How to Fall Down into the Grass: Nature Journaling Workshop

Aimee Nezhukumatathil Author

10/25/2024 Added

30 Plays

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Poet, professor and author of World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, & Other Astonishments, Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year in 2020.

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[00:00:00.000]Today, you are part of an important conversation about our shared future.
[00:00:12.080]The E.N. Thomson Forum on World Issues explores a diversity of viewpoints on international
[00:00:17.400]and public policy issues to promote understanding and encourage debate across the University
[00:00:22.880]and the State of Nebraska.
[00:00:25.360]Since its inception in 1988, hundreds of distinguished speakers have challenged and inspired us,
[00:00:32.480]making this forum one of the preeminent speaker series in higher education.
[00:00:39.480]It all started when E.N. "Jack" Thomson imagined a forum on global issues that would increase
[00:00:46.100]Nebraskans' understanding of cultures and events from around the world.
[00:00:50.580]Jack's perspective was influenced by his travels, his role in helping to
[00:00:55.340]found the United Nations, and his work at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
[00:01:02.220]As president of the Cooper Foundation in Lincoln, Jack pledged substantial funding to the forum,
[00:01:08.600]and the University of Nebraska and Leeds Center for Performing Arts agreed to co-sponsor.
[00:01:14.020]Later, Jack and his wife Katie created the Thomson Family Fund to support the forum and
[00:01:20.700]other programs. Today, major support is provided
[00:01:25.320]by the Cooper Foundation, Leeds Center for Performing Arts, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[00:01:32.960]We hope this talk sparks an exciting conversation among you.
[00:01:39.620]And now, on with the show!
[00:01:43.140]So without further ado, welcome to the E.N. Thomson Forum on World Issues.
[00:01:50.820]I'm Rebecca Baskerville, Thomson Forum Coordinator and Associate Director of the University on
[00:01:55.300]Human Rights Program here at UNL.
[00:01:57.700]And I'm excited to be with you all for our second forum event of the season.
[00:02:01.960]We would also like to thank our media sponsors, KZUM and KRNU, our season sponsor, the Chancellor's
[00:02:09.680]Diversity Commissions, and our event sponsors, Nebraska Writers Collective and Lincoln Parks
[00:02:16.180]and Recreation.
[00:02:20.900]The season's theme, "Lessons from the Natural World," explores the beauty, wonder, and wisdom
[00:02:25.280]of our living planet and vast universe.
[00:02:28.580]Today we have the privilege of hearing from Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
[00:02:32.320]Earlier today, Aimee visited with students in two first-year honors seminars, one focused
[00:02:37.420]on identity formation and one focused on environmental justice.
[00:02:41.800]We are grateful that our students had this special opportunity to engage with Aimee, and
[00:02:46.080]she said that they were "dazzling," I believe, so way to go, honors students.
[00:02:53.860]The Thompson Forum would like to formally
[00:02:55.260]acknowledge the indigenous tribal nations as the original stewards of the
[00:02:59.220]land, and that we reside on the past, present, and future homelands of the
[00:03:03.300]Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe, Missouri, Omaha, Dakota, Lakota, Kaw, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples,
[00:03:10.680]as well as those of the relocated Ho-Chunk, Sac, and Fox, and Iowa peoples.
[00:03:15.120]Through our acknowledgement, we work to develop positive ongoing relationships
[00:03:19.200]to our indigenous tribal nations and the rich tribal diversity in our state.
[00:03:25.240]Now, I have the honor of introducing this afternoon's speaker.
[00:03:29.120]Please help me welcome Aimee Nezuku-Matatil, a New York Times bestselling author whose
[00:03:34.820]work spans both poetry and prose, celebrating nature and human connection.
[00:03:41.060]Her collection, World of Wonders, in praise of fireflies, whale sharks, and other astonishments,
[00:03:46.280]was honored as Barnes & Noble's Book of the Year in 2020.
[00:03:49.920]Aimee has also written four acclaimed poetry collections and co-authored a chapbook of
[00:03:54.200]garden poems with Rob.
[00:03:55.220]Her most recent book, Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees, is an illustrated essay collection
[00:04:02.520]celebrating food and how food can be a place for care, grief, desire, or nostalgia.
[00:04:08.200]A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Pushcart Prize, Aimee serves as the first
[00:04:12.380]ever poetry editor for Sierra magazine and teaches in the University of Mississippi's
[00:04:17.400]MFA program.
[00:04:19.220]Today she brings her passion for words and the wonders of the natural world to us here
[00:04:24.200]in Lincoln.
