00:01:12.480 - 00:01:24.840

Morton Marcus: Good evening, everybody this is Mort Marcus and this is the Poetry Show. And tonight, two for the money of one, and that is we have two guests, two newcomers to Santa Cruz, who I think are going to make quite a difference in the

00:01:24.840 - 00:01:43.680

poetry scene here and bring to us a very, very different sensibility. And that is Peter Gizzi, who has just been appointed as, I guess, poet-in-residence, and I will ask him if that is the right definition. Is that the right

00:01:43.680 - 00:01:51.750

definition, Peter? Peter Gizzi: Well, they call me assistant professor, but I prefer poet-in-residence. Morton Marcus: Okay, so you're assistant professor of poetry,

00:01:51.750 - 00:02:05.460

who has a sort of poet in- or persistent- Peter Gizzi: Persistent residence, exactly. Morton Marcus: And he will be joined by Elizabeth Willis, who is his wife, but is also a marvelous poet and critic. And

00:02:05.460 - 00:02:17.130

in fact, I was introduced her work first as critic and she's won a number of awards. Elizabeth, welcome. Elizabeth Willis: Thank you. Morton Marcus: They're both working. We were wondering about

00:02:17.130 - 00:02:36.870

some of the technical aspects of this program. I could not figure out what was going on, but there was no need to, so we are in fine shape. Let me just do this. Okay, let me tell you a little about these people. Peter Gizzi was born in 1959 and grew up in

00:02:36.870 - 00:02:52.920

the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts. His first full length collection was, "Periplum: Or, I the Blaze," was published in 1992 by Avec Books. He has also published numerous limited edition chapbooks, and then his poems have appeared in

00:02:52.920 - 00:03:09.570

a number of places, including the anthologized, "Best American Poetry, 1995," the Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative North American Poetry, 1993, '94. His poems have also been translated into French, and appeared in "Action Poétique," and in the

00:03:09.570 - 00:03:27.420

anthology "49 +1 Nouveaux Poètes Américains," and that is how you destroy French very quickly. He has just had a number of awards in a number of places, he holds degrees from New York University and Brown University. And are you still working on that PhD?

00:03:27.450 - 00:03:42.210

Peter Gizzi: Yes, I'm finishing up the lectures of Jack Spicer, actually, the Bay Area poet from the San Francisco Berkeley Renaissance period. He worked from 1945 to 1965, the time of his death, in the Bay Area. He was very much a hardcore Bay

00:03:42.000 - 00:03:55.350

Morton Marcus: A very important poet, in fact, one who Duncan Area poet. has talked about and a number of other San Francisco poets, let's say, in my generation, during the 60s very much aware of him,

00:03:55.350 - 00:04:04.770

aware of him after his death. Peter Gizzi: Right, they're closely associated, Duncan and Spicer were part of the same movement. Yeah and Duncan kept him alive in his writings too till his death.

00:04:05.020 - 00:04:19.570

Morton Marcus: He absolutely, absolutely did, absolutely did. He would read his stuff, readings of his own that he would give, marvelous relationship there. Elizabeth Willis was born in Awali, Bahrain in 1961 and grew up

00:04:19.570 - 00:04:33.520

primarily in the American Midwest. You probably were not listening to the radio as you drove over here, but these coincidences of coincidences, there was some Bahrainis in the short story, "The White Horse," that was being presented in the

00:04:33.520 - 00:04:45.720

show before this one. So I mean, that is not- you don't see that every day. Elizabeth Willis: Only on KUSP. Morton Marcus: Oh, yes. We make our guests feel at home. Tell

00:04:45.720 - 00:04:59.400

me, you were born in Bahrain, your father, mother, worked/lived over there or what? Elizabeth Willis: Father, mother, brothers, and sisters. Everyone was there. My father is a geologist and was doing a lot

00:04:59.400 - 00:05:10.160

of mapping for various oil companies. Morton Marcus: Great, thank you. How long did you spend over there? Elizabeth Willis: Until I was six, and then spent some time in

00:05:10.160 - 00:05:23.900

Libya, in Nigeria, then moved to Oklahoma, which was challenging. Morton Marcus: That must have been a change, that must have been a change. And a lot of that seems to have come out back through, "Yordan," or, "Jordan," the poem in here.

00:05:24.060 - 00:05:36.190

Elizabeth Willis: Oh, yeah, that's true. Morton Marcus: Yeah, looking at language. Okay, anyway, she- what, shall I say about her? In 1991, she received an Academy of American Poets Prize and was awarded a Walter N. Thayer

00:05:36.190 - 00:05:48.700

ellowship for the Arts, a ighly competitive SUNY-wide rant, which is the many ampuses of New York, State niversity in New York. And that as given each year to two dvanced degree artists chosen rom among the state's pa

00:05:48.730 - 00:06:02.290

nting, sculpture, music, da ce, theater, and creative wr ting programs. Wow. And Bu falo, her critical writing re eived the University's Butler wr ting prize. And she was later aw rded a Mark Diamond Research Gr nt to conduct research at the Br

00:06:02.290 - 00:06:13.760

tish Library and Tate Gallery in London and on and on, and on. He first major book, can I say th t? It's just come out. Elizabeth Willis: Sure. Morton Marcus: And that is, "The Human Abstract," which was

00:06:13.760 - 00:06:26.390

chosen for the National Poetry Series by Anne Louderback and it's put out by Penguin, and none of- neither of these books are available here, either, "Periplum," by Peter or, "The Human Abstract," by Elizabeth. Is that so?

00:06:27.050 - 00:06:36.170

Elizabeth Willis: Let's do something about that. Morton Marcus: I think something can be done about it. Peter Gizzi: I think that they're actually at the Literary Guillotine. Dave carries them there. And so they've come in

00:06:36.170 - 00:06:43.370

and they go out and they come back in again. But Bookshop Santa Cruz would be a good place for them to be. Morton Marcus: Yes, and Capitola Book Cafe. Elizabeth Willis: Right.

00:06:44.470 - 00:07:00.640

Morton Marcus: I will alert them, in fact, the person who does poets there is really marvelous. Well, friends, I would like you to introduce yourselves. And we're going to talk to you both at the same time, didn't exactly mean that,

00:07:00.640 - 00:07:13.000

it's not going to be simultaneous. But I'd like you to just introduce what you would like to say about your poetry in a few lines or more than a few lines. And Elizabeth, why don't you go first?

