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Morton Marcus: Good evening, everybody this is Mort Marcus, this is the Poetry Show. And from the music you just heard, tonight we're in the Balkans, and we are in the former Yugoslavia with our guests tonight, Robert Pesich, who was

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born in the United States of Serbian parents, grew up in the United States, received his B.S. degree in Genetics at UC Davis in 1990, and while there took several poetry classes with Sondra McPherson and a graduate course with Gary Snyder. Since

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1990, he has been working at the Stanford Research Center, and has been doing work in genetics and also has several research projects including autoimmune, diabetes, hypertension, breast cancer, and other diseases. So what we have tonight is a poet

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who is also a working scientist, and we will be talking to Robert about that. Robert, welcome to the Poetry Show. Robert Pesich: Hello, everyone and thank you, Morton, for having me on.

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Morton Marcus: It's my pleasure. We are Slavic brothers and it is always a pleasure to have someone who has the same heart relationship to the world here. We'll also be talking about some I'm sure mutual influences, who we will discuss at the time. But

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right now, I want to talk to you about the interfacing of science and poetry, something that, to me, has been a very important ignored aspect of contemporary American poetry certainly. How do you think science has influenced you as a poet and

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vice versa? Robert Pesich: Well, science, my education at UC Davis and my work in the laboratory has taught me how to look at the world around me, the world within me, and pay attention to

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details, specifically- the specific details. So not to really write in with generalities, but to try to see things from new perspectives and in new ways, that's one aspect. I think science and poetry, they have come to a greater

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understanding of the world around us, the world within us. They just come at it from somewhat different perspectives, you know. Science, of course, is rational, -- or, quote, unquote, is rational -- it makes use of large amounts of money and a

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great infrastructure. Poetry's more intuitive, you need heart, you need a pen, you need a paper, maybe not even a pen and paper. All fair, you were talking about Hart Crane, and then in the oral cultures, you could just sit and think about

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it, feel it, and then speak it. So there's a mutual interest between poetry and science. Science also offers interesting metaphors. You were speaking to me about Greg Keith and I remember we were talking about the metaphors offered by- in the

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field of astrophysics, and then in physics as well as my own field, immunology, and we would have these great conversations about Miroslav Holub, or his own work, Greg's, his own work, and the struggles that he was having, using words. And he

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loved those words. I still have a difficult time with those words, and he had a great facility using these kinds of difficult words that you find in science. "Major histocompatibility complex," which is an immunological term,

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how do you fit that in a poem? There's so many syllables, it doesn't lend itself well to musicality in a poem. It's hard to incorporate it in an image and yet, it's very important. You might find things like general phenomena in science

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that are interesting, like the homeobox, okay. So now we have the image of a box here. Homeo, okay, maybe something pertaining to Homo Erectus, man, whatever, okay. And then you open up that box, what do you get? Well, now we have people in the lab who

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can mutate a gene, and bang, you've got [unidentified] flies, with eyes all over the body, eyes on the wings, eyes on the feet, and eyes on the antenna. What does that mean? You know, where does that lead you with the image? And so that's

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interesting and that helps me, but nevertheless, I still struggle with the language of science and bring it into poems. Morton Marcus: Well, the other way around, of course, was that a lot of scientists were very inspired by the fantasy

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literature of the late 1960s when they were going to school, and especially "Lord of the Rings," which was very popular. And so when they began to name subatomic particles, they began to name them as quarks and charms and they almost sound

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like they're coming right out of "Lord of the Rings." And they're very evocative, I mean, to have a particle that's a charm, that is influencing other particles, and it's right out of medieval romance, you see? So it is very interesting, it can work. I

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have, alas, I use metaphors and images and symbols that are very standard, and that are, you know, part of Western literature. But they seem to be old-fashioned, they seem to be yellowing at the edges. And the language that Greg had

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especially, because it was just so natural to him, he even said ever since he was a teenager, really doing new things in poetry. And it was really too bad that he passed away so early in life because he was doing some very interesting stuff.

