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Morton Marcus: Good evening everybody, this is The Poetry Show, and the music ushers in a very special program tonight with the former co-host of The Poetry Show, and a longtime literature teacher at Cabrillo College, who has turned out

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many, many poets in his great creative writing classes, and also a world class poet. I'm talking about Joseph Stroud, whose new book "Country of Light" was released several months ago. But as many of you may know, and if you don't, you

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should, he is very hard to get a hold of for any kind of public appearance, whether it be on radio or for a reading. But good news, he is our guest tonight, that is yours truly, Morton Marcus and Dennis Morton. And he will be reading from his new

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book this Thursday night at 7pm at the Cabrillo College Horticulture Center, and we'll be telling you how to get there a little later. But right now, welcome back, Joe. Joseph Stroud: Thank you Morton. Actually, Joe is not here, I'm

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his twin brother. He couldn't make it tonight. Morton Marcus: And his twin brother's name is? Joseph Stroud: Michael. Morton Marcus: Michael, Okay.

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Well Michael, what do you think of your brother's book? Joseph Stroud: Well, I haven't read it yet. I, you know, I don't like poetry very much. Dennis Morton: What do you do for a living, Michael?

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Joseph Stroud: I'm retired. Dennis Morton: You're retired. Joseph Stroud: Yes. Dennis Morton: That's a good living, isn't it?

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Joseph Stroud: I was in the zipper business. Dennis Morton: The zipper business? Joseph Stroud: Yes. Dennis Morton: All right. What is the zipper business?

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Joseph Stroud: Zipper business- Dennis Morton: He makes zippers. He makes- [crosstalk]. Joseph Stroud: YKK zippers Morton Marcus: Very, very famous -

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Joseph Stroud: [Unidentified] zipper. If it's not YKK, it's not a good zipper. Dennis Morton: Oh my gosh. Morton Marcus: That's true.

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Joseph Stroud: Listen, we got off on the wrong foot. That was my fault, wasn't it? Morton Marcus: Well, you wanted to throw some curves. That of course, is Joe Stroud being a little antic, as we say in the

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upper strata here. But Joe, it's great to see another book of yours out, "Country of Light", a beautiful book by Copper Canyon. And the book has many, many different kinds of poems in it, obviously. You are a poet who takes great joy and spiritual

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meaning in nature. And as usual, in many of your books, there are a lot of travel poems. And to me, your travel poems really become the great moments of vision and this book certainly is no exception. But rather than just give these big adjecto-

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adjectival introductions, I would love you to read one or two poems to start off the program and the first poem in the book, it seems to me, is a perfect introduction. Joseph Stroud: Oh okay.

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THE POTATO. I've always wanted to write a poem about a potato. The locale for the poem is the- the Andes, just out of Cusco, up near Machu Picchu.

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Three days into the journey, I lost the Inca Trail and scrambled around the Andes in a growing panic when on a hillside below snowline, I met a farmer who pointed the way, "Machu Picchu allá," he said. He knew where I wanted to go. From my

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pack, I pulled out an orange. It seemed to catch fire in that high blue Andean sky. I gave it to him. He had been digging in a garden, turning up clumps of earth, some odd, misshapen nuggets, some potatoes. He handed me one, a potato the size

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of the orange, looking as if it had been in the ground a hundred years, a potato I carried with me until at last I stood gazing down on the Urubamba valley, peaks rising out of the jungle into clouds, and there, among the mists, was the Temple of the

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Sun and the Lost City of the Incas. Looking back now, all these years later, what I remember most, what matters to me most, was that farmer, alone on his hillside, who gave me a potato, a potato with its peasant face, its lumps, and

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lunar craters. A potato, that fits perfectly in my hand. The potato that consoled me as I walked, told me not to fear, held me close to the earth. The potato, I put in a pot that night. The potato I'm boiled, above Machu Picchu. The patient,

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gnarled potato I ate. Dennis Morton: How many years between Machu Picchu and writing that poem, Joe? Joseph Stroud: See, Machu Picchu trip was in 1977/76, somewhere

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there. And the poem was written maybe three or four years ago. Dennis Morton: Three or four years ago- Joseph Stroud: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Well, um, did you- I know you keep a notebook.

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Did you have notes for that poem in a notebook or just even journal entries? Joseph Stroud: Well, that particular- I do, I- whenever I travel, I carry a journal that I write into; what I see, what I

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did that day, etc. I don't try to write poems when I travel. But on that particular trip, I was- I took the train from Lima up to Huancayao which is about, oh- maybe 12,000 feet in one long, twisting ride. And they have oxygen on the train because

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people have trouble with- with it- with that altitude. And so when I got off the train, I was little disoriented and I was- I had a cold. And I had a bag that had my tape recorder in it and my journal, and I put it down at my feet to look down the road,

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see where the nearest pharmacy was. And I looked back at my feet and it was gone. So there wasn't much of a journal to be kept on that trip, unfortunately. Morton Marcus: It was a good camera went on that one, too.

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Joseph Stroud: My camera went Never- I lost it all. It was- a yway. Dennis Morton: So you carried that around- that event of the exchange of the orange and the potato for how many years?

