>> From "The Library of Congress" in Washington D.C. >> My opportunity to introduce to you our reader this afternoon Alicia Ostriker. Alicia Ostriker was born in New York City and now lives in Princeton, New Jersey. I'm very honored to say that she and I share the same alma mater. She found her way to the Midwest and the University of Wisconsin for a few years of her life. She is the author of thirteen poetry collections as well as seven books of essays and criticism including "Stealing the Language: The Emergence of Women's Poetry in America" and "Dancing at the Devil's Party: Essays on Poetry, Politics, and the Erotic." Her most recent poetry collection "The Old Woman, the Tulip and the Dog" was published this January by the University of Pittsburg Press" and we're proud to have the Press here today. In a roundup of 2014 poetry titles, National Public Radio said of this book quote, "Readers looking for poetry's conciliation will find it here, but also its capacity to narrate life's complexities and constant reminders that there is no single answer to any question" end quote. Alicia Ostriker will be reading for that book and from "The Book of Seventy" for which she won the Jewish Book Award. Her other honors include the William Carlos Williams Award, and the San Francisco State Poetry Center Award, as well as fellowships from Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1976 she also received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, which is a cosponsor of this pavilion and I know I speak for them in saying how excited we are to have her here today. Please join me in welcoming Alicia Ostriker. [ Applause ] [ Silence ] >> Hey, hello. >> Hey. >> It's incredible to be here. I've never been to one of these festivals before. It's a festival, it's a carnival, it's a circus, it's a zoo, but welcome everybody. I'm going to read from-- a bit from "The Book of Seventy" and then from the new book "The Old Woman, the Tulip and the Dog." "The Book of Seventy" has as its epigraph a line from Basho [phonetic spelling]. Very simple, if you take anything away from this reading take this line. "Barn burn down now we can see the moon." So the opening poem of "The Book of Seventy" is called "Approaching Seventy" and it was inspired by a show I saw of the painter DeKoening [assumed spelling]; his very, very late paintings. He was in his 80s. He had Alzheimer. He was helpless. He had women taking care of him, lucky man. He couldn't do anything for himself except paint, and he painted so beautifully. All the alcoholism was gone, and the anger was gone. The con-- the-- if you know most of DeKoening's work it's all like this you know, abstract expressionism at its most turbulent, and the late poems are just line and form and color, and you think something is coming through to him from the next world. And when I saw this show of these paintings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York I thought, "Damn, I hope when I get to where he got to I can make beauty like that." So this is called "Approaching Seventy." "Sit and watch the memory disappear, romance disappear, the probability of new adventures disappear. Well isn't it beautiful when the sun goes down, don't we all want to be where we can watch it redden sink to a spark disappear. Your friend goes to Sri Lanka and works for a human rights organization in the middle of a civil war where she too might be disappeared any time. And another friend goes to retreats, sits miserably waiting for ecstasy and ecstasy actually comes, so many others, so many serial monogamists seeking love, some open doorway some wild furious breathe. Please, I thought, when I first saw the paintings DeKoening did when Alzheimer's had taken him into its arms and he could do nothing but paint, purely paint, transparent, please let me make beauty like that, sometime, like an infant that can only cry and suckle, and shit, and sleep, boneless, unaware, happy, brush in hand no ego there he went. A field of cerise another of lime, a big curve slashes across canvas then another, and here it is the lucidity each of us secretly longs for as if everything belonging to the other world that we forget at birth is finally flooding back to the man like a cold hissing tide, combers unrolling while he waits on the shore of the sandy canvas brush in hand it comes. So come on, gorgeous, get yourself over to the shore with the sleeping gulls. Does the tide rise or doesn't it? And are you or are you not willing to rise from sleep, yes, in the dark, and patiently go outside and wait for it. And do you know what is meant by patience? Do you know what is meant by going outside? Do you know what is meant by the tide?" So that's the first part of three-part poem, which the second part is too gloomy to read, and here's third part; we're still in "Approaching Seventy." "Espresso bubbles, I shout "Breakfast