[MUSIC] I'm going to read a poem, that, for a lot of fans of Wallace Stevens, is a favorite. I'm going to read it, and then we'll talk about it. It's called Large Red Man Reading. And it's another one of these poems about, by poets, about reading something. What is it about, Dave, speculate. Why do poets, and modern poets in particular, they're so interested in the act of reading? Shouldn't they be interested in the active writing? >> Well, yeah, they're writing for people that read their work, they're thinking about how their work is going to be read. So a lot of their writing is really focused onaAt some level, thinking about the reading. >> So, Kamar, riff a little further on that. When you read the poem of a poet who is reading, there's a kind of annoying recursive thing going on. Because you're reading a book about a poet who's reading a book. I don't know. I think there is some type of communication that goes on in that type of process. Not sure what, but there seems to be some type of union going on there. >> A union okay cool, so large red man reading. There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases as he sat there reading aloud the great blue tabuli. They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more. There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life. Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them. They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality that would have wept and been happy, have shivered in the frost, and cried out to feel it again. Have run fingers over leaves and against the most coiled thorn. Have seized on what was ugly and laughed, as he sat there reading from out of the purple tabulae. The outlines of beings and its expressings, the syllables of its law. Poesis, poesis, the literal characters, the vatic lines, which in those ears. Then those spended hearts took on color, took on shape and the size of things as they are. And spoke the feeling for them which is what they had lacked. >> Dave, react to the sound of the reading of that poem for a second. >> It's very difficult, it's not smooth and flowing, but you have to be very conscious of each syllable. You can't just read it casually. You have to really focus in and the sounds are sometimes halting. It makes you hyperconscious of the reading. >> Lily, what gives you the most trouble with this poem? >> Definitely the grammar. In terms of how, there's like three different signalling things. So there's like grammatical sentences with capital letters and periods. Then there's line breaks and then there's stanza breaks. And all three are like signalling to me as I read that one It just makes it confusing to even understand who's the subject of what verb, where and when. >> And these are long. In terms of sentences, they're very long. And in terms of actual grammar, the level of the line, you have all kinds of conditionals. There were those that would have wept, would have wept, in other words If they ever step barefoot into reality, they would have wept. Those that return to here and read from the poem of life, there were those that would have wept. That would have wept and been happy, et cetera. Kamara what's hardest for you in dealing with this? No, I think, it's paying attention to the subjects. Who, they are the whole time, and following that the throughout the whole poem. The first time I read it, I got lost on who was who. And I had to go back and read it multiple times to figure out, where the ghosts were. >> Yeah. >> [LAUGH] >> So are the ghosts, in the first line, >> The they of the third line presumably so right. >> Mm-hm. >> So why would ghosts come and return to earth to hear presumably the reader or the poet may be reading one of his own books. So one imagines while Steven's reading in a chair. One of his own books, Aloud, to home. Dave? Ghosts? What's going on here? Is it sci-fi? >> I think the key to that is the end of the first stanza, that had expected more. These ghosts had expected more of the afterlife. So it makes you think that these people when they were living life, they were living thinking it's all going to be there in the after life, but it turns out maybe not. >> Is it possible that their disappointment is about how they expect if they're going to come all the way from heaven down to earth to listen to this guy's poems, they wanted the poems to be better? Is he chastising himself humorously I didn't get that from. >> Really? >> Well, I think I don't know, I think you might be chastising them for the more that they're expecting. I think that what they want from the large red man reading who we just equated to Stevens. Is something that maybe, this just, the only reason it makes me think that is the careful phrasing of the poem to like not include basically like anything about the man reading himself. It seems to be all about what they want and what they expect which makes me think it may not be what the large reading has or is happy to provide. What does poetry read provide those from another place or those who enter the space of poetry? What does it offer them, I mean not in this poem, but generally what would you say Komara, if I enter a space of poetry what should I get from it? Huge question. >> [LAUGH] Either a sort of escape into different sort of mind set >> Right >> I want to say a fact checker on reality. I see the both type, I see than both senses. >> So Dave, if the ghosts return, presumably they're unreal and they live in unreality. And they're trying to