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Joseph Stroud: Well, many years, yeah. It usually takes time. Yeah, I very rarely will I write about something just after the event or the situation out of which the poem comes, it usually takes time for it to just take-

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Morton Marcus: Do you follow Wordsworth's idea, that a poem should be recollected in tranquility? Joseph Stroud: Yeah, I yeah, I think that- that that's true. Not always, but my own writing practice is pretty

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straightforward. I write every morning. During the winter, during the fall, during the winter, and during the spring, so nine months out of the year, every day, I start the day off by by writing. In the summer I- I stop that practice. I hike,

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get out, you know, move around the world, either travel or whatever. I think it's good to take a break, to get out of the rut. But I'm always interested in how- in how other writers work. And I'm often surprised by, when I ask younger writers,

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when they ask me about writing, and I, you know, my question is usually, you know, what's your writing practice like? What do you, you know, and they- often they don't know what I'm talking about. So I said, you know, how often do you write when do you

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write? And the answer is, well, you know, whenever, whatever. But the idea of, you know, a disciplined daily practice is- is alien to a lot of particularly poets, I think. Prose writers, novelists have to- they understand that they

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can't do it hit and miss here and there, that they have to- if they want to get the novel written, it's going to take time. Morton Marcus: Let's- let's talk about that idea of practice. Um,

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okay, you write every day, but obviously, a lot of the things that you write are not really saved as poems or maybe don't even make it into being whole poems. Question mark. Joseph Stroud: I would say 90% of the things that I write get

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trashed. I mean, don't- don't make it into a poem, or if they do make it into a poem, the poem doesn't go anywhere. But my practice is a little different. I start off the morning with working on something new, whatever- whatever might be

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happening at that- at that time. Then I put it away. And I don't look at it, sometimes for three or four months. So when I go back to it, when I'm working through the previous journal, workbook, I'll come across writing that I- that I don't

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even remember writing. And what that does for me, it really immediately makes clear the lines or the phrases that- that are not good and those that- that have some kind of promise. More often than not, the whole piece will be shuffled aside.

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And then gradually, so that- so the first part of my practice is original words. Second part of my practice is revision. And the third part of my practice is to read. Morton Marcus: Okay, all that is great. But you say every morning

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and has to be original. Joseph Stroud: Yes. Started off originally- Morton Marcus: But okay, let's say you don't have any image, rhythm, group of words. Let's say that- that happens to me,

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Joseph Stroud: Yeah. That happens to me all the time. I mean, very often I'll spend 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour with nothing coming out. Dennis Morton: Will you be reading then or just sitting?

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Joseph Stroud: I'll sit, I'll think. Sometimes I'll sort of chum the waters with- I'll throw out and, you know, I'll just take a noun and toss it out there and see if that'll kick something off. But the writer who really talks about this a

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lot is William Stafford, and he says that sooner or later something will come. You just have to be patient and wait for it. And you know, you can- I can go through months where nothing productive is happening with the writing. It's not wasted time.

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You know, I think there has to be gestation periods, there has to be this, you know, this- this silence and solitude for- for things to work out and you just have to trust that sooner or later a poem worth keeping will-

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Dennis Morton: So you're talking about one out of ten tries, if you only jump 90%- Joseph Stroud: Well, one out of ten that- that eventually gets into a second draft. And then, out of that group that gets say,

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into a book, is even less. So I would say 99% of the stuff that I write doesn't even get- goes nowhere. Dennis Morton: That's about what Stafford said, Joseph Stroud: Really?

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Dennis Morton: Yeah. 98-99% he said, nobody ever sees 98-99% of the time. Morton Marcus: For those people out there now, okay. They- they're listening to what you're saying. How long- do you have a

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specified time that you spend at the desk every morning? At least, you know- Joseph Stroud: At least an hour. That's- that's the absolute minimum. Often it's two, three hours, sometimes four, since

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I've been retired. Recently, my life's been slightly complicated, but often they'll- it will go from say, dawn to noon. But that's not just, I can't write original stuff for more than an hour. I mean, that's- so there's much of that-

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much of the time is spent in reworking things that I've written previously and then the last part of the practice is to either pick up a book by somebody who I'm interested in and read it or go through an anthology. But to do some, some

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reading is certainly a very real part of it. Dennis Morton: Does the reading sometimes generate another go around with the- with the pen? Joseph Stroud: Yeah, sometimes a poem by another writer will kick

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off an idea, or kick off a phrase, or a feeling, or a mood that I'll, you know, that I'll then pursue. Yeah. Morton Marcus: Why don't we hear an, another poem? If it's in some way connected with, you know, what we've just been

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talking about. I mean, all of them obviously come out of this process, but- Joseph Stroud: Well, okay, why don't we do one? Let's do "The Old Poets Home".

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Morton Marcus: This was a particularly bad morning. Joseph Stroud: This was a very bad morning of writing, but- Dennis Morton: What page is that one? Joseph Stroud: That's on page 18.

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Dennis Morton: We all have our copies here. Joseph Stroud: This is a poem dedicated to all the young poets out there. Mort, did you know that- that- that in America you get to be a

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young poet until you're about 50 years old? Morton Marcus: Well, you know, yes, I know they're saying that now. Joseph Stroud: At 51, you're an old poet.

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Morton Marcus: I know. Joseph Stroud: There's no middle aged poets, Morton Marcus: But you see what's happening is, the people are living longer, and it used to be 40. Remember? When you and

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I were younger, it was 40, then you were no longer a young poet, now it's over 50. Where will it go from here? Dennis Morton: There are book contests, for first book contests, for 60 and 70 year old poets.

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Joseph Stroud: Well, this is for all of the young poets out there, who will, someday, face this situation. THE OLD POETS HOME. This is a prose poem.