[00:04:25.200]Welcome, Aimee.
[00:04:26.200]Well, thank you, everybody.
[00:04:27.200]Welcome.
[00:04:28.200]And I'm so, so grateful and glad that you all are making some time out of a busy, busy
[00:04:30.200]week.
[00:04:31.200]I know there's a lot of faculty in here, so shout out to the faculty.
[00:04:38.200]There's five million things you could be doing, like grading, sleeping, sleeping while grading,
[00:04:44.720]grading while sleeping.
[00:04:47.160]So that especially just warms the cockles of my heart that you're here.
[00:04:51.540]To the students here and to the community members, I'm so, so glad and grateful that
[00:04:55.180]you're here.
[00:04:56.180]Nature writing kind of gets a bad rap sometimes.
[00:04:58.860]Maybe it doesn't for you and maybe that's why you're here.
[00:05:01.800]But I'm trying to make this a fun afternoon and this is super casual with snacks.
[00:05:08.360]So I will never be offended.
[00:05:10.360]I don't want anyone suffering here like I could really use a piece of cantaloupe but
[00:05:14.760]I have to listen to this thing.
[00:05:16.380]No, I want you to get up if you are so moved, get that cantaloupe, get that drink.
[00:05:21.800]I will never be offended.
[00:05:23.160]I will be offended if you are.
[00:05:25.160]You are denying yourself food and drink to listen to me so I just want to establish that.
[00:05:30.780]I want to also establish a giant thanks to the University of Nebraska here.
[00:05:35.400]I haven't been here for maybe I want to say 15 years ago.
[00:05:40.060]I had a two-year-old and now that two-year-old is now looking at colleges and I have just
[00:05:45.780]been bowled over by the honors program.
[00:05:48.100]I was joking with Rebecca, not actually joking, that I think we might have to add Nebraska
[00:05:54.140]to his list now.
[00:05:55.140]To investigate possibilities.
[00:05:57.820]I've just had such a stunning time here and the students this morning were dazzling.
[00:06:04.140]And a shout out, are there students here from this morning or they're all new?
[00:06:08.320]You'll just have to take my word on it, hopefully I'll see them tomorrow as well.
[00:06:13.260]So what I'm going to do, I have a, you know, they always say in the poetry world, friends
[00:06:17.380]don't let friends do PowerPoints, but I feel like, so this isn't a PowerPoint exactly except
[00:06:25.120]the fact that this was a kind of eco-friendly way to talk about poems and writing in particular.
[00:06:31.000]I also think it's criminal that we're not outside and everybody asked if I wanted to,
[00:06:36.200]but there's so many different variables like wind, random construction, various squirrels
[00:06:43.120]stealing paper.
[00:06:44.340]So I just thought we'll be here for about an hour and then you can go off and sit outside
[00:06:48.720]and work on some writing afterwards as well.
[00:06:51.340]I'm trying to think anything else.
[00:06:54.000]I am dead serious.
[00:06:55.100]If you showed up here and think, "Well, I'm not a writer.
[00:06:58.780]I have to do this for credit or whatever," no, I want you to be writing.
[00:07:02.440]We are going to write together here, so if you do not have something to write with, please
[00:07:07.820]definitely do make use of the pen and paper.
[00:07:10.360]If you run out of pen and paper, please get more.
[00:07:13.880]Again, I don't rattle easy.
[00:07:16.800]If someone needs to get up, get paper, get food.
[00:07:20.860]This is not a straight up lecture, and even in my lectures, I want people to...
[00:07:25.080]To be happy and stuff like that.
[00:07:28.020]So I will get us started.
[00:07:31.120]What I would like to do right now is I wanna get kind of to set the mood a little bit.
[00:07:36.660]I always choose a poem, whether or not I'm teaching a mythology in literature class or
[00:07:41.100]a nature writing class or poetry or environmental writing, I always kind of get the mood started
[00:07:49.360]with a poem, and the one that I chose specifically for Nebraska is a favorite poem.
[00:07:55.060]It's my favorite Mary Oliver poem, and it's called "The Summer Day."
[00:07:58.560]I'm a summer gal, and I know we're already well into fall, but in Mississippi, where
[00:08:03.880]I'm from, it's about 95 degrees today, so it still feels like summer.
[00:08:07.820]And let me just read this.
[00:08:10.820]Let me see.
[00:08:11.820]"Is there a way that the Canva gurus here know" -- okay, there we go.
[00:08:16.700]I wanted to make sure I get that line.
[00:08:18.720]Maybe you've seen this.