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It's interesting getting in your poems -- and I would like to read one right now, have you read one right now -- to see just how closely you do observe the world around you, as you just said, as a scientist it has taught you to give such a

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specific view of things. Why don't we go into, "Safeway," to show how that works? Robert Pesich: Okay. I was just wondering if I should bring this book, it's a good thing I brought this book. I'm not so

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fond of using pop culture terms in the poems like, "Safeway," because okay, well, Safeways is a corporate entity that could be here twenty years from now likely won't, it's been, you know, exploiting workers and onwards. Anyway, well, but I

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like the other aspect of the word, which people will come to find. And where I used to live in San Jose, near the Winchester Quarter, there's a great Bosnian expatriate population and refugee population there. Many of these people would frequent

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Safeway. And they would be astounded by the number of eggs, the variety of eggs, the variety of toilet paper. Some I met maybe a week after they had just arrived, and I would hear something like, [speaks Bosnian], which I can't

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translate because it's a bad word but, you know, I'd explain, well, these eggs are this, and you can choose these or you could choose these kinds of eggs. Here's the poem: SAFEWAY

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The newly waxed eggplants are nightmares. The old blind man next to me caresses one, lifts it with both hands, cradles it, follows the scars with his fingers, applies pressure, searching for soft spots, breaks that suggest the fruit has

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turned. He has no fingernails, no thumbs. Purple stigmata in both palms. His granddaughter arrives with the cart, receives the fruit as he mutters a question in Serbo-Croatian. She is young. The eggplants are larger than her face. They don't

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know yet about the two starlings that just flew past, blown in during the last month's storm. She clasps his hands together, wings within wings, guides him, fingers first, among the winter produce, each translating names for the other.

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Morton Marcus: I know that poem may, you know, talk about the wonders of all the variety of goods we have in this country, but it also seems to be suggesting a lot of other things. His hands certainly suggest that he is scarred. And

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I imagine you were talking about, though I may be very wrong, about the war that had gone on in Bosnia. Robert Pesich: That's right. Morton Marcus: And the relationship between the two of

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them, these are two starlings who have been blown in after that storm, and I take it you were using the metaphor in that way. Robert Pesich: Indeed, there were two birds blown in and, you

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know, it just happened that I noticed them that evening, and then noticed this young woman and what seemed to be her elder or grandfather. And how- I didn't want to pry, so I just kind of observed from a distance and see how they related to this

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new- this new world where he's telling her something about this particular fruit, or she's telling him about this fruit, and they're exchanging the names and also describing it, he for her, she for him.

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Morton Marcus: But there's also that great image of she clasps his hands together, wings within wings. Robert Pesich: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Which is coming right out of the two starlings

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who flew in. Robert Pesich: Right, right. Morton Marcus: They're taking care of each other. Robert Pesich: I would hope so, yeah. It's a difficult existence

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to find oneself in a new place and make a living in this new niche, and especially after the traumas that one had experienced. Morton Marcus: Well, let's go back a little. Let's talk about

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the other part of your education at Davis, which is taking poetry classes with Sandra McPherson, and then a graduate course with Gary Snyder. What was it like working with Sandra? Robert Pesich: Sandra was a very generous person, very organized.

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And she would give us objects, and she would demand of you to really look at it in a new way and then tie it into an emotional context within oneself. A variety of exercises, both in free verse and also in form. Forms that include the

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ghazal -- if that's how it's pronounced -- the pantone. I really appreciated that, and she would open up the course, open up the criticism first, so that people would have a kind of context in which to make the criticism in terms of how to

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make the criticism, productive criticism first in terms of, "I like this, this is nice, this is good. This is an appropriate rhythm," and then something else after that. She introduced me to a variety of other writers as well. And then Gary Snyder was a

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great experience as well. He was somebody who- I had difficulty at first. I didn't like his work at first, I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't figure it out, and then I came back to it a few years later, then I was in university and I loved it. I

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loved it so much that I didn't write anything in his course and he noted that. And he took me into his office, he said, "What's going on here?" And I told him, he said, "Well, I understand. Okay, well, if you need it, if you need to hear

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from me, you have my permission to write whatever you want, okay, but you don't really need my permission, all right? You need your own permission." Morton Marcus: Did that work?

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Robert Pesich: Yeah, that actually worked. That actually worked. And then he said, "Write about- remember, sometime and if you can't do it now, don't forget to write about the mythology of science. You should try to write something about

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what you're doing." And I didn't do that straight away, of course, I was- well, not of course, but I didn't do this straight away, I started to a few years later. Yeah, poems about teratomas, poems about cancers, cardiac morphogenesis,

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things like that, so- Morton Marcus: Before we get to your influences, especially in that area, what did you major in, let's say, in your graduate work?

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Robert Pesich: I didn't do any graduate work. Morton Marcus: You just took a graduate class while you went to undergraduate. Robert Pesich: That's right.