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What do you do if you're a poet and you come to that place where there are no more poems, when the words are all used up for you, when the muse won't give you the time of day, or night, what do you do, do you go to the Old Poets Home, sit around with

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Orpheus and Homer, and all the other silverbacks, Sappho in a bouffant blue-gray wig sipping sherry, Eliot with his mouth like a prune, and what do they do there, trade images, recall great lines. complain all day how all the new poems seem so

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slick, so enameled, so gussied up, so much froufrou and decoration, such silliness strutting around acting important, or worse, confessions in the guise of poems, horrors, details of the autopsy, poems like being run over by the

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ambulance, and such little ambition, poems with no scale, no Vision, When will there be a ajor Poem they grouse, a Pa adise Lost, an Intimation of Im ortality, look how they look w th envy and contempt at all th new metaphors cruising by in

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leek metallic vehicles, boom b xes throbbing with deep heavy asses, every now and then the ca riage of a sonnet squeak ng by, reminding them of the pa t, of the glory that once was, h w language lit up the dark n ght of the soul, lit it up wit

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suns and moonlight, with music nd marvels, great vision ry leaps, words falling like r in, like snow, like stars on fir , but now here they all are, i the Old Poets Home, over there s old blind Milton watchi g TV in his mind, and here c

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mes Auden down the hallwa in a frayed robe, puffin a cigarette, face as crinkl d as a dried fig, and there' Whitman, beard down to his kn es, still working the crossw rd of his Leaves, and there' Li Po trying to embrace the mo

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n in a fishbowl, and Emily pstairs peeking through her ke hole, Longfellow wander ng the halls in tears whispe ing "Remember me? Rememb r me?" Donne proud and dresse in his shroud, O what a sad an gloomy and forlorn place this i

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, but sometimes a few though ful, compassionate young poets ill drop by with their groomed and friendly poems and let us troke them, pet them, remembe how once in our lives the poe s frisked for us, barked, ran out ahead, full of energy

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nd joy, looking back, tongue ut, happy, looking back with ey s of love for their old masters those kind and benevol nt and sweet old poets. Dennis Morton: Hey Joe, there- there's seem to be dogs lurking

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somewhere in the vicinity of most of your poems. Well, that's an exaggeration, but you do write a lot about dogs. Joseph Stroud: I do have a lot of dog poems, don't I. Dennis Morton: If you gotta- Have you- Note, Maria's gone.

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Joseph Stroud: Maria's gone. Dennis Morton: And I forget- oh- Carson is the name of the new dog. Joseph Stroud: Carson is the new dog.

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Dennis Morton: Any- any poems that have been generated by Carson? Or is Carson too young? Joseph Stroud: Carson's too young. Yeah, there's no Carson poems yet.

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Dennis Morton: Okay. Morton Marcus: Well there's a scantology poem, though, that does all Dennis Morton: Oh my goodness, but it's not 10 o'clock Mort.

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That's- that's Marie. That's Marie. That's right. I was just reading that before I came. Morton Marcus: Read some more poems. I- it is interesting that the last poem, and to hear you read it aloud, which is the

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first time I heard read aloud, it is a continuous sentence. Yeah. And obviously, you did that purposely just rolling from one image, one idea to the other. Yeah. Dennis Morton: And the only punctuation mark commas, a

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period at the end, and the two question marks after Remember me Remember me. Joseph Stroud: Well, let me do a couple of- of these songs. Dennis Morton: Maybe you'll take a request sooner or later.

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Joseph Stroud: Sure. Yeah. Dennis Morton: Later- Joseph Stroud: These are very short little poems dedicated to Mel Tuohey, Linda Kitz, and Fred Levy who were three shining

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lights in the English department at Cabrillo College for many, many years. Remarkable people. BOOK OF PSALMS PLAINSONG

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God's got so, quiet, in the cabin, no voices, no music, even birdsong, gone, from the mountain, and with the snows, the silence, deepened, this was where, I lived, was how I came, to hear, what singing, is.

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WE SHALL BE RELEASED Every afternoon that autumn, walking across campus, past the conservatory, I heard the soprano, practicing, her voice rising, making its way up the scale, straining to claim each

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note, weeks of work, of days, growing shorter, darker storms slamming the campus, the semester staggering to an end, everyone exhausted, drained, heading out and going home, the campus nearly deserted, but the soprano still working the

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scales, when I passed under the trees, the liquidambars on fire, the clouds like great cities, sailing out to sea, and didn't I ascend, with her, my own weariness, and sorrows, dropping away, didn't we rise together, her voice straining, wavering,

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at the top of the range, almost reaching, almost claiming, that high, free-of-the-body, final note. And maybe one more of those. MEADOWLARKS AND HAWKS

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Other one of the songs A farm road, in the San Joaquin, heading into the red dirt, of the gold country, miles and miles, of fencerows, with meadowlarks, singing on the wires, the song of one, entering

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the song, of another, all down the road, window open, I hear song, trailing, into song, the road continuing, as far as I can see, and every mile or so, on top of a telephone pole, sits, a red-tailed hawk, shoulders hunched, turning his slow, iron

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gaze, over all he claims, of the singing world. Dennis Morton: Gosh Joe, I think I took a drive with you one day along that road. We saw those beautiful brightly colored birds; I don't remember the names of them.

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Joseph Stroud: Red winged blackbirds? Dennis Morton: No, no, no, no. Joseph Stroud: Yellow headed crows? Dennis Morton: No

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Joseph Stroud: Yellow headed blackbirds? Dennis Morton: No. [Laughs] I was sure you'd know the name. It was near that deserted farmhouse up on top of the hill.

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Joseph Stroud: Oh, mountain blue jays. Nama- Mountain- Morton Marcus: No. Joseph Stroud: Bluebird. Dennis Morton: Nope, wasn't that either. Their wings were very

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brightly colored. I don't even remember the color. It wasn't red, though. Joseph Stroud: I was going to say a western tanager. Dennis Morton: That was it. I'm sorry. It was a western tanager.