[00:08:19.720]I will say, if you know that show, that design show -- oh, no, I'm blanking on it.
[00:08:25.040]There's Chip and Joanna -- what show is this?
[00:08:28.260]Fixer Upper, yes.
[00:08:32.280]They started -- the last two lines of this you'll see -- oftentimes this is one of Joanna
[00:08:37.920]Gaines' favorite poems, so often you'll see it in the background, just the last two lines.
[00:08:42.980]It's a fun little trivia thing.
[00:08:45.380]Last two lines of this poem are often in the background of all the Fixer Upper renovations,
[00:08:51.820]and it's actually from this poem here.
[00:08:53.020]So, "Summer Day."
[00:08:54.020]I'll just go ahead and do that.
[00:08:55.020]I made it by Mary Oliver.
[00:08:56.020]"Who made the world?
[00:08:58.960]Who made the swan and the black bear?
[00:09:01.840]Who made the grasshopper?
[00:09:03.980]This grasshopper, I mean.
[00:09:05.560]The one who has flung herself out of the grass.
[00:09:08.580]The one who is eating sugar out of my hand.
[00:09:11.980]Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down.
[00:09:16.120]Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
[00:09:20.500]Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
[00:09:25.000]Now she snaps her wings open and floats away.
[00:09:29.520]I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
[00:09:32.700]I do know how to pay attention.
[00:09:35.720]How to fall down into the grass.
[00:09:38.220]How to kneel down in the grass.
[00:09:40.420]How to be idle and blessed.
[00:09:42.160]How to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.
[00:09:47.400]Tell me, what else should I have done?
[00:09:50.320]Doesn't everything die at last and too soon?
[00:09:54.980]Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one and precious life?
[00:10:03.360]So I just wanted to kind of use that to set the mood a little bit and maybe just call
[00:10:07.580]back that young spirit of yours.
[00:10:09.760]Maybe you loved poetry as a kid, or maybe you loved poetry last month, and you're just
[00:10:15.960]not in a season of creating things right now.
[00:10:18.520]That's okay.
[00:10:19.520]I will tell you from the ancient Greek, to poet, to be a poet, simply means
[00:10:24.960]to make.
[00:10:27.160]Somehow we got it twisted that you need to make with words, but actually in ancient Greece,
[00:10:33.100]if you made whatever the ancient version of baklava is, if you made a sweet, you were
[00:10:41.640]a poet.
[00:10:42.700]If you made tapestries, you were a poet.
[00:10:45.960]If you build things, you're a poet.
[00:10:48.400]Anything you're making something, you are a poet.
[00:10:52.620]I wanted to kind of dispel that.
[00:10:54.940]The number one thing I get often is, "I'm not a writer, I'm not good at it," or just
[00:11:00.480]flat out, "I tried it once, I tried reading it, I don't get it, I hate it."
[00:11:05.640]To me, folks, not to shame anybody here, but that's the equivalent of saying, "I heard
[00:11:11.140]one heavy metal death song, death metal song, nothing against heavy metal death, death songs,
[00:11:17.980]and then I decided I hate all music forever and ever, like I'm never going to try again."
[00:11:22.920]That just simply means you haven't connected with the right person.
[00:11:24.920]You haven't connected with the right poem yet or type of poetry yet.
[00:11:28.120]Just as if I had a friend who was saying, "I listened to this death metal song and I
[00:11:33.340]just hate music."
[00:11:34.340]That would be just dumb.
[00:11:36.420]Again, I would just say, and it may not be, you may not encounter a poem even today in
[00:11:41.160]my presentation that you like, but I would just issue that as a challenge.
[00:11:44.980]It's out there just waiting for you.
[00:11:47.280]You just need to be able to connect with the one that's going to hit.
[00:11:52.580]Here's the beautiful thing about that.
[00:11:54.900]It is out there.
[00:11:55.900]I'm 100% confident that it is.
[00:11:59.820]This is one of those for me, the summer day.
[00:12:02.720]What I'd like to do today, I only have like an hour and it's like, "Oh, how do I cram
[00:12:10.360]the beauty and the joys and the delights and the frustrations of nature writing into one
[00:12:15.120]specific exercise?"
[00:12:19.080]What I wanted to do, it drives me nuts when I go to a workshop and the person talks in
[00:12:24.880]silence, and I'm inspired for five minutes, and then that's it, and then my notebook is
[00:12:30.060]empty.
[00:12:32.340]We are all going to lead together with a solid draft of something.
[00:12:36.160]It might be a poem, it might be a story, it might be an essay.
