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HOST:
MIT Communications Forum
A Conversation with Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky
February 23, 2006
5:30 PM
LOCATION:
Bartos Theater
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| A Conversation with Robert Pinsky |
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SPEAKER:
Robert Pinsky
Professor of English, Boston University
Former U.S. Poet Laureate
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ABOUT THE LECTURE:
There’s much to please the literate listener in this feast of spoken (and sung) words.
First, Robert Pinsky and his composer collaborator Tod Machover offer a glimpse of their opera-in-progress, Death and the Powers. A story about the evolution of humans, Pinsky reassures that it won’t be “a trite Frankenstein story.”
David Thorburn guides the subsequent conversation, with an occasional poke here and there for his old friend and graduate school classmate. They discuss the rationale behind Pinsky’s Favorite Poem Project, where ordinary Americans read their favorite poems. Says Pinsky, “We’re establishing a true elite of people who understand a poem, can incorporate it and read it aloud in a way that other people can perceive it, against the false elite of people who get tenure at Yale or Harvard or BU and often don’t know anything about what a poem actually is.” Pinsky describes the difficulty of writing a good poem: “You’re much more like trying to keep an airplane in the air or save the patient. You’re desperately trying to make something that works.”
He reads from a recent book of prose, The Life of David. The character “is a killer and poet, artist and politician, a terrible and great person.” Pinsky is “interested in the yin and yang, the quality of David to be all of the above and of Jews to be all of the above,” which is related in his mind “to the ambition of writing a kind of poetry where anything can be included.”
Thorburn and Pinsky reminisce about their Stanford teacher, Yvor Winters, whose poetry inspired a Pinsky parody, including the following couplet: “I now insert a seedless roll into/ My lunchbox, but I shall be shortly through.”
About contemporary poetry, Pinsky notes: Lots of people want to write poetry, but are afraid of being clumsy….I feel every time I write I’m risking seeming stupid, banal. You have to confront your own ambivalence.” As for writing a good poem, “it’s like
this: You have to climb a mountain, find your way through a maze, get to the field that has the tree in it, climb up to the top of the tree and wait for a thunderstorm. Then it’s easy once you’re hit by lightning. You go through a lot of froufrou before you get there.”
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Robert Pinsky is poetry editor of the online journal Slate and is the author of several books including Jersey Rain, a collection of his poems, and the prose book The Life of David.
During Pinsky’s tenure as Poet Laureate of the United States, (1997-2000) he created the Favorite Poem Project to document, promote, and celebrate poetry’s place in American culture. Several anthologies grew out of this venture, including most recently An Invitation to Poetry, which features a DVD containing many of the project videos.
Pinsky received his B.A. from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Pinsky's Boston University webpage
Favorite Poem Project website
NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index):
Video length is 1:53:44.
David Thorburn, Director, MIT Communications Forum, introduces the event and speakers.
At 2:31, Tod Machover and Robert Pinsky set up a video clip of their opera collaboration, “Death & the Powers.”
At 7:52, the three-minute excerpt begins.
At 11:01, Thorburn begins a conversation with the collaborators.
At 23:28, Machover leaves.
At 23:35, Thorburn commences a conversation with Robert Pinsky on his diverse portfolio.
At 24:10, Pinsky introduces a video clip from the Favorite Poem Project: Braintree, MA resident John Doherty reading Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”
At 30:32, Pinsky describes the production context for the videos.
At 31:21, Thorburn asks about the democratic implications of the Favorite Poem Project.
At 37:00, Thorburn runs a second video clip from the Favorite Poem Project: Lexington, MA resident Katherine Mechling reads Theodore Roethke’s “The Sloth.”
At 38:30, conversation resumes around Pinsky’s evolution as a poet.
At 48:32: Pinsky reads his poem “Shirt.”
At 51:55, Thorburn inquires about Pinsky’s prose book, “Life of David.”
At 1:00:50, Pinsky reads from “Life of David.”
At 1:06:31, Thorburn invites questions from the audience.
At 1:10:42, Thorburn and Pinsky reminisce about taking courses with the poet Yvor Winters at Stanford.
At 1:47:57, Pinsky reads a new, untitled poem.
At 1:52:18, Pinsky reads “Door.”
The information on this page was accurate as of the day the video was added to MIT World. This video was added to MIT World on 2006-05-15.
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