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Yes. Joseph Stroud: Yeah, they're a gorgeous bird. Dennis Morton: They- that is red, isn't it? Joseph Stroud: Yeah, yeah, the head is red, body's yellow, the

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wings are black. Morton Marcus: One of the things that this new book shows and certainly in the others, is when you want to turn to narrative, you're an absolute master of narrative. And I would love you

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to read a poem called "Over the Edge," which has so much nuance in it and is so condensed, that though it is obviously in a prose poem format, this- this is where you really find that the poetry and the narrative can just totally merge. And the

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suggestions here are just- it's really a wonderful, wonderful moment. And all over this book there are- your powers of narrative have just increased enormously. Joseph Stroud: Okay, this is from the section in the book

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that takes place in the Sierra Nevada. DAY BOOK, NIGHT BOOK: SHAY CREEK OVER THE EDGE When I step to the edge and look down, they're just getting out

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of the smashed pickup. She appears dazed, stunned, and he's trying to pull something out of the cab, gives up, and looks around. A heavy snow is falling. They begin to slow, awkward climb up the forty-foot slope. I start down toward them, kicking

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footholds in the ice. Halfway, I brace my feet, reach out my hand to his, and pull him up to me. He scrambles past. She's having difficulty. She can't make the few feet between us, so I edge down a little farther until our hands can grasp. But then I

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begin to slip, and for a moment I think we're both going to lose it, we're going to tumble to the bottom. But we don't. We clutch at each other, then crab our way sideways to the top. The wind is blazing ice off of the pass. Cars drift past in the blizzard,

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eerie faces behind glass peering out. I help the man and woman into my car. They don't say much. He has a gash on his forehead. But they're okay she insists. "We're okay." You're lucky you're not dead, I'm thinking, wondering what they

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felt when they hit the ice and swerved over the edge. I crank the heater to high. The windows begin to fog. We're all breathing hard. I catch his eyes in the mirror. He looks away, ashamed, I think, the way he hurried up the slope without

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her. The woman turns in her seat. She's wiping the blood from his face. "We're going to make it" she tells him. And we drive into the white heart of the storm. Dennis Morton: And Mort I had that one down as a request, too.

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That was a knockout. Morton Marcus: Yeah. It's also- it suggests so much more. And that's, you know, where it leaps out of this masterful short narrative into this idea of three people just facing this

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future, which is just all a blinding blizzard of existential nothingness. And it just works so perfectly and it's so un- how would I say, it's just not, you know, overly done. It's not- What's the word I want, Joe? You always help me out. It's just,

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it's just perfectly done. I mean, that's, that's all you can say. And the suggestions just go, you know, the observation also of detail and what details you select. This is the perfection of narrative,

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Dennis Morton: It's the last three or four lines that really turn it into something much, much deeper. Morton Marcus: Right. Which is where- where, where it should be. And yet he doesn't stand up and say, "and this means," you

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know, and somehow he just lets the story go on. And when he got to the point of the husband moving past, you know, you, I said, Oh, you're going to use this, but this is this wonderful little observation here, you know.

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Dennis Morton: But then we're also provided with the gash on the guy's head and the blood, and so we begin to have sympathy for him again, too, because he's probably in shock. So I mean, it gets really complicated. It's not, it's not easy. At first,

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we're set up to kind of not- not like the guy, but- Morton Marcus: There's another thing here which I can tell people out there. When you go into dialogue, it is great never to just have the person say something once, but have the

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person say it twice. So Joe, or whoever the speaker is, has the person says- she says "we're lucky," and then we repeat what she says, which sets us up dramatically for the final line of dialogue that she says. And of course she just really the

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dynamic between the husband and wife. I mean, all this stuff is going on in between this just flat out told paragraph, you know, which is just really marvelous. Dennis Morton: Well, I think a good companion piece would be

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"During the Rains." Would you mind reading that? Joseph Stroud: Sure. DURING THE RAINS

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Driving to the rain to Minden this morning, I saw two men walking in a lake that a week ago was pasture, two men ankle deep in the shallows, stringing barbed wire and trying to hammer fence posts into the water, one holding a stake, the other with

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ferocity swinging the maul, horses standing around them, miserable, cattle up to their hocks in water, the Carson plaain in flood, fields runneled with gills and freshets, culverts washed out, hillsides loosening, slipping, everything

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disintegrating, coming apart, the dead bear I found yesterday below Loope Canyon, skeleton unlocking, carcass sodden, dissolving in rain, and now this morning those two men near Minden driving stakes into water, stringing- [poem cut off

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at this point] Morton Marcus: This program is supported by UCSC Arts and Lectures presenting rap artists and talk show host Chuck D speaking on current issues, Thursday, November 18, at 8pm at

00:31:06.030 - 00:31:30.390

the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz. That's Chuck D. On Thursday the 18th of November at the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz. Tickets are available at the UCSC ticket office 459-2159. Make kusp.org your source for news. We offer up to the minute coverage from

00:31:30.390 - 00:31:46.140

the homepage of our website, where you'll find links to the top news stories. Bookmark kusp.org today for the latest news from around the world. And right after the Poetry Show tonight within half an hour, "From the Bookshelf' hosted by

00:31:46.140 - 00:32:02.730

Billy Harris brings us a return visit from the fabulous reader Philip Pearce(?) to read excerpts from "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" by Michael Chabon on Sunday night, tonight, 9pm. And I want to remind you when we get right

00:32:02.730 - 00:32:21.900

back into our talk with Joe that Joe Stroud who is speaking with us tonight, with my co host Dennis Morton, will be giving a reading this Thursday at 7pm at the Cabrillo College Horticultural Center at Cabrillo College, and I'm trying to find

00:32:21.900 - 00:32:32.170

a telephone number for you to call up for directions if it is there. Joseph Stroud: What- just the Horticultural Center is the- on the very top of the campus. It's only one little road that goes

00:32:32.170 - 00:32:42.360

up there and has places to park up there but you have to buy parking tickets at one of the booths or one of the little machines. I think it costs $2 Morton Marcus: And it's up above the English department is how

00:32:42.360 - 00:32:48.450

you get there. Joseph Stroud: It's at the very top of the campus. It's an incredible spot. Morton Marcus: And that was the voice of Joe Stroud, our guest

00:32:48.450 - 00:33:01.230

tonight, former co-host of the Poetry Show. And I'm happy to say a friend for- you don't want to know how long but you know that we're going on 40 years, I mean from the old San Francisco days.

