>> From the Library of Congress in Washington DC: [ Silence ] >> Robert Newlen: Well, good evening and welcome to the Library of Congress. On behalf of James H Billington, the Librarian of Congress, we're so glad that you're here. And it's nice to end the evening with an applause, that was very nice. Well the Act of Congress that established the Poet Laureate Consultant and Poetry did not stipulate any duties for the position. The Laureate has traditionally given an opening reading and closing lecture during his or her appointment. Our 20th Poet Laureate, Charles Wright, followed suit last fall with a spectacular reading from his body of work "Reckoning with, quote, Language, Landscape, and the Idea of God". Tonight to mark the end of his Laureateship, Mr. Wright has chosen not to give a lecture but to continue a conversation which has its origins in a long friendship. And, specifically, in an epistolary correspondence. Almost two decades ago, the "Gettysburg Review" published narratives of the image. A playfully passionate back and forth between Wright and the 15th Poet Laureate, Charles Simic. Over the course of 10 letters, the two argued about the relationship of metaphor and image. They turned to translation in religion, and famous photos, and movie stars, as well as proclamations, and body-like verse to make their point. In between their teasing and asides, there is insight only masters of the art can offer. Offer such as Mr. Simic's statement that, quote, poetry proclaims that there's something more real than ideas. Something that remains as it were. Always stubbornly unformulated but which we as readers of poetry have no trouble experiencing and savoring in poems we love. And, Mr. Wright's quote from St John of the Cross. Quote, to know your road, you must close your eyes and walk in the dark. I am pleased both will join me on this bright stage to continue speaking on behalf of poetry. We could not have a better moderator to prompt and lead them. Don Share is the editor of "Poetry Magazine". The oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English speaking world. He joins historic [inaudible] of editors including founder Harriet Monroe and former consultant in poetry, Carl Shapiro. Share's three years at the top of the mast head have shown him to be open minded in his selections and assigned features and exuberant in his approach. As Mr. Share wrote in his introduction as editor, quote, poems teach us how to read other poems. So I'll always be looking over my shoulder as I move forward. A bad way to walk or drive but a time tested way of editing poetry. The kind of metaphoric logic with a self deprecating dash of humor and broad vision that matches Simic and Wright's letters. He is certainly up to the task tonight. Please join me in welcoming Don Share. [ Applause ] Charles Simic is the author of more than 60 books in the U.S. and abroad. Twenty titles of his own poetry among them. He is also an essayist, translator, editor, and professor emeritus of creative writing and literature at the University of New Hampshire where he has taught for over three decades. Simic's accolades include the Pulitzer Prize, the International Griffin Poetry Prize, the Wallace Stevens Prize, the Robert Frost Medal, and fellowships from the MacArthur and Guggenheim Foundations. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He served as the library's Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry from 2007 to 2008. Please welcome Charles Simic. [ Applause ] And last but not least, Charles Wright's honors include the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Ruth Lilly Prize, and the International Griffin Poetry Prize, among others. A former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Wright is currently a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. And a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He has published 25 books of poetry as well as 2 books of essays, and 3 books of translation. In 2008, he received the Library's Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize in Poetry for lifetime achievement. And he is the only such winner in the 22 year history of the prize. As the 20th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry and in nearly a half century of writing, he has worked to advance and expand the medium. With great artfulness but also humility, dedication, and a deep sense of generosity. Please join me in welcoming Charles Wright. [ Applause ] >> Don Share: So I've got a question or two for you guys. As you know, the rubric or title for what we're doing is in conclusion. That seems like a sad place to start. So maybe we can dispense with the sad stuff at the, you know, at the outset a little bit. But before I get to the sad questions, the most obvious question is ask both of you guys together is one that I asked Phil Levine and Caroline Duffy at a conference a few years ago is a disastrous question. That's why I'm reprising it now [laughter]. As you all know, Phil Levine was Poet Laureate of the United States, Caroline Duffy is