>> So, let's talk a little more about the current and the flood. First of all, you know, there's a saying about water. Anybody know anything about rebuilding New Orleans? What happened after the flood there? Anybody know anything about floods like, the army core engineer goes, engineers goes in and it stops water from going where it wants to go. Let's, Max, what's your thought about that? How difficult that is? How crazy that is? >> It's incredibly difficult and the water ah, broke ah, the dike to begin with. And so, it's, it's temporary. It's a temporary solution. It's only a matter of time before ah, whatever the solution is, whatever they have to contain the, the current. The flood is ah, [inaudible] again. >> So, the natural state of things is that water will go where it goes. >> Yes. >> It find its own level. Anna, your thought on this? >> Well, I mean, it's, it's, I, I agree with Max. That sort of like doing the project like from the beginning to try and not to stop water from where it wants to go. It's kind of. >> So, now obviously, yes so, so the army core engineer, anybody who builds a dam or a dike is essentially holding off something that is probably the most powerful thing that we know in nature. It will, it will take all artificial human structures and eventually find its way to destroy it or to fight it. Okay. And now [unknown], what's Emily saying about thinking? >> That your brain is going to go where it wants to go. >> The brain cannot. stop. >> You cannot stop it. >> It cannot be stopped. So, constrain is the equivalent of the artifice of the dam or the dike or the re-routing of the river. So now, let's look at this comparison, But let a Splinter swerve, 'Twere easier for you to stop the water in a flood. Easier than what? >> Than to remain true to the course that you began on. >> Okay. So, it would be easier. So, it's pretty damn hard. It's easier to put the flood back after Katrina than is to stop your brain from thinking the thoughts, the B after you're suppose to be thinking of A, easier to go somewhere else. Is she advocating that we let the brain go somewhere else? And if so, how? Tough for us. >> I think so in the context o f our, our last poem for talking about possibility and we should let the brain go wild. >> So she's advocating that wildness. Is there any evidence in rhetoric, vocabulary structure, form. >> I think um, the but is extremely important um, because that is the moment where the initial um, image that she sets up is interrupted. So in a way, the but kind of acts as this pointer um, in the poem. >> So the brain within it's crew, goes down evenly and true. But, but, just think of something else. You will abandon your metaphor and it would be easier to retreat from that new, that abandonment and go back to where you were. It would be actually easier to do that than it would be to put a current of a flood back to where it was. After it had slit the hills, a reference to just naturally or naturally speaking slitting hills. >> The flash flood, Canyon. >> Landslide. >> Canyons, flash floods, [unknown], these are places where the water will go when the flood takes place and the hills have been slit, And scooped the Turnpike for Themselves, I guess another reference to that turnpike would be, Anna. >> 276. >> Oh, you're thinking of highways. >> [laugh] >> I mean, technique here refers to a kind of groove except that it's me but flood, the turnpike for themselves. And trodden out the Mills, trodden. Whose got trodden? I think somebody in here. Ann Maris. >> Yes. Tell us about trodden. >> Um, it seems to me with the sort of weariness or reluctance. But, in this case, since it's bringing out the mills um, that's a way to yield um, positive. >> Well, just give me a synonym for trodden. It's an unusual word. >> Um. >> Probably is a word. >> Mm-hm. >> Related to trod. >> Using this context well. >> What's that? >> It's kind of unusual use in this context. >> Yeah. But, what does it mean? Somebody provide a synonym. Dave? >> Stand up. >> Stand up. >> Stop them. >> Stop them, trodden. Trodden out is the near logism here. The invented thing is the [unknown] trodden out. I'm not sure that anybody's ever used that until now, trodden out. And, so, are you ready Max for Mills? You know, tell us about Mills. >> Well a mill here, ah, a mill that would be um, sitting along a river or a creek. It would harness the energy of the water, of the current. >> Oh, so mill produces power. >> The mill produces power to make [inaudible] or various. >> Other than a mill that derives it's power from water, is there any other kind of mill? >> The windmill. >> Windmill. >> Absolutely. >> So, this is not a windmill, this is not, this is New England of the 19th century where mills are primary economic structure. And where do we put mills? You started the sentence. >> Ah, along the river, a creek or, or a body of water or a current. >> Cuz.. >> Because it harness the energy. >> How? >> By letting the, the current turn the wheel. >> Current turns the wheel, wheel turns another wheel and what happens is, you grind the grain. >> Mm-hm. >> Or you do, you produce some kind of energy prior to electricity. So, you need mills to manufacture, need mills to be economically what mill is, or was. >> Yes. >> Okay. But now, the mills have been trodden, trodden out. So, what's the state of things? The mills are gone. >> Maybe iii to reconstruct [inaudible] now those turnpike exists. >> Sure. We always rebuild. We rebuild. We rebuild New Orleans, arguably, the way it way even though probably we should never built it there in the first place because there's inevitably going to be, not only floats but second thoughts if I can out it that way, according to this poem. But anyway, so, the entire basis, the entire structure, the entire business plan and concept for New England has been trodden out and we're going to rebuild the mills. Except, where are we going to put them? This is so profound. Where are we going to put them? Anna? Molly? >> Add a new turnpike? >> Yeah. The only way you can do it is move the mill to where the floods are now, where