00:33:01.410 - 00:33:08.040

Joseph Stroud: Yeah. Morton Marcus: My lord. Joseph Stroud: You still look like a young man, Mort. Morton Marcus: I still look like a young man? I noticed you're

00:33:08.040 - 00:33:21.680

wearing very heavy glasses, Joe. [crosstalk] The guy who's looking young is you. You look like you're 25 years old. I guess that's what a good life does for you. Joseph Stroud: Can I make an announcement? Tomorrow night

00:33:22.040 - 00:33:39.590

over in San Jose, one of the great, great American poets, W.S. Merwin will be reading. And I strongly recommend if you can get over there, to go- to go hear Merwin. He's part of the generation of poets who were born in the 20s and many of them

00:33:39.590 - 00:33:56.210

beginning, or are beginning to die now. We're losing a lot of them. But Merwin is still around, Kinnell's was part of that generation, Adrienne Rich, John Logan, Robert Bly. It was quite a- quite a remarkable group of writers.

00:33:56.720 - 00:34:05.700

Morton Marcus: And certainly they were our inspiration. Joseph Stroud: Oh, absolutely. Morton Marcus: Oh, and we just looked up to them, they went in all different directions. Th y're very important to us and

00:34:05.700 - 00:34:16.130

John Logan, very important to Joe and me, in fact, that's how Joseph Stroud: You know, the interesting thing about that oe and I got tog generation is that with odd exception, I think maybe- mayb

00:34:16.130 - 00:34:34.490

Ginsberg is the exception, the all- their first books, if yo go back to the first books, th y were all writing metrical rh mes, closed verse. And they gr dually then moved into what we call free verse now. And th t's, for me, in their- their fr

00:34:34.490 - 00:34:53.390

e verse always has a kind of to que in it, kind of tension in t e line that I don't find in y ung writers who began their w iting with free verse and have h d no sense or no taste or no e r for that closed metrical, ight kind of writing. Of late

00:34:53.390 - 00:35:01.220

here has been a movement in merican poetry, the new ormalist movement to go and, you know, renew some of those closed Morton Marcus: And how do you feel about that? versed forums

00:35:05.290 - 00:35:21.400

Joseph Stroud: I think it's fine. I- you know, I don't have any issues with- with that at all. Maybe members of the audience don't know that, you know, that in the poetry world is a very closed, small little world. There's a lot of

00:35:21.400 - 00:35:35.140

fighting that goes on about, you know, how the only kind of poems are narrative poems. No, no lyric poems are the best. No, it has to be formalist, and you know, et cetera, these- all these various wars, but for me, I just lose patience with that.

00:35:35.860 - 00:35:49.450

For me, there's only two kinds of poems. There are poems that make a difference in your life. And there are poems that don't. And I don't care if it's a sonnet, I don't care if it's free verse, I don't care if it's a narrative, if it makes a

00:35:49.450 - 00:36:06.490

difference in my life, I welcome it. And the ones that don't, don't. And that's to me, this is the real issue. I just have no more patience with all of that academic in-fighting and defining this and et cetera. I'm getting too old Mort.

00:36:08.140 - 00:36:18.400

Morton Marcus: Oh, of course, I started off as a closed versed poet. You all did, because that was the way you really wrote poetry and actually, the early poems of Allen Ginsburg, which have been published, are all closed versed.

00:36:18.750 - 00:36:21.420

Joseph Stroud: That's right. He studied with Van Doren at Columbia. Morton Marcus: Yeah. Joseph Stroud: That's right. Yeah.

00:36:21.960 - 00:36:37.080

Morton Marcus: And I, I agree with you 100%. In the poetry workshops, I've been teaching everywhere, and certainly the last one I taught at Cabrillo, I had for two weeks- I had everyone- they had to turn in a closed verse poem, and half of

00:36:37.080 - 00:36:52.950

them were stunned at how condensed and electrical their language began to sound. The reason I asked the question about the new formalists, though, is that unfortunately, they are saying this is the only way and that's where I take, you

00:36:52.950 - 00:37:09.810

know, the exception, but I agree with you people do not know what lines, what rhythm should sound like, and- Dennis Morton: Let me take some exception there. I work with kids in juvenile hall and with kids in court and community

00:37:09.810 - 00:37:22.110

schools who haven't really been exposed to poetry at all. And the first things that they write, they're all rhymed poems, that's their impression of what poetry- Morton Marcus: That's true and it's so true. Yeah, yeah, that

00:37:22.110 - 00:37:33.480

usually comes out of greeting card verse or the the poems they read, you know, or were read to them and Dennis Morton: [crosstalk] You know. Morton Marcus: Um, anyway, let's- let's go on with this,

00:37:33.480 - 00:37:47.910

unless you want to say more about it, Joe. Joseph Stroud: Mm hmm. Its an endless discussion, yeah. No, I'm- I said what I wanted to say. Morton Marcus: Okay, great. The- the- there's at the center of

