much like school." We talked about that.
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We also talked about how to use metaphors in your writing, how to put words to emotions that are beyond words, and then also how to listen to nature, God, the divine, whatever it is, how to really listen.
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And this conversation, it's what how I write is all about.
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I love interviewing the poets.
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If these are the kinds of conversations that you want to hear more of, well, you know what to do.
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Like the show, follow it, subscribe to the YouTube channel, but also I'd really appreciate if you shared it with a friend.
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All right, let's get to it.
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[Music] I want to start off by talking about listening because there's something that I sensed in both of your work that there's this deep practice of listening beyond words that is core to your work. >> Yeah.
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I think so much of writing is receiving.
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Um I think we have a misconception that making art is always about making or putting something into the world.
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But in reality, much of what we do as artists is to receive the world, to look, to listen, all the senses alive and to be present in that listening.
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And I think that's for at least for me that's where my best poems come from is when I'm really listening to the world and what it's offering as opposed to constantly trying to translate that into my own experience.
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But to really listen to the experience that is the vibration of the planet. >> Yes.
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I mean, if you look at the earth, it's all about perspective and it's all about vibration or or or um if you look at the earth from say a spaceship or from if you're in your dreams and you look at it from way out there, Earth is one being and it has its own song and its own vibration, but it's made up of everyone's, you know, everyone's I don't want to say vibration, it's resonance, you know that everyone has a resonance. It's rhythm.
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I know when I write, it's it's about listening.
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It's always about listening and not imposing myself.
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I mean, we're who we are. We're all personalities. We're who we are.
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But it's about um you know, listening and and translating and sometimes it's like translation from what you're hearing to uh you know, make it using your craft to make it into something.
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So that the coolest things that of that will happen in a say a poem or a song or things that just come through and then I'll say thank you. That's really cool.
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>> Is there an experience of listening that stands out for either of you?
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>> It's you know I think it it helps like we were talking about trees earlier with uh Tracy, but you know being around trees being out in the natural world assists with that.
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If you're on your phone, if you're constantly interrupted by your addiction to your phone or to the internet, that breaks up that breaks up the resonance. Now, I like my dreams.
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I've been a kind of dreamer my whole life.
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And when when my dreams and they're usually long, you know, they're longer.
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They have a certain kind of quality that's a lot like poetry, that's a lot like the creative process.
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But when my dreams started flipping quickly by like videos, like reals or Tik Toks, I knew that was the end of that for me because, >> you know, I did not want it was interfering with my thought.
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It was interfering with my thought process and lengthy >> thought lengthy thought process.
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>> So your dreams, you're saying, began to change based on the as a response to the media you were consuming. >> Yeah.
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in in the kinds of media when the things are quick. >> Yeah.
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>> It's like if you read a novel or you read a poem or short story or you look at a painting or you paint or music >> like we used to lay around and listen to LPS and stuff and you were more immersed in the music. It would be in the room.
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It wouldn't be just in your ears solo >> but it would be in the room.
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So the room was listening too.
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So everybody's listening. So then what happens?
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Our experience of the world has shifted because of this interference. Yes, it's cool.
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Yes, you can talk to people and get information all over the world any time of day.
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But what is your relationship?
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You have no relationship.
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It's like when you come back to writing or to poetry.
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It's a different kind of listening in which it's interactive.
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I mean there's listening but I think even listening is interactive >> even as you're quiet.
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But and see I'm thinking as I go but it's uh because I hadn't thought of that. It's it's interacting.
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What are you interacting with?
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You know there there are resonances when you start to listen.
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That's when you can hear the plants.
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That's when you can hear the the rocks.
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That's when you can hear >> um you know that's that's when you can hear what's going on in the beneath the beneath. >> Mhm. >> Yeah.
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Yeah, >> that's my short answer.
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>> No, I completely I completely I co-sign that. >> Yeah, what about it?
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I well for me it feels like there's so much about we don't have a lot of silence in the world and so when I am writing poems or writing making something and I I can't listen to music when I do it because I it I love music but I will be taken away by it.
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So I have to listen to my own music or the or the music that is present.
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And um at one moment I was writing something and I was working on a poem and it was a longer poem which is always fun when that happens and you know it's going to be long and I it's you start to get a different kind of music that is patient.
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And I went downstairs to get tea and I came back upstairs and I thought, "What was I just listening to?"
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And I really thought, "Was it a podcast? Was it?"
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And then I realized it was my own poem.
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It was the poem that I had been listening to.
