>> Ron Charles: We are fit but few or few but fit. Thank you so much for coming. I'm Ron Charles. I write about books for The Washington Post, which is a charter sponsor of the National Book Festival. I am so happy to have you here with us today. Our guest is Linda Gregerson. She's an award-winning poet, a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, a renaissance scholar. She's worked in the theater. She's a professor at the University of Michigan and the author of seven collections of poetry, including her latest Canopy, which is just stunning. Please get a copy of this. You will you will love it. Welcome. Thanks for coming. >> Linda Gregerson: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: We are going to chat -- [Applause] about her work and her life, and I'm going to have her read a few of the poems. And then if you all have questions at the end, you can come up to these mikes and ask and we'll move back and forth. >> Linda Gregerson: Please feel free. >> Ron Charles: Yeah. What gave you the bold idea that you could be a poet? >> Linda Gregerson: An intervention. >> Ron Charles: Really? >> Linda Gregerson: Yes, it was an intervention. I was in another kind of phase of my life. I was actually working with an experimental theater group but to keep body and soul together, and of course, like no health insurance, I mean, the whole, I was also tutoring composition at my former college at Oberlin, and my office was across the hall from the blessed Stuart Freebird, who was one of the founding editors of Field Magazine. And we'd chat and we'd chat. And between my trying to encourage students to think about the structure of their sentences. And Stuart at one point said, you've got to stop this, you're talking it all away. You're talking it all away. You've got to write poems. And I said, you don't understand, I don't even know how to read contemporary poetry. I can-- you know, I do pretty well with John Donne. But like, and he showed me, I mean, it was just really, he was exceedingly kind. I floundered forever because I'd never taken a creative writing, I mean, I didn't take a workshop until I went to Iowa to do my MFA. >> Ron Charles: Were your parents still alive? >> Linda Gregerson: Oh, yeah. What did they think of this turn from the lucrative world of theater to poetry? >> Linda Gregerson: Well, exactly. Listen, my parents were angels on earth. They, neither of them went to college. Nobody in my family went to college before I did. They didn't know. And they actually sacrificed a lot, a lot to save money to send me and my sister to college. And they never, ever, you know, asked me what I thought I was doing, what I was going to do for a living. I, in fact, I had dropped, I had dropped out of my first PhD program to work with this experimental theater group, you know, and be penniless. And I mean, I'd been penniless as a grad student, too, but at least I'd been penniless on my own two feet. And I did have some sort of medical coverage and never, not a breath, never. Mind you, so yes they just, they were just, it was a they, my mother worshiped education. She deeply believed in higher education. And most of the people I know who work in higher education should think half as highly of it as my mother did. And it was a free gift. It was a free gift. No strings attached. >> Ron Charles: What did they do for a living? >> Linda Gregerson: My dad repaired lawn mowers. He'd been a farmer and repaired cash registers. So we lived in a little town in Kerry, Illinois, and he commuted every day to cities. He hated cities. And he, you know, he left at 6 a.m. and he got home at 6 p.m. and he went into Chicago and he had his late breakfast there at his regular diner. And then he took the bus up Michigan Avenue and went to, worked at National Cash Register. >> Ron Charles: Farmers, that makes perfect sense because I was-- >> Linda Gregerson: Farmer, oh yeah. His, my whole that side of the family are all farmers. >> Ron Charles: Right. I think you can tell in this book. >> Linda Gregerson: Well, yeah. I mean I'm proudly. Yeah. >> Ron Charles: Because of the animals. Animals play such a prominent role in your poetry. >> Linda Gregerson: Animals do, which of course is like slightly ironic since I know nothing about animals. >> Ron Charles: That's not true. >> Linda Gregerson: Profoundly allergic to all interesting animals my entire life. I was allowed to, I mean terribly asthmatic. I'm just one of these kids who was good for nothing. I mean, it's truly-- >> Ron Charles: Tough on a farm. >> Linda Gregerson: Was made to sort of sit in street clothes on the side of the gym while other people tumbled and did stuff and really useless. And again, severely, severely asthmatic. But, my A medical science has advanced and treatment for asthma has advanced and I have two daughters and they were avid, and are, horseback riders. So there was pony club and there were any of you who know that organization, know that parents, volunteers, play a large role. I spent one of my sabbaticals learning, it was my most productive sabbatical