the water moves now. Do you think that Emily Dickinson is skeptical about this? What? Ann Maris? >> Positive, maybe . Skepticism because um, it's inevitable that others [inaudible] but that seems to reference that. >> I think she's okay with that. I think she's okay with that. >> Yeah. >> She's okay with this destruction. It's the destruction of a system that was based on the notion that you could build something permanent next to something permanent and expect them to stay where it is. But what's changing is the way the mind works. >> Well, it will even make it more like a meta-poetic with it. >> We could go. We can do that. >> If we can go there, I mean, if she's talking about the destruction of a system or destruction of form, you can think about the way that she's actually constructed this poem which is in two, four line stanzas. The rhyme is A, D, C, B in both stanzas. But, she's messing with it because she's got this dashes and she's got this capitalization, so the form is there. And if you take away the dash and take away the capitalization, it's actually relatively, I mean, if you just, if you don't think about what it means, it's relatively traditional. But she's uncertain with this capitalization, these dashes, and she's really messing with, she's kind of destroying the form that so many people of her time still used. >> And if you were to diagram the structure of the metaphors here, the conceits, they would go off the end. >> Mm-hm. >> They would, they never circle back. They never form a completion. In fact, but, as Alison is saying since the whole poem off the side, and then the comparison that it would be easier for you to do all the rest of this. To, to train the floods that slit the hills, scoop the turnpike for themselves and knock down the whole economic structure of my native land. What would be more powerful than that, this is only a comparison. What would be more powerful than that is, or more difficult is to try and put the brain back to thinking the way it used to think. This is about unconventional thinking. This is about being open to ah, something unpredictable. >> poets aren't going to think the same way after, harder than Walt.. >> Right, you're really being meta-poetic. >> [laugh] >> In thinking about this poem, is predictive of the kind of influence. She's unleashing a flood. And it's the flood of a mind that goes where it wants to go and of a poem that allows itself to go where the form is going to take it even if it violates conventions of conceits, of consistent conceits. It's going to go anywhere it wants to. This is about letting the mind go where it wants to, within form. Alright, so let's think together a little bit about the implications of this. This is very powerful. >> Ann Maris, your thought on this? What, what's, I'm obviously excited about this, I think it's very powerful, do you agree? >> Um, yes. I think it embodies the, that paradox dazzling gradually that we talked about in previous poem. Um, sort of it [unknown] this idea of partial truths in succession. And, it's up to the reader to find this new turnpike for him or herself. Um, it's my general take away. >> Good. Any other thoughts on this? Why do you like this, Dave? >> I think she's saying, be open to new ideas. Always be submissive to new ideas and let them take you where they may. If you try to ignore it, it might do damage to [inaudible]. >> Max? And, and, and if there's, I think it's Anna was suggesting there are still some, some structure that remains. It's still, it's still a house house of possibility when it's this, built. It has rooms even though it's, it's an expensive one, it still contain [inaudible]. >> The [unknown] , it's an impossible one that's to, it's impossible but it's about possibility. It's very hard to conceive of the actuality of these conceits all added together, particularly here. I conceit, I see a train slowly swirling off it's tracks, the tracks disappear. Now, we have a flood, we've got a new direction, a new A and B. And then, we've destroyed the, in the box thinking that allow us to harness power. The, this is like a classic Dickensonian notion that the most powerful thing we have is the brain. It's more powerful even than water. Much later in the course, on Chapter 2, we're going to be looking about a Tender Buttons poem by Gertrude Stein which is about water. And she plays with the same, kind of unpredictability of water and water becomes the metaphor for improvisation. You know, I teach this poem to business people. And it takes a long time, it takes about 50 minutes and we get to the end. And what they say on their terms is, this is about out of the box thinking. This is, one of them said recently, this is about how a 1960, the railroads were doomed because they thought they were in the railroad business where in fact, they're in the transportation business, that's a cliche about business plans, about thinking about where to put your mills. And if you put your mills thinking that that mills will always have to be by water, then you're going to be out of business, when the floods come. What Emily is saying is that, out of the box thinking require us a form that allows the brain to go where it's going to go and to unleash the power of the brain and there is no equivalent to the mill. The mill would have to be the traditional poem, the form of the traditional poem that gets run over by the brain. So, she's pre-modern or proto-modern in the sense that she's working with the stanza, and she's pushing as hard as she can at the edges of it and exploding the notion of consistent conceit, and allowing her to do what she wants right at the edge of destroying the whole thing. So, when we get to modernism in Chapter 2 of the course, the modernist want to make it new. They want to blow it all up, they want to start again. They don't want to touch the song, they want to get out of the form, the traditional form business. This seems to be in a way the Genesis of all that. >> Pretty Whitmanian. >> [laugh] >> [laugh] >> You have to get a Whitmanian final word. >> I did it. >> [laugh] Good. Good for you.