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But the sound was so loud in my own body that it felt like it was coming from outside.
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And so when I sat back down, I was like, "Oh, this is what I was listening to." >> Oh, yeah. Cool.
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And that was when I recognized that listing was so intricate and so important to my own art making process.
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>> You know, I can't listen to it's to write now.
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I've done some things writing to music.
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I mean, I write music too and I'm a musician. >> Yeah.
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>> But um >> I like listen to your flute music. >> Yeah.
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But writing to, you know, writing a song is different. >> Yeah.
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>> Yeah. I know I have to be on a panel next week in Nashville is much different from writing poetry and if I'm writing poetry or even pros >> I can't listen I get taken away by the music and it always it intrigues me because Lesie Silo a novelist she's also
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a poet short story writer so she listens to music loud and it build it's a kind of wall it makes a wall of sound behind what she can write >> how about rhythm in writing Like with you, I'm thinking like the rhythm of a horse, like a horse gallop, and with you, like the rhythm of sound and music. >> Yeah. I mean, I think that that comes >> Yeah.
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I mean, I think that that comes through the poem itself, and sometimes sometimes you hear the poem before you start writing it. >> Mh.
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And there there can be a phrase or there is a there's something that happens that alerts you to a different kind of music that is thrilling or is for the lack of a better word true and you think, "Oh, this this sound is interesting to me and I want to figure that out."
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And so I think that um for me there's a moment in which the poem makes a rhythm or and I I can't tell if I've translated a rhythm that I've heard into the poem or if the poem has made it on its own and I then have teased it out or amplified it. But I'm not always sure.
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>> No, rhythm is crucial to it's everything. >> Yeah.
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It's behind everything your organs.
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I mean, every organ, even every cell has, you know, it's held together by rhythm.
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>> We're held together by rhythm.
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>> The heart goes loses its rhythm. That's the end of it.
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But that rhythm runs through, you know, the organs, all of the systems in your body, all the earth systems, >> the rocks, you know, it just depends on how attuned your perception is.
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how attuned your perception is. And I think poets especially when it comes to language over a lot any of the other word literary arts are especially attuned >> I think to especially attuned I mean some writers too some writers who are very
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>> um not literary there's just some you know it's just a kind of attunement to it >> there are people who take care of plants who are like that I mean there are people who can listen to an engine >> you know I have I came for the father and brothers who were mechanics and stuff. You can listen to an engine and
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You can listen to an engine and hear it run.
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And I have a little bit of that and I can tell what's wrong. >> Yeah. >> But it's Yeah.
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It's kind of a rhythm thing. >> Yeah. Yeah.
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And I think that goes back to silence, too, is that people think we're looking for silence, but really you're looking to hear what's already happening, what's alive, and what's moving in the world, >> you know?
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Because I think that silence can feel um like it's whitewashing, right?
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That we're that it's supposed to be, but really it's about hearing the music that is constantly alive in the world. >> Right. Right.
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As if silence is depth, not nothingness >> because it's always it's it's alive. We're a living being.
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And I just had a deja vu moment. >> Really?
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Have you done this before?
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>> When you were when you were saying when you were saying >> Yeah. >> Okay. Good. >> Yeah.
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Yeah, I had this moment in Patagonia last uh last winter and we were sitting we went out for a hike and we were basically in this giant canyon, giant canyon, magnificent.
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And we go out >> Argentina or Arizona. >> In Argentina. Okay. >> In Argentina.
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So, we're out there and then the guy goes, "Hey, we're going to sit in silence for a few minutes."
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And what was interesting to your point about the depth is when you start sitting in silence, the first thing that pops in your mind is it's quiet.
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And then you sit and you sit and you sit and you're like, "Whoa, it is loud." >> It is loud.
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There's the eagles chirping.
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There's the waterfalls falling.
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There's the glacier snow melting and falling into the rocks.
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>> And actually the silence was super loud.
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And I was like, "Wo, this is crazy." >> Recognize that. Yeah. >> Yeah.
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I when I was in high school, I was so attuned to noise that I um I could hide anything with my hair.
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So I would I would not put in headphones. I would put in earplugs. >> Mhm.
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>> Just to dampen it so that I could kind of move through society. >> Uhhuh.
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>> Because I was so sensitive to the loudness of teenage people, you know.
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I was 15 and it was just it was so loud and so I just I had to like dampen it a little bit and I think it's because I am attuned to the music of the world. >> Yeah, I get that.