the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. And my question to them was, what the heck does a Poet Laureate do anyway? And Phil said, it's occasion to mention this. Phil said, as little as possible. And then we took off from there. But I think, I mean to make a serious question of it, I think most people wonder what it means for us to have a, not just a Poet Laureate, a role that, you know, in the United Kingdom has been around for centuries. But why do we have a Poet Laureate, do you think, of the United States? What does a Poet Laureate mean to those of you who hold the position? >> Charles Simic: As Phil said, not much. >> Don Share: [Laughter] I was hoping you'd say that. >> Charles Wright: Well, really, you don't do much. But you put a good face on American poetry, I think, or you try to. And you try to be responsible when people ask you that question. Because, basically, as far as work goes, you know, there are three things you have to do. You got to come here in September, you got to come here in April, and then you have to come here in March. And then the occasional fundraiser. But I think the point is that it is a supporting poetry for the Library of Congress. Which I think is a good thing. We were just talking on and on about the media keep saying, well poetry's dead, poetry's dead, poetry's dead. We'd saying well, Jesus Christ, okay, give us a break. Maybe it is, but some of us are still beating that horse [laughter]. >> Don Share: You brought up some zombies, too, as I recall. >> Charles Wright: What? >> Don Share: You brought up the zombies, too. >> Charles Wright: That's, oh, well, I said you could tell them all the poets are dead, they're like zombies on TV. They have their own show, and they go around talking poetry all the time [laughter]. But I don't, the serious part is, it is to put a face on poetry for the Library of Congress. Which I think is a good thing. Now whether it's a good thing to have a Poet Laureate of the United States. I guess it is because every state has a Poet Laureate now [snoring sound]. And so you may as well have one for the whole shebang. [ Laughter ] And it's been, it's been fabulous. I mean, people bow to me as I walk down the street [laughter]. It's really wonderful. What does it mean? It means you're loved. What's better than that? [ Applause ] >> Charles Simic: Well, I mean, I agree with Charles. My experience because as a result of being a Poet Laureate, I mean I, you know, did a lot of reading. So, obviously you get invitations to read. And lots of interviews. And I thought the interviews would last, you know, the first month or two and then, you know. Because I had before prizes like Pulitzer. You know, a few weeks and then that's it, you know. But this went on over the entire year that I was Poet Laureate. I would get an e mail from some weekly, let's say publish team, Tacoma Washington or, you know, someplace. And they'd say, you know, we want to interview you about being a Poet Laureate. And I always agreed because I had vague experiences with these regional magazines and papers. In the beginning when you have, you know, there was a big bit of channels, the major channels. I mean, it was a very superficial, quick things, you know. You were out for 60 seconds or whatever. But, I mean, there was enough meaningless kind of. But and it was really possibly talking to these, very interesting talking to some of these people. Usually I would say 95 out of 100 were women who were, you know, taking care of the culture or pages of these publications. And one told me how. I said, how come you call me, you know, 10 months after I became Poet Laureate? She says, well, you know, here this was sitting around and they said, who is the Poet Laureate of the United States? Didn't Linda write about the last one? And so they had no idea. So they said, let's call Linda. So I use this Linda as an example. So I talked to this Linda and it turns out that Linda went to some university out West, some big state university. Went a few years and then, you know, married, had children, then, you know, came back to get a job. But then she took me to, you know, how she'd read poetry readings. I remember one of them saying how she loved [inaudible], he how recited his poems. And he didn't read them. She just fell in love with [inaudible]. But that was really surprising and immensely reassuring. These people really did their homework. You know, they would call you in the week, they would read your work, and they, themselves, knew something about poetry because there were exposed to some poetry. And we had really intelligent conversations with them about poetry. They were so reassuring. And, I mean, I did, you know, give literally hundreds and hundreds of readings over the years all over the country. Like everybody, like Charles and poets of our generation. But, you know, the context of quick and superficial. You meet few people and you don't have these kind of conversations. And when you realize that there are people out there who are not frightened by poetry, who like the idea of