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Morton Marcus: I see, I got it. So you knew that you were going to continue to write poetry? Robert Pesich: Yeah. Morton Marcus: When did you first want to write poetry?

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Robert Pesich: Maybe when I was in my teen years. I read James Wright and it was an experience to pop the top of my head off. Morton Marcus: Was that through a class in high school, or-? Robert Pesich: Yeah, through a class in high school, and then

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my teacher in that class had us doing creative writing exercises. He gave me a tennis ball and he said, "Write about it." I thought this is completely unfair. Everybody else gets something interesting to write about, I get a tennis

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ball. I thought he didn't like me, you know. I don't know, so I wrote something crazy about- you know, there's these little people on the tennis ball, and they need the ball to be hit in order to have that kinetic energy to light up their houses

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inside the tennis ball because everything's inside that tennis ball. And I thought I'm going to piss him off with something completely bizarre. I tried to make it as crazy as- it was probably pretty pedestrian but anyway, he came back he said,

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"Oh, this is great!" Morton Marcus: Do you know why he said it was great? And you can look at the poem and think why he might have said that? Robert Pesich: [Unidentified] completely different perspective

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from what other people were writing. Morton Marcus: Exactly, you know, they were stick figures saluting the American flag. Robert Pesich: Yeah, right.

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Morton Marcus: And this was you using your imagination. Robert Pesich: Yeah, I really appreciated writing from early on. I had asthma as a kid and so my mother -- and my mother really appreciated literature, and she wanted us to read and

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she wanted us to read good stuff, or, you know, whatever she could find -- and so she was giving us Stevenson, she was giving us other books, then there was Dumont, and she gave us Moby Dick and- Unbeknownst to my parents, so I would be doing

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something else, I don't know. Or my mom would go to the supermarket and my father would be working and it'd be summer and we'd had the reading hour, and then the reading hour turned into two hours, three hours, she'd go and I'd disappear in

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the backyard, take off all my clothes, climb up the mulberry tree. We'd have like this little plank, like a fort, and I'd just sit there and lie down naked in the mulberry tree, tree's kind of swaying back and forth and I'd be reading, you know. Just

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be a little kid, you know, at ten years old, and then there was another kid who was doing it too. And his buddies found him out and they surrounded his tree. I didn't even know that this was going on until I found out they were throwing rocks at

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him and he fell out the tree and they would call him a nature boy. So I said, oh, I got to just keep this under cover, really. Morton Marcus: You just announced it to around fifty

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thousand people. Robert Pesich: That's fine, they can come and talk to me, all right. Morton Marcus: Okay, did you tell Gary Snyder that?

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Robert Pesich: No, no. Morton Marcus: Because he would have liked that, I assure you that he would have said, oh, that's very good. Okay, in writing poetry and with your involvement in science, just

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keep keeping on with this. Do you still believe, or has science in some way taken away from you, a sense of magic in the world? Robert Pesich: Yeah, yes and no, you know, it's going- The

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science is moving so quickly in my field that you have to keep up with it. And yes, there are some things that are just fantastic. I work with some instruments that are so advanced, and that were inconceivable fifteen years ago

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and make the work quite easy now. But to keep up with that, there is this deficit of time available to do nothing, and doing nothing for me is important. I mean, if I'm not doing nothing, I'm doing nothing. I don't know if the

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listener understands that but maybe read [unidentified], and these kinds of things would be explained in a different perspective, but maybe more understandable, which is to say that there's little time for this kind of reflection. And

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science demands, or in many institutions and under many principal investigators, they demand that you adhere to a specific kind of investigation and you can't allow yourself too much intuition. And that's a problem. Where you come to the

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page, or you come to poetry and you're allowing for these jumps from one idea to another, seemingly disparate. But in indigenous cultures you actually find that they highly respect, revere, this kind of jumping and this kind of discovering the

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slightest relationship between seemingly disparate ideas with objects, and that makes all the difference. There's- absolutely satisfied with that small relationship. So I'm not sure if I'm answering your question.

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Morton Marcus: Well, I was just asking sort of another way, in a way isn't the scientist the continuation of the magician, the magus? Morton Marcus: The alchemist.