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I always like to spend a lot of time alone even as a little kid >> even when I was really really small just for sanity.
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>> That's the best part about being a poet.
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>> I mean you make music which often involves other people which is beautiful.
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Um, but really one of the things that I love about being a poet is that you can do it alone. >> I like that too.
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I spend a lot of time a lot of time alone.
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>> How did how have you thought about cultivating your voice?
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You know, I've seen what you said, Joy, is when I was younger, I felt like I didn't have a voice >> of sorts.
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I don't want to put words into your mouth, but then now it seems like that's something you've really cultivated both in music and in writing.
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And how did you go about doing that?
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I don't think I went about cultivating my voice.
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Maybe my voice cultivated me because I feel like it's it's the same voice whether it's it's kind of timeless.
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It's whether it's the saxophone or the um speaking or singing. It's the same voice.
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And you know I guess my perception of it or experience of it shifts you know with with experiences and with age and so on but I don't know I know a lot of young students when I taught where looking for their voice and I said where it's right
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>> you know it's already there >> your voice is there I guess what they really need trying to say is how do I find what's unique >> really so the question what's unique to me or my own exper expression, you know, how how do I develop that? >> And what do you tell them?
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>> And what do you tell them?
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>> Well, you just learn that you get to know yourself, >> which means getting to know the world at the same time.
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Always, you know, questioning and investigating with curiosity the the world, why you think a certain way, what your belief systems are made of, >> where your mind travels to. >> Uh-huh.
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And where it likes to go. >> Yeah.
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Where it obsesses, where it feels safest. >> Yeah.
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where, you know, all of those things.
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I mean, that's part of, you know, voice is really, you know, it's the it's the underneath thing, right?
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It's the thing that's >> always been us.
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And so, it's weird because I don't I'm not super comfortable with the word soul, but it is in that realm.
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The ethereal voice that we talk about in poetry really is the usness, the isness of this material body at this time and space.
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And so to know it is to not just listen to the world, right?
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But but to listen to the entity that is yourself and um to not censor it, you know, to not think what is appropriate >> right >> for this moment.
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What are the things that have been taught taught to me that is um the way that someone should move into the world, right?
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I think >> when I'm alone and I'm quiet for a while, right?
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I'm silent and listening.
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What's the first what are the words that come up?
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I'm always interested in that.
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If I've been alone for a long time, what are the words that come up?
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You know, and sometimes it's just I'm sorry.
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And I think who am I apologizing to?
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And I think sometimes it's just thank you.
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And then sometimes it's just I want to sing. I like songs come back. Music comes back.
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And it's not even music that I know or songs that I know, but songs that exist somewhere in me.
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Um, but I think that that's part of it is that it's not necessarily a voice. >> Yeah.
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And some voices, so to speak, fit it fit an age and some not.
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And I've always been aware of that >> I don't want my voice or my theme or something just to be caught in a particular fashion of the times >> that you know because and yet there are voices or people who are part of that's their place. that's what they do.
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But I know and how do I know it?
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I just know that that's not where mine fits.
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And I've tried to do that and it doesn't work.
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And it gets harder when so much of what you see in the contemporary poetry world is so I hear about it or I watch it.
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I I don't delve into it is so youth focused and so focused on trends.
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It it can be not always but even poetry can get really focused on trends >> and groups and and ideas certain theory theoretical >> notions and so on that um you know and that's another whole realm but I don't deal with that I haven't I mean I always wrote the way I wrote which didn't always make it easy to be seen or to understood be understood And but that was just why I was doing what I needed to do. >> Yeah. Yeah.
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And you were speaking to you were speaking back and are speaking back to a longer period of time. >> Mhm. Yeah.
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And I think that that is really something that I've always admired about your work is that sort of, you know, it's before clock time. >> Yeah.
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>> Clock time is so recent. >> I know. >> It's so small. >> Yeah.
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>> And that's what I tell especially young native writers or natives, we think I said, think about it this way.
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You know, coloniza, it seems like we always have to deal with colonization and history, but you know what?
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If you look at at, you know, Columbus didn't even land in North America, but if you look at the time versus eternal time and how long our people have been here and had our culture, >> this time is like you can't even see between. It's like that.
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It's here, but it will go away because we've been here much longer and we will be here after. >> Yeah. >> And we know that. >> Yeah.
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I think that's something tricky moment, you know. >> Yeah.
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Because everything when you when you have that view and I can have it for moments and then it goes away. >> Yeah. True.
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>> You know, I have this moment and and I feel more comfortable in it. >> Yeah.