there's such a thing as a Poet Laureate [applause]. And so I was always very happy after these conversations. And I'm so delighted. And when I hear that nobody reads poetry, nobody knows anything about poetry, I know it's a lie. And I think this position has contributed, you know, to this other thing, this more positive view of poetry. >> Charles Wright: Here, here. >> Don Share: Here, here. [ Applause ] One difference that comes to mind right away between the U.S. and the U.K. Poets Laureate is that you guys don't have to write ceremonial verse. >> Charles Simic: No, none. >> Don Share: You are not called upon. >> Charles Simic: Queen gets a cold, right, you have to write a poem. [ Laughter ] >> Don Share: But that, but in a way, that's a very deep indicator of the difference of the role poetry can play. You know, it's a real reflection of an American value that says we don't do that. I mean, we have plenty of ceremonial things, of course. But that you, as poets, would be seem to be free of ceremony. In fact, as Poets Laureate, you're left to your own devices, pretty much, to be who you are, whatever you are. You think there's any gains and losses in that difference for us over here? I mean, were you ever tempted to write a ceremony? >> Charles Simic: I think only gains. I mean, I would never have taken a position when I had to write poems, ceremonial poems. And, I mean, as you know, one would say 99 percent of poems written by over the years of British Poet Laureates stink. [ Laughter ] I mean. >> Don Share: For all of our British friends [laughter] who are watching tonight. [ Laughter ] >> Charles Wright: I have no. I have no fluency or interest in writing poems on command. I guess I could do it, but they would really stink. And so I have always avoided them. Even when people have asked for poems about various subjects, I said I can't, I can't do that. So, like Charlie, I would never have taken the position if it were that. If it were that. And maybe the English are more articulate than we are and they can do it at the drop of a hat or whatever. Some of the people can here, too. You know, Jesus Christ, Billy Collins wrote that wonderful poem, 9/11 thing about the Congress. It was just really terrific. I don't know how to answer that question other than say I wouldn't do it. And so I would last one day over in England. >> Charles Simic: But Billy Collins wrote that poem after September 11 when they went down to New York with the whole Congress. And it's a pretty good poem. >> Yeah, it was a good poem. >> Charles Simic: And he told me how difficult it was to write like that, you know. I mean, quick, you know, order, commission. And I don't know if you remember as he was reading it, you know, the camera was going among the senators and then the representatives. And they were, a small number of them knew they were listening to a poem and they were paying close attention. And there was a whole bunch of them who were kind of whispering like, you know, what is this? I mean [laughter]. You know, you know, what are these words? Who is this man, you know? And, so they had the picture, you know, what's [inaudible]. Is it going to be like this country? She has no idea, she has no idea what was happening. >> Don Share: I suppose to pursue a less shallow aspect of my line of questioning here. There is something peculiar, I think, which we would experience as American poets. Which is the sort of intensely private work of being a poet has been a lyric poet. Particularly where, you know, what you take on usually at an early age is the idea of how to process what is happening in a very particular way that uses language particular to your own experience and whatever wisdom you can call to mind. And over long periods of time, create what turns into a body of work. Both of you have done that. So the paradox, doing intensely private thinking and being kind of left alone and not performing the ceremonial functions of poetry have led you each to a point where you became public figures. So you go from, you know, the place where you write, a place where you work uninterrupted, let's say, insofar as possible. And the next thing you know, there's a great deal of scrutiny of everything you've ever written and the media is asking you questions and you're expected to put in, you know, different kinds of appearances. So there's a transition between the private person that we think of as the poet and then something else that happens which you have both said earlier was a valuable thing. So how is that transition possible? It doesn't happen to most poets. Most poets don't become so well known that they're asked questions by major newspapers or television networks. Most people never ask a poet anything except what do you really do, something like that. So you guys have been through a kind of, a transition, you know, from one kind of idea of what a poet is to another. >> Charles Simic: Well, I mean. Charles, you [inaudible]. >> Charles Wright: No, no. >> Charles Simic: You know, it's all really the fault of. I just say it was a fault. It