[00:12:39.140]We're going to lead with something here, and you're going to be happy with something.
[00:12:42.900]There's something in here that's going to delight you, excite you, surprise you.
[00:12:48.520]In order to do that, I thought I would introduce the Obad and Nocturnes.
[00:12:54.860]It's maybe what we'll focus on the most, but these are two poems of nighttime.
[00:13:00.400]What I will say, and I could spend an entire semester on this, the Obad is simply a poem
[00:13:06.100]of goodbye that takes place in the morning.
[00:13:10.680]Any sort of goodbye in the morning, it could be a parent sending off their kid to school.
[00:13:15.500]It could be lovers who have to part in the morning.
[00:13:19.780]Probably one of the most famous Obads was Juliet leaving Romeo in the morning.
[00:13:24.840]There could be like a take this job and shove it Obad.
[00:13:29.960]Any situation where there is any goodbye and it takes place in the morning, that is right
[00:13:35.340]material for an Obad.
[00:13:38.200]There are plenty of people who will say, "Well, it needs to have X, Y, Z lines."
[00:13:42.940]That's fine.
[00:13:43.940]I have not been able to confirm any one thing in terms of length, or meter, or anything
[00:13:48.920]like that.
[00:13:49.920]I will say the most distilled version is that it's a goodbye that takes place, and it doesn't
[00:13:54.820]have to be between the humans either, but a goodbye that takes place in the morning.
[00:13:59.420]For your notes, the nocturne is simply a poem or any piece of writing that takes place at
[00:14:07.440]night.
[00:14:08.440]So, you may have written a nocturne already, and you maybe didn't realize that that's what
[00:14:13.220]it's called, but a nocturne is simply a piece of writing that takes place at night.
[00:14:17.660]Now, there are some, again, some camps ... It always just kind of cracks me up that there
[00:14:22.140]are people who lose sleep over this, but there are some camps ...
[00:14:24.800]There are some camps who say, "Oh, a nocturne has to be filled with unrequited love, or
[00:14:29.900]a nocturne has to have somebody die."
[00:14:32.200]Again, I have not confirmed any one way or the other.
[00:14:35.880]The one thing that everybody who specializes in nocturnes agrees on is that it is a song
[00:14:41.040]of night, a song of night.
[00:14:44.520]For the purposes of this class, too, I want you to be thinking about what other situations
[00:14:49.380]do we have night in?
[00:14:50.840]What other man-made situations or woman-made situations do we have night in?
[00:14:54.780]Situations of night.
[00:14:56.880]So I'm thinking planetariums, I'm thinking roller rinks for people of a certain age here
[00:15:02.340]that remember that.
[00:15:05.280]Or maybe you all still do.
[00:15:06.280]Does Lincoln have a roller skating rink?
[00:15:08.180]Doggone it, I would have invited you to go with me later to go roller skating.
[00:15:14.300]But when I was growing up, the roller rink was the one dark safe space that we could
[00:15:20.300]all go to and not have our parents looming over it.
[00:15:24.760]So we're going to be writing Nocturnes and Obads and again, does anybody need paper or
[00:15:30.940]pen?
[00:15:31.940]All right.
[00:15:32.940]Let's move on.
[00:15:33.940]All right.
[00:15:34.940]Here's a little video just again to kind of just be thinking of night out of all the wondrous
[00:15:43.220]animals and plants that kind of come alive or move or live and mate at night, it's the
[00:15:52.740]synchronous firefly.
[00:15:54.740]If you guys read World of Wonders, my book here, you'll know I have a special affinity
[00:15:58.760]for this.
[00:15:59.760]This is in fact a true animal, I did not doctor this, this is from National Geographic.
[00:16:04.140]As I mentioned in my book World of Wonders though, what inspired me to write about this,
[00:16:09.960]one of the main things that inspired me to write about synchronous fireflies is that
[00:16:13.980]there was a school I had visited, and I won't name names because I'm classy and I don't
[00:16:19.900]want to shame anybody for that, but there was 22 students in this classroom.
[00:16:24.720]Seventeen of 22 students had never even heard of a firefly, and they were in a city or town
[00:16:31.720]that had an abundance of fireflies. They, in fact, went so much to say, "You're playing.
[00:16:39.400]You're playing. There's no such thing. That's CGI." I had to bring up a YouTube video to
[00:16:45.680]show them that fireflies do, in fact, exist.