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And I think that's true for peoples all over the world too because this kind of clock time or industrial you know you talk about industrialization >> a lot of that came about >> you know it was certainly uh >> uh developed intensely around indust the time of industrial revolution and so on but >> you know it's I mean we've had there's been you know clocks that measure the sun. >> Yeah.
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But to be bound, we haven't, you know, we're so bound by it.
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>> Well, one thing that's nice with clock time is the time of day really influences it.
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I've been thinking a lot about how there's a bigger difference between 2:28 on a Tuesday and 2:30.
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There's a bigger difference in those times between >> 2:00 a. m. and 5:00 a. m. on a Saturday night.
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>> Like, yeah, there's 3 hours, but somehow like the time goes away.
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But if it's like 2:28 versus 2:30 on a Tuesday, like I need to know what time it is.
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Those are completely different states.
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But if I'm just with my buddies on a Saturday night, it's way too late. Who cares? >> Yeah.
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And yet you can look at 228 and be like, I've got 2 minutes to do something before 2:30 strikes. >> Yeah.
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And it and it has >> to accomplish something on my list, >> wrangling hold on our attention.
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And it's hard to get that deep cultivated focused presence. >> Yeah. Yeah.
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to lose track of time >> is such a gift >> and difficult. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
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Because because of all of this internet and so all of these things meant to make our life easier like the cell phone it eats they they eat time.
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I mean they eat up our time.
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>> But also you're talking about the producer side of what cell phones have done also from the consumer side.
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It completely changes our relationship with poetry because when I read a poem the first time, every time I'm like, I don't get it.
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And then I got to come back to it and I got to come back to it and I got to come back to it.
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>> And it's not just reading and rereading, but listening and sort of the multimodal nature of poetry.
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So from a consumer perspective, it's so hard to have that sustained attention so that we can come to appreciate a poem. >> Mhm.
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Yeah, I think that's true.
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>> Mhm. Yeah, I think that's true. I mean poetry takes repetition I think for I mean I'm someone who reads a lot of poetry and we've devoted our lives to poetry >> and still to this day I can read a poem and sort of wonder about it and then read it again and wonder more deeply
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about it and then read it again and it opens up more and I mean it really it's the way you listen to a song over and over again and that song shifts and how you feel on a certain day shifts that song and what the way you feel in your body or what happened to you then shifts that song. You know, that's the same
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You know, that's the same with a poem.
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There are times where I've um I've been really resistant to poems that I thought, oh, you know, I'm not a big fan of John Ashbury.
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And I have friends that would always say, you know, oh, you're going to like him.
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And I'm like, I just I just don't.
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And then you know recently or you know in the last 10 years >> I was revisiting a lot of his work and just loving it.
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So I think you know your your own body shifts and you think oh this is the time for this poem and and some of it was taking the time >> was that I didn't have the patience for the abundance of his work.
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>> It's like listening to jazz. >> Yeah. >> Exactly.
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>> That's what I love about jazz is the places you can as a performer.
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places you can as a performer. I love to improv >> and it's the places you can go and especially if you're improving you have to be you have to listen >> and be alert and you also the it works best the more you have in your pocket you know the more skill the more craft
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you have >> to a lot of places >> and that's like listening to John Ashberry >> at this point you have more craft under you >> so you can hear more what he's doing >> which is similar to jazz his poetry I is similar to how some jazz works like a jazz of words >> in the way he moves with phrasing. >> Yeah. And I think I was I was impatient, >> Yeah.
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And I think I was I was impatient, you know, >> I get impatient with him, but still. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
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And um and so I think that that that's something that we lose a little bit when we don't have the book in front of us or the poem in front of us.
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Instead, we think, "Oh, we just look at it on our phone."
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really quick and see if we understand this poem.
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>> So, when you say that you read poetry, what do you do?
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You just flip through them.
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You're like, "Oh, I'm going to do this one tonight.
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I must force myself 20 minutes."
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Like, how does that actually work?
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How does a poet read a poem? >> Yeah.
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Isn't that funny that that's a question? >> Yeah. Hi. >> It's true though.
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>> I I have a stack of I mean, I have a library of books that I'm constantly pulling out.
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Sometimes I just need a certain poet and and sometimes I don't.
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Sometimes like, "Oh, this is not what I need right now and I put it back and then I pick something else up."
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>> Like listen to music almost the same. It's very similar. >> Yeah.