get the passion of terrestrial life, pots and pans, pots and pans. Why wouldn't they just go into the kitchen? Why would they want to read watch a man reading poems. >> It seems like they're getting a secondary glimpse at reality. >> Whether than just experience the reality, they're trying to get someone telling them about reality, you're saying. >> And a poet, but not a novelist. Not Charles Dickenson, sorry, Charles Dickens, but Wallace Stevens. Yeah, I think that the best way to get reality, I mean according to this poem, it's to be expressed through poetry, poiesis. It gives the more direct connection for these ghosts to the natural world, to living in the natural world. >> So Lily, you said before, accurately, that we know very little about the man who's reading. What do we know? >> We know that he large, and he's red for some reason. And he's sitting as he reads because in the fourth stanza, he sits there reading. Although that could be idiomatic, like you could be standing and sat there reading at the same time. And he starts with a great blue tableau and ends with purple tableau, and that he is reading. Only, I think, at the fourth stanza do we actually get a description of what is being read. The first three seem to be their expectations of what they're hoping to find, so it'ss outlines of being- >> So that counts as information about him since it seems to be what he himself wrote. So what kind of writing does he himself do? >> It says outlines of being and it's expressing. >> So it would be existence and the expressions of existence, the effect of existence. >> And it says the syllables of it's law, poiesis, poiesis the literal character. So there's something literal, verbal, just like the sound of language and expression. Less about the content of what he's- >> Why law? Why would we ever associate the word law, Kamara, with poetry, the syllables of its law? That's a tough question, too. >> I'm thinking about what rules poetry has and I'm getting stopped [LAUGH] >> How about if we think about law in other senses? I mean, I think rules and constraints, in this case you start a new line, you put a capital letter. But what other kind of law do we have in relation to writing? Dave, you know something about the law. Are they talking about rules of grammar or about communication? >> I don't know. >> Really? >> Yeah, and then also, tableau is intentionally very archaic. It almost reminds me of Hammurabi's Code or something, that [CROSSTALK] >> It's the plural of tablets. >> Right, so it's something that had to be hammered in. >> Any laws on tablets? >> Well yeah, but, I guess- >> So these are not just rules of grammar but commandments, right? >> When we talk about tabulae, we think of the tabula rasa. >> Right, and of course if you're a poet, you are writing on a black sheet and you're creating law. Poiesis, poiesis, why say it that way? What is poiesis? >> It's Greek? >> And what does it mean? >> Isn't the root of poetry? >> It is the root of the word poetry, and it means to make. To make, why emphasize making, In this context? >> He super emphasizes it because he says poiesis, comma, poiesis repeated, comma, the literal characters. Which makes me think, I actually picture the purple colored stone he has just says poiesis on it. >> Yeah, the poem seems to be poiesis, and boy, what a poem it is. I tried to read it in my reading, poiesis, poiesis. So if those are the literal characters, poiesis, like as you suggest, Lilly, that what's on this tabula is the word poetry, talk about metapoetic. The literal characters, characters are alphabetical pieces, letters, the vadic lines. Vadic means? >> Predicts the future. >> Yeah. >> So these are prophetic lines, poiesis, poiesis, make, make, the law. Which, the characters, the lines, which in those ears, who's? >> The ghosts. >> I think the ghosts. >> Yeah, he's reading aloud to ghosts, so he's reading aloud to listeners who come from unreality to reality. And he says make, make, poetry, poetry, and in those ears, and in those thin, those spended hearts! Why are they spended? Ghosts? They dead, I guess. >> I guess like suspended like spent, right? >> Spended is such a great word. >> Spent, but doesn't really mean- >> Drained- >> Yeah, spent, right. So these are ghostly figures, these are thin, not real people. And when you say poiesis, poiesis, in those ears, and in those thin spended hearts, those characters took on color, and shape, and the size of what? Things as they are, that's Wallace Steven's way of saying reality. Pots and pans, things, no ideas but in things, pots, pans. Now think about it poiesis, poiesis. It almost says to make, it doesn't say to theorize, it doesn't say to abstract, it says to make. So this is a poetry of reality, the pots and pans-ness of life. And those ghostly figures with not much left of passion, they took on color, they took on shape. Right, or it's the syllables as heard become real. And then, as things as they are, and spoke the feeling for them. Why, in some literal sense, do the ghosts need to have the poem speak the feeling for them, just to stick to this little story? >> They're ghosts, they can't usually speak for themselves. >> Right, so it is a little sci-fi. So they've come back and they're deriving their humanity from feelings that had been written down. Lilly, you were going to say something. >> I guess I'm just confused at who's mode is being celebrated if anyone's, if that makes sense. Because is the speaker saying that the ghosts have