in a minute," Up the stairs he comes down robed. We have coffee, toast, cherry tomatoes, cheese, fish, juice, almond pastry, the 'Herald Tribune' then the long busy day then evening. In the tub after a smoke I remark, economics doesn't interest me. The three things I care about are individual human lives, then art and beauty, then politics and cultural history and mythology, I'm thinking: apart from the personal stuff. On the other side of the tub my rational man says truth then fun then honor, by honor he means both reputation and doing what is right. Head to foot we recline in the warm steam while I remember a few summers ago the tangy peachy cool night air that blew in through the bathroom window as we stood in the tub looking out side by side trying to locate the comet with the double tail. Ah there it was off to northwest over the neighbors' charcoal trees difficult to see, like the lightest pencil touch. [ Silence ] [ Applause ] And this one's called "Insomnia." I'm sure none of you in this room suffer from this problem, but you do want to know about it. "Insomnia" "But it's really fear you want to talk about and cannot find the words so you jeer at yourself. You call yourself a coward. You wake at 2 a.m. thinking failure, fool, unable to sleep, unable to sleep buzzing away on your mattress with two pillows and a quilt. They call them comforters, which implies that comfort can be bought and paid for to help with the fear, the failure. Your two walnut chests of drawers snicker, the bookshelves mourn, the art on the walls pities you, the man himself beside you asleep smelling like mushrooms and moss is a comfort, but never enough, never, the ceiling fixture lightless, velvet drapes hiding the window, traffic noise like a vicious animal on the loose somewhere out there. You brag to friends you won't mind death only dying; what a liar you are. All the other fears, of rejection, of physical pain, of losing your mind, of losing your eyes, they are all part of this! Pawprints of this! Hair snarls in your comb, this glowing clock the single light in the room. [ Applause ] Thank you. This is a New York City poem as Rob said, I'm a New York City girl, that's where I grew up, and I hope to come around and end my days there. I love the city, West Fourth Street which for those of you who do not have the good fortune to know New York City, that's in the heart of Greenwich Village, "West Fourth Street' 'The sycamores are leafing out on West Fourth Street and I am weirdly old, yet their pale iridescence pleases me as I emerge from the subway into traffic and trash and patchouli gusts, Now that I can read between the lines of my tangled life, pleasure frequently visits me. I have less interfering with my gaze now, what I see I see clearly, and with less grievance and anger than before and less desire. Not that I have conquered these passions they have worn themselves out. And if I smile admiring four Brazilian men playing handball on a sunny concrete court shouting in Portugese, goat skin protecting their hands from the sting of the flying ball, their backs like sinewy roots, gold flashing on their necks, if I watch them samba with their shadows torqued like my father fifty years ago when sons of immigrant Jews played fierce handball in Manhattan playgrounds. If I think these men are the essence of the city, it is because of their beauty, since I have learned to be a fool for beauty. [ Applause ] Okay. I have some poems in this book based on mythology. Mythology is other people's religion, but as we know, all those Greek gods and goddesses are really all about the forces that move us, that make us behave one crazy way or another. They are the irrational powers within us. And you all know the myth of Demeter and Persephone it's one of those classic mother daughter stories. Demeter is an earth goddess; Persephone is her daughter who gets kidnapped by Hades, the god of the underworld. Demeter searches for her and makes nothing grow on the earth because she's so angry she has lost her daughter. And this is usually taken as a tragic moment, but maybe Persephone didn't think of it that way. You know adolescent girls sometimes don't have the same thing in mind as their mothers. "Persephone to Demeter' ' You up there on the surface, poor sad woman, ratty old quilt you understand nothing of the rapture of liberty. No I am not afraid of the subway or the smell of piss, or the ravings of the druggies let them look up my skirt as I saunter past. The dead soldiers who killed each other revere me, the raped girls rush to kiss my hand. It was cool going down these iron stairs then warm and with a breeze with a faint tinge of smoke, or was it possibly gunpowder..." [ Applause ] So that's one half of a duo, and here's the other half. This is "Demeter to Persephone" at the moment when the deal is struck according to which Persephone can