00:07:13.600 - 00:07:23.050

Elizabeth Willis: Okay, what I would like my poetry- Morton Marcus: She was pointing at Peter, by the way. Elizabeth Willis: Yes. [Laughs] What I would like- Morton Marcus: Let's really start this off the way we

00:07:23.050 - 00:07:39.190

usually start things off. Why don't you both tell me how you came to write poetry? Elizabeth Willis: Hmm. Well, I think as a kid listening to poems being read by my parents or grandmother who put on a

00:07:39.190 - 00:08:03.820

heavy Scottish brogue on demand and loved Robert Burns, that definitely influenced me, and also come- having a really pretty religious family, reading the Bible, which I think of as a book of poetry. But then, I think when I was in college, and

00:08:03.850 - 00:08:26.620

I started reading Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, were my first books of poems, and William Blake, and then shortly thereafter, I guess, Robert Duncan, and H.D., great modern poet. And I don't know, from there, I guess I decided to go

00:08:26.620 - 00:08:42.340

into graduate school, really, just to try to meet other living poets, more than anything else. And so Robert Creeley kind of drew me to SUNY Buffalo. Morton Marcus: And I know that's- is that how you met

00:08:42.340 - 00:08:57.420

Peter? Elizabeth Willis: No, actually, we- sort of. We met in Providence, Rhode Island. But we met sort of virtually before that. We had both noticed each other's work in magazines and I

00:08:57.420 - 00:09:13.690

was familiar with his magazine, "Oblique," that he was editing. So that was really actually a big turning point for me, beginning to become familiar with peers in poetry. Morton Marcus: I did a week as poet in residence up at SUNY

00:09:13.900 - 00:09:19.690

Buffalo. Peter Gizzi: When was that? Morton Marcus: That's when- what a group there- Leslie Fiedler was there.

00:09:19.690 - 00:09:23.830

Peter Gizzi: Sure. Morton Marcus: John Logan was there. Elizabeth Willis: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Is Jerry Mazzaro still there?

00:09:24.550 - 00:09:27.930

Elizabeth Willis: He's in a different department, Italian department, but he's still there yeah Morton Marcus: And he's a marvelous critic as well. Elizabeth Willis: Yeah.

00:09:31.020 - 00:09:44.910

Morton Marcus: And John Logan, very, very much a person. Creely was jumping back and forth to California, New York. There's a lot of personal problems going on at that time. And so Logan was the one who was inviting people and he was going to be

00:09:44.910 - 00:09:53.730

there for a week and Bob Haas was just getting his PhD done at Buffalo. Elizabeth Willis: Wow. Morton Marcus: I mean, it was a hotbed. And it-

00:09:53.730 - 00:10:06.480

Peter Gizzi: It still is actually, it's a pretty lively place. I was at Brown two years before- I was in Brown from '89 to '91 getting an MFA, which is an incredible poetry center. Like there was a reading maybe once a week happening there, it

00:10:06.480 - 00:10:12.870

was remarkable and- Morton Marcus: And that's Mike Harper, one of my old schoolmates. Peter Gizzi: Michael Harper, definitely. And Keith Waldrip

00:10:12.870 - 00:10:26.730

and C.D. Wright were actually the- and then Coover Hawks and Meredith Steinbach were the fiction. But they always had visiting people coming and going, it was really lively. I went there because of Keith and Rosemary Waldrip, who do Burning

00:10:26.730 - 00:10:41.370

Deck Press and have edited books for over thirty-five years. And he's been working there for about twenty-five years and really build that program up there, in fact, going to be reading at the University, Santa Cruz on February 26th, at four

00:10:41.370 - 00:10:51.360

o'clock, the two of them and make a plug for that. I think it'd be a really good reading. Morton Marcus: Well, let's make a plug for it, definitely make a plug again. And then if we could get some information on that,

00:10:51.570 - 00:10:57.120

there may be something out there right now. Peter Gizzi: Right. Morton Marcus: But yeah, I definitely would. Is that Tom Marshall taking care of that?

00:10:57.120 - 00:11:02.670

Peter Gizzi: Yep, exactly. Morton Marcus: He usually does, so there may be even something out there now. But yes, thanks for saying that. Peter Gizzi: But then from there, I went- after I got my

00:11:02.670 - 00:11:13.770

MFA, I went to get a PhD. And in fact, I got into Buffalo. I wasn't sure if I was going to go, and then I met Liz, and then Let me ask you, have both of you been to the west coast before, I decided to go to graduate school. It was one of the

00:11:13.770 - 00:11:27.120

reasons I went to Buffalo, but it was a really lively- it's a really, it was an amazing place because when I got there, Susan Howe and Charles Bernstein had just begun. And they started something called the Poetics Program, where one could get a

00:11:27.120 - 00:11:41.520

PhD in alternative or new p etics. And so many of the p ets that would be considered o tside of the major canon, w ich -- that's, you know, as w know is always being revised an changed -- were, they were- ou could do those poets, you kn

00:11:41.520 - 00:11:53.820

w, they were available to do doctoral work on. So in fact, it was perfect for me, to d this textual work on Jack Spic r, and they were, you kno , they welcomed that and su ported that. And it's really remarkable. But so th

00:11:53.820 - 00:12:08.430

y also supported the graduate s udents there and gave us money to put together programming of o r own. And we did a conference called Writing from the New Coa t. And we invited thirty-five ounger poets, peers of Liz and m ne, from around the country. An

00:12:08.430 - 00:12:20.100

it was really, it was a great our day festival, and about a hu dred and fifty people end d up showing up for the four day . So it was basically twenty-fo r hours of poetry reading nd, and hanging out. And t was a really, it was a gal

00:12:20.100 - 00:12:34.500

anizing moment for a number of us. And then, so then, fter my coursework, we then both went to Rhode Island, back. I ot a job at Brown for the yea and Liz got a job at Providence College, and now we're here. So t's been a really busy thre

00:12:34.500 - 00:12:46.440

or four years, I have to say and I'm just beginning to ge my feet here in Santa Cruz, I j st began to write again. And I eel like I can live here in S nta Cruz now that I began to wri e. It was a real kind of conce n during

00:12:50.060 - 00:12:52.670

lived here? Never. Morton Marcus: Never? Elizabeth Willis: No, just-

00:12:52.670 - 00:13:05.510

Peter Gizzi: I visited, but yeah- Elizabeth Willis: Visited briefly. Yeah, my- Both sides of my family are from Wyoming. So I'm familiar with the wide open spaces, but not the coast, yeah. It's breathtaking.