00:37:47.910 - 00:38:08.460

this book, I don't know whether it's the exact center is a wonderful poem called "I Wanted to Paint Paradise", in which you take on the mask of the great painter Giotto. And it's- it's an extraordinary sequence. And it can also get us into talking

00:38:08.460 - 00:38:27.060

about the idea of voice that you're pursuing also. But I'd love you to read some of these things, they are just so magical in- in transporting us back not only to a time, but to the intense consciousness of the artist, period. And I'm not

00:38:27.060 - 00:38:38.280

talking about just Giotto, I mean the artist, which, of course, is the main concern you had here. Dennis Morton: But I think what's remarkable about these poems, though, is that you don't have to have seen Giotto's

00:38:38.340 - 00:38:57.660

paintings, you know, if you if you pick up a book of contemporary poetry today, you're apt to find poems written by the artist about paintings, many of them but without knowing what- without knowing that painting, you're lost. With

00:38:57.660 - 00:39:09.690

these poems, there- you don't need the painting. It's very- it's rare. Morton Marcus: Well, because he's talking about and through the artist. I mean, this is really Joe as a artist, talking

00:39:09.690 - 00:39:26.070

about the eternal artists, you know the the archetypal artists, let's put it that way. Joseph Stroud: When I- I've been wanting to write a poem about- about- about Giotto and about the Arena Chapel for many years.

00:39:27.990 - 00:39:45.570

My original intent was to pattern the poem and structure it as Giotto did in the sequence the paintings [inaudible] 40 separate paintings are part of this incredible panel with a vision of paradise at one end of the Chapel and a vision of- of

00:39:45.570 - 00:39:58.800

the inferno at the other end. And then it's an amazing series, and- Morton Marcus: One of my favorite days in Padua. Joseph Stroud: Yeah, it was it- It certainly had a tremendous

00:39:58.800 - 00:40:13.470

effect on me. So for years, I tried to write the poem as Dennis was- was taught- was suggesting [inaudible] where I tried to take each of the 40 panels and write a poem about each panel and explain it, or describe it, or whatever, and it

00:40:13.470 - 00:40:32.070

was just dead in the water, wasn't going anywhere. And one morning, I was fiddling around and one of these vectors, the very first one, just came with this kind of a tone. And I realized that, that you know, there's a voice here and what-

00:40:32.820 - 00:40:49.230

so I began, you know, to experiment with well, you know, what if I wrote as if I were Giotto. And the series began to happen that way. So this was the very first one. It was in a slightly different version but:

00:40:51.330 - 00:41:13.920

In the piazza today at noon everything in a swirl of light. No shadows. No hint of the spirit. All things in their shining forth. Too real. Like angels in the Rose Window with the sun blazing through them. Gianna's grapes on the table as

00:41:13.920 - 00:41:34.410

if they had just been created. The poplars on fire. The Arno like quiksilver. So each of these are little sections, just little moments. Gradually, if you put them all together, there is a kind of

00:41:35.100 - 00:41:50.190

concern for what- not only what painting might be but what- what poetry is, as well. Dennis Morton: Have you ever tried painting Joe? Joseph Stroud: Yeah, well not really painting, I- my first

00:41:50.190 - 00:42:08.040

inclination as a boy was- was drawing I used to love to draw. I was terrible at it. And my next inclination was music. You know, I took trumpet lessons, I took guitar lessons, I took accordion lessons. And I wasn't any good at that either. So-

00:42:09.150 - 00:42:14.380

Dennis Morton: So you were left with the- Joseph Stroud: I was left with a bunch of words. Dennis Morton: Words. [crosstalk] Joseph Stroud: Wordsworth.

00:42:14.250 - 00:42:25.910

Dennis Morton: I wish I could remember that poem of Porchia's about words. Reme ber that one, "We come into his world" and Merwin tran lated it. Joseph Stroud: Yeah, he did. He did the whole book of Porchia. I

00:42:25.910 - 00:42:38.510

can't remember that particular one. Let's look at a couple of these then. Dennis Morton: What- Why don't you do two or three in sequence so that maybe we'd get that feel.

00:42:38.540 - 00:42:49.730

Joseph Stroud: Okay. Dennis Morton: Like do number two and three. Joseph Stroud: Okay. When the bells ring from San Marco, I stop my work. I bow

00:42:49.760 - 00:43:17.750

within me. Three times a day, I stop what I am doing. I let the bells fill my body. In the morning, the bells are like silver, at noon like gold, in the evening the bells are emeralds. They ring, and they ring. They tell me how to praise

00:43:17.750 - 00:43:34.790

- over and over they ring out how to be worthy of the work before me. The next one. This morning on the Via del Cocomero, I was admiring a

00:43:34.790 - 00:43:55.580

basket of oranges, when a pig broke loose from a passing drove, knocked over the basket, tried to dash between my legs and knocked me over. Maestro, are you all right? the vendor asked. Yes, yes, I laughed. He was surprised by my humor. Pigs

00:43:55.580 - 00:44:15.920

are very smart, I explained. All these years I've been making thousands of lire with their bristles. I've repaid them nothing, not even a bowl of swill. So how can I begrudge a little revenge? And besides, how could I tell him, it was good to

00:44:15.920 - 00:44:37.010

be down on the ground a moment. It's true. I have painted basilicas in Rome. That some call me a Master. But brother Francis would love this story. To be brought to Earth by a pig. To be down among all the other miracles, the oranges scattered

00:44:37.010 - 00:44:59.960

about me like small suns, to be astonished once again. And Francis keeps appearing in the- throughout the series, Francis of Assisi, who died a number of years before Giotto, but Francis had a huge and- made a huge impression on Giotto.