ever, ever, learning how to hitch up and load and back up the horse trailer with our jeep. >> Ron Charles: Gees >> Linda Gregerson: I mean, I could do it, you know, you know the like, the truck drivers who can go, the guys who can, I'm sorry, but most of them are, and then who can go like they're there and they've got some huge trailer and they just they'd go, >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Linda Gregerson: With the steering wheel. >> Ron Charles: That's you. >> Linda Gregerson: I could do that. >> Ron Charles: Wow. >> Linda Gregerson: It was, I mean, yes. >> Ron Charles: Impressive . [Laughs] So, it does, it makes perfect sense. I mean, no, I didn't know about your background, but the animals in your stories are not symbols. They are not metaphors. >> Linda Gregerson: Oh, no, no, no, no. >> Ron Charles: They are animals. >> Linda Gregerson: They're, in fact, they, they're putting most of us to shame. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Linda Gregerson: Absolutely. >> Ron Charles: They're flesh and bone creatures like wounded deers and geese and horses and falcons. >> Linda Gregerson: Oh Yeah. Yeah. >> Ron Charles: Something about the visceral presence of those animals in your work, makes me think that they're taking you into the physical world in a way that's very important to you. Right? >> Linda Gregerson: It is. Absolutely is. >> Ron Charles: A lot of poets write about the physical world without ever mentioning an animal. What are the animals doing for you? >> Linda Gregerson: Well. For one thing, they're allowing me to live as a guest in their world, on their planet. And, as a guest I, along with the rest of humankind, have not done very well. We've not been very good guests on this planet. And so I, and I'm humbled, but I'm humbled at how sort of little human intelligence is on the scale of things and the sort of kinds of intelligence that exist in nature, that exist in our own bodies, which in many ways are strangers to us. I mean, I can't breathe on purpose. I can't process oxygen on purpose. I can't, you know, if it were up to me, I mean, I would have been dead always. But I'm very humbled by the talent, intelligence and the world and the wonder of what exceeds us. Yeah. >> Ron Charles: And the animals, the animals do that for you in some way. They draw you into that world. >> Linda Gregerson: I'm sort of honored to share the world . with them, and I'm deeply aware of how my presence, along with that of humankind, has imposed suffering on them in many instances. Suffering in many instances. >> Ron Charles: It comes up in several of the poems very-- >> Linda Gregerson: And-- >> Ron Charles: Viscerally. >> Linda Gregerson: And I, anyway. But it's also, you know, my daughters, I mean, they adore animals and they teach me stuff. And they also, they and my husband are the three people I love most on Earth, now that my parents and sister are no longer on it. And I, and they love animals so and take a great, a much more nuanced and knowledgeable and engaged life with animals than I ever have. And so I feel like a guest there too, you know, made my world larger. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Linda Gregerson: What they, what I learned about dogs. What I learned about horses, what I learned, , you know all that stuff. >> Ron Charles: It seemed incongruous to me at first, your deep knowledge of the Renaissance as a scholar of the Renaissance, and then this heavy interest in science and medicine. But then it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Because that is where all that interest in science and enlightenment comes from. >> Linda Gregerson: Well, you know, they weren't separate then. We didn't have these sort of spheres, where, if you wrote in what we-- I mean, there wasn't sort of the literary, and then I mean, then science or politics. I mean, my man Milton, you know, was-- had a very large political role to play. He was a very serious, I wouldn't say theologian, but he was deeply engaged in those matters. But also, look at Francis Bacon. I mean, look, that was -- I mean -- and yeah, and yeah, Shakespeare didn't discover new planets, but he sort of did, right. But, but no, it was, there was much more mingling of spheres in that era, which I think was part of its extraordinary richness. Also, I have known some extremely generous and brilliant life scientists in my lifetime who have kindly allowed me into their labs, who have kindly-- >> Ron Charles: But that speaks-- >> Linda Gregerson: Talked to me about their work. >> Ron Charles: That speaks to your interest. >> Linda Gregerson: Yeah, that's my, yeah. I mean, I just think it's infinitely cool. Well, look, I think science and poetry, I think science and poetry have huge amounts in common. They're both forms of inquiry and they're both at their best. They exist in the world to ask questions, to sharpen, to deepen the questions we have, to make those questions more precise. I think curiosity is the great commonality between the two. >> Ron Charles: That's, I'm going to think about that