00:13:05.510 - 00:13:10.970

Peter Gizzi: Well, it's really- Morton Marcus: It'll change your stuff. Elizabeth Willis: Yeah. Morton Marcus: It's- I mean, just like a painter, I mean,

00:13:10.970 - 00:13:20.550

that's the way I found it to work, the light and just the presence of a place and this is really an amazing presence, I think. Peter Gizzi: It's really true. The light is so different here

00:13:20.550 - 00:13:33.090

coming from New England where I grew up. I never know what time it is around here, for instance, because in the east, the sun falls in rays and shafts, you can always tell what time it is because of the angle of the sun or the way the light falls. In-

00:13:33.090 - 00:13:44.940

here in Santa Cruz, it seems like it's lit up everywhere, always at once, because it comes off the water and so on. So I never know if it's eleven o'clock or two in the afternoon. And now that the seasons are completely off, I've been

00:13:44.940 - 00:13:56.910

dreaming, like I was telling Liz, I've been dreaming of snow for the last month. Every night I go to sleep, I dream of snow. And it's so I have to say that there's these subtle ways in which we still- or I still feel really dislocated. And in a way,

00:13:56.910 - 00:14:09.470

it's interesting because you're right, things are beginning to change in my writing. And, and it's been- I have to take that as a good thing. It's interesting, yeah. Morton Marcus: Dislocation, central word for both of you.

00:14:12.890 - 00:14:22.050

Peter Gizzi: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Yeah. And it's, you know, we didn't ask how you started write poetry, so we sort of got ahead of ourselves. Peter Gizzi: Well, it's always been in my family in a way. My

00:14:22.050 - 00:14:36.810

older brother, Michael Gizzi, who's about eleven years older than me, was writing poems when he was a teenager. And he- and he's a published poet as well and a terrific poet, and he's always- so poetry has always kind of been part of my life. He

00:14:36.810 - 00:14:50.100

would read me his poems when I was a kid. We'd have readings in the, you know, in the living room when when I was a child, he would read his poems and we'd read other people's poems, and we'd listen to recordings of Dylan Thomas over and over

00:14:50.100 - 00:15:02.100

again. And so I grew up with that and so, but given some of the various things personally in my biography, as my life went on, there were some kind of unfortunate incidents or tragic incidents. And poetry became this place, I have to say I

00:15:02.100 - 00:15:21.450

turned to it for personal rescue, for a place that- I like the fact that a human voice could disclose and embellish and articulate grief in a way that was fitting to exactly what it is to experience loss. And poetry, for me, in many ways is

00:15:21.480 - 00:15:35.970

a recovery and is an act of grieving. I find that in my work, and I find that's what I like so much about the speaking voice, or the human voice in poetry. And you would say what do I mean? Because like some of the first people that I truly

00:15:35.970 - 00:15:48.480

loved when I was a late teenager was people like Ezra Pound. I studied Greek and Latin, I became a classics major when I was an undergrad because of his work. And so you'd say, what role does grief play in his work? It's a good question but

00:15:48.480 - 00:16:06.570

the fact is, there is a recovery of lost times and traditions, he's, you know, so actively recovering voices and times in his work. And I found that is a compelling operation or activity of a poetic practice. And so in my own way, it affected me. I

00:16:06.570 - 00:16:20.310

liked that. It seemed fitting. And it's just simply, I think, that if we forget what we've lost, then we've lost everything. And so to me, poetry is a place to rehearse what is both here and and where we come from.

00:16:21.930 - 00:16:36.900

Morton Marcus: Now, that, you know, it seems to be like a real introduction to a poem or ten. Did you- could you read your poem now, which expresses this grief and the sense of loss? Peter Gizzi: Okay.

00:16:36.930 - 00:16:47.740

Morton Marcus: Because obviously, you're talking about both personal and impersonal loss. Peter Gizzi: Exactly. Here's one that actually is- it's complicated. It's not directly- well, we'll just read the poem

00:16:47.740 - 00:17:05.410

and we can talk about. The title is, "Deus Ex Machina," and, you know, it's from the Latin, which is actually from the Greek theatre device, the God from the machine. And so we'll talk about, I'll just read the poem, it's about- it'll take about

00:17:05.410 - 00:17:17.820

four minutes for you listeners out there: DEUS EX MACHINA I guess if we get to be here today, and watch this movie together, it has all been worth these past thirty odd years it

00:17:17.820 - 00:17:34.380

took to get here on this Tuesday, in this city, is why I'm here to know you. I will compare knowing and saying until of all such coordinates that run together to the river replete with its ghosts in this instance of talk, but we won't scuttle,

00:17:34.590 - 00:17:51.090

will we? As it gave the first buoy of its name, friendship, so entire, so perfect, you will hardly find the like elsewhere. Even if the buildings are all in disrepair, please, don't let that inform us. It's meant for us to pass by that dogwood tree

00:17:51.090 - 00:18:07.260

in May as our voices carry into Thursday twilight. May I keep this promise? Along with those pedals flaunting the new season, little pennants of time, boundary stones to be collected on the periphery, where I live and where I remain, so I'll be

00:18:07.260 - 00:18:23.310

here thinking of you. Don't worry, I'll work hard. Places, everyone. When sunlight accumulates an afternoon, a box of elderberry lifts behind the alcove, then description fails the reader and we are left with only shapes and patterns. Still,

00:18:23.460 - 00:18:38.280

a single leaf trembles on the breeze, emblematic, a lovely badge, serrated and at peace with a day that has flowered beyond the notion of our need. Where the reader lists, the poet builds a room. It can be small or grand depending on the tone,

00:18:38.400 - 00:18:54.870

as in June(?), her garden is real. An intricate lace of affection to correspond when wanting fails. Perhaps a yellow doily on your grandmother's nightstand like a tune long off, played on a toy piano. Clink, these lapses from time to time

00:18:54.990 - 00:19:10.200

fill hours in cars on the highway. A room to include your ramble as well as itinerate interlopers visiting from unforeseen lake districts with its news of festival lights and famous contests, where the song dies down into rotting hulks,

00:19:10.200 - 00:19:27.660

trunks exposed at the sleeve of the shore. These transitions or seams, if you like, inform me. Water and land disguised as matter, a carcass dressed and open for inspection revealing nothing but process, lovely and inescapable from our own play. I

00:19:27.660 - 00:19:40.620

was waiting behind a [unidentified] worn, ravaged from too many trips to the provinces, too many performances, too many nights accosted by the rabble. Some people got a lot of gun, what makes you different? Show me.