stems to the beats [phonetic]. Everything started with the beats, Kinsburg and Company [phonetic]. Reading became so popular that after a while, every college and university in the country for their poetry readings. And were plucked out of our solitude, our monastic solitude of. Not so reluctantly because they also paid money [laughter]. And so as we're, you know, broke, I mean. In those days, airfares were cheap, so they could bring you across the continent, right. I mean, back in the '70s. >> Yeah. >> Charles Simic: Yeah, you could go, you know, Walla Walla, you know, from the East Coast and give a reading. So I know, I mean, I was. Well, I mean, at first, readings, you know, it was a nightmare. I mean, for years, I mean, it was innately shy. I mean, I think probably old lyrics, kind of introverts. But, you know, after years and hundreds of these things, you become two people. You become those people, this person who goes and gives these readings. And then the other one we're still retreats to kind of solitude. But I'm actually very glad that I did the other because it would have been a kind of restoring view of this country and I've seen a lot of countries. >> Charles Wright: Yeah, I don't really know how poetry becomes a public poetry. If you set out to write a kind of public poetry, I think you're doomed from the start. And I suppose if you set out to write a very private poetry, you're doomed from the start, too. But being that we're all doomed from the start [laughter]. >> Don Share: I told you it would be a gloomy occasion. >> Charles Wright: I do write a very private kind of poetry, it's true. And I revel in it, I have to say. Because I'm trying to say something that I'm not able to say out loud, but I can say on the page. And that gives me lots of latitude. And I suppose when the time when your poems become acceptable is when you go from writing in a private mode to your poems becoming public in a way that you never thought they would be. Which is that somebody might understand them, somebody might understand what you're doing, what you're trying to say, what you've been trying to say for the last 50 years or whatever, you know. So I really have no insight to add to that. I am, as I once said, I write as though I am a monk back in the cell, but I can see the stained glass windows down the hall. But I'm unwilling to be public in a way that I feel is, how do I say this without sounding like an asshole [laughter]? That is un, anyhow. >> Don Share: I can let you off the hook by interrupting. >> Charles Wright: That's all right. No, if I could remember where I was, that word just stopped me. And I said why did I say that [laughter]? Anyhow. I do think the best of the private poetry eventually becomes public knowledge. Whether it becomes public approbation is something else, but it becomes public knowledge and that's all you could ask for. Some people understand what you're trying to do and will give you a bunch of money, you know [laughter]. >> Don Share: There is, though. I mean, people do turn to poems and poets in times of, you know, the 9/11 is a great example. What I notice in my work reading so many poems by so many people, but especially young people and people who have not been heard from before. Is that events such as those that have been taking place in Ferguson and Baltimore and on and on and on have nurtured, among all the bad things that have arisen, a need for people to feel that poets are speaking for somebody and speaking to somebody. And so maybe there's something in the middle between the very intensely private and the, you know, vastly public. Where there's a kind of poem that people seem to find themselves turning to when things happen to them, you know, in their own personal lives. Things like funerals, weddings, of course. But also when sort of galvanizing events take place in the news and when we turn to the media, it doesn't feel like we're getting everything. And when we turn to public, you know, politicians, it feels like something's being left out and unsaid. And you turn to the poets and there they are. What we notice at the poetry foundation in the website, you know, poems can get 8 to 10,000 hits a day on the Internet if they address things that seem to go along with the news. In other words, news that turns out to stay news, sadly. And that's an odd process, that's not, of course, something you engineer. That's the point you're both making. You can't set out to do that. But, I mean, you know, Tennyson "Charge of the Light Brigade". It's taking a news story and the presumption is the poet can put things into a poem that people can turn to and, you know, get something from that they don't get anywhere else. Is that something that you just can't really think about or something that, I mean. >> Charles Simic: Depends on the poet. >> Don Share: Yeah. >> Charles Simic: I mean, it's, you know, a long tradition of a kind of writing. I mean, when you were saying this, I was thinking like, you know, go back to the Civil War. I mean, Whitman. >> Don Share: Mm-hmm. >> Charles Simic: [Inaudible] All the poems, you know. Dickinson never wrote anything directly about the Civil War. There's some funerals, there's some maybe some people say there's some illusions to it. You know, she wrote 1700 some poems across from. If you've ever been to her home, I mean, across the street is a church and the old church that was there where there were funerals probably twice a week. You know, people died. Soldiers, you know, men who were killed in the Civil War. She never wrote anything about that in a direct way. And we don't say, you know, oh, forget about Dickinson, you know, she's a lesser poet. So I, you know, it's. I mean, and there's a place for that kind of poetry. Great poems have been written out of outrage of that sort of reaction. And then there are other poets who remain private and, you know, it's fine. In my own life, I know there were times when I was very, you know, engaged sort of. And I wrote some poems that refer to events like, you know, September 11 or so many wars in my lifetime. But then there are other events that I, you know, never said anything. Because not because I didn't feel strongly about them, it's just that, you know, you can't just. This is not something you could just order yourself to produce a poem. >> Charles Wright: But don't you think that even if you don't address something directly, that if some momentous things are going on, they affect you in a way that your poems. >> Charles Simic: Reflect. >> Charles Wright: Reflect. For instance, I think every poem Dickinson probably ever wrote between 1861 and 1865 had something to do with the Civil War because she was very aware of it. Very aware of the trains come in, all that sort of stuff. >> Charles Simic: That, you know. >> Charles Wright: And during the Vietnam War, there were a lot of direct poems about that. But a lot of people didn't address it directly, but their lives were changed by it and their poems were changed by it. And you may have been writing privately but you didn't know it. You were writing quite so private that it was coming up, it was welling up through your lines, and it was about, you know, this and about that. Usually having to do with the situation, the public situation. I mean, when you're younger those things seem to happen as you. >> Charles Simic: I got to mention this. Last May I was in [inaudible]. And we passed a building that used to be the writers union during the older [inaudible]. And he told me a story in 1953 when Stalin died, they summoned all the poets in Krakow [phonetic]. I mean, there would be body members. I think there was something like 35 of them. And they brought them in the building, and they said, okay, now you must stay here, write an elegy to Stalin, nobody's leaving. Doors were locked. >> Don Share: By the way, nobody gets out of here. >> Charles Simic: And the problem was that, you know, there were, of course, hacks who [inaudible] in 10 minutes, you know. They went and there were few lyricists trying, brooding for 48 hours [laughter]. So there you go. >> Don Share: Well in your work, I mean, your prose is very I would say political. The pieces you write for the "New York Review of Books". There's plenty of political commentary, outrage. >> Charles Simic: Sure, yeah. >> Don Share: You feel that that might go better into prose or? >> Charles Simic: Well, I mean, my prose is full of. The political manner is something that just. I mean, because politics has always interested me. And, I mean, you know, I was born during the Second World War where. I mean before the Second World War. That was there when I was a kid, you know, in Europe. [Inaudible] Get interested in politics. So because, you know, it was always safe with me and it's a kind of a curse. I mean, when I was putting together my big selected poems for 50 years, I mean, realizing how many words as I was. You know, Second World War. But when I got to this country, 1954, so, I mean, the first year I was 16 years old. And you were a couple years later, you know, people were telling me, ah, Charlie, you're going to Korea. Well, we're going to Korea, you know. Then I remember in 1958, I was, I had kind of a job at "Chicago Sun Times". And it was Saturday and I had gotten paid the day before, but I had to work Saturday morning. So I came down with this composite room where you used to put the paper together. And so these guys knew you went down there because that's where they had donuts, you could get donuts and coffee. So I was getting a donut and coffee and they said to me, hey, Simic, you're going to Lebanon. Lebanon? That was when Marines were sent to Lebanon by Eisenhower. And I was thinking, God, I was so happy I was going to Lebanon. I mean, what do I know about Lebanon? So my entire life was sort of like that. Then my children, my, you know, my son, worrying about him, the first Gulf War. My brother was in Vietnam. On and on and on. And it really, I mean, never to believe either overtly or as Charles rightfully says. I mean, when my brother was in Vietnam, I mean, my poems were grim stuff. Whatever I