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Robert Pesich: Yeah. Robert Pesich: Virgil's father. And we go through this, and this is nothing new, so and then in alchemy, Vasko Popa was very much into alchemy and-

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Morton Marcus: So when we mentioned Vasko Popa out there, I'd just recently done a show on him. Vasko Popa is the great Yugoslav poet of the latter part of the 20th century. And we will, I think, be talking about him in a little while, if not

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right now. But all of his books are based on alchemical images, as well as Serbian folktales. Robert Pesich: Right, right. There is a transformation that goes on in science where you discover something and it

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changes your perspective on the world. Okay, so now we're talking about eleven dimensions with string theory and pocket universes. Whereas before it was Newton, it was just this universe, just this reality. So, that and then how- and then also

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with Einstein. Before Einstein, this idea of gravity, the ideas he presented with gravity, and light: unheard of. So there is this kind of transformation that goes on in science. And there's this transformation that goes on in poetry, a transformation of

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consciousness, and so I think occurs- or that's what the magus is trying to affect, if I'm not mistaken. Correct me if I'm wrong. Morton Marcus: I would think so. I mean, that'd be one way of

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looking at it, that it really is a transformation of conscience because you're looking at the world not just at the little world around us, but there are realities beyond realities. Robert Pesich: Right.

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Morton Marcus: Which he is bringing into- moving from, let's say, one plane or one dimension into another. Robert Pesich: Right, of course, with every- with these kinds of things, there's also introduced a curse of sorts. So you had

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mentioned earlier in the evening this idea of technology and what it's presenting. This war on terrorism, as our president is talking about, and Osama bin Laden wrought their players in some larger force, and technology is something that is

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participating as part of this larger force and what it offers, a greater information. And I'm kind of losing my train of thought. The curse being, in one way, how do we find the time for that reflection and to sit down and critically think about what

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is going on and assess the information that we have before us rather than continually and blindly moving on forward with- "forward" with what we have here. We can talk about science and all the benefits that it's offering, but there's some grave

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questions presented to us with some of these discoveries, you know, the ability to clone lambs, cats, or our pet dog. Well, I think we should sit down and think critically about what this offers us and the curses that are presented to us and-

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because this is not necessarily a completely good thing. Morton Marcus: Well, I certainly agree with you. Let's have a- we're doing a lot of talking, which is good and a lot of interesting stuff, which I hope you know, and know that people

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out there are really listening to. Let's hear another poem, one of your choice this time. Robert Pesich: Okay. Yeah, I wanted to read- I'll read this one just because it's new, an it's not safe because it make

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me feel nervous because it's ne and I like sharing stuff l ke that. I'm going to show a lit le bit of vulnerability beca se sometimes, in this poem, I th nk there there are some erro s. This is call

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BREAKING AND ENTERING Laughter in the back alley behind Joy's Beauty Box. Archangel Michael, rummaging in the dumpster, searching for the day's cut hair and nails after having broken into the salon to

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inspect the checkerboard floor and making certain he could see himself clearly in the blades of all the razors and scissors. A stray dog watches him pick black pubes from wax strips, new down for his wounded wing while the four skinny kids robbing the

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grocery next door load up their bike baskets with stakes, wine, skin, and gun mags, and cigarettes, which light instantly when touched to the street. Morton Marcus: And yet another one.

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Robert Pesich: I'll read this titled: WHILE TRAVELING While traveling from one silence to another, may we continue to follow the hummingbird aflame. Born of the stillness underneath

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our orphanage and of the ash and tears in our hair and the few words remaining today. May a slender tongue pierce the black scene behind our eyes, capsizing our little fishing boat loaded with the rare and unnamed we devour and without prayer. May

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its brief song cast from the end of the branch along the El Camino Real, cast from nowhere to no one in particular. May these songs pierce our already forgotten moment. Gather us from one depth though we might begin translating ourselves into

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another depth, which begins when we begin to suture the torn red seam, bleeding underneath our voice and intentional indifference [cut-off]. Morton Marcus: With Robert Pesich, who is a

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Serbian-American poet, and I say that because, as you will see very shortly, this has a lot to do with his work. And also it has a lot to do with his work, he is a geneticist as well as a poet. So we are back on, and why don't we start this part of the

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show with yet another poem by Robert. We've already got a phone call by someone saying they just loved what they'd heard so far, so why don't we let them hear more? Robert Pesich: Okay. Thanks for the call.

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Morton Marcus: And Jim Houston is sitting in the back of us, which is a very good sign. Robert Pesich: This is titled, "Pet Shop," and I'll just read the poem.