sort of correctly interpreted poiesis? because they've made a big jump as listeners, I guess, to just go from the literal characters of poiesis, poiesis to creating all of this pots and pans and stoves and stuff. Things that they are now incapable of experiencing. >> So let's translate that first question into a question for the three of us. >> Well okay, so ultimately by the end of the poem, does the speaker side with or celebrate the reading indicated by the final stanza that the ghosts seem to have done? Or the listening that they seem to have done to his reading? >> Okay. >> Like does he celebrate or side with what they say? >> Dave, answer to Lilly's question? >> I think it's suggesting that the reading, the poiesis, is the direct connection to the materiality of the world. That's what What these ghosts lack, they lack the experience of material world, they long for it. And poetry is the direct way to get to that natural world. >> Kumar? >> I think what he's saying is that the ghosts are lacking, yes, the living, the reality, but the process of living, and I think that's where they gain their, like, feeling, per se. Is this, is from the poet who's talking about living and the process of finding and the process of creation which they obviously can't do anymore because they can't really create anything anymore. >> What do they have? What's the closest thing they have to reality? >> I guess it's his poem. >> Yeah. They came to hear him read from the poem of life. By the way, that has a very pretentious quality to it, the poem of life, but what he really means is the poem of actuality, the pots and pans. It is the poem of life of, meaning the poems of, the pans above the stove. This is not the pans above the stove, this is the poem of the pans above the stove. >> I have an observation about that, though. Because we talk about that as the blue tabula, and then we later talk about it as the purple tabula. I think you could read that as saying that. >> They're getting some color. >> Yeah, they're reflecting. They're having an interplay, an exchange. They reflect red. They reflect the red man, literally and figuratively. >> They begin to take on some of his livingness, some of his terrestriality. They would have wept. Would have wept to step barefoot in reality. This is a famous line. Let's see if we can spend a little more time with it and then we'll wrap up. Just getting away from this particular poem, if somebody said to you, Kimara, I would have wept to step barefoot into reality. What does that mean? >> I would have broken down. I would have been vulnerable. I would have been scared. >> To do what, though? >> To step barefoot into reality means what? >> Be, Just- >> Why do you take your shoes off if you want to go into reality and your socks? >> You want to feel the sand. And you want to feel what's actually going on, you want to live in the moment I guess. >> You want to stand on the real ground. Make contact. Dave? Step barefoot into reality. >> It's like you're main lining sensory perception. You want to get as much of it as you can, as pure as you can. >> And why would these ghosts have wept to do that? Because they, we really want some kind of corporeality. We want to, I keep using the word terrestrial. We want contact. And they're not making contact! Their closest contact is the poems of life, by this guy, this Redman Reading. Lily? >> Well- >> Is meta poetry going to keep us further from reality, even though this is arguing that it gets us closer? >> But that's sort of what I think that they want poetry to directly reflect experience it seems like. And I don't think a meta-poem always does that. Like reflect experience directly. It's more about like putting a barrier between- >> Famously yeah. >> Right, so- >> Indirect, unresponsive to life. >> It seems like- >> Unreal. >> It seems like that's what they don't want. It seems like they don't want a meta-poem. They want like a traditional lyric sort of or something. >> So right they the ghost. >> The ghost. >> I want some reality. I want to not only step barefoot in reality but I want to stomp on grapes, talk about purple. >> Yeah, I want to feel. I want to read what you've written and feel like I'm there, is kind of the cliched way that we would say it. >> So what is Stevens saying, because he's giving them something different. >> Well, he just gave them poesis poesis and they took seemingly, I mean, maybe not, but seems like that what we said before, like the first three stanzas is all what they wanted and describing them, their characteristics. And then he only gives them the literal characters of the word poesies which is like the most super super meta poem ever. >> [LAUGH] >> And they take on color, take shape, they see things as they are seemingly for themselves and spoke feeling for them. So- >> The poem spoke feeling for them. >> Yeah, so he's instead of giving them the pots and pans of life, he gave them the meta poem of life. >> [LAUGH] Instead of giving, so lets restate that. Instead of giving them the pots and pans of life, he gave them the word pot and the word pan. >> Yeah the literal characters. >> The literal characters. And the word pot just sounds like reality. The word pan a little less so. >> I think of the god pan. >> Maybe so. >> Great outdoors. >> And the words poesis poesis which are not things but meta things, the making of things. Poesis poesis. He's taking the sound that a mouth makes and commenting on the preciousness of our physical reality