>> So we are talking about Robert Creeley's very famous, much anthologized poem, I Know a Man. And usually Creeley's associated with the Black Mountain School of Poetry but Creeley was someone who really helped form the community or as he put it, the company of, of New American Poets and crossing communities. And in this poem he seems to have some kind of relationship with, with the beat poetry. And we just needed to do Creeley in this course, so we have Creeley. It doesn't perfectly fit. For instance the lines are not long, for one thing. Okay, so we have this poem and what, what's happening? Is he, he unlike a lot of Creeley poems, he's telling about something that was seen, here. Molly what, where are we? >> I'm not sure where we are but he's talking about a conversation that he had with a friend. >> Mm-hm. But we do know where he is. >> Well, I guess they are in a car. >> The two of them, there in a car, yeah. They are driving somewhere. Okay. Emily why do you like this poem so much? >> Maybe the laughter and that sort of Harvard reading is sort of a little pretentious, but it is. >> Oh, you're referring to one of the many recordings we have on PennSound of creatively reading this poem and one of them is at Harvard. >> Yes. I understand. >> And the Harvard audience laughs at the end. Why do you think they laugh? >> Well, because there's, there's something of a punchline as this person, the way I read it is he's going on this sort of existential, philosophical jag behind the wheel of this. >> Who's he? >> The speaker of the poem. >> All right. Mm-hm. >> Yeah. And he's this sort of. >> Who's he talking to? >> A man he either knows or doesn't know. Someone he thinks he knows, but doesn't know that well. >> So who's driving? >> The speaker of the poem. >> The speaker. So presumably, John is in the passenger seat. >> Yeah. >> Or someone. >> John. >> John as it were. Yeah. >> Yeah. And. >> Mm-hm. And what's the punchline? >> The punchline is he's wondering what do we do in the, in the darkness? What do we deploy against the, the sort of uncertainty and sadness, and? >> Mm-hm. >> And he's sort of already deployed it, hasn't he? He has the car, he's in the car, he's driving. And sort of by asking those questions, he incapacitates himself from actually fighting the answers. >> Oh, you went, you went big right away. Why do you think they left? >> Because we all sort of know someone like this, right? It's who asks these questions but doesn't attend to, someone who has all the philosophical parts, but none of the practical parts. >> Mm-hm. >> Or he does but he forgets about it, and. >> Mm hm. >> He has to drive the car rather than just talk about the car. >> So John, or whoever this other person is, is reminding him of what? >> That he's alive. That he's a body. That he exists in the world, rather than just in his mind. >> Okay. Amaris, your thought on this? >> I like the emotional intensity of it, and the uncertainty that Emily was talking about. And I liked, also, the way each of the ends of the line seems to turn, so that you have to. Especially, like, because I am. And then, I am always talking. >> Mm-hm. >> Seems sort of a qualifier for that. >> So, Creeley, Creeley not only situates this on the page that demands your attention in a William Carlos Williams sort of way. But he also performs it with a great break, even if the grammar suggests. Enjoyment, yeah? And so lets take an example. As I said to my friend because I am always talking, what do the break suggest? >> Modernism there is a relationship of ownership here that there is an exchange going on between him and him his friend and revelation is perhaps defined by the talking by that exchange in his expression. >> Mh-hm, Mh-hm. Talking, I mean, one of the ways in which this does fit in the conversation we're having about beat poetry is the talking, the always talking. The yakety-yaketing of Ginsberg and his friends crossing, particularly in the situation where they're crossing the country back and forth. >> Not going anywhere but going somewhere fast. Does that have anything in relation to what Creeley is saying or may be even satirizing in this poem? Max, any idea about that? I'm always talking. >> It's, it reminded me a little bit of, actually, of the Cid Corman poem that we read earlier. In that, he's just filling in this, this space. Maybe even that's, the darkness that surrounds him. What, you know, it's not about buying a car. That's not the way that you sort of fight that back, or rather, fill in that space. >> But in the Corman poem, he needs us. >> He needs us. Here he. >> I'm not so sure it's clear he needs John. >> He might not even need John. He doesn't even know his name. >> He doesn't even