[00:16:49.520]One of them actually said, it took my breath away a little bit, "No, no, no. You're thinking
[00:16:54.700]of Tinkerbell from Disney." I was like, "You know that the designer, the person who drew
[00:17:00.740]Tinkerbell was inspired by fireflies. They were gobsmacked that fireflies even existed.
[00:17:07.800]Does anybody have any idea why they had never heard of fireflies when they lived in a town
[00:17:13.740]full of fireflies in the summer? Any guesses? What is it? Lightning bug. Yeah, lightning
[00:17:21.080]bugs, fireflies.
[00:17:22.080].
[00:17:23.080]No, no. I used...
[00:17:24.680]I used many different names and they did not know any of them. Yeah. Pardon?
[00:17:28.640].
[00:17:29.640]Not too bright. They were out there. Ideas? Yeah.
[00:17:32.480].
[00:17:33.480]Not safe to go outside at night. I guess I could say for a few of them, maybe. Yeah.
[00:17:39.360]What else? In the back?
[00:17:40.360].
[00:17:41.360]Too tired. Oh, that was definitely not it. But that's a good guess, though. Too tired
[00:17:46.280]and wanting to go to bed. They were... Let me just say they were awake, but they just
[00:17:50.840]did not know that these existed. Any other guesses? Yeah. In the jean jacket.
[00:17:54.660]Pardon? That's the number one thing. Video games,
[00:17:59.820]screens, movie marathons with their... And this is the class of, I want to say, middle
[00:18:05.500]schoolers. They simply did not know they existed, almost so much that they told the visiting
[00:18:11.220]poet that I'm lying, that I made up some CGI video, which, by the way, Canva is the extent
[00:18:17.540]of my technological prowess here. They thought I made something up, CGI video,
[00:18:24.640]CGI to dazzle them. I am not anti-screen, I am not anti-social media, but I was gobsmacked
[00:18:34.620]that they did not know. It was actually, it was a fairly small, and that's a legit concern.
[00:18:39.600]It wasn't safe to be outside alone at night. It was actually a fairly small town, but I
[00:18:44.400]could see that parents maybe wouldn't want them to be out all night long, but I'm talking
[00:18:51.320]about twilight times, when the fireflies or lightning bugs come out.
[00:18:54.620]They just didn't know they existed. That took my breath away. What I told the honor students
[00:19:01.060]today is that they're among, I hope it's not true, but they're among the last of the students
[00:19:07.780]who actually have those memories of fireflies, of actually trying to catch one, or seeing
[00:19:13.080]them as you finish playing that last kickball game outside, or that kind of thing, or even
[00:19:19.060]who know that they exist to have that memory of feeling them tickle the inside of your
[00:19:24.600]heart, that kind of thing. It just took my breath away that so many, again, 17 out of
[00:19:29.500]22 thought I was completely making this up.
[00:19:33.200]So I wanted to show you, this is from the Great Smoky Mountains. This is a synchronous
[00:19:38.360]firefly, but this actual specific type of firefly is also in northern Mississippi, where
[00:19:44.420]I'm from. And so this happens every Memorial Day weekend, at the right around the time.
[00:19:50.200]And if you go deep into the forest, you get this kind of visual heartbeat, where it's
[00:19:54.580]like boom, boom, boom, boom. If a car light shows up, they'll get changed up a little
[00:20:00.660]bit, but then after a while, they sync up again, boom, boom, where it's almost like
[00:20:05.620]someone's turning off a light switch. I grew up with the twinkly things, like here and
[00:20:10.820]there, maybe one here, one here. So in case you don't know what I'm talking about, about
[00:20:15.220]the synchronous fireflies, I wanted to show you just a quick two-minute video here.
[00:20:19.920]Speaker 1: The synchronous firefly ranges throughout
[00:20:24.560]the southern Appalachians. It really is a pretty magical thing to see. I think people
[00:20:30.540]are just fascinated by fireflies, especially growing up. A lot of people have experiences
[00:20:37.080]of catching fireflies in jars and looking at how they're doing their flashing, looking
[00:20:42.180]at them real close. Maybe it reminds them of their youth and they want to bring their
[00:20:45.720]children out to experience the same thing.
[00:20:48.320]Speaker 2: The synchronous firefly can be distinguished from other species by its pattern
[00:20:54.540]of flashes about half a second apart. It may look somewhat random at first, but when you
[00:21:00.040]get a high density of males flashing, the synchronicity of the dark period is very obvious
[00:21:06.060]and then the flashing itself will become synchronous as the night goes on. Generally fireflies
[00:21:13.520]do have a similar appearance. Some are larger. The predatory ones tend to be a little bit
[00:21:18.300]bigger and there's a really small species too called the blue ghost and it's very small.