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And then sometimes I just will keep that stack on my desk and then sort of when I feel like I've moved on, I need to put those back and but then they come in back in rotation, you know, and then sometimes it's new work and beautiful.
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There's so many amazing contemporary poets.
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Yeah, there are >> that I'm constantly gobbling up their new work and all of that, but um but I I I'm still a book person.
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I like to read the actual book.
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>> Yeah, >> I like the books.
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>> I'm always surprised when I'm prepping for these interviews.
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I go to bookstores and I look around and the poetry section is always small and I'm like, man, you know, is poetry dying in text a bit.
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And then I go on YouTube and the poetry readings on YouTube just so popular.
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So popular people love listening to poetry.
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But it's funny cuz I think back to school and it was like read this poem. What does it mean? Break it down.
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Was it if they do >> as if as if poetry had an answer, >> right?
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It's as if life had an answer.
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>> That's what I always tell student.
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>> That's what I always tell student. I said if if I if in elementary school if the teacher the teachers always hated the poetry time but the poetry unit but if they would have said just listen to this poem the way you listen to a song this is song and paper just listen to it
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like that now what do you hear and now listen to it again just like you would you get more out of listening to and I always use hotel California like who knows what that means and who cares you know what I mean it's really about the experience the experience of it because we don't we put words together. If we wanted to make
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If we wanted to make exact literal logic sense, we wouldn't be writing poetry. >> Yeah.
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You don't read poetry to get the meaning of the sentence.
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You know, you read poetry for the music and for the experience and for the the multitude of meanings that it offers that the line break offers.
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>> It gets back to rhythm. >> Yeah.
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>> And sound sense and open sounds at the end of a phrase. It's phrasing.
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end of a phrase. It's phrasing. A sentence is ph is a phrase like if you play like four bars of something, you know, it's sort of like four bars is kind of the standard if you think about it, which is kind of the standard in songwriting too is like four bars and you get to the end of that and if the last syllable is say open that leads that that leads in kind of a certain
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certain shape or if it's percussive and ends you know if there's three cell I mean it's it's all I mean you could lay it all out out all mathematically there's a way but there's just something you know that that you know you'll hear
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once you start breaking down listening to songs like songwriters like Rosanne Cash or you know other songwriters and and and poets everybody's kind of got their own signature their own feel around things like that. >> Yeah. And then you watch over a lifetime >> Yeah.
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And then you watch over a lifetime of like you said like if Emily Dickinson and I don't know what you've discovered about her changing as I haven't studied her enough to watch that but it's interesting over a life a long period of a poet or a songwriter or a singer or you know to watch how usually there are themes set into place I mean things that we engage with. >> Yeah. Yeah.
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And I think that um everyone has a relationship with the sentence or syntax in a different way and that changes as people age too.
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But when we think about, you know, a poem, one of its signature things, it's not always the case with a pro poem, but um is that the sentence and the line are interacting so that the line is break is breaking in a different way, right?
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The line breaks the sentence and we start with the really small units.
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We start with um the sound and we start with syllables and then we then we go to the word and then we go to the clause and then we go to the line break and then we go to the sentence like we really start in these very small units. Mhm.
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>> And so it's unlike if you're working in pros where you just think, okay, I'm working the sentence is the unit, but we really begin in the sound even before we get to the syllable.
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And so you're constantly having a different relationship with the sentence.
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When people say, "Well, poems can have sentences." Sure.
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But the the elemental quality of it is different than working just with a sentence. >> Yeah.
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What I'm hearing you say is that there's an aesthetic quality beyond the words.
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So in the when you listen to a poem, there's the musicality.
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When you read the poem, the aesthetic experience has to do with the line break and the way it looks. >> It's the same. They're united. Hm.
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>> The line break tells you how to read the poem, >> which are the pauses or the silences. >> Sure. >> Yeah.
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>> So, that's the instructions on how to read the poem.
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So, the line break is going to tell you something.
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This the the clause and whether or not you're using punctuation is going to tell you something, right?
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The sentence will tell you some.
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All of those things will tell you how to read the poem.
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And so the music, you know, Joy and has said this and I've said this before, but it's the um it is like a song except all the music has to be on the page.
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>> Everything has to be on the page, >> right?
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>> And so all everything is there.
30:04
It's not waiting for music to join it. >> Yeah.
30:10
>> You know, it's not waiting for the percussion to come in.
30:11
The percussion has to be >> the periods or the ellipses or whatever it is, but or the suras, but that's >> that's the that's rhythm section. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
30:24
The repetition often the baseline, you know.