00:19:40.920 - 00:19:55.710

Here's a dime, call your dead and find out what they've learned having been too preoccupied with the house and its metaphors and where the objects would lead them, too selfish to watch out for us, abandoned, beautiful, and

00:19:55.740 - 00:20:11.280

wide-eyed, developing the tools to maintain the glorious liberties we carry in our hearts and pockets. Then something else did come to stand in its place, namely you, which is where I'm going tonight despite the distance from scene to shadow.

00:20:11.610 - 00:20:31.350

For I am relative to your eye while this page walks into my sight where the sun sets. It's a special light, this, when evening takes a sip off the din of long endurance. Become. Be near me always, book, so I and I and I we go, together under the

00:20:31.350 - 00:20:51.410

elms, won't that be nice, to watch one by one all the colors drain out of the sky into our organs. Morton Marcus: Well, I am- when I read that poem, I said to myself, there is a real melancholy in this but now

00:20:51.410 - 00:20:59.330

hearing you read it, there is- it's more than melancholy, it's elegiac. Peter Gizzi: Yeah. Morton Marcus: And there's another thing I was going to ask

00:20:59.330 - 00:21:14.510

both of you, and it will be interesting hearing Elizabeth too, how much the actual voice off the page, you know, lends to this. I know that I think it lends to all poetry and without it, you know, the page is not where poetry is supposed to

00:21:14.510 - 00:21:21.710

reside any more than a drama is or comedy. Peter Gizzi: Right. Elizabeth Willis: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Anyway, good. Would you talk about this and

00:21:21.710 - 00:21:30.510

this loss, if you would, in any way you want to, Peter? Peter Gizzi: Well, I would hope that the poem would kind of I mean, I respect that. And I won't push it, but I'll probabl demonstrate, or just kind of mov through the ideas or the th

00:21:30.510 - 00:21:47.190

textures of the tones of, guess, a grieving process. In way the poem is, and while it' elegiac, it's kind of- it' talking about the indelible qu lity for me of what it is to th n be located with a friend, to have someone to actually to be

00:21:47.190 - 00:22:34.200

friends with, to be part of so ething, in the fact like- So, th ask questions idea is that, I guess, I me n if I have to talk about the I mean, I don't think it's like- I don't think I actually right,

00:21:54.060 - 00:22:11.430

poem, is that friendship is so ething that allows us a re rieve from grief, from pain, an that friendship should be ho ored because it's a fragile th ng. And you know, human life is a fragile thing, human re ations. And they're just to

00:22:11.460 - 00:22:27.540

happen in moments, I guess, that's what the poem rehearses are these ideas of moments of companionship, and in the mi st of feeling loss. Yeah, I'm no used to talking about my po ms. I kind of let them do it but

00:22:34.200 - 00:22:44.460

from a direct experience, you know what I mean? Morton Marcus: There also seem to be a lot of leaps that are made. Peter Gizzi: Gaps, yeah.

00:22:44.490 - 00:22:51.720

Morton Marcus: And this is really important. It's also important for you, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Willis: Oh, yeah. Morton Marcus: It seems to me, a leaving out, you know, a

00:22:51.720 - 00:23:11.310

trusting that the reader is going to be able to fill in those areas, which, let's say- I think it was David Antin years a o, just did a poem based on an A syrian wall, and half the l nes were erased so that you o ly had a subject here, an o

00:23:11.340 - 00:23:28.800

ject here, another subject, t en finally a verb, and he w uld just- he did the whole p em that way, so that you had t put in the impossible, which i more than half the poem that w sn't there. And now that this o viously does not look that w

00:23:28.800 - 00:23:42.440

y, but it's the leaps, the le ps from one experience to Peter Gizzi: Yeah, it creates gaps, and it is, but what the tone does, it does lead a reader through like- there's gaps, but you lead, I think you lead the gaps with tones so that the

00:23:42.440 - 00:23:55.340

reader can can move through the gap tonally, you know, but- S the tone sets up a way in whic the arc should work, so that t's not so, it's not tot lly fragmented, because I d n't particularly work in a way that's completely disjunc

00:23:55.370 - 00:24:11.060

ive that way. And so I like to ead it with tones and- but I do believe in gaps. I think it s an important part -- leaving out, you said it really we l -- leaving out is as much bout what a poem is about as w at's there. You know, it's the

00:24:11.060 - 00:24:23.990

idea of ruins for me, like wh n you talk about, you know, frag ents. I find myself going to laces, traveling to go look at hings, to look at ruins, and I always stand there astonished ecause the ruin neither expla ns- it neither explains the ti

00:24:23.990 - 00:24:39.560

e from where it came, because it s been totally erased, and it oesn't really explain the resent either. But at the sam time, it's absolutely compelli g as a ruin. And I like fragm nts in terms, or I like the dea of things that are- col

00:24:39.560 - 00:24:53.900

ecting things and putting them t gether as though the poem were a tually like something that is ru ned in Morton Marcus: That's terrific. I love that. That's a great metaphor, the idea of a ruin, not having a past, not having a

00:24:53.900 - 00:25:09.650

future, just having the present of you're looking at it right now. I mean, even having a meaning of the present except the one we're on, that's great. Elizabeth, could you read us a poem and maybe before that talk about what you're attempting to

00:25:09.650 - 00:25:27.940

do in poetry? Elizabeth Willis: Sure. Well, I think to go back to just my early life of traveling around, I think the idea of a certain amount of disorientation in a poem, I think is a good thing,

00:25:28.060 - 00:25:45.760

actually. So, I think there should be something that's unlocatable about a poem, even though I would like my poems to be understood. So yeah, the idea of the gap, I think, is important. I'm also really interested in accommodating