[00:21:24.520]Generally they're a type of beetle and so they're going to have this hard outer shell
[00:21:30.340]over their wings that they use to fly with. They usually also have a little bit of red
[00:21:35.740]and yellow markings right above their head. You really do have to look at the flash pattern
[00:21:42.060]and some other morphological characters to tell the species apart. Generally the habitat
[00:21:47.860]where we find Photinus carolinus is in these low lying moist areas where there's kind of
[00:21:54.500]relatively clear understory so that the fireflies can visually see each other. It also has to
[00:21:59.720]have somewhat of a closed canopy so that it can be nice and dark. They typically start
[00:22:04.620]flashing around 9:30 or 10 but they do wait for it to get fairly dark. There's a couple
[00:22:12.400]of theories as to why they're synchronous and the female really does need a large light
[00:22:17.880]input in order for her to respond. That's how she recognizes the correct species. So
[00:22:24.480]when she responds and the males then know that she's the right female, then they can
[00:22:29.580]reproduce. There's lots of other things that are flashing. So they have to have this sort
[00:22:33.720]of Morse code in order to be able to know they're with the right species.
[00:22:37.420]Alright, so I want to talk about what it means. So we're talking about nocturnes. I showed
[00:22:43.320]you a little bit of a video of the synchronous fireflies and I do have to say that's the
[00:22:47.920]best video I've seen and I've scoured the internet for it. You still can't get the full-on
[00:22:54.460]off-on effect. It just doesn't translate as well. You're just going to have to trust me
[00:22:57.980]on it. It would be as if someone turned off all these lights off and on, off and on. If
[00:23:02.960]you hit exactly like about 10 o'clock, it's so spooky how it's about and that's the same
[00:23:07.340]time, 9:30 or 10 to get the synchronous light. The blue ghost that she was talking about,
[00:23:13.660]that's in Western Carolina and what's extra devastating is that's one of the more rare
[00:23:20.140]fireflies in the country and you all know what just recently happened in Western Carolina
[00:23:24.440]which means all the eggs that were kind of like laid in early summer were most certainly
[00:23:34.120]washed away with the flood. My entomologist friends in Western Carolina are now super
[00:23:40.060]sad about the blue ghosts and I just love those names. The blue ghosts, the Texas tinies,
[00:23:46.100]the mischievous marsh imps. There's so many names of fireflies out there. The ones that
[00:23:51.220]we have and the ones that you saw in the Great Smoky Mountains are called
[00:23:54.420]the single snappies. I can make this whole lecture on fireflies, but I will not do that.
[00:24:02.400]I want us to get activated with our night minds to get in the mood to write an octard.
[00:24:09.080]This is from one of the former chancellors of the Academy of American Poetry, Ed Hirsch. I hate
[00:24:18.200]reading things out straight from the slide, but I'll do this one moment here. He says, "Midnight is off
[00:24:24.400]in the witching hour. At this culminating moment in the nocturnal realm, everything must be let go
[00:24:29.900]that is associated with day or daylight mind. Rather, the mind is now loosened for reverie and
[00:24:36.820]illumination." So if you have a piece of paper or a notebook, write that last part of it down.
[00:24:45.020]"The night mind is now loosened for reverie and illumination." What does it mean? So I'm going to
[00:24:51.580]say, "Activate your night mind."
[00:24:54.380]That's what I mean there. Loosen your mind for reverie and illumination.
[00:25:01.000]And just as some history there, John Donne was one of the first people to mention the
[00:25:05.060]nocturne as a genre of poetry, but that's for the word nerds in here. He claimed it
[00:25:12.380]as an absence, a darkness, death, things that are not, which is super heavy and super intense,
[00:25:19.020]as you can imagine. But all the way back, going again to classical Greece,
[00:25:24.360]in Ovid, anytime the knight was mentioned, it wasn't a place of worry. It was a place
[00:25:29.280]of transformation and kind of like the excitement. That's when things were moving or changing into
[00:25:34.340]something else. It was more of wondrous things rather than terror and scariness. That's very
[00:25:41.060]much a fairly recent occurrence. Knight in classical literature was absolutely this
[00:25:48.880]astonishing moment of wonderment. And that's what I want to get back to here.