for a while. John Donne's Poetry, I'm sure you know better than I do, but would you agree that you have the same sort of interest in using physical and scientific and bodily metaphors in a poetic way, right? >> Linda Gregerson: Well, again, yeah, I mean, I'm fascinated and also daunted by, and in many ways envious of, the folks I know who work in science. And I love all the pieces of it. I love the combination of sort of practice, the hands on stuff. And again, I'm talking about life sciences, whether it's cellular biology or neurophysiology or whatever kind, and that combination, the sort of inquiring into that which our senses are too feeble to give us direct access to. >> Ron Charles: Yeah, right. >> Linda Gregerson: So that would need enhancement and then need in some ways, workarounds. >> Ron Charles: Mm hmm. >> Linda Gregerson: Right? I want to find out what's going across this cell wall, but it is not going to tell me directly. So how can I, how can I devise ways of inquiring into that? >> Ron Charles: One of your poems includes this phrase, to live in the body as if there were any other place. >> Linda Gregerson: Yeah. I still think it's a big mystery. >> Ron Charles: In another poem you write, in pain. I mean, alive. >> Ron Charles: Kind of a brutal phrase. >> Linda Gregerson: Well. Yeah. I mean, you can argue with it. >> Ron Charles: No, no. I mean, a few other poets, though, remind us so powerfully that we live in bodies and that we contend with physicality as you do. I'm thinking of your poems about really grievous wounds, physical abuse, hearing loss. One of your poems scoffs. What was it I thought the world could provide? Mortality without the mess? Would you read a poem called If the Cure for AIDS? >> Linda Gregerson: You bet. >> Ron Charles: On page 53. >> Linda Gregerson: Thank you. Can you all hear me? Fine? Thank you. If the cure for AIDS is the title here, but it's also the way it launches. If the cure for AIDS said someone in that earlier pandemic were a glass of clean water, we couldn't save half the people here. If half the workers at Tyson Meats come down with the virus, we still have a plan for protecting the owners from lawsuits. If the phone in the farmhouse rings when it's long past dark, and the milk, if the tanks at the co-op are full. If milk dumped into a culvert makes you think of death. My neighbor drove to Lansing in his pickup. I expect you've seen the photos too. The state house floor. The rifles. He had just culled half his herd. And while we're casting about ways for someone normal, I've been watching footage of the day old chicks, the 116,000 buried alive. It seems we can't afford the feed or can't afford the falling price of chicken. I'm mostly confused by the articles meant to explain. Look at the spill of them. Dump truck into the pre-dug ditch. The mewling yellow spill of them still in the down we find adorable. Red Earth. Impassive Skyscape. Skittering bits of agitation on the body of the whole. [applause] >> Ron Charles: If you had to tell somebody what poetry can do, that prose can't. I mean, there it is, right? It's like, it's like 150 words. And it does what you'd expect a collection of essays to do. How do you, such a terrible question, how do you come up with a poem that reaches in so many different directions at once and provides any kind of thematic unity like that? >> Linda Gregerson: Thank you for that question. And I mean, that is the question. And it's the question, you know, it's what, it's what I'm trying to do all the time and why writing a poem is demanding. It's gorgeous. And it's, I trust many of you write poems as well, I hope you do. And it's -- I wouldn't know how to live without it. I love it. But I mean, I don't want-- I've got strong opinions about stuff, but the world does not need me preaching to it. It's just not, you know, not interesting or being honest -- well, sometimes I'm a little on a screed in a poem, but I try to add something else, and I just, I do write. I write about, sometimes I write because I'm so distraught about something, I don't know where else to put it and I don't know where else to put it. And, but I don't also, I try to stop myself before I start just getting predictable, sort of doing one thing and then doing the obvious again and again and again and going where I'm expect to go. I've said that endlessly to my students, you know, sort of like if you, if you're writing toward an ending you know, you are not working on a poem, you are not working on a poem. You may be working on an elegant, eloquent musical paraphrase of something you already understand, but it is not going to be a poem. And I firmly believe I can tell the difference. I really do when I read some of these poems. So I need to also be taking myself to some place where I'm in trouble, where I don't know. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Linda Gregerson: Where I need to go next. And it is not comfortable. I feel like I'm in some sort of like cliff's edge and I might be there for, sometimes I'm there for weeks. I mean, sometimes a poem is -- I have to, and I don't usually work on multiple poems at the same time. So when I'm someplace and the 115 first tries I've made are really awful or they're not awful, but they're just not good enough. It's really uncomfortable. And because I can't go, like say, Oh, well, I've written 20 other poems in the meantime, you know, I'm, that's where I am, that's where I live. So, you know, I have to, and sometimes, well, I'm riding my bike, once in a while, sort of during the pandemic anyway. And sometimes it's just, I don't know how, another thing, I think of some of my poems as being like, oh, those sort of planes that are at odds with one another, not, so different. And I don't know in advance if I start writing about kayaking on the river near my house, and there's later something about World War II, it's not because I thought I would go there. It's because, at a certain point when I've done an arc, followed an arc, I have this, I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm stuck. Something comes to me and almost because I don't know how it fits yet, I know it's worth pursuing. >> Ron Charles: Yes, and it's worth reading for us. When Rob asked me to interview you, I had not read this collection. I'd read the earlier collections. And I thought, well, she's just way too hard. I don't understand her, Paul. But those are the kind of poems I really like. You know, you, Carl Phillips, Mary Szybist, poems that, yield something with every rereading and every time I go through this collection, which I've gone through four times now, the poems are radically more illuminating to me, and that is not the case with popular Instagram poets. What do you think about that issue of difficulty? And that's not the right critical term. >> Linda Gregerson: No, I know that, you know, and I appreciate your being shy about that word. And I, really, this is a generously asked. I follow and have an eager appetite for certain poets whose work is kind of readily available and, but whose work I don't, you know, I don't get a lot more out of the next time I go to. But the kind of poem I want to write is one where the reader will go back. And there are two parts of that. Okay, the poem has to be worth going back to, but the reader has to want to. So I think it's extremely important for a poem to be hospitable too. >> Ron Charles: Interesting. >> Linda Gregerson: Sort of for there to be some kind of welcome mat. And I think I learned a version of that lesson in life. [Laughs] I mean, nobody in my family had ever been to college. Right, nobody. They’re farmers, they’re blue collar workers. And I'm off doing this stuff and doing a PhD and then, not quite, and then doing another PhD. And my life wasn't legible to them. But, when I had children, I had this part that was, A, they were more expert at the rest of my family, but also that I could share, that was like available. It was a touchstone. And I want all my poems to have that too. I want there to be something, a place, where you can say, Oh yeah, that I get or that I'm not sure, but that I can tell she cares about or at that moment I hear a voice or at that moment I know what landscape I'm in. Just some things. And that it will be, again, forthcoming enough and interesting enough that a reader will want to bother. >> Linda Gregerson: So, and the world has changed a lot, too. I don't do a lot of-- I mean, I don't put words from other languages in my poems for the most part, but a number of my poets are bilingual or they're working in English, I mean, my students are, as are a lot of poets, writers of all kinds in the world now, and in our world. And they may speak English as a second language, they may be most deeply informed and imbued with other cultures. The Pakistan in which they grew up and the Mexico from which they come, the Puerto Rico. And they -- it's so -- what I -- you can do things differently in those realms because the Internet exists now. I mean, there were times I remember when I was first reading Wallace Stevens, I mean couldn't Google this stuff. I sat I sat at least one long day a week in a graduate library with the Oxford English Dictionary on the floor. And then and I that's how I had a start. And now, if one of my students wants to refer to a battle. >> Ron Charles: Yes. >> Linda Gregerson: that was enormous of enormous consequence in their country, or a moment in the decolonization or something. They don't have to like tell me the whole back history inside the poem. If there are sufficient, I just need the sufficient clues. So I try to-- >> Ron Charles: The presumption of the ability to research easily. >> Linda Gregerson: That's right. But also, again, I do remind them of that, the reader has to want to. >> Ron Charles: Right. >> Linda Gregerson: The reader has to -- it has to be obviously worth it. >> Ron Charles: Right. Would you read one of my favorite poems of yours, A Knitted Femur,which is in response to a question. >> Linda Gregerson: Yeah. >> Ron Charles: That's on page 54. Maybe you could tell us, I don't know, does it spoil it to tell the question