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PET SHOP People are wandering the aisles, looking for a pet. I'm there in the back with the silence, attending the fish and stones who know about the false currency under our tongue. Even

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though walking sticks disappear among the reeds, they know we are thieves having stolen the fruit, water, fire. Our grandmothers, our live's ash, long white braids of smoke rising into the hole in the sky leaving unrecognized by our

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children who continue trying to catch anything that moves. No loitering, do not touch, you break you pay. When no one is looking, I offer my fingertips. Gold surfaces from the dark, lips soft as an infant's ears. All day and all night, people

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tapping the glass, desire to see, to be seen. Morton Marcus: Now Robert, I want to ask you, and hope you'll answer: who is the speaker in that poem? Robert Pesich: Well, in a way, certainly I'm talking a little

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bit in that poem. I'm hoping I'm saying something that some other people might be saying for themselves as well. Maybe it's a little bit arrogant to say that I might be speaking for other people. I try to stay away from that but at the same time, I try

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to get to that. Morton Marcus: But who is the speaker in the poem, who is speaking to us? Robert Pesich: Again, I would hope that I'm coming to you from

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that poem. Morton Marcus: Because what seems to happen in this poem for me is that you become one of the animals in the pet shop. And so the glass that's being tapped on, whether it's the front of

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the shop or it's in your aquarium, you're playing with that idea. And this even- there's a joke in here with a false currency, the currents of the fish and what they're swimming on.

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Robert Pesich: Indeed. Morton Marcus: And well, the reason that I asked that question is, these poems are not as simple as they seem when you read them. They definitely are taking strange perspectives

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coming in. They're sort of like an airplane coming in at an unexpected angle, which makes the people in the control tower, the readers pull out their hair. But that's a very, very interesting perspective here and I just wanted people to be aware

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of that. Now, what I'm going to do is ask you to read the poem again because now the people out there can say, oh, I think I'm going to listen to this poem in a different way. And one of the things I love to do on the show is just introduce new different

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approaches to listeners out there. Robert Pesich: Again, this is: PET SHOP People are wandering the aisles, looking for a pet. I'm there in

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the back with the silence, attending the fish and stones who know about the false currency under our tongue. Even the walking sticks disappear among the reeds, they know we are thieves having stolen the fruit, water, fire. Our

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grandmothers, our live ash, long white braids of smoke rising into the hole in the sky leaving unrecognized by our children who continue trying to catch anything that moves. No loitering, do not touch, you break you pay. When no one is

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looking, I offer my fingertips. Gold surfaces from the dark, lips soft as an infant's ears. All day and all night, people tapping the glass, desire to see, to be seen. Morton Marcus: And that sort of gives us worlds within worlds

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and continually in poems of yours that I've read, this becomes a continuous image, as well as a continuous things, things within things. We've even seen the hands of the granddaughter, and the hands of the grandfather, hands within

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hands, wings within wings. So it becomes a continuous thing and out there, listen for this as it continues to go on. And when you say even the walking sticks disappear among the reeds, they know we are thieves having stolen the fruit, water, fire.

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This is definitely an environmental comment on us as humans, as human animals in the pet shop of this planet. Robert Pesich: That's right. Descartes gave us a lot of good stuff. But in the end, you know, a lot of that was appropriated

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for this homocentrism and his domination of the planet. I think therefore, I am -- what bunk? That's completely bunk. You know, dolphins, don't tell me that they don't weep. Elephants walking around in circles around their fallen? I

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don't know. What are they doing? They're certainly not, you know, working with the satellites. That's all bunk and so I feel my allegiance to things, to plants, to animals. Morton Marcus: And this gets us back to what we were talking

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about with shamans and maguses before because you are working in an area where you're working in another area with satellites, because it is science and it is science going into technology. So you're sort of caught in the middle of this whole situation.

00:37:47.490 - 00:38:02.520

Does that make you uncomfortable, young man? Robert Pesich: It makes me uncomfortable, you know, to be separated, working in a cinderblock room in a basement for hours on end. You don't know if it's raining, you don't know

00:38:02.520 - 00:38:24.300

if it's sunny, you don't hear birds, you don't hear the wind. You know, it's uncomfortable, and then you know there is animal research that goes on. I feel privileged and I take pride in knowing that the research subjects that I'm working with

00:38:24.330 - 00:38:41.020

are humans, you know, we take breast tumors for example, and do the research on that. It is something that is hard to reconcile, very difficult to reconcile as a poet. Morton Marcus: Then I take it you have heroes who are poets