30:27
So that's the way a poem is made is is also the way the poem tells you how to read it.
30:35
>> How does singing and dancing factor into all this?
30:37
Because poetry is as old as it gets, but it wasn't delivered just in words on a page. It was spoken. It was danced out.
30:45
thought it was >> hoola is a good, you know, I lived in Hawaii over 11 years and I've trained some in hoola, mostly in canoe racing, but it's poetry.
30:55
I mean, the root of it is poetry and there's music.
30:57
And this is true with Yeah.
30:59
It's true with cultures all over the world. Yeah. It's dance. It's images. It's their dance. They're dancing poetry.
31:08
>> Poetry is connected to land places in the earth.
31:11
You could have star patterns in it.
31:13
There's all kinds of things that could go in there.
31:15
But you're dancing it, you know, you're also singing it, you know, you're, you know, it's it's all there.
31:21
But you can find that in a lot of, you know, a lot of the classics and indigenous cultures and all over the world, isn't that the music and the poetry and the dance are all >> part of each other. They're all linked.
31:38
And it's also a way of remembering, you know, remembering and honoring a moment in time or or honoring somebody, you know, elegies, love poems >> or reinforcing a template of >> cultural philosophical understanding. >> In what way?
32:00
>> In that I mean what is culture?
32:00
I mean how do we know who we are in a culture? You know, human beings. It's our it's our arts. It's our designs.
32:10
>> It's in it, you know, it's in our literature, whether it's or oral literature or literature that's been written down. >> It's in our symbols.
32:19
It's in the story structures that tell us who we are and why we're here and how we got here and where we're going. That's all part of it. >> Yeah.
32:29
And it feels, you know, the embodiment of a poem, like when someone reads a poem, to hear it out loud is that's my favorite part.
32:38
You know, I'm I'm someone who loves to go to poetry readings.
32:45
I love to listen to someone read their poems.
32:47
It's it's a really moving experience.
32:54
And it feels to me that when people h like poetry but they've never heard it out loud, I think, no, no, no, you need to hear it, you know, or you need to experience in a sensorial way.
33:06
Um, and you know, I think about even when you have a a um poets that are deaf and they and it's but the embodiment of the poem is in ASL and so it's like the sign language is part of that embodiment. >> Yeah.
33:27
>> And so I think that there is something to be said for not just the words on the page, but that it becomes a a fully expressed thing in the body. >> Mhm.
33:38
So, there was somebody in our signing in my signing line who came up and said her husband uh is in the he's a medical doctor in and teaches somewhere, you know, in the medical field and said he had never really got why people like poetry and anything.
33:53
Of course, she dragged him to our event.
33:55
And after hearing us read our poems, he said, "I get it."
34:02
>> He said, "I get it now. >> I I get it."
34:04
And he was he was really excited and turned on. He says, "It's great. >> I get it. >> That's great." >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah.
34:12
But I think that sometimes people need to have that experience. >> Yeah.
34:16
It's crazy because I'll I've memorized not that many poems, but enough that >> I'll sometimes recite poems, you know, if I'm at dinner with somebody.
34:23
And it's funny because we'll be chatting blah blah blah and they're in a completely normal state and then I'll go into poetry mode and the tenor of my voice doesn't change that much but the >> quality of the words does and it's almost like they're arrested by the words.
34:40
It's like they've been captured and you can see it in their eyes.
34:43
They light up and all of a sudden they go and they're like there with you >> and it's this >> experience of looking at someone as they have a thought in their head of whoa I didn't know language >> could do that.
35:01
I didn't know it had that power to cast a spell on me that fast. >> Yeah. >> What?
35:06
>> What? I remember the first time I I it was the first time I went out of the country for a poetry thing in Amsterdam in the late 70s and one of the readings was by the uh uh dub poet uh Linton Quzy Johnson from Jamaica and he didn't have
35:23
his band he was just reading his poetry and we were all moving you know like we were like rea just it was just with the cadence of his voice >> and what he was saying and how he was saying it >> and pretty soon we were all just like we were all dancing. But it was he wasn't
35:36
But it was he wasn't singing it, >> you know, it was just the you know the rhythm of the words and the way he was >> which followed the you know it was like the rhythm of the music and which came first da da da da or was it did it have to do with the the ocean there and the way that you know it was you know it was interest that after that really affected me to hear that and to hear him. >> Yeah. Yeah.