that only when we are no longer here on the Earth, right do we realize how much we will miss. Right, and what they have lacked was the very thing that we take for granted most, especially if we're metapoetic types like Wallace Stevens. Stevens said the greatest poverty is not to live in a physical world. In another poem, he said, I think it's in The Auroras of Autumn. He said, we, this is the happiest that Steven's ever gets, we were as Danes in Denmark, all day long. Which is a really weird thing to say. What do you think he means by that? We were as Danes in Denmark, all day long. >> What are Danes? >> People in Denmark [LAUGH]. >> [LAUGH] >> It makes me think of when in Rome, I guess, except that- >> It's like when in Rome, do like the Romans. >> Yeah, but he's there. He doesn't have to be there. >> Except what he's saying is, we were so where we needed to be. We were so in the place that was appropriate. And all day long suggest that longing for the preciousness of physical reality. All right, final words about this unusual poem about a poet who's figuring himself apparently reading poems, and having listeners be those who have no sense of reality. And rather than showing them down to the kitchen, he gives them a poem that has pots and pans in it. Dave, final thoughts? >> These ghosts that are the subject of the poem, he's trying hold the hand of, they didn't appreciate life. They missed it all. So he's- >> And died too young, I suppose. >> And he's giving them they're ghosts, so you can't really give them experience anymore. They can't experience it, but the best way to hold their hands and bring people or ghosts who haven't experienced the physical world is through poiesis. It's a form of handholding of getting them into this natural experience. >> Handholding, guiding them into the making of the world. And the making of the world is not the world, it's the poem. The poem does the making of the world. The world is the world, the poem makes the world. That was almost my final word. >> Lily? Final thoughts. >> I don't know. So I think I like that he sort of foils the expectation of the listener or the reader by. Not quite giving them what they want, but more like what they need, what they had lacked. Like the ability to create that for themselves rather than just delivering to them the fake thing of what they lacked, which would be to try to directly describe experience for them to absorb. But I think he undercuts it a little bit by kind of clapping himself of the back for doing so by writing this poem called the Large Red Man Reading and like very pointedly, allowing himself to be so well understand that the words he's saying take on color and shape and like celebrating in those last two lines the effect that he's had. So I guess I'm- >> He might be celebrating himself a little prematurely. >> Yeah, but otherwise- >> But soon he'll be a ghost too. >> Right, but otherwise I like the idea. >> Kamara what do you think? >> I sort of agree with what Lily said. The poem of life, that line just really through me out. I was like really is this the poem of life. >> Could it be ironic a little bit? No, >> Yeah, it can maybe be. >> I mean, if the poem is a poem of life, Kamara, it would not be about pans over the stove and pots on the table. A poem of life would be about the big things because this is a big man and he does big things. And I think what he's saying basically is if I give you the poem of my life it's going to be about Being Danes in Denmark it will be kind of a trivial, domestic thing. The most important thing is I can hold that pot. That pot. Just saying it makes me think of reality of that. Anyway, go ahead, I'm sorry. >> Well that's exactly where I was kind of going. What I take from this poem is like the syllables of it's law, poesis, poesis the literal characters. Like if I want to look at what I was confused on in the beginning like the rules of poetry, like, all that's around us is the rules that aren't really limitations at all? >> Did you get a final word? >> I did. >> How was that? >> That was great. Especially the rule part because I come back to law and we're talking about the law of the tabula, but the tabula's changing Yeah, all changing. >> Well I've already given a final word but I have another one. It seems to me, and this is keying off of something that Lily has said. The reader of this poem, we, it's hard to read this poem and not hear in your mind someone reading it aloud or since narrativizing in this poem is someone reading poems aloud, and then having poesis poesis italicized and pots and pans be so things as they are ish in the way that they sound. The reader of this poem is a listener, it seems to me, either figured as a listener or actually listening, maybe reading it aloud or maybe moving your lips. It's the kind of poem where you sort of have to move your lips when you're reading it. And that puts readers, us, in the position of the listeners who are actually in the poem who are ghosts. And to me when I read and reread this poem, all I could think of is I really want to hang out with the pots and pans before I'm one of these kinds of listeners needing a poem like this to get access to reality and directly. I want to take my shoes off and I want to run around in the field or stomp on some grapes. Because that's a whole lot closer to reality than the meta poem I'll get when I come back and visit the poem, who's going to read about life and it's the closest I'm going to get to life. [MUSIC]