00:38:41.500 - 00:38:58.540

and who give you their own blue sky and freedom to walk. And who are some of the influences on you that you can name? Robert Pesich: Well, Miroslav Holub, and his book, "Vanishing Lung Syndrome," gave me a point of reference, it gave me a lot

00:38:58.540 - 00:39:16.990

of permission. He wrote about hemophilia, I thought that was great. Okay, and so just on a basic level, here's something in science that can be translated to how we look at our cities or urban life and then other poets-

00:39:17.020 - 00:39:30.970

Morton Marcus: Let's stop there for a second for the readers out there- listeners out there, say readers, you see where I'm going with this. Robert just mentioned a Czech poet who has had some very nice translations into English. He writes in very

00:39:30.970 - 00:39:40.600

simple language, or wrote, alas, he has died but he was a pathologist- Robert Pesich: Immunologist. Morton Marcus: Oh, he was an immunologist, just like you

00:39:40.600 - 00:39:53.380

then? Robert Pesich: Yeah, I have my strength in immunology. Morton Marcus: Yeah. And so he would write out of the scientific view of things, and you can go to the library and

00:39:53.380 - 00:40:03.970

you certainly- I'm sure you can look on Amazon.com or even ask at Bookshop Santa Cruz for listings of his books and you can get them. There are around four or five of them. I think they're done by Field Press.

00:40:04.120 - 00:40:10.330

Robert Pesich: Right. Morton Marcus: And the book- one of the books I have by Penguin, "East European Writers," great, great book. Robert Pesich: Yeah.

00:40:10.960 - 00:40:17.890

Morton Marcus: Okay, go on. Robert Pesich: And then there's- what was it, the generation of '28 in Spain? Morton Marcus: In Spain, yeah, '27.

00:40:17.240 - 00:40:24.260

Okay and these poets, including Holub, really do have a Robert Pesich: '27, fantastic generation. I mean, there was just a field of flowers mowed down. I mean, you had Lorca and surrealistic turn.

00:40:24.320 - 00:40:42.420

Right, they do. then the elders -- Machado, Una uno, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Miguel ernandez -- Lorca was gr at for me. Everything I read had somethi

00:40:44.220 - 00:41:05.880

Morton Marcus: And they work. And I know that it is a very, very strong influence on East European poetry and especially your Yugoslav poetry, before the war and afterwards, and a poet we both adore.

00:41:05.940 - 00:41:12.960

Robert Pesich: Yeah. Morton Marcus: It was the great Vasko Popa we mentioned before. Robert Pesich: Yeah. Morton Marcus: That is very apparent in these poems and the

00:41:12.960 - 00:41:26.610

turns they suddenly take even in, "Safeway," from standing in the vegetable bin to the sudden turn of relationship between this old man and his daughters. With this in mind, let's read another one real quick.

00:41:26.880 - 00:41:45.630

Robert Pesich: Another one. TIME OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN Time of the headless horseman delivering midnight mail, little brown boxes full of dried eyelids fluttering inside to the

00:41:45.630 - 00:42:08.520

sound of the voice. "Time now to answer the door. Time when our home hides inside its dirty dead bolt. Time to admit, Baba Yaga has not left our neck of the woods. Time for you to count the number of baby teeth hanging around the neck of your night,"

00:42:08.880 - 00:42:25.470

says the card on the box. They eat through the lid, fly straight for your breath, the eyelids, eating away your face, eating away your name as you sleep. Morton Marcus: And the name of that one again?

00:42:26.190 - 00:42:34.560

Robert Pesich: "Time of the Headless Horseman." Morton Marcus: And this is a Halloween poem. You are the terror of childhood. Robert Pesich: Terror of childhood indeed, yeah.

00:42:34.560 - 00:42:58.290

Morton Marcus: Why don't you read it again and say a few words about it. Robert Pesich: What shall I say? Are we in a horrible situation at this time and who are we being led by, or are we allowed

00:42:58.290 - 00:43:27.960

to lead us, this country and as a leader of the world? Yeah, so this is somewhat of a political poem. And I'm disgusted with the vision that Wolfowitz and Firth are presenting and I feel that it's leading us into catastrophe after catastrophe:

00:43:28.620 - 00:43:50.370

TIME OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN Time of the headless horseman delivering midnight mail, little brown boxes full of dried eyelids fluttering inside to the sound of the voice. "Time now to answer the door. Time when our