[00:25:54.340]All right. Now, just for a little bit, for maybe half a page, half a page, I'm going to ask you
[00:26:01.220]just really quickly, maybe five minutes, I want you to activate your knight mind. And what that
[00:26:08.560]might mean for you is going to be different from everybody else. But I want you to loosen your mind
[00:26:13.860]for reverie transformation. What do you think about? Before I set you to write for five minutes,
[00:26:18.640]think of this as just margin to margin writing. Don't worry about this being a poem. This is just
[00:26:24.320]go margin to margin. It could be full-on sentences. You could have run-ons. You can
[00:26:31.520]have just fragments. What do you all think about? Can I get volunteers? Just raise your hand here.
[00:26:36.300]When you're going to bed, what are the things that you think about that you wouldn't normally
[00:26:43.160]even, it wouldn't even occur to you to think about that in the middle of the day while you're
[00:26:46.720]preparing dinner or while you're doing your to-do list, that kind of thing? I know for me,
[00:26:52.500]I am a type A Capricorn.
[00:26:54.300]So, I remember all the things that maybe someone said to me in eighth grade, and I have the
[00:27:00.380]best comeback now. So, I never even think about that at all during the day, but I hate
[00:27:07.540]my mind in some ways, and I don't want to say hate, but I wish that that didn't happen.
[00:27:12.620]Like when my mind is loosened, I have all the good comebacks that I never said before,
[00:27:18.540]or I think of all the hurts or something like that. But then I also, on the other side of
[00:27:24.280]it, I swing to the moments of joy. I kind of think like, "What good happened today?
[00:27:29.780]What were the best moments that happened today that I don't in some ways think about during
[00:27:35.180]the day?" It's hard for me to drive and be like, "Aimee, what nice things happened today
[00:27:40.460]in the middle of the day?" But as I'm kind of winding down, kind of the lamps are on,
[00:27:46.280]not the bright overhead lights, what do you think about as you're kind of winding down
[00:27:50.320]for the day? Anyone want to share? Night mind? I told you I
[00:27:54.260]think of all the best comebacks. Sometimes I think about night cheese. Should I have
[00:27:59.680]a piece of cheese at night? Food often happens. My latest book is on food, and a lot of it
[00:28:06.120]too was the ideas of it were at night. I'm not a snacker, but I don't know why after
[00:28:11.380]10:00 p.m. if I'm up, I still just want to have night cereal, night cheese, night apples.
[00:28:18.440]My son, actually, I shouldn't embarrass him, but even since he was little, if he got a
[00:28:24.240]job and asked for a slice of apple, he started calling them napples as a joke, and he rolls
[00:28:31.200]his eyes now.
[00:28:32.200]He was like, "Mum, I never said that," and I was like, "Oh, you did.
[00:28:35.260]You wanted lots of napples."
[00:28:38.120]He's too cool for school now, but what are people thinking about at night just before
[00:28:43.020]you go to bed?
[00:28:44.020]What are the things that pop in your mind?
[00:28:47.020]I just shared with you something ridiculous that I think of all these comebacks and nobody's
[00:28:51.280]sharing with me.
[00:28:52.280]What else?
[00:28:53.280]What do you think about as you go to bed?
[00:28:54.220]Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:28:55.220]Yeah, I was just going to say, I was going to talk about food.
[00:28:56.220]I always think about what I'm going to have for the next day.
[00:28:57.220]I'm like, what am I going to have for tomorrow?
[00:28:58.220]Yeah, there you go.
[00:28:59.220]Thinking of food a day in advance, you know, right?
[00:29:00.220]Oh, absolutely, for sure.
[00:29:01.220]Thank you so much for sharing.
[00:29:02.220]What else?
[00:29:03.220]Food is huge.
[00:29:04.220]Anyone think of like, oh, what didn't get done today or did I finish my to-do list?
[00:29:21.220]I hate, that also comes into my mind.
[00:29:24.200]What I have left to do for tomorrow.
[00:29:27.180]Yeah?
[00:29:28.180]I think about the long-term future of my future.
[00:29:31.180]Oh, yes.
[00:29:32.180]Absolutely.
[00:29:33.180]I don't think of that during the day, maybe, but I think just future with a capital F.
[00:29:37.860]The future.
[00:29:38.860]Yes, absolutely.
[00:29:39.860]Anybody here?
[00:29:40.860]Nobody's mentioning the big one.
[00:29:41.860]Oh, yes.
[00:29:42.860]Go ahead.
[00:29:43.860].
[00:29:44.860]That's fine.
[00:29:45.860]But I'm, when I go out at night, I'm not essential.
[00:29:54.180]I'm just saying, yeah, absolutely, that's what I think of.
[00:30:01.420]Yeah.
[00:30:02.420]Okay.
[00:30:03.420]Absolutely.