come back to earth for a half a year every year. "Demeter to Persephone' 'I watched you walking up out of that hole. All day it had been raining in that field in Southern Italy, rain beating down making puddles in the mud hissing down on rocks from a sky enraged. I waited and was patient, finally you emerged and were immediately soaked you stared at me without love in your large eyes that were filled with black sex and white powder. But this is what I expected, and when I embraced you, your firm little breasts against my amplitude. Get in the car I said and then it was spring [brief laughter]." [ Applause ] One more poem from this book and this is called "Lais to Aphrodite." And Aphrodite, of course, is the goddess of love and beauty, and Lais was a famous courtesan. Plato, in case you didn't know, Plato was also a poet, wrote a poem in her voice saying that she was breaking her mirror because it no longer showed her what she wanted to see. So this is "Lais to Aphrodite' ' They called you the laughing one Aphrodite, honey woman. I suppose because you laugh when our hearts crack like red eggs and we want to die. But you keep us on our knees, hoping, trying, well I am hurt and angry, you are aware I have adored you all my life sometimes lounging in fur and kohl. Sometimes as a beggarly hag for I recognized you in that poor disguise. And when the clock threw her arms in the air and I threw my legs around the moon you climbed inside me like the surge of a wave I could ride, I could sail, and anyone I kissed I was kissing you, whom I fear I will never see again, never kiss again." [ Applause ] So now I'm going to read some poems from this new book called "The Old Woman, the Tulip and the Dog." Here is the pretty cover of it, and it is on sale. And you may buy it if you want too. These poems began coming to me one of those nights when I couldn't sleep, and go sit in front of my trusty computer and see what happens. "The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip and the Dog' ' To be blessed said the old woman is to live and work so hard God's love washes right through you like milk through a cow. To be blessed said the dark red tulip is to knock their eyes out with the slug of lust implied by your up-ended skirt. To be blessed said the dog is to have a pinch of God inside you and all the other dogs can smell it [brief laughter]." [ Applause ] So I thought when I wrote that, well I'll never write anything like that again, and then a couple of years later these three characters began showing up again, and again, and again, and they all had something to say until they became this book. This one has a title stolen from Wallace Stevens called, "Deer Walk Upon Our Mountains.' 'When they see me said the old woman, they stop where they are and gaze into my eyes for as long as I am willing to stand there in the wind at the edge of the forest. You are speaking of my mortal enemy said the dark red tulip, they have eaten many of my family, they do not spare children. They are pests. Beauty excuses nothing. Oh cried the dog, the very thought of them thrills me to the bone the chase as much as the capture the scent weaving ahead of me like a flag saliva spinning from my teeth." [ Silence ] This next one and again it's "The Old Woman, the Tulip and the Dog." This one is called "The Drink Triptych' ' Well what can I say, said the old woman giggling a bit. A glass or three of wine was normal at dinner, but one also enjoyed martinis, gin and tonic to celebrate spring, in summer rum straight up or a margarita, sparkling champagne for especially festive occasions. You see said the tulip, we who drink nothing but pure rainwater remain awake and alert perhaps we shiver and cannot but notice the way you stumble getting home after one of your evenings scarcely able to find your keys while we continue upright on the spine of our stems our petals locked. My long pink tongue said the dog is one of my best characteristics, so when I finish my pork chop bone and they put the bowl out, here's how I drink from it. Slurp slurp lap lap slurp slurp lap lap making a great deal of noise to show my appreciation." [ Applause ] So you're getting the idea of who they are, but they have-- they have many sides. And they surprised me all the time. This one is called "The Promise Triptych' ' I promised myself said the old woman, that I would always remember the afternoon I slow-danced naked with him in his cheesy apartment on St. Mark's Place. I promised the sun said the tulip to her girlfriends, boasting and blushing madly describing the kiss, the lips. I'll always adore him oh my god I felt the earth move under my roots. I promised the man with my eyes and nose said the dog half asleep on the couch that I would love, honor and obey. He promised he would always stroke my brow like that [brief applause]." And I thought oh goodness, oh dear when the