first or does it help? >> Linda Gregerson: No, it doesn't. So it was Margaret Mead, wasn't it? Is that what my note says? Margaret Mead was once speaking 30-- >> Ron Charles: 54 54, thank you -- was the one speaking to a group of students. And one of them said, all right, what's the first sign? How do you know-- we're doing research on digging a bones and doing various kinds of, like what are the first signs of culture that there was that people sort of were, that there was human culture as opposed to just animal survival? Expecting her to say oh, but there are pot shards, from metalworking. Yeah. But before that pottery from the ancient Greek. And she said, so this is, it's not her words, but it's what she basically was answered. And this is called A Knitted Femur that, this bone, longest in the body, actually. A Knitted Femur. First evidence that one who ought to have died first, of hunger, of thirst and the jaws of something hungrier, lived long enough to heal. Not pottery, not crafted tool, but simply this far from simple testament to taking care. The question had been civilization, early remains. Excavate the layers, the layered earth and low. If you're asking the question with an open mind, a carbon-dated 15,000, year old sign. Which opens an obvious thought stream when a father of six or daughter of your cousin gets a job telling shoppers to put on a mask. What's the starting salary for getting shot? I've been reading about resilience and how viruses are good at this. Lock them at one pass. They'll adapt and find another. A workaround. Kill the host, they'll find another. Anger must be like that too. When I tried to sign up for the listserv, I was shuttled to another screen and asked to confirm humanity. I checked the box. [Applause] >> Ron Charles: That's really great. Spanning 15,000 years, going from some primitive place in Africa to a Walmart. This is a poem that goes all over the place, in very few words to say something really profound about humanity. Our humanity. >> Linda Gregerson: Yeah, yeah. Somebody fed that human being and kept off the, and brought water and fended off the wild animals or the other wild animals. It really puts us in our place, I think. It really does. >> Ron Charles: I want to ask you about the theater. You've got a great speaking voice, which is not a requirement for a poet, but it doesn't hurt, let me tell you. And I suppose it came from theatrical training, but I wonder if it goes further than just your ability to read nicely to us. Is there something about studying theater, particularly Shakespeare that influenced the way you think about syntax, about the way you break lines? >> Linda Gregerson: Thank you for that. I love being asked about syntax. >> Ron Charles: [Laughter] Who doesn't? >> Linda Gregerson: Carl Phillips, another of the poets you mentioned and I are going to be on a panel with our friend David Baker in Illinois later this year talking about syntax. We're so psyched. You know that, well. >> Ron Charles: Theater and how does theater-- >> Linda Gregerson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I actually sort of, I'm obsessive. I obsessively attend theater. I deeply believe. >> Ron Charles: Isn’t that the hardest part of the pandemic? >> Linda Gregerson: Oh, it's been brutal. I was back in London this summer for the first time since 2019. And I was just-- we were more cautious. we masked, and it was just-- >> Ron Charles: Yeah. >> Linda Gregerson: Amazing. But live music, like everything right, it's horrible to miss It. But the, sure and maybe you know that kind of like, he do the police in different voices that kind of like, I kind of -- the experience which I quite love. And which actually allowed me to live in the world when I was younger and didn't think I could. That sort of-- as it were the phenomenon of throwing one's voice of just sort of like, something else. And then you inhabit it. You venture something and then you live there and there's sort of like deniability not me. And I found that incredible, A, invitation for being in the world when I was like, in high school and also, an invitation to thinking, to sort of certain kinds of, experimental thought the sort of what if, the sort of not quite, the sort of or not yet or like that. And the part that asks of us and therefore gives us the opportunity to maybe feel some compassion for somebody not me. >> Ron Charles: Nice. >> Linda Gregerson: So, and beyond that, should I say more about that or was it that? >> Ron Charles: No, go on, yes. >> Linda Gregerson: No, yeah. But oh, to the Renaissance also doing that the Shakespeare. I mean, it was not a super clever career move to do Renaissance scholarship and poetry. I mean, I imagined at one point I'd consolidate and write a dissertation on Wallace Stevens, but I couldn't stay away from the Renaissance. I just loved it too much. But the one thing it gave me, I was sure was well, working on the likes of Edmund Spenser and John Milton as much as I do, I am in no danger of trying to write like them. I will say, syntax, there's a little bit of