00:45:01.640 - 00:45:17.300

Giotto painted a lot of scenes from the life of St. Francis. Morton Marcus: Which were destroyed, not destroyed but really wrecked in the earthquakes that hit Assisi. Joseph Stroud: Right. There's a- there was a lot of- Yeah, in the

00:45:17.300 - 00:45:36.800

upper- the upper church. Art historians now question whether those scenes from the life of Francis were actually done by Giotto. There's a lot of- a lot of battling going on about that. But it's clear that he was among the artists there that were

00:45:36.800 - 00:45:50.270

working on those frescoes. At that time, the idea of an artist- of a single artist doing something, that was a little bit different, they- there was no, no problem with more than one person working on a fresco.

00:45:51.410 - 00:46:00.260

Morton Marcus: The style of those frescoes. are very much Giotto's. Joseph Stroud: Very much. Yeah, absolutely but, but he reached his- his supreme moment in the Arena Chapel

00:46:03.830 - 00:46:22.760

Dennis Morton: How about the dog? On Page 63. Joseph Stroud: Okay. The dog whimpers in her sleep. She is chasing hares again- her paws scrabble against the floor, her tail twitches. Soon she will

00:46:22.760 - 00:46:48.710

wake, and look around. She will come back to this world. I love looking into her eyes. They are amber, like a glass of moscato held up to the sun. I want that color for the dusk in the garden at Gethsemane. Topaz. For my painting of our Lord abandoned

00:46:48.860 - 00:47:07.260

and weeping among the flowers. Morton Marcus: And you know what's interesting to me in these poems is that there is Giotto's very, very definite devotion and religiosity in here. But it really is yours, in

00:47:07.260 - 00:47:23.970

your astonishment and reverence for the world. And I mean, our physical world and the moments in this poem really are, if we can talk- if I can talk about your poems, for me, are the capturing of moments in the world, moments when suddenly the

00:47:23.970 - 00:47:38.600

revelation of how joyous, sorrowful and wonderful the world around us is. Joseph Stroud: Right. That's the quality that draws me to the work of Giotto. I mean, there's no question that the iconiog-

00:47:39.050 - 00:48:02.330

iconography of his work is Christian. But the spirit of his work is a kind of humanism, a compassion and an empathy for- for, for people, for animals for creatures, for the landscape that is religious beyond the denominational sense, he was

00:48:02.330 - 00:48:21.920

Roman Catholic. And in- in those paintings we begin to see for the first time, at least in Western art, a sense of- of- of character, of individuality in the portraits. There's many things that Giotto didn't quite get, you can see him struggling

00:48:21.980 - 00:48:35.960

over and over again towards perspective, which was to create the illusion of three dimensional space on a two dimensional surface. He didn't quite get it. It wasn't till about another- it took about another hundred years to- for

00:48:35.960 - 00:48:51.170

that to- for the High Renaissance painters to really figure out how that was done. Uccello was the one who really made painting after painting about it. But what you do see in- in Giotto is this- this sense of, of human drama, and

00:48:51.170 - 00:49:11.210

his own, you know, concern for what was happening. So that when you see a figure, when you see the Christ dead at the cross, it's- it's it's a human death. It certainly has a resonance of of something marred and spiritual too, but the faces of

00:49:11.210 - 00:49:27.260

his people are- are peasants, are his neighbors. And that was the first time that we really see that in Western western art. Dennis Morton: How much work did you do prior to- to working on this series on Giotto?

00:49:28.530 - 00:49:44.910

Joseph Stroud: Well I, I studied Giotto in art history classes. I spent some time in the Arena Chapel and in Florence, not with the idea of writing a poem. I mean, I knew sooner or later was going to write a poem someday about Giotto, something to do

00:49:44.910 - 00:50:01.830

with him. When I started the series I got- I have a number of books about, that I bought in Italy, on the Arena Chapel itself, talking about how long it took him to do it, what were the processes that he used, what kind of techniques, et cetera.

00:50:02.550 - 00:50:13.490

So I did a considerable amount of reading about him and about the art of the time. Dennis Morton: And ultimately what you ended up doing was painting Giotto rather than-

00:50:13.390 - 00:50:31.120

Joseph Stroud: Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If anyone out there ever has a chance to go to Italy, you will undoubtedly go to Florence and you'll un oubtedly go to Venice. So ha fway between- or two thirds of the way between Florence and Ve

00:50:31.120 - 00:50:37.960

ice is Padua. Get off the tr in. Morton Marcus: Another great thing to see there is the Cathedral of St. Anthony. Joseph Stroud: Oh, yeah

00:50:38.080 - 00:50:55.320

Morton Marcus: Which is a scene and a half. But watch out what time- for the time you go because they close for lunch whenever they want to. Joe, the rest of this book and we're, it's always too short a time. We've got some wonderful

00:50:55.980 - 00:51:10.050

examples of this form which really, you've developed which is the six-line form and they sound like nothing else you've ever done and they really are wonderful. And then you end with a whole lot of poems in and around the Vietnam area. And I

00:51:10.050 - 00:51:28.650

hope we can read at least several of these because certainly the book ends on a great crescendo of humanism and compassion, and even- even politics as you take on the burden of healing for all of us, really, and it seems now after

00:51:28.650 - 00:51:42.600

this election, that's so much more meaningful, with Iraq suddenly bristling and seeming to have the name Vietnam on it. Joseph Stroud: Yeah. Dennis Morton: You want a suggestion for the six-liners?