dog said he was going-- you know he was-- love, honor and obey; aren't those the marriage vows? Isn't that what a bride is supposed to say to her brand new husband? Oh dear. Oh dear. This one is called "April" and in this-- and this is another city poem, but the first part of it has to do with a march or many marches. "April" many marches, some of them here in this city. "April' 'The optimists among us taking heart because it is spring skip along attending their meetings signing their e-mail petitions, marching with their satiric signs singing their give peace a chance songs, posting their rainbow twitters and blogs believing in a better world for no good reason I envy them, said the old woman. The seasons go round they go round and around said the tulip, swaying among her friends in their brown bed in the sun in the April breeze under a maple canopy that was also swaying only with greater motions casting greater shadows and the grass hardly stirring. What a concerto of good stinks said the dog, trotting along Riverside Drive in the early spring afternoon sniffing this way and that how gratifying the violins of the river the tubas of the traffic the trombones of the leafing elms with the legato of my rivals' piss at their feet and the leftover meat and grease singing along in all the wastebaskets." [ Applause ] [ Silence ] Okay. Just a couple more and then we can have a Q&A for anybody who wants to ask questions. [ silence ] This one is called "In War Time" and of course, anybody who has the sense to be at a book festival knows that war time is all the time. "In War Time' 'Ah here you are at last sorry about the guards I hope they didn't give you much trouble. I was afraid you'd never make it across the river before curfew let me take your coats, said the old woman. Thank you how could we possibly pass up such a sweet invitation, but let me tell you said the tulip, when we reached the bridge we saw the river was full of corpses. A dog too can be afraid despite an appearance of ferocity, navigating unfamiliar streets, dodging unpredictable explosions, still one persists in one's errand here we are said the dog thank you I will keep my coat." [ Applause ] There are several wicked poems in this book, and here's one of them that I'm rather fond of, "Paw on your Lap" 'Remember the funniest place we ever made love a pair of economy seats on an overnight to London we imagined nobody noticed, how hilarious what a thing to remember for 50 years, said the old woman. Poured upward on a slender jade green tube whose tip is swollen and delicate although I am half asleep barely a bud let the wind touch me tenderly with its tongue, said the tulip. Under the table my nose nudges your shoe, toss the ball and return it increasingly moist walk in the door I admire your crotch confess your species too craves touch paw in your lap said the dog." [ Applause] So questions if anybody has questions? >> I do. >> Yes? [ Background Sounds ] >> First of all, thank you for your inspiring poetry. Secondly, as a woman of seventy who recently lost a husband I have a question for you about grief and poetry. And my question is what aside from your own poetry might you suggest I read? And I'm asking this because I noticed the questions throughout the day; many of them asked by young people, and many of the answers were directed to very young people, and at my age I am a woman of 70 plus, and wondering. >> What a good question, and of course my mind goes completely blank when you ask it, but there is-- there is-- there is such a vast literature of mourning, and if a book could come immediately to mind I would tell you what it was, but the poet Lucille Clifton has some wonderful poems about growing old and about losing a husband. And let's talk after my reading when my brain will probably be rolling again. okay? Yeah? [ Silence ] Well, I can-- I can-- yes, someone here has a question. >> I was wondering if as you're walking through New York City that you don't find it difficult not to narrate your travels with poetry? That it... >> Explain that again. >> So as you're walking just in New York which you love so much that it's difficult not to narrate it-- narrate your journeys with-- as a poetic journey rather than just walking down the street [inaudible]? >> Well, right now I'm trying to write some New York City poems, just anecdotal poems about things I encounter. And I don't know if I can do the city justice, so that's my current anxiety. [ Silence ] >> Could you talk about how you get your work done; the process? >> Oh sure, how I get my work done. Intermittently, I'm not one of those disciplined people who has such and such hours when they write every day. Sometimes I'm completely blank, and sometimes I'm completely buzzy, but the process tends to be a poem finds me. I don't plan poems, they come either because a phrase, a line announces itself