Milton that may have just encouraged me to adore the subordinate clause as much as I do. >> Ron Charles: Yeah, I can see that. >> Linda Gregerson: That's all. But I can't pretend, I mean, I, but that said, I think they're extraordinary, the extraordinary genius of that period, of those writers, of the world they lived in, the knowledge they had, the mastery, is something that's so far from what I couldn’t even dream of it's just not, it's so far. So there is still a kind of a safety cordon, as it were. >> Ron Charles: Interesting. We have some questions. If you have questions. We have a few minutes. Please come up to the mic. >> Linda Gregerson: Please. >> Ron Charles: Here’s somebody right there. Feel free. >> I was wondering maybe what's something that you tell your students when they're hanging on that cliff or somebody who wants to get into poetry writing, or, in my case, I like to write songs and I'm looking for a new way to like dive into that. What's a piece of advice you would give to somebody who wants to write? >> Linda Gregerson: And I apologize, my hearing is very compromised. So did you--? >> Ron Charles: Yeah, he'd like advice for someone who’d like to get into poetry, who would like to write. What would you tell someone who, starting off-- >> Linda Gregerson: What a great question. Thank you. Please, I hope you will. So read. But also, things that keep a journal. Write. And don't, keep some sort of thing between you can stay in one place. I don't care if it's a yellow legal pad or I mean, a journal can sound kind of pretentious, but in fact, it's just has the virtue of not being scraps of paper that fly away. Write something down every day. Something you notice, something that makes you happy, something that frets you, an image. Don't censor yourself. Don't try and make it art to begin with. Just what something that goes to words. Anything. That's what you had for breakfast. Practice sentences, maybe. Writing about what you had for-- what you saw in your walk here today. And you'll start getting you'll be wanting to do justice to that bit of memory or that piece of sidewalk or that adorable thing your cat did or and that's the way it begins, is doing justice to something that has grabbed you. >> Thank you. >> Linda Gregerson: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: Yes, sir. >> Hi, thank you for being here. So kind of a weird question, but with the Renaissance, there was a certain, I guess, curiosity and sort of enthusiasm that they had for the world or for ideas. And I was wondering if you have any kind of like how could we see the world today in a Renaissance kind of way, if that makes any sense? >> Linda Gregerson: How can we-- >> Ron Charles: See the world—if the Renaissance-- >> Yeah. As a Renaissance person. >> Linda Gregerson: I, probably you don't have to stand as close to the mic as that. Again, it's my fault, my disability here, which isn't a fault, but, all right. Right, that's, there's, because it's so much. A, it's just we're we're killingly encouraged and even forced to sort of channel these days. I mean, if we just want, like, I don't know, pay the rent, right? And there's so much you sort of got to narrow, got to specialize, got a -- and I deeply I admire endlessly all kinds of expertise. I mean, every kind of disciplined, acquired, cunning knowledge in the world. But there is, I think, protecting some head space for wonder, for not being an expert, for not needing to get out of it eventually a career or, you know, a way of earning a living. Just however you can protect, shelter, some space for curiosity, for free curiosity, whether it's noticing the world when you're on your morning run, whether it's finding out more about like, training your dog or I mean, just, that's all I could, that's the, I mean, I think that appetite is the best part. >> That would probably help with poetry also. Thank you. >> Linda Gregerson: Thank you. >> Yes. Hello. My question, I have like two. One of them is that you have the voice also for podcasting, I'm a podcaster as well. My podcast is called Greener Thoughts. I was wondering if you would ever choose to get into podcasting. It's an amazing world. And second question is concerning the realm of like social science research. So have you ever thought about how maybe historically, maybe during the , Tudor periods, one of my favorite historical periods, also the Roman period and Egyptian period in history, if those would influence your next poetry book. >> Ron Charles: Interesting. She's, first of all, she says you have great voice and you should do podcasting. I agree. You do have a great voice. And then she's asking a broad question about different historical periods, Egyptian history, the Tudor period, other kinds of social history that you might someday incorporate into your poetry. Or are you pretty rooted to the Renaissance? >> Linda Gregerson: Oh, no. I mean, I'm again, sometimes it's when it's about a place or a period about which I am extraordinarily ignorant that will trigger it. It's because I'm first learning something and that