36:05
I feel like that's um sometimes people will just throw a poetry quote out there and even then I think oh >> like I get I even just a small line you know like I was the Emily Dickinson poem that keeps coming to me and I have used it before but it's that not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door and you just this idea of >> you know >> it just throws you into deep space immediately. >> Immediately. >> Yeah.
36:36
Yeah, I have that experience with um a lot of times at baseball games they'll play America the Beautiful and God Bless America in the seventh inning and it just it just completely moves me like from sea to shining sea.
36:49
God bless America land that I love stand beside her and guide her >> and some of my favorite moments as a kid.
36:56
Some of my favorite I was at the Yankees game two weeks ago and it just those words they just melt me >> and you it's >> but it's beyond it's like you lose your capacity for control or something when the words are really pure and well written.
37:14
You're kind of like all right let's go for the ride.
37:18
I'm no longer in control.
37:19
>> Well we spend so much time in, you know, in our lives with language's utilitarian tool. >> Yes. Yes. Yes.
37:27
>> And it becomes a blunt object. >> Mhm.
37:30
>> And to reimagine it as an ecstatic, ethereal, you know, transitory thing. >> Mhm.
37:43
>> That occurs in a moment more like spell or magic or uh >> you can't do that in texting, though.
37:51
I've heard there's texting texting novels and this and that and people are going to, you know, do whatever.
37:55
But >> yeah, >> usually you don't >> texting doesn't lend itself naturally or easily to metaphor. >> Yeah. >> Why metaphor?
38:07
Why why do you focus on that word?
38:09
Why does it hold so much gravity for you?
38:11
>> Poetry is essentially metaphor.
38:14
>> It's if you look think about poetry as a whole.
38:16
Well, this is not as what it see not as it seems or it's Like it could be like a similar, you know, poetry is like the real world, but it's this >> or it's this and it's also this >> and here's one contradiction and here's one.
38:34
And yet we can hold it all right here.
38:36
And usually text messages are abbreviated.
38:40
I've noticed several of the younger generation who are very well educated who still don't punctuate or they don't always >> capitalize.
38:47
I noticed that with people of my daughter's age too is that they and it's because they've been texting.
38:56
They they text or or even email when email was more like a lot of people are more cryptic in that >> or paired down when they send emails they don't write regular often do not write regular sentences. >> Yeah.
39:11
And it's that sense of again that idea of I'm just trying to get something across. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah.
39:20
Instead of thinking about the meaning or the it's just >> Yeah. >> It's a literal. It's literal.
39:25
>> It's clock time writing. >> Yeah. You know, exactly. >> Yeah. Clock time writing.
39:28
It's like, okay, I just want to tell you to meet me here.
39:33
>> Y >> and let's do this and what we're It's focused on what we're going to do, >> what we need to buy, >> uh where are you going. Mhm. Mhm.
39:39
Just those like you said the ordinary everyday. >> Mhm.
39:45
>> You know, the ordinary everyday. >> Mhm. Yeah. Yeah.
39:49
And that's I think that's what's so interesting about hearing a poem is that it is the language we use.
39:58
Sometimes it doesn't have it doesn't even have to have any advanced vocabulary.
40:02
You know, it might, you know, the poets have exceptional vocabularies, but it could just be using the words that we use all the time.
40:11
And yet, because of its syntax, because of its rhythm, because of its cadence, because of the images it's building, because of its extreme clarity or its mystery or all of those things, >> it shifts.
40:27
And it's a it's a beautiful reminder that language can be used for good.
40:35
>> I was on a walk with a friend.
40:35
It was a tense conversation.
40:37
I was really stressed out and anxious.
40:38
We've been on a walk for like 35 minutes in this park, beautiful park.
40:41
And we're getting to the very end and the this poem from William Blakes just popped into my head and it goes to see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower.
40:51
to hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.
40:59
>> And I swear my eyes had been closed, my brain had been off, >> and all of a sudden the colors >> became like a Monae painting, >> and the world just became alive for me.
41:09
And to your point, all of those words >> are normal words that everyone knows, but they've been rearranged in a fashion.
41:16
Infinity, eternity, you know, palm of your hand, wildflower, just perfectly arranged where now it's like an awakening once it pops into your mind. >> Absolutely. >> Which is metaphor. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
41:28
And that's we need that so much, right?
41:31
Is those moments where we can um recommmit to language in a way that feels lifegiving as opposed to soul deadening. >> Yeah. Yeah.
41:45
I won't even go into chat. >> Chat, what is it? And AI and all that.