00:51:43.080 - 00:51:57.330

Joseph Stroud: Well I was just thinking about Morton was saying- talking about Iraq and I was thinking about Vietnam and how, for at least the last few years of my teaching career out at Cabrillo, you know, when Desert Storm was coming on, and

00:51:57.330 - 00:52:18.390

that whole issue and then you know, that Iraq thing. The students who had no sense at all of what Vietnam was all about, or you know, I- I once asked the class, just don't put your name on it, just tell me what, where is Vietnam? One answer was, it's

00:52:18.390 - 00:52:36.330

an island in the middle of the Atlantic. What was that war about? And who won? Of course, they didn't know where it was. They didn't know what the war was about, but they all thought that we'd won it. And I mean, this sense of history how it

00:52:36.360 - 00:52:56.230

just disappears, and to see us get into this thing with Iraq and, you know, I don't know how long that's going to go on. It's just- it's beyond sadness. It's, it's a horror. Dennis Morton: Fallujah is now being compared with Huế as if

00:52:56.230 - 00:53:18.070

Huế ultimately was some victory. Joseph Stroud: Yeah, I was in Huế, Huế was a disaster on both sides. We, you know, we- not only did we rip it apart, but when we came back and took it again that- then they found the

00:53:18.070 - 00:53:36.520

mass graves, there were- they found three or four thousand graves that the VC had taken out [crosstalk] populace. So it's, I mean, the atrocities were on both sides of the fighting, which is what happens in war. I mean, when I did the poem "Into

00:53:36.520 - 00:53:43.180

the Dragon" [crosstalk] which tries to get into this issue a little bit. Morton Marcus: That's why I was hoping you'd read it, it's one of my favorites in the book.

00:53:44.140 - 00:53:59.740

Joseph Stroud: This is Khe Sanh, this was the great, I don't want to say the great- this was the- the big battle, one of the big battles in Vietnam, went on and on and on forever. Right near there was the famous Hamburger Hill, which was one of those

00:53:59.740 - 00:54:16.810

insane situations you get into in that kind of a conflict where the hill had nothing to do with anything. It had no what's the word for- Dennis Morton: strategic significance-

00:54:16.030 - 00:54:30.400

Joseph Stroud: -at all. Exactly. So we would take it during the day. We would lose it at night Viet Cong would then take it a night. We'd take it back agai the next day, this went on f r weeks. And then of course, t e Khe Sanh was hug

00:54:30.790 - 00:54:39.640

Dennis Morton: I don't know. Are you going to be able to knock this off in four minutes? Joseph Stroud: I don't know. We have just four minutes? I don't think I can do it in four.

00:54:39.790 - 00:54:48.130

Dennis Morton: Yeah, that's all we've got. Joseph Stroud: Maybe I'll read real fast, I don't know. Well, why don't I stop and go to a shorter poem? Okay. Dennis Morton: Yeah.

00:54:49.630 - 00:55:00.590

Joseph Stroud: Should we end with this one little poem? Morton Marcus: Well, we still got four minutes. Dennis Morton: And I want to say thank you to Joe for- for being responsible for me being here as a host for the Poetry Show

00:55:00.590 - 00:55:08.270

because you handed me your seat about seven or eight years ago, Joe, so thank you. Joseph Stroud: You're welcome. Dennis Morton: It's been great.

00:55:10.670 - 00:55:17.330

Joseph Stroud: Let me do MY LORD WHAT A MORNING WHEN THE STARS BEGIN TO FALL. Dennis Morton: Which page is it? Joseph Stroud: Page 91.

00:55:17.990 - 00:55:41.630

Dennis Morton: Okay. Oh you're gonna do the six-line. Joseph Stroud: I wake before dawn, and sense my house around me, it's skeleton of fir I framed years ago, back in the time when I believed I could make a shelter. Back in my pride

00:55:42.980 - 00:55:59.500

when I boxed out a skylight so I might watch the stars cross over me each night. Morton Marcus: If we're gonna read some poems, I'd love you to end with "Cathedral" which I think is- if we're going to do a

00:55:59.500 - 00:56:08.280

short poem would be great. We still have time for a couple more. Dennis Morton: Yeah. Joseph Stroud: Well, you know me, I believe in just a few and

00:56:09.180 - 00:56:15.330

don't want to rush them all in there. I'll do one more. Okay. Let's see. Okay, Morton Marcus: How 'bout "Cathedral"? Joseph Stroud: Cathedral, okay.

00:56:15.510 - 00:56:31.750

Morton Marcus: Just seems like a perfect one. Joseph Stroud: CATHEDRAL. Joe Stroud: I put the shell down and wait for the snail to emerge. I have much to learn of patience. I no longer wonder

00:56:32.170 - 00:56:54.480

where did love go, or why the nights are so long. Issa says the words will find a way across the page, they will make a path into morning. Morton Marcus: And that was Joe Stroud, who has been Dennis's

00:56:54.480 - 00:57:11.490

guest and mine this evening on the Poetry Show. A reading from his new book "Country of Light," I urge all of you people who love poetry to make it to Cabrillo College this Thursday night, 7pm at the Horticulture Center, which is on the very

00:57:11.490 - 00:57:27.870

tippy top of the campus. Please make it, it's a very, very rare appearance by Joe. He does not like to give readings. When he does read, he's absolutely magnificent and mesmerizing. So, Joe, thanks a million for coming back and for coming out

00:57:27.870 - 00:57:37.710

of your snail shell. Joseph Stroud: Thank you Mort. Morton Marcus: Dennis, great to do the show with you again, as usual. Everyone out there, stay tuned for "From the Bookshelf"

00:57:37.740 - 00:57:52.920

hosted by the inimitable Billy Harris. Tonight, Philip Pierce will read excerpts from "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon. Very wonderful novel about New York City, where I grew up when I grew up. This is Morton

00:57:52.920 - 00:57:56.640

Marcus, I will see you next week on the Poetry Show.