looked at was, you know, colored by the knowledge that he, you know, might get news that he's dead. >> Charles Wright: I have nothing further to add. >> Don Share: Well I'll just poke one more time at this. I suppose poets take for granted their privileged viewpoint of the past leading us to a present moment. We have the benefit and the hindsight that our great writers left for us to acquire on our own. So if we extrapolate, you know, we were just talking about Whitman and Dickinson would have been thinking about even obliquely with regard to the Civil War. Fifty, one hundred years from now when they look back at our poets today, do you care to venture a prediction about what they will feel that they find and what they won't find? >> Charles Simic: No. [ Laughter ] >> Don Share: Wise move, I guess. >> Charles Simic: I got to tell the [inaudible] about this story. A poet in [inaudible], Stroga [phonetic], you been to Stroga? In 1972, so but it is kind of [inaudible]. It is to Europe were wonderful, but there was always so much drinking that you really had to have a heroic constitution to survive. And I remember kind of waking up and saying to myself, you know, how many I still alive, you know? So one morning like that, some organizers comes to me and says, oh, you got, Charlie, you have to help us. Bill Murman [phonetic] was supposed to be on a panel called poetry in I think it was 50 or 2030 or whatever it was. And he says, you got to take his place, he wanted to go to someplace to buy some carpets with Moira. And so, I mean, you know, I have immense respect for [inaudible] operation and I had to go. And so I got there, I was in a panel with seven poets. Out of these seven poets, there were for some reason two from Russia. Well I mean, Ukraine or Russia. And the other, there were four all together from some of these countries. And these guys all had prepared statements, we just read the stuff. Of course, you know, work is paradise, everybody would be a poet and on and on and stuff like that. And I had absolutely no idea what to say because I was so hungover that my brain, I couldn't, you know, I couldn't button a button not to mention talk. And then, finally, when my turn came I said, well, you know, this is like trying to predict what lovemaking will be, what two people making love will be like in 50 years, what sex will be like. And tried to put in a few details to make it more interesting about that. But I remember one Russian whispering to the other, I know Russian. And he said, this is a provocation. [ Laughter ] So that cured me from prophecy no more. No, I don't care what happens. >> Charles Wright: Well I can't follow that. I obviously have no idea, but it does seem to me that the people who would care would be readers of poetry, if there are any. Nobody else would give a damn, really. And they would probably say, well, they were shirking their job. They should have been being all political and all this other thing. But the people who care are probably going to be looking for lyrics that they can come to grips with, you know. That they can love. That move them. And I think that's what usually remains in everything, you know. There's a lot of, there's been a lot of junk being having been written before now, you know. And they will as it would be like reading "The Cantos". The great wreck of a poem by the genius guy Ezra Pound who was crazy and all that sort of stuff. But what you take out of "The Cantos" are these beautiful lyric moments, you know. And they shine and shine. And that's probably what will happen in the future. Somebody's going to say, God, did you read this? You should listen to this. Now, I don't know what he thought about, you know, cutting the legs off chickens or something like that and why he didn't speak up. But that doesn't have anything to do with what I like about it. So obviously. >> Don Share: So what you love well remains. >> Charles Wright: Remains, what that love as well remains or [inaudible]. You know, so. But that love is. >> Charles Simic: Probably one change at all. I mean because lyric poetry, you go back to Soffel [phonetic]. And I mean it's one place where you could, you know, pour your heart out, you know. I'm all alone, nobody loves me, you know, it's raining and. >> Charles Wright: I've written that. >> Charles Simic: Right! >> Don Share: That's a quotation. [ Laughter ] That gives me an opportunity for a little, as they say in the media, segway. And Charles Wright, from your recent book, "Caribou". There's a poem in here I've been thinking about with regard to this occasion, and it's called the "The Last Word". You know, to me there's a rye bit of humor in a poet title a poem the "The Last Word" and putting it in the middle of a book like that. >> Charles Wright: Yeah, some reason, yeah, yeah. >> Don Share: [Laughter] I figured you knew what you were there doing there. But it would be sort of crazy do have a conversation about poetry without even reading a poem, so I'll read this. It's probably excruciating for a poet to hear someone else read his work, but I'll