00:43:50.370 - 00:44:14.850

home hides inside its dirty dead bolt. Time to admit Baba Yaga has not left our neck of the woods. Time for you to count the number of baby teeth hanging around the neck of your night," says the card on the box. They eat through the lid, fly

00:44:14.850 - 00:44:37.650

straight for your breath, the eyelids, eating away your face, eating away your name as you sleep. Morton Marcus: Robert, obviously you have read a lot of poems in translation just by the poets that you've named. Robert Frost

00:44:37.650 - 00:44:57.070

once said that poetry is what gets lost in translation. Do you agree with that and- Robert Pesich: To some degree you can't bring the entire poem say from the Spanish into English, you can bring some

00:44:57.070 - 00:45:17.470

aspect of the poem into English and hopefully what you bring in is some accurate representation of that poem. There's some argument that that could be a unique poem unto itself. But I still think it's a poem, if it's successfully done it- if you

00:45:17.470 - 00:45:47.890

can, have the reader begin to think in some way, and with a Spanish mind or Croatian mind or Serbian perspective. Or if you can bring some of that imagery through, I think then you can claim some amount of success. I don't think it's an excuse not

00:45:47.890 - 00:46:06.190

to read poems from other countries, that's bunk too. That's pure simple laziness, and maybe you could say that's imperialist, you know, arrogance, on the part of that person who says, you know, I'm just going to read the poem that

00:46:06.190 - 00:46:16.930

I find in English. Morton Marcus: I would, you know, and one of the reasons I'm thinking about this is that the new poet laureate of the United States has made the statement -- and I certainly hope it was

00:46:16.930 - 00:46:29.320

ironic -- that he has never read any foreign poems, or any poems by foreign language poets. So I felt that in this day and age, that was rather astonishing. Robert Pesich: Indeed, it is. I think it's an affront to all of

00:46:29.320 - 00:46:46.360

those people who are here in this country from other places across the planet. This is a heterogeneous country, all walks of life, and to make such a statement is really a poke in the eye to all those other people. How dare this kind of

00:46:46.360 - 00:47:06.580

consciousness be present from a poet? There is much to be gained from other perspectives that you can incorporate into your own vision. I didn't know about Duende, then I found Lorca and I followed that silver thread. And, you know, oh, this is

00:47:06.580 - 00:47:31.060

Duende, and, "Theory and Play of Duende," that was a great essay. I read that essay repeatedly, you know, two, three times a year and it helped find myself. We're here about the other, we're here about trying to embrace the other. I think such

00:47:31.060 - 00:47:39.580

remarks as what Frost said gets in the way of that. I'd like to read: BLUES OF THE HOW-TO Morton Marcus: Sure, go ahead.

00:47:41.370 - 00:48:03.210

Robert Pesich: How does the hummingbird sing inside the stone? At what time will the bricks adjourn their meeting? How many unmailed letters fit in a matchbox? And what else will this silence burn besides my bed? How to quit this habit of

00:48:03.210 - 00:48:22.140

smoking the other? How to trip and fall in order to stand holding on to nothing? Just one word from the anti-fist is enough. Listen to its song, appearing in the other's eyes, shape of the dawn, following night's cindered lip.

00:48:24.090 - 00:48:35.240

Morton Marcus: Great. We have a couple more minutes, why don't you read some poems that you definitely wanted to read. Robert Pesich: I'll read this for my wife: OLD MOUNTAIN

00:48:39.440 - 00:48:59.270

The mountain invites the lightning to pierce its face, and the body was made to be plowed with a tongue. I can't help but press my chest against the green blade of your name that cuts a path through the day's walls to the silence that

00:48:59.270 - 00:49:14.280

accompanies blood and blue, and the horizons in the horizon of our newborn breath. Morton Marcus: And, of course, that is a love poem but again, notice, "The horizons in the horizons of our newborn breath,"

00:49:14.310 - 00:49:30.360

this is a image you keep coming back to, the Russian doll, boxes within boxes, worlds within worlds. That's certainly scientific, when we were talking about the eleven dimensions at dinner. It's not a one-dimensional world anymore,

00:49:31.050 - 00:49:50.730

or even a three-dimensional world. Go on, please. Robert Pesich: BLASPHEMOUS PILGRIM It is not enough to know that there are cypresses leaning over the cliffs in their continual births. Nor is it enough to know

00:49:51.000 - 00:50:13.170

how to build Neruda's boat out of burning matches and newspaper, how to apply the silences with unanswered questions with color photos of the emptiness to a horizon of black and white under an unabridged sky. May the wind

00:50:13.200 - 00:50:36.210

teach me how to write the first word of your breath tonight, shape of the sea and the river entering each other, accompanied by the cries of the turns, announcing the continual arrival of a pilgrim clothed in scabs and dreams. In your chapel of

00:50:36.210 - 00:50:52.830

moonlight, the sound of your voice in the breaking waves setting my idols ablaze. Morton Marcus: And I'll kind of tell the readers out there this is a poem in six tercets, that is in six three-line stanzas.