00:25:46.120 - 00:26:08.230

human error into poetry. A lot of times, spelling mistakes or the way I miss-see lines when I transcribe, say, a written draft of a poem onto a computer. A lot of times, that moment generates sort of rich changes in vocabulary that to me make the

00:26:08.260 - 00:26:30.180

poem more interesting in its sound and texture. So what I'll maybe read is a short love poem. It's actually one of a series of poems that make up the poem: A MAIDEN, it's what would be called a serial poem with five

00:26:30.180 - 00:26:48.890

or six separate poems within it. What is a maiden, boson(?), but a fiery layer into teary citadel? By the smallest shipwreck, a daughter is laughter. Yet equaled as in a fable, this Gibraltar goes

00:26:48.890 - 00:27:10.060

headlong in a just king's love. See how his hands are her mercy and measure, her number and rescue. Oh, Perseus, Pythagoras, Pierre, my Pierre. And I guess what I mean about the error, there would be a line

00:27:10.060 - 00:27:27.280

like, "By the smallest shipwreck, a daughter is laughter," the idea that there's in its written form, there's a very small change in the look of that word that turns daughter to laughter, small erasure, but somehow, they're connected in

00:27:27.280 - 00:27:51.310

their sense. And the way this poem was made was really very simple, it goes from A to P, because it was really a love poem for Peter, embarrassingly enough. And I had a printer's- what, not embarrassing? Well, I started with a printer sample

00:27:51.310 - 00:28:06.340

book of pages that wasn't numbered, but it was lettered and it ended with the letter P. And I just thought it was such a great serendipity that I wanted to make a poem that would end with the letter P. So each line has a different letter of the

00:28:06.340 - 00:28:17.850

alphabet capitalized. Morton Marcus: Okay, very nice. Elizabeth Willis: Sort of a catalog that way. Morton Marcus: So there's a lot- I seem to get in your poems --

00:28:17.850 - 00:28:28.560

which seemed to be a lot of love poems, in many cases -- Elizabeth Willis: Yeah. Morton Marcus: -that there's a lot of play in the sense of the language, and certainly in Jordan, which you were talking

00:28:28.560 - 00:28:36.360

about, you know, before. Elizabeth Willis: Yeah. Morton Marcus: There's really a sense of, I guess, the same thing you were talking about: language and meaning coming over

00:28:36.720 - 00:28:50.660

from one language to another and having these different meanings down through time and cultures, the word fabric and fabricate and things like that. Elizabeth Willis: Right. Yeah, well, I think that's actually

00:28:50.780 - 00:29:09.230

part of the mysterious and interesting quality of language is that even if you listen to a poet reading in a language that you don't know, often you can get a sense of the meaning of the poem by really listening to its sound, almost more so than,

00:29:09.260 - 00:29:28.190

say, a poor translation. So I think, for me actually going back to Jordan, many years when I hadn't been to the Middle East for probably twenty years, it was fascinating to me to see sort of uncanny moments where there was meaning when I didn't

00:29:28.190 - 00:29:47.240

expect it, when I felt like I understood something that there was no reason for me to understand. And I think with that poem, particularly, is really influenced by a poem by H.D. but really a long poem called, "Helen in Egypt," that

00:29:47.300 - 00:30:05.150

has to do really with what Peter was saying about the idea of ruins, things existing through time that remain beautiful and have meaning, but not a meaning that we can really trace to say it's absolute history because its history has been lost. So

00:30:06.260 - 00:30:21.740

say a figure like Helen could appear in, say, a contemporary movie and would have a deeper meaning for us because, you know, we've grown up with some idea of the story of Helen of Troy and all of that, but it wouldn't necessarily be a

00:30:21.740 - 00:30:34.060

meaning that's in our conscious mind, it's more something unconscious. Morton Marcus: Great. Well, that was Elizabeth Willis and we are talking with Elizabeth Willis and Peter Gizzi, two poets who

00:30:34.060 - 00:30:51.010

have come to live in Santa Cruz; Peter teaching up at UCSC, Elizabeth, besides doing many other things, teaching at Cabrillo as well. We will be back in a few moments. Right now, go out and get yourself another cup of tea, or whatever

00:30:51.010 - 00:31:23.770

it may be, and listen to the music of Satie. Elizabeth Willis: [Cut off] -passages from the title poem, "The Human Abstract," which actually takes its title from a poem by William Blake from his "Songs Of Experience" and the

00:31:23.770 - 00:31:35.890

"Songs Of Innocence and Experience" sort of come up in this first section a little bit so it might ground it a little bit. Innocence shags experience and I'll never grow. Experience

00:31:35.890 - 00:31:56.350

catches the dove and I'm lost. I find you at this intimate pasture, a number in a tree, a gray field of otherwise. Inventing a globe and a wheel to turn it on, inventing a dress and the bird it remembers. This you of my equal and never is a

00:31:56.350 - 00:32:15.940

restoration. Beside the elements when they broke into picture, this is my reference to the amity of sand. Though I escaped through a veil of birds in the morning, thugs beat a carpeted path in my mind. Who knows the moment when a vessel closes,

00:32:16.090 - 00:32:37.060

whoever called light discreet? I was beside his carriage when it meant a glass coach, an elaborate temper turning to accept damage. Beside this eye, my silence is a sister of uncanny omissions, as though the mind were a room a rabbit could

00:32:37.060 - 00:32:59.890

exist behind, a swoon where the water pours side long becomes a lesson, a lantern trespassing snow, a wall torn from shadow. Their modeled form became an enclosure of light. The wrestle of naming in all our passage. Men of the outer world dashed me

00:32:59.890 - 00:33:25.240

to bits. This Heaven is beneath Earth. If I err, I am and my error moves me, saying, child passed by here saying equal to me. It was the same I unhinging, the same I throughout. I come to this clearing, but never quite omit enough. Three times, three

00:33:25.240 - 00:33:44.680

times, I'd forgotten my math in your footsteps, as when the heart has lied yet has a figure in it. I found this in a book, I read this by the light at the back of your head. That's when I knew you by a starry impress and I knew your forehead. I knew the

00:33:44.680 - 00:34:01.940

ground with my first feet upon it. Morton Marcus: And that was the first part of, "The Human Abstract," and I noticed you'd left out one of the short poems. Elizabeth Willis: I did, just for time.