will trigger my curiosity but also will kind of grab me in an emotional way I hadn't anticipated. And I'll need to write about it, you know? I mean, once in a while, sometimes there's a TV series. There was one called the Berlin Babylon one that was, and because, a German series that is amazing. And that's where the horse and a gas mask image came from, which is in one of the poems here. And we're I mean, World War II was my parent's war. So there's a way in which for me, it's a kind of, I don't know, it’s a sort of home base. It's the kind of, it's the War. It's the War that, you know. And I'm fascinated to learn about it, to read about it, to think about it, to have a glimpse of how humans living, and horses living, and creatures living then endured it. >> Ron Charles: Interesting. >> Linda Gregerson: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: Yes, ma'am? >> Hello. So I know that you talked about the sort of moment when you decided to transition from doing theater to instead working full time on poetry. But I was wondering, is there a specific poem that sort of ignited your love for poetry or that really got you into it? Or was it something that you were interested in from a very young age? >> Linda Gregerson: Again, I missed some words. >> Ron Charles: she's asking was there a particular poem or poet that really inspired you to get into poetry? >> Linda Gregerson: Well, it was this teacher, as I mentioned, and I adored reading early modern poetry-- >> Ron Charles: How early are we talking about? >> Linda Gregerson: 16th, 17th century stuff. I mean, I felt I knew what it was asking of me. Not that I was somehow a masterful reader, but I had a sense I knew what it was asking of me. And therefore, another huge fan of the Renaissance, T.S. Eliot I loved easily and early because I knew what he was asking of me, I didn't know if I could come up with it, but I knew what he was asking of me. But I did remain baffled for a long time by contemporary poetry. So I couldn't, all those poets the ones in the right, Herbert Marvell, those. But again, Eliot probably was very, very important. And there are lots of contemporaries. Then once I started reading more 20th century poetry, it was then 20th Century, whose work I madly adored. People now you want a reading recommendation? Read Kathleen Graber. >> Okay Love her enormously. She's just, she's a dreamer. >> Thank you. >> Linda Gregerson: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: Yes, ma'am. >> Hi. Thanks so much for your presentation and your generosity with us this afternoon. I am a poet and a physician, and so I'm really intrigued by your work going into labs and trying to understand kind of their world. I am privileged actually to be teaching at the Renaissance School of Medicine, which used to be called Stony Brook University up in New York. And, do you believe that there is something about reading poetry and possibly even writing poetry that can help medical students someday be better doctors? >> Linda Gregerson: That is a brilliant question, and I've been, we're being told we have to wrap it up. I have, I'd love to talk to you for a few minutes after this because I have a friend at Michigan in the med school and we do joint events with med students and creative writers. And he takes the med students to concerts and to community, because the whole idea, I've gone on grand rounds, I mean, it's just, you know. So, yes, yes. We need to talk to one another more. And I think we're all still learning to be human. Right? And medical care has to be about that, too. >> Ron Charles: She sounds like your ideal reader here. Sorry. I don't want you to have to sit down. What do you want to say? >> So I kind of have trouble with writing in general, but generally, like writing poetry. I don't really know what I want to say or I do, but I'm not really sure how to put it out on the page. How did you find your voice in poetry? >> Linda Gregerson: How did I find? >> Ron Charles: Your voice. How did you find your voice-- Linder Gregerson: oh, my voice >> Ron Charles: -to express what you wanted to say. >> Linda Gregerson: I mean, I staggered around and wrote a ton of bad poetry and I staggered around and wrote a ton of bad poetry. And then it was like the acting experience was a thing I could-- at some point I thought, oh, right, right. There's just try to find-- And so I steal pieces of language from, sometimes common sayings or something my dad said or something might seem outrageous thing my uncle said complaining about the Department of Natural Resources and which he called damn near Russia. And I just and I kind of go from there. So sometimes incorporating something you love that's already in the world in words is a good way to experiment. >> Ron Charles: Nice. >> Thank you. >> Linda Gregerson: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: Thank you. Thank you all, this has been a delight. And thank you s o much for coming. >> Linda Gregerson: Thank you. >> Ron Charles: Wonderful to talk to you. Thank you. There's a signing at seven. Thank you so much.