read this, "The Last Word". "I love to watch the swallows at sundown swarming after invisible things to eat. We were so lucky. A full gullet, never having to look at what it is. Sunshine all over our backs. There are no words between my fingers populating the lost world. Something it now seems has snapped them up into its speechlessness, into its thick aphasia. It's got to be the unredeemable bird. Come out from the weight of the unbearable. It flaps like a torn raincoat. First this side, then that side. Words are its not of breath. Language is what it lives on". And, again, the end of a poem called "The Last Word" is language is what it lives on or, you know, lives on, or lives on. So you've. [ Applause ] I wasn't an English major, so I did that all by myself. >> Charles Wright: Neither was I, I was a history major. >> Don Share: But now that, I mean, in the heart of the book, that's a heart of the question that. In a way, the one question I've been trying to raise in our conversation that arises for me whenever I read anybody's poems. Is, you know, do the poets have the last word and, if so, what that last word would be? And, of course, your poems are answers to that. But now the one thing that's, you know, I'm not going to put you on the spot by interrogating you about a poem because that would kill the pleasure in it. But the unredeemable bird. It's funny because when you read a poem, the words that stick with you are not the thing you carry about in the end. The words for the vehicle for something else. That's what metaphor means anyway. You're carried from the language over into something else, an image. The unredeemable bird. Come out from the weight of the unbearable. Strikingly, these poems, many of your poems, have a kind of, you know, the sadness, the loneliness that we were talking about or joking about a moment ago. But it's redeemed, isn't it? I mean. >> Charles Wright: Language redeems everything, you know, it just does. I mean, it does in my life, I don't know about anybody else's life. It's what we live off of. >> Don Share: And, yet, you have to contend with what the poem, what the poem calls speechlessness and thick aphasia. I mean, we experience that more than poetry. >> Charles Wright: Yeah, well there's a lot of language in speechlessness. You know, all the mystics thought the greatest communication was speechless. You know, all the nuns of the middle ages wouldn't say anything. They would just talk to themselves and to God, obviously. I have had a thing for years about, you know, saying less and trying to mean more. And so the last word, the last word that will ever be uttered is again, you know. Let's do it again. >> Don Share: Let's do it again. >> Charles Wright: I don't know where that came from, and I never know where it. >> Charles Simic: No, that means a lot, you know. >> Don Share: I was reading, speaking about the interviews you guys have had to do. I was looking at the one of the Library of Congress. >> Where is that from? >> Don Share: That's done, nice picture, too. It's from the Library of Congress magazine. >> Charles Wright: Oh, yeah, that's right. >> Don Share: And pertinent to what we were just talking about, in there, it's a brief interview. You say, you know, a lot of good stuff in here. One thing you say is poetry is a kind of separate language. So it's not just sort of a polar thing where on the one hand you have speechlessness and the other you have speech or poetry or language. It's actually more complicated than that, isn't it? I mean. >> Charles Wright: I think so. >> Don Share: That poetry isn't just language, it is a separate kind of language. Can you say anything about that? >> Charles Wright: Well I knew, for instance, William Carlos Williams who was insistent upon, you know, language that cats and dogs can read and that sort of thing. But the way he arranged it made it into a separate, a different language. Same words but a different, different language. Which was a poem and are lots of great poems that he wrote. I meant a separate language in that just because you can read the phonebook doesn't mean you can read a poem. You can read it, but you can't understand it. Actually probably understand it better than the phonebook. >> Charles Simic: Yeah, he didn't mean it in some elitist way. I mean, but what you were saying before. I mean, the same old words the way they're rearranged, moved around, and put together, becomes a different language. >> Charles Wright: A different language, I don't need, you know, have to say [inaudible] and all this other stuff. No, I mean, just use words, but use them well. Use them sparingly and make them mean more. >> Don Share: And I was reading in your new book, "The Lunatic", a poem the same snowflake. You know, you say, there's a phrase there, you know, like a lot of us say I jot down a phrase. It's a way of steeling, right. I take that separate language which you guys work so hard for and I just get it write it down in a notebook and it's the consumer end of it. But there's this bit of a poem in "The Lunatic" that stuck