know his name. Molly, what's the relationship between the speaker and this other person? And is this other person maybe a stand in for us? I don't know. >> I mean the other person is, is there but. And is, is there to listen it seems but is not necessarily. Like, on the same page as the speaker. And the other person, maybe he's a little more grounded. You know, he's the one that. This is why I think it, it is satirized at the end where the, the other person has to say, look out where you're going. >> Satirizing what? What position or what personality's being satirized? >> Satirizing that incessantly talking that, that. >> The chattering monkey thief, you know, on speed, talking existential talk. >> Not so sure. >> Maybe we could put it differently? >> Yeah, go ahead, Emily. >> So we had talked about Kerouac, and how sort of the mantra or the doctrine of this people is to do, to just go without hesitation, and so he's talking about it, and it seems like that sort of, that. Command, just drive. Look out where you're going is telling him to do and go rather than just talk about doing it. >> Okay. So that's the beat position? >> Wouldn't it be? Yeah. >> Mm-hm. And so what's Creeley, what's the speaker's position? >> Does he know his position yet? Can we say that with. >> Well he asked the question, what can we do against it? There seem to be two options. Dave, popular what are, what are some of the options about what we can do against it? >> I don't think that it's posed, because there is an answer. I think that the poem is saying the beat generation tries to make themselves receptive to everything by going so fast. They're getting images quick, here and there. And, he's so confused by it all. He wants to buy a big car, even though he's reminded he's in a car. And, he's basically. In the end saying, look out where you're going. You, you, you're not seeing everything. >> Who's saying that? >> Well, John is saying that but John is a common name to. >> The passenger. >> John might be a stand in for you know, the whole populace that Kerouac was talking to. >> Okay, so we, we really do have some options here. What can we do against it or else shall we? Alright. First of all what can we do against it before we consider whether we should do against it? What can we do against it? What are the options in this poem? >> It seems like the options to me are either talk or drive. >> Talk or drive, right. And, can we abstract? Talk or drive or what or what? >> Think or do. >> Think or do. Mm-hm. >> Which of the two does the poem as a poem ally itself. With sorry, with which of the two does the poem ally itself? >> I think speaking but in this very concentrated sense, right? Driving allows, provides a space of enclosure and containment for these two passengers. And it kind of forces them to converge on their differences. >> How else does it align itself with speaking? >> Its, its words. >> Its words. It's a poem. >> To what extent does it ally itself with driving? I love this, nobody knows. >> Well, he's kind of, throughout the entire, you realize in the last stanza when you have the voice of the passenger kind of saying, you like. >> Reality, ma'am, we're in the car. >> Yeah, You kind of, I mean, driving is such a, second hand action or it's something that's so easy to kind of just do without thinking. It's that you can go on auto, auto driver. >> I suppose. Okay. >> And so it seems as if he's just kind of on this auto drive mode and he has to have someone kind of like pull him out of it and be like. >> So you're, the writing of the poem in an auto drive mode suggests that it's more Kerouacian than Creeley. >> But I don't, I mean yeah, it could mean that but I also. >> Yeah, but I want to ask another question which is how, in what other way is it possible for us to say that this poem aligns itself with driving as an answer to what we can do against the darkness? We've said, I think eloquently, how the poem aligns itself with talking as an option, but to what extent does it align itself with driving? >> Well I think like in driving there's a certain road that is provided and everyone has to follow the lanes and the rules and the lines of that. But here he provides swerves with his. >> Swerves. >> With his line breaks. >> Yeah he sure does. This thing is, this is how do you characterize the flow of this speech. >> Characterize it. >> Yeah. How, how, how do you describe it? It's. >> Halting. >> It's halting. It's in the, the way that Creeley famously performs it. It's vulnerable. It's anxious. >> I mean as where a lot of poets tend you know, when they have line breaks, but no punctuation at the end of line breaks, a lot of times they'll flow. Like if I had never heard Creeley