00:34:02.930 - 00:34:11.150

Morton Marcus: Okay. Elizabeth Willis: It seemed like the most dispensable. Morton Marcus: Okay. Could you tell me about that poem, "The Human Abstract," first one?

00:34:12.920 - 00:34:28.940

Elizabeth Willis: Well, the writing of it actually mostly took place on the bus to work and on my lunch hour during the last year that we spent in Buffalo. So there's a kind of built in disjunction, I realized, to it and a sort of

00:34:28.940 - 00:34:46.010

struggle to find a declarative sentence that would make sense of my, you know, my life which didn't make sense, in other words, doing work that was not very interesting, after having been in school and excited about what I was reading, etc. And

00:34:46.010 - 00:35:05.120

then I think the final section of it kind of goes from this kind of struggle to make sense to more of a moment of illumination. "I knew the ground with my first feet upon it," sort of getting your land legs, as it were. But that's just the-

00:35:05.210 - 00:35:25.370

I mean, that's kind of the human backdrop for me of it. But a lot of the elements in it really come from my reading of Blake, I think, and the magic of his world in his worldview, and Erasmus Darwin, whose work Blake illustrates, which I think is

00:35:25.370 - 00:35:43.820

just beautiful, beautiful combination of science, writing, and poetry. A poem called, "The Loves of the Plants," is wonderful, in "The Botanic Garden." So some of that work I was reading for my dissertation. And so it was a real joy to feel

00:35:43.820 - 00:35:59.270

like it was still sort of in my blood and to be able to make poem rather than an essay from that sort of love, yeah. Morton Marcus: And you've been to London and have obviously seen, I think, it's in the Tate, isn't that, all the Blake, the

00:35:59.270 - 00:36:09.860

original Blakes in color. Elizabeth Willis: Yeah, they're- the Tate has a lot, and the British Museum, it has a lot. Yeah, they're wonderful. Morton Marcus: It seemed to me also, as I was listening to it,

00:36:09.860 - 00:36:21.240

that in the disjunction, but in the individual lines, there is a sound that was very similar to all of those definitions in the marriage of heaven and hell. Elizabeth Willis: Oh, that's interesting, yeah.

00:36:21.000 - 00:36:27.540

Morton Marcus: I'm just thinki g of it. They, of course, a e total parado Elizabeth Willis: Yeah. Morton Marcus: The first part of the sentence is destroyed

00:36:27.540 - 00:36:37.070

literally by the second, but totally having- giving non-linear meaning at the same time. Elizabeth Willis: Yeah. Morton Marcus: But the center of your poetry is in this poem, it

00:36:37.070 - 00:36:51.110

seemed to me. And it's where in both of you, the wrestle of naming and/or passage, that seems to stand for both of your work very, very clearly. And naming, it seems as though naming a language has become more important in your work, l

00:36:51.380 - 00:37:04.310

t's say then it is the ex erience in your work. See, th n, just as I was saying, be ore, you know, like talking ab ut the experience out there, th language now becomes part of th experience itself. And you ac ept that, or is that one of m

00:37:04.310 - 00:37:09.630

- Peter Gizzi: Definitely. Elizabeth Willis: Yeah. Peter Gizzi: Yeah, that's, that's the joy. Liz is talking

00:37:09.630 - 00:37:22.410

about the accidents and the errors in writing. It's true about like the mistranslations, or the mistakes that one makes when you're recording things, as well as getting things accurately, mean to record something accurately. It's also

00:37:22.410 - 00:37:36.000

the joy of when you make a mistake, or when you're doing revisions, and- or when you make gaps and cut lines and put things together and all of a sudden it opens up to a larger space, a larger potential for meaning, doesn't shut it down,

00:37:36.000 - 00:37:50.390

it opens it up. Elizabeth Willis: Yeah. I think it also brings you- naming brings you into a great intimacy with the world of objects that other, you know- no, I think it's an incredibly intimate act.

00:37:50.390 - 00:38:03.560

It's really part of our human struggle is to try to articulate the thing that makes us not an object, not an animal. Morton Marcus: Peter? Peter Gizzi: Yeah?

00:38:04.010 - 00:38:12.440

Morton Marcus: Hello there. Peter Gizzi: Hi. Morton Marcus: Let's hear another one of yours. Peter Gizzi: Okay, yeah, I don't know what to read now, can you

00:38:12.440 - 00:38:25.340

believe that? Let me- Morton Marcus: Well, Elizabeth, do you want to- Peter Gizzi: She's pointing to this one here. I'll read this one. This one just came out as a little chapbook from Buffalo

00:38:25.340 - 00:38:39.350

actually, Meow Editions, in fact a very tiny little book, but he poem is called, "New Picn c Time." And there's a quot from Andrew Marvel, "Unl ss the giddy heaven fall from the definition of love," and t's seven stanzas and it's seve

00:38:39.350 - 00:38:52.500

little discrete units. So I wo 't read the numbers but I'll t ke a pause in between the s anzas: NEW PICNIC TIME Out of this closed horizon, there are animals breathing

00:38:52.530 - 00:39:10.590

unlike a child's drawing of an activity, orbiting circles with brown x's, farther off, pedestrians make parallel lines and collapse into distance, or becoming one of several skylines drawn to scale in charcoal or fingerpaint. At zero hour, an

00:39:10.590 - 00:39:28.620

earth unwrites itself, becomes an indelible number line counting backward to embrace its new horizon, an indefatigable zero, the high lit window, a person tethered to a desk, this city and its outline, its rivers and cemeteries. Invisible, the

00:39:28.620 - 00:39:43.560

orchard keeper's mansion is everywhere. The heart becomes one, last stone of an existing grove on a squatter's earth, thus in persons and in plants also stone, and the brilliant element of fire into the helix and throughout the electrics

00:39:43.590 - 00:40:04.200

salt(?). Beyond this image decomposing desire, and as always with a mouth, there is Earth, because it calls, fear is redundant. And that animal sound in late night is only its own, speech, becoming one, becoming air, books outlasting buildings,

00:40:04.320 - 00:40:23.970

outlast sweat in the broken human form, a body labors. Whose face is the same as another? Nothing spoke for itself. Every action implied a rhetoric so it may recognize itself, to teach, to celebrate virtue, to persuade by example, to lead the court to

00:40:23.970 - 00:40:43.200

its ideal self through wonder, same page, same fable, trajectory, a window, the young father dreaming, a hand, a face, a feeling. It was a sound he heard. The way of earthworms in coffins, of dead infants, cobwebs, and deformity, of

00:40:43.200 - 00:41:01.200

windows and the children they expose, the signs they carry, shame, of sibilance and crossroads, herein lie the broken, the sturdy, the well intentioned policeman, the smiles they bear across a portal. When will they say, hear

00:41:01.200 - 00:41:16.830

me? It was a dream, it was a tin can, it was a funny thing to feel. And the children were beyond this for posture, a simple garden, evergreen, a green car out front, the picket fence is white, what color are the flowers unwritten in a day?