41:51
That's another whole >> Yeah.
41:54
The word that's been popping through my head has been this.
41:56
The words have been lushness and mystery.
41:59
Like, how do you >> create language that's lush?
42:03
I think of a garden or a spring or an oasis, but also >> mystery.
42:09
That once you read a poem, memorize a poem, that's actually the beginning.
42:14
It's an invitation to a deeper relationship that lives inside of you, that grows with you, and that a good poem often has both of those things. >> Yeah. Yeah.
42:23
I think that there's so much that it's not always about creating an abundance, but it is, at least for me, recognizing the strangeness of reality or the being being in wonderment at the world.
42:40
You know, I'm I'm curious.
42:45
That's how we live, how we move.
42:48
>> And you have to That's the That's the trick is the word curious. >> Yeah. >> Is to remain curious. >> Yeah.
42:55
>> And also to know where you've been and where you're going.
42:57
I I was thinking today and I don't I was reading that new poem, Shape Shifter, and I thought >> I owe so much of this to Gway Canal >> because the doubt Flowers.
43:07
I think that came out of his book, The Book of Nightmares.
43:11
I was thinking that's where I got that from after I read it.
43:12
And I was thinking about >> his poem, uh, the bear, you know, and that which was a kind of shape-shifting poem.
43:22
>> I thought, okay, >> and tracking. >> Yeah. And tracking.
43:24
I was thinking, thank you. I was sitting there. Thank you, Gway.
43:27
>> That's so interesting because when we were talking earlier, I started thinking about Gway Canel's poem, um, prayer. >> Uhhuh.
43:35
you know whatever happens whatever what is is is what I want only that but that and I was thinking of all the words of when I was thinking of like all the >> that's all language that we know >> and he's even using three ises >> whatever happens whatever what is is is what I want right and that but it's a different way of looking at that phrasing and >> I love that example cuz I'm drawn to that Yeah.
44:06
>> I'm like, "Wait, say that again. Say that again."
44:08
And also I'm like, "What is that? >> What does that mean?"
44:10
Like I'm It's like a dog on a leash.
44:13
It's like I'm I'm pulled towards that, you know? >> Yeah.
44:17
>> And yet an editor would tell you, "No, you can't do that.
44:19
We do that cuz the shape shifter is going to be in the New Yorker at some point."
44:25
>> And then they they had a question about the way I had phrased even even something and they said, "Shouldn't this word go here?"
44:31
I said, "No, this is sound sense." >> Yes. Thank you.
44:35
>> Because it's not it it flattens it will flatten the sentence out >> even ever near I can't remember there were two words >> ever something and grammatically usually you would have it the other way but it has a sound sense that works with the imper you know the percept with perception >> of of the deer. >> Yeah. >> And they were fine. Okay. We get it.
45:02
But yeah, you know, but yeah, because it takes it somewhere. >> It's very true. Yeah.
45:07
I mean, often the poetry editors and the editors of any magazine, you know, they are look, they're copy editors and they're wonderful and they do great work, but >> poetry sometimes resists the same kind of copy editing that, you know, >> it goes against that.
45:23
Part of what being a writer is and probably especially a poet is this sense of being willing to fall into an emotion and to it's like a trust fall into an emotion and to just keep falling and falling and falling and to experience it at its depth and then try to some capacity put that into words so that other people can experience the depth >> of emotion.
45:50
I just got a sense of, you know, they have those >> um retreats they take people on so they learn how to trust. Yeah. Where they have to drop.
45:58
You could do that for poets.
46:02
>> You learn how to trust and how to drop in into eternity. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
46:08
And I feel like it's not always just a trust fall, right?
46:10
You're not just you're not just falling into it, but sometimes it's just realizing you are in it. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's true.
46:19
We're all in it right now. >> Yeah.
46:21
That there's a there's a way in which we move through the world and someone says, "How are you?" and we say, "Fine." And that's the contract. >> Mhm. >> Yes.
46:32
>> Yes. And then there's a way that when you are alone, whether you have a meditation practice or whether it's walking in the woods or whether it's you know being uh just in silence on the subway car or in an office where you
46:47
will think what is happening to me and you will recognize what you are grieving and that it is there and that it is part of you and that you've been carrying it And so it's not about necessarily turning it on and and and and letting it go, but recognizing that it's there. >> Awareness. >> Awareness. >> That was wonderful.
47:16
>> That's a good way to end. >> Yeah.
47:21
>> It was great to meet you both. Thank you. >> You too. Thank you.