00:50:54.060 - 00:51:11.490

When he says, "it is not enough," that rhetorical structure occurs in the first three stanzas, then there is a one-line break with the word "unabridged" in it, which is really a bridge to the next three stanzas, which complete

00:51:11.490 - 00:51:26.730

the poem with a different tone and approach. So you missed that by not looking on the page here, reader. Robert doesn't miss it, he's looking at it right now. But very, very interesting how that structure on the page works.

00:51:27.790 - 00:51:57.520

Robert Pesich: Yeah. I love the sea and I come here frequently. It's a special place and I particularly appreciate the cypresses and how they lean in precariously, or how they grow precariously on the cliffs or on rocks. And that's just an aside

00:51:57.520 - 00:52:09.380

to this poem. Morton Marcus: Great. We got time for one more. Oh, you got one you do want to- Robert Pesich: Yeah, I was in LA a couple years ago to visit my

00:52:09.380 - 00:52:30.710

brother who was studying down in UCLA. And you know, LA is an interesting place, and I'm not fond of big cities. And I'll read this much to the chagrin of my wife as she says, I fancy toilets and I do, toilets are an interesting structure. I gave a

00:52:30.710 - 00:52:42.800

reading once on a toilet. Morton Marcus: You can ask- have you ever thought of this, you can ask a human being what he would rather have: a pyramid or a toilet? And the answer will be the same all the time.

00:52:43.370 - 00:52:57.080

Robert Pesich: Indeed. So I want to thank you again for having me on the show. And I want to thank all of you for listening and I suppose we'll conclude it with: A WINDOW IN THE CITY

00:52:59.970 - 00:53:19.410

I was in the back in the bathroom, reading The Times on the toilet. A small article under a yellow nightlight because the switch was blown. Old woman finds infant in dumpster, revives him with songs. It was then that I could

00:53:19.410 - 00:53:43.110

hear someone knocking on the neglected window in the corner above my face, a small bird, dark as my eyes returning to her chicks. The nest wedged against the hinge, keeping the window open with its woven mouth of mud, grass, and tangled cassette

00:53:43.110 - 00:54:10.050

tape. Holding my voice, a few words, a brief song made useful. Tiny ligature of a greater voice that brings me to the window. Black back alley, bricks, dumpster and sour diesel. The birds resting in my breath while outside someone shatters. A

00:54:10.050 - 00:54:28.220

glass or a mirror under a brief snow of blossoms floating down from somewhere. Morton Marcus: And that was Robert Pesich, the wonderful poet who I should also tell you is the vice president of the San

00:54:28.220 - 00:54:40.150

Jose- I have that here somewhere- Robert Pesich: The Poetry Center. Morton Marcus: The San Jose Poetry Center, and who also ha just won a Silicon Valley priz this year. So, congratulations

00:54:40.150 - 00:54:51.640

Robert Robert Pesich: Thank you. Morton Marcus: Next Tuesday, I just want to remind you Lola Haskins and Frank Gaspar will be reading at the Poetry Santa Cruz

00:54:52.480 - 00:55:12.220

readings at the Bookshop Santa Cruz starting at 7:30. And on that same night at the Santa Cruz Art League Playhouse, wit William Minor, David Thorne, an yours truly will be reading that is 7:30 there at the Sant Cruz Art League. But right now

00:55:12.430 - 00:55:29.380

stay tuned for "From t e Bookshelf" by Billie- hosted by Billie Harris. And tonight, a I said Mr. Santa Cruz Literatu e, James D. Houston to read f om his latest book, really a won erful biography of the great Haw iian musician, Eddie Kamae, and

00:55:29.380 - 00:55:42.010

it's called, "Hawaiian Sun." So o stay tuned for the next hal hour and listen to really one of our outstanding writers wit a huge national reputation. Thi Mort Marcus, see in three wee s.