00:41:17.310 - 00:41:30.270

There is no space, only sky and water, uncanny Earth, a funny thing to feel. It's a lot to hear, you haven't had a chance to rehearse that one.

00:41:32.370 - 00:41:42.720

Morton Marcus: You're right. Peter Gizzi: Yeah. Morton Marcus: I seem to hear a lot of contemporary experience in there. I mean, one of them seemed to me was- a section

00:41:42.720 - 00:41:55.380

there was on abortion and what goes on in abortion clinics. Peter Gizzi: That's interesting. Yeah, I wouldn't actually- that's, yeah, that's really fascinating. Wow. I haven't construed it that way.

00:41:55.620 - 00:42:04.680

Morton Marcus: Yeah, well, okay, it's- Peter Gizzi: But there is- that's interesting that you hear that because I am using contemporary themes. In fact, this whole new manuscript that I'm working on, my new project,

00:42:05.040 - 00:42:21.180

was called, "A Textbook of Chivalry," but now I think I'm going to change it to, "Artificial Heart." But I've moved away from a lot of the classical imagery, and some of it's still there, but I'm actually really using the the

00:42:21.180 - 00:42:35.880

nouns and the objects and the materials of the poems are coming from contemporary life and from contemporary horizons, and moving them together, and bringing these different surfaces and textures together. But each poem is kind of like, I

00:42:35.880 - 00:42:53.640

consider the poem that's like almost architecture the way each little section moves, or they're like little units, rooms, that are brought together, each one kind of projecting, perhaps a definition or a feeling, all of them to be kind of slightly a

00:42:53.640 - 00:43:06.480

dis-ease or uneasiness to it. Elizabeth Willis: It reminds me actually, of the sort of unease that you have walking down the street at night when you can see into people's living rooms, which you're not supposed to be

00:43:06.480 - 00:43:21.200

able to see into. I mean, there's a kind of intimacy and sort of being taken aback about that space but- Peter Gizzi: I've been interested in this kind of doing this, like, as you can hear, there's a- It's compressed and

00:43:21.200 - 00:43:34.790

the gaps are even larger in a lot- and this poem in particular. I'm interested in the kind of, in a very dense and not yet vivid, bright surface, and even the title, "New Picnic Time." I mean, like, the idea of like, what time is it, you know?

00:43:34.790 - 00:43:45.830

Where are we? I mean, who gets to call the time, at least in art production, ever, or just in general, but, you know, modernism, everyone has their own time, everyone's living- everyone's creating, recreating time and this idea of the figure

00:43:45.830 - 00:44:06.140

of the ruin, the idea of composing times around that. I mean, who gets to- who gets to call the hour? And one of the joys of composition is to get to mix times, and both there's a revelation, there's also a horror, and just- yeah, it's a

00:44:06.140 - 00:44:16.230

difficulty that comes through and- Morton Marcus: As I also said, there's a real sense of trying to find the self and realizing that the self is never where it was.

00:44:16.390 - 00:44:29.410

Peter Gizzi: Yeah. Morton Marcus: That it's always moving and always changing. And I really get this in both of your works. Your work is much more concrete than Elizabeth's and so therefore, my reading of

00:44:29.410 - 00:44:41.470

things like actual events, it's like the tail ends of news reports because I'm not using that by accident, because, very specifically, I think, one of your poems, "News at Eleven-" Peter Gizzi: "News at Eleven."

00:44:42.770 - 00:44:55.340

Morton Marcus: You know, has that sense of- oh, they were, you know, they'd love to give these editing awards on television for the year in review in one minute, you know, and you just have this montage of different scenes, and you

00:44:55.340 - 00:45:10.070

better not blink because you're going to miss around four of them. And though they may give you them in a chronology, you really are just seeing, you know, the whole year is coming at you with the same effect as the pictures that both of you

00:45:10.820 - 00:45:25.400

seem to give to me. The difference between that though is that your pictures have a resonance that keeps opening up into what we were talking about during the break, the classical world, the biblical world. You know, I mean, when I say you, I

00:45:25.400 - 00:45:41.210

mean, both of you. And that ruin existing in three levels of time, or maybe six or ten, you see? And opening them even more than, obviously, it was your intention. I mean, it's just- the reader now becomes a very active part of this.

00:45:41.260 - 00:45:54.190

Peter Gizzi: That's lovely, one would hope, yeah. Morton Marcus: Yeah. Yeah, I would love to see that. I mean, it just seemed to have a real, as you say, glittering surface, and it just seems to have a lot of imagery going on in it, which

00:45:54.190 - 00:46:10.990

I would like these flashing pictures and- Seems marvelous, seems like, in many ways, a growth beyond this one [cross talk]. Not to say that I don't like this, which I do very much, but it just seems like it's much, much more intense and yet

00:46:10.990 - 00:46:18.080

visual and sensual. Peter Gizzi: I'll read a shorter one? Morton Marcus: Yeah, by all means. Yeah, sure. Peter Gizzi: How much do- yeah.