I might say, as I said to my friend, because I'm always talking. >> Right. >> John as, you know. >> In fact William Carlos Williams famously wrote this way, but read, as if he didn't do the lineation. >> Okay. >> Creeley is very conscious, about part of his affiliation with projective verse. >> Mm-hm. >> Which we're not going to go into but, you know the, well, it's very important to him to seek a form of the poem that does what it needs to do for the moment. I guess I'm going to answer my own question. This is the first time I think, in, in, in, in our knowing each other. I really think it goes back to Clark Coolidge's quoting blacho on movement in writing. I think this, this poem is driving, this poem is driving. It's, it's, it's, it's following its digressive thought. As I said to my friend, because I'm always talking, he hasn't told us what he said to his friend before he tells us, because he's always talking. And he starts over, John, I said but that wasn't his name, which was not his name. He's, every step forward is, it leads to a digression in some other way. He's clearly not driving forward. >> The poem is doing that kind of writing and movement thing we've seen in Kerouac. And that is a way in which this kind of writing, let's call it New American poetry or let's just call it Beat Poetry for the minute, can be something we can do against the darkness of the current, of current life, of American life, of how we feel. >> Or even against, or even against talking. I mean, if this poem was really talking. >> Then it would be something a little bit more like Kerouac where it would be just like free association, then just like talking and talking and talking. >> But I think I'm saying that I think it's a lot like that. It just doesn't look that way. But the other question is, so I've been asking what can we do against it and whether you know, which talking or driving is something we can do against it the darkness? But then he says, or else shall we, or else shall we, or else shall we do something against it. What's that option mean? Shall we even bother to do something against it? Shall we drive into the darkness? Shall we accept the existential crisis? And why not? Do what? Why not what? >> Either. >> Yes. I know what it said. I know the poem says buy a god damn big car but what does that mean, Amaris? >> I think it starts out with this very simple you and I exchange going on but here it starts with a we that's going on and an emphasis on looking out and looking at where you, where you can go together once you've arrived at maybe some commonality. >> Anybody else want to talk about the god damn big car? Why not buy a god damn big car? What's he talking about now? >> This seems to, the, the God damn big car seems to be this sort of bourgeois suburban aspiration to, to start a family. You get your big car, you get your house. >> It could be. >> So why not just, why not just sell-out? >> It could mean that, it could mean that. >> Ford's, Ford's Cadillac like that across. >> In other words maybe we should, maybe the way, or it's a jalopy. It's a god damn big car that's, that, that we paid $26 for. >> I feel like that's what he's already driving right now. >> Yeah, maybe. >> [laugh] >> He's talking about. >> But maybe, I tend to agree, nobody's really concluded this for sure about this poem, which is much talked about. Buy a god damn big car, one of the things we can do against the darkness is to sell out, I think is what you're saying. And then it's at that point that the passenger who is essentially know a cypher, just a, a passenger. Says, you know, you're in this car now. We are here now as Emily was saying. And you probably ought to drive it or the existential crisis is going to get a lot worse. >> [laugh] >> Emily, final word? Maybe you just want to repeat what you said at the beginning? >> I think you said it well. It's, it's just touching. It brings him from this place of abstraction to this place of sort of concrete physical existence. And rather than that being confining or, or scary or dark, it becomes some type of solace. It answers this sort of, scary question that he asks himself. Good, I'm going to give Molly the final word. Why do you like this poem so much? >>, What has it do for you? >> I like it because it incorporates that urge to talk, and to drive, and to go but it also comes back to reality at the end. >> And you like the reality, coming back to reality at the end? You're not, you're not really ready to. >> [laugh] >> Hit the road? >> [laugh] I'm not sure where I am. >> Okay. >> But I like to know that's there. >> We'll, in another session, we'll talk about where you are. >> [laugh] >> For now, I think we've done a good job on that.