with me. As night strolled over to see what's up. And, again, to me that's just marvelous for me because the night is up, of course. That's what's up. Is right now if you look. >> Charles Simic: But it's getting dark. I mean, it's. >> Don Share: It's getting dark. But it's what's up? Like what's up. >> Charles Simic: What's up. Well it describes, it's funny how. The poem is based on such a sort of commonplace experience where everybody lives, you know, in the bleak north. And there was a kind of snowfall where the temperature isn't terribly cold. So it starts snowing, just kind of little, steady snow, but not very heavy. And gives the illusion that because a snowflake comes down and then kind of melts. But there are other snowflakes around. It seems that there's this one snowflake that keeps bouncing up and down. >> Charles Wright: That's the unredeemable snowflake. [ Laughter ] >> Charles Simic: And. >> Charles Wright: Sorry. >> Charles Simic: So the idea is, you know, it's getting dark. It's been doing all afternoon and it gets dark early in December. And then so the night goes over and says, you know, what's up? Can't you just fall? >> Don Share: Right. >> Charles Wright: Charlie's a great example to someone who writes less and means more out of the most, you think, commonplace stuff. And then you think about it, and you think about it. Jesus, this is really kind of deep, you know. And that's what's so great about it is it seems one thing and it's always another. That's almost a typical kind of Charlie line where it sounds as though it's just swept off, you know, it's a joke. But it's not a joke, it's not a joke. Charlie is witty, but he doesn't joke around. Anyhow, I just wanted to say that I think this whole book, "The Lunatic", is full of poems like that. >> Don Share: Yeah. >> Charles Wright: Full of poems like that. >> Don Share: Yeah. We only have time, you'll be glad to know, for another one more question, I guess but. >> Charles Wright: Charlie will take it. [ Laughter ] No. >> Don Share: All right, well in that case, I'll, you know. Well, Charlie said in a thing I read actually in the "Irish Times" recently. The headline was we were talking about what the media does to poetry over here or does with it over here. Over there, the headline for this little piece was succulent poetry in the best possible taste. Very deep, isn't it? But there's a quote attributed to you, anyway. It's talking about you and Mark Strand concluding that you were just a couple of short order cooks who kept trying to pass themselves off as poets. >> Charles Wright: Where is that from? >> Don Share: It's the "Irish Times". Saturday the 18th of April. >> Charles Simic: Well, I mean. >> Charles Wright: Maureen Kennelley. >> Charles Simic: I said that, you know, at the memorial service. >> Charles Wright: No, I know. >> Charles Simic: Yeah, you know, Mark Strand, because we talked so much about food and cooking and I know him for many, many decades, many. And so one day we were just struck by fact that we always talk about food. Used to be when we were younger, we occasionally talked about [inaudible]. >> Charles Wright: I don't want to be left out, that's all Mark and I were talking about. [ Laughter ] >> Charles Simic: You know, we said, we're just a couple of short order cooks, you know, trying to pass ourselves off as poets. >> Charles Wright: But that's not. >> Don Share: You all are kind of selling yourselves short there, but I like that idea because it reminds us, you know, that poetry, it's a tactile experience and it is about the appetite, the scrimmage of appetites. And if we believe the pieties, you know, we need poetry to survive and yours sustains us, so there's something in it. It turns out to be another great metaphor, I suppose. >> Charles Wright: I think it's true. Thank you, Maureen. >> Don Share: Yeah, that was good. Well on that note, I guess I should conclude. So thank you both for. >> Charles Simic: Thank you very much. >> Don Share: Enduring my questions. [ Applause ] >> Robert Casper: Thank you to both poets. Our Poets Laureate, Charles's and thank you to Don Share, the editor of "Poetry Magazine" for being a terrific moderator. Please, let's give him a hand, too. [ Applause ] I'm Rob Casper, I'm the head of the Poetry and Literature Center here at the Library of Congress. And I would like to personally invite you all to a reception outside in the Great Hall. We will have a little bit of wine, a little bit of food, and we have books for sale, too. Books by our two Poets Laureate. I'm sure they would love to sign a copy for you. So please get a book. On the way out, too, you'll see tables. Print programs or print materials talk about our events coming up here at the Library of Congress. We do some 30 to 40 literary events each year including big events like this. But all sorts of other events here at the Library and around the country. So please do check that out and come back soon. In the meantime, thanks again to our Poets Laureate and Don Share. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.