00:46:18.130 - 00:46:27.880

Morton Marcus: And then Elizabeth- Peter Gizzi: Yeah, I'll read a short one. Here's one- I'll just read the first. This is like the prologue, this is called, "Caption," in your sense of news reporter, you know what I mean,

00:46:27.910 - 00:46:43.450

just physical things: CAPTION One less body is lost in snow, the dying one in time becomes a landscape. Remember how it came about. Snow unlike glass, glass

00:46:43.480 - 00:47:00.130

unlike a corpse, moon unlike a torso boldly colored in, with bark, with slate, with soil breaking up in the furrows of another eroding shape. Or a severed line bringing us together for the first time, March unlike spring, or an

00:47:00.130 - 00:47:20.140

almanac out of date, nomenclature everywhere. Evidence, perception, conclusion, unlike a dull pool on a brown tire track, earlier, I said landscape. How did it come about? Grief unlike truth, truth unlike snow, body unlike

00:47:20.140 - 00:47:33.980

its outline. Morton Marcus: Fascinating because you do set up, again, a series of images, and then you destroy them in the end. Because you come right back and you say and you just have everything

00:47:33.980 - 00:47:48.290

equaling everything, and you neutralize it. And again, this seems to be, especially from a [unidentified], when I read over and over again, is that you refuse to have an easy place to stop or rest because you know that nothing is stopped, nothing

00:47:48.290 - 00:47:56.640

is at rest, everything's in flux. It's everything is changing. Peter Gizzi: I think so, it seems more honest than to like present a poem that ends with a flower at the end of the work,

00:47:56.640 - 00:48:03.810

you know, it's like- Morton Marcus: You mean like my poem that ends with a flower? That's all right- Peter Gizzi: No, does your poem end with- [cross talk], that's

00:48:03.810 - 00:48:11.910

really that's unfair. I heard you read. Morton Marcus: No, no. Peter Gizzi: You actually come out of Talmudic and biblical tradition and you're interested in mystery and in mythology.

00:48:11.930 - 00:48:26.180

Morton Marcus: Yeah, I mean, my discussion with both of you tonight, you know, and reading your poetry, is my sensibility is a different sensibility. And so, it's fascinating, you know, to hear and see and ask you to explain unfairly, of course,

00:48:27.800 - 00:48:42.110

where things have gone, because I do have various limitations. I mean, I am not a post-modernist and I feel that I'm talking to post-modernists here. I am a modernist, and I am still wrestling with the questions that are coming out of the 19th

00:48:42.110 - 00:48:57.770

century, you see. And I think you're wrestling with the questions out of the 19th century, but also and even in your imagery, you're dealing with a world that deals with helixes and which deals with a whole new physics and the whole

00:48:57.770 - 00:49:08.510

new idea of deconstruction and everything like that, now just taken not as a literary tool but as a fact of reality, you know? Peter Gizzi: A fact of composition. Morton Marcus: The fact of composition, maybe more

00:49:08.510 - 00:49:18.470

important in this case, fact of composition, yeah. Elizabeth Willis: Elizabeth's turn. Peter Gizzi: Yeah, we both love beauty, you know? Morton Marcus: Well, we say beauty is truth, but truth is

00:49:18.470 - 00:49:25.760

not beauty, that would be the difference, right? Peter Gizzi: Wow, that's good. Morton Marcus: You see, yeah, that would be the difference. Elizabeth Willis: I don't know. I think he said it tongue in his

00:49:25.760 - 00:49:38.350

cheek, actually. Morton Marcus: Well, there was blood on the tongue anyway, we know that. Could we hear another poem or two from you? Elizabeth Willis: Okay, I'll read maybe another short poem.

00:49:38.710 - 00:49:59.220

It's actually: THE ENCOY, the final poem in a long poem called, "Second Law," that- it sort of takes on different scientific geological terms for part of it, but it ends with this poem.

00:49:59.910 - 00:50:21.000

In extremes of affection, only to be seen when the mind's a heart, seeing by the dark grass, your swallow, my bud. Being sure to walk through it, to be imperfect, a crime in the gospel is because of you, at length and in these little falls.

00:50:23.400 - 00:50:43.530

Morton Marcus: Ann Lauterbach I think it is, or is it Kathy? I think it's Ann, compares you to Emily Dickinson. And there's definitely that sense of this small, perfectly worked jewel-like poem. You know, even in the poems that are in

00:50:43.530 - 00:50:58.920

different sections, you know, which are most of the poems, but there's that real sense of the jewel-like moment, you know, that has really been captured in rockhard language, which has a- she also used the word grace, which I think they're also very,

00:50:58.920 - 00:51:08.280

very lovely, and H.D., it's very, very much like H.D.'s poetry. Elizabeth Willis: Well, that's the most flattering comment I can imagine.

00:51:09.230 - 00:51:26.270

Morton Marcus: Well, why don't I ask for final comments from both of you? Let me do what they do now on these programs from the Actor's Studio in the New School in New York and you have to answer a question. So both of you can think of that. And I

00:51:26.270 - 00:51:41.600

will ask Peter first, because I put you on the hot seat first, you had to answer the first question right? When you get to the pearly gates, what would you like God to say to you about your life?

00:51:43.860 - 00:51:50.880

Peter Gizzi: That I was good. Morton Marcus: Okay. Elizabeth? Elizabeth Willis: Same question? Morton Marcus: Yep.

00:51:52.200 - 00:52:07.140

Elizabeth Willis: Oh, boy. I don't know, I guess that I worked hard or something, I don't know, it's that we both have a pretty intense American work ethic. Peter Gizzi: Yeah, that our life had meaning, that it was useful.

00:52:07.200 - 00:52:18.870

Elizabeth Willis: Yeah, but yeah. I mean, actually, it's not fair that I get to say work hard, because Peter's what they would call a great cultural worker because he was really- Peter Gizzi: All right.

00:52:18.960 - 00:52:32.010

Elizabeth Willis: But no, but in terms of like making- you pitch in, you actually help to create a space for, you know, other poets in terms of, you know, making magazines and things like that, which I think is a great thing to encourage young writers

00:52:32.010 - 00:52:48.240

to do. It's a way of getting involved. Morton Marcus: Well, thank you both very, very much. I'm now looking at you through Abby. And I just hope that I did not intrude too much with my questions, and it's a delight to

00:52:48.240 - 00:53:00.000

have you both in the community. I look forward to seeing again, hearing you read actually, I hope that'll be coming up soon. And to seeing Keith Waldrop on February 26th- where will it be Peter?

00:53:00.030 - 00:53:10.620

Peter Gizzi: That will be at the Cowell Provost House, that's February 26th at four o'clock, Keith and Rosemary Waldrip. Morton Marcus: And we will announce that again here because as you know, that is one of the things that we do on the Poetry

00:53:10.620 - 00:53:21.990

Show. Tonight we've been talking with Elizabeth Willis and Peter Gizzi and welcoming them to Santa Cruz and let me, on behalf of Santa Cruz, welcome you both and thank you so much. Peter Gizzi: Thank you very much.