and then I start writing, and then I keep writing until it stops. And then I decide whether there is something like 80 percent of a poem there, and if it is I'll keep it and work on it. And if it's trash I will toss it. Or-- and often this is how it goes, there is something that's really haunting me, something that's troubling me, something I'm brooding about, some set of experiences or feelings that I don't understand, and the poem is for problem solving. The poem is to explain myself to myself. To explain my realities, to explain what I perceive, to explain what I think, and the only way I can understand something is by writing the poem, and I have certainly done that all my life. And-- but in any case, when I begin a poem I never know where it will go; it's like crawling into the dark. Yeah? >> In reference to your book "A Woman, a Tulip and a Dog" did you find it difficult to fit the subject matter into the framing of each voice, like was that constraining or did it just sort of work itself out in the end? >> Most of the time the old woman announced herself, and then it was okay, now what does the tulip want to say about that, and then what does the dog want to say about that. But all of them were always a surprise, and that was what was really fun about writing this book, that I would never know. I just had to be receptive. [ Silence ] >> So, thank you Alicia for that gorgeous reading. >> Yeah, sure. >> Since we are always at war, a world at war, can you talk a little bit about the public role that poetry can play? >> Yes. This is Sarah Browning, who is the Director of "Split This Rock" an organization that runs a poetry festival here in Washington, D.C. every other year, and has a beautiful website "Split This Rock" very easy to remember, and you can find poems of social consciousness and political consciousness on it all the time, "Split This Rock" just Google it. And the role that poetry can play in issues of social justice, of war and peace, of policy two things, I think, and one is to keep us from despair, because no matter how inclined we are to just give up on everything that we believe in and the values that we struggle for, poetry will always say don't give up, and we do make beauty. We make beauty of bitterness. We make art of agony, and that's important. That we can inspire younger people to keep on believing in what they believe in, that's important. That we can give a voice to people who have been voiceless is one of the main things that poetry does. Women have been silenced, poets of color have been silenced, gay, lesbian, trans people have been silenced. Any group, any part of our population that has felt afraid to speak, poetry is there for you, and it's one of the most important things that poetry has been doing for our public life for the last half century. Did it for women and is doing it for so many others. Poetry exists to give a voice to the voiceless. How's that Sarah? [ Applause ] And I always-- when I lead a poetry workshop the first thing I tell my students is kill the censor, write what you're afraid to write. So I say it to all of you here who might be poets, write what you're afraid to write. >> Thank you. The selection or perhaps the way that you came to have the conversation between the woman-- "The Old Woman, the Tulip and the Dog" if you could share with us just kind of how that-- those three in particular, and then if there is anything that you could share with us in relation to that book and what you just commented on in terms of poetry and its impact on social justice? >> Okay. Where they came from I don't know. I just-- I just took it as a piece of luck. I have to assume that they're all part of me, and parts of me that didn't get to talk before. They're kind of a rest from a lot of heavy lifting in poems that I've done in previous books that have had a lot to do with public issues, and not much of this book does, but some of it does. For example, and I think we have to get out of here. This is an anger poem. There are two anger poems in this book and this is one of them. This is called "The Rape." "No cruelty is like the cruelty one turns against one's self after being raped. One feels covered in slime and shit, said the old woman grimly. This place used to be a park now it is a parking lot ha ha for which I am in the ornamental fringe. Don't tell me I should get over it, said the tulip bitterly. Definition of a bleeding heart you could not bear to look so you cross the street and did nothing to stop the man on the corner with the stick beating me, said the dog belligerently." And if you like that man on the corner with the stick beating an animal because he can is our country beating up on smaller countries because we can, and nobody doing enough to stop us? Thank you. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of "The Library of Congress." Visit us at loc.gov.