[00:30:04.420]That's something that's so precious and rare, actually.
[00:30:07.600]That's something so lovely.
[00:30:08.600]And as I said, it's only been fairly recently that night has been a source of terror rather
[00:30:15.200]than, oh, this is a time to kind of hunker down with yourself or your family or your
[00:30:22.320]loved ones or something like that, or make plans.
[00:30:24.160]I'm going out and having fun, you know, that kind of thing.
[00:30:27.020]Other things?
[00:30:28.020]A couple of night mind moments?
[00:30:29.020]Yeah.
[00:30:30.020]Okay.
[00:30:31.020]Oh, gosh.
[00:30:32.020]Yeah.
[00:30:33.020]And I was trying, yesterday, do you all know, I mean, tonight, first of all, heads up,
[00:30:40.340]there's a giant super moon, the biggest super moon, and then has anybody seen this magical
[00:30:44.660]comet?
[00:30:45.660]I tried looking yesterday and I couldn't find it.
[00:30:47.660]Did you find it?
[00:30:48.660]Did you see it here?
[00:30:49.660]Did you have to go out and about?
[00:30:50.660]Did you see it last night?
[00:30:51.660]I've seen it a couple of times.
[00:30:54.140]Oh my goodness.
[00:30:55.140]Okay.
[00:30:56.140]I'm going to try one more time tonight.
[00:30:57.140]So there's a comet.
[00:30:58.140]In case you don't know what I'm talking about, fix your life.
[00:31:02.600]But there is a comet that comes around every 80,000 years.
[00:31:06.800]And so yeah, so I love so much that you brought up what you're missing in the night sky.
[00:31:11.060]I'm so grateful that I just happened to catch it on the news, but I could have absolutely
[00:31:14.860]been going about my day, la la la, and here's an 80,000 year comet that's coming by.
[00:31:21.160]now. And what else have we missed? What else? There was a hand over here. Yeah.
[00:31:28.150]Okay. Interesting. That is so specific and I love it. The layout of my own house. Okay.
[00:31:35.990]Why do you think that is? Why do you think that that comes to you at night?
[00:31:39.270]I don't know. I don't really know how to use it.
[00:31:44.270]Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Especially if it was such a place of comfort or home
[00:31:54.110]or even if it was stressful or whatever. That's your first place where you were figuring out
[00:32:01.110]what makes a home, what doesn't make a home. That kind of thing. Oh, lovely. Good, good.
[00:32:05.410]Yeah?
[00:32:06.410]Audience Member: I'm listening. It sounds like a house partner.
[00:32:11.410]Okay. Yes, that's interesting. Just seeing how they come along.
[00:32:14.250]They're all live at night and hoping that those are, in fact, cats and not burglars
[00:32:18.030]or something like that. Yeah, good, good. These are so great. Yeah?
[00:32:21.450]Audience Member: I can stop what my friends and kids are doing.
[00:32:26.210]Okay. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Thinking of what friends and ... All over the
[00:32:30.650]planet, but loved ones are doing and kids in particular, for sure, for sure. Oh, don't
[00:32:35.590]even get me started. I can feel myself getting tense thinking about just one year from now
[00:32:39.870]and my eldest is off to college somewhere. I don't know how I'm going to ... I'm always
[00:32:44.230]going to be thinking about him at night, hopefully he's safe. What else? There's a couple other,
[00:32:49.990]yeah.
[00:32:50.990]Oh, yes. Same. I have the same concern except
[00:32:56.570]mine are squirrels. But yeah, but actually for night in particular, I can imagine raccoons
[00:33:01.990]for sure. Yeah, yeah.
[00:33:04.990]Oh, okay. Okay, good. There's some soap operas going on in the backyards here of Lincoln.
[00:33:14.210]Good, good. Some animal soap operas. Oh yeah, one more. Yeah.
[00:33:21.210]Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. Absolutely.
[00:33:42.510]And especially, I think more than ever, that's actually --
[00:33:44.190]one of the top three that I've heard is just having that moment where you can kind of collect
[00:33:50.010]your thoughts for the first time. I don't want to make giant pronouncements, but here
[00:33:54.310]I'm going to do it. I think so many of us, and that's me included, don't have as much
[00:33:59.590]time anymore to daydream, to heaven forbid, like not -- it's so easy to pick up, if you
[00:34:05.690]have a smartphone, what's going to fill in my time now? Let me look at this funny meme
[00:34:10.370]or whatever, that kind of thing. But before, I know I said this before, but
[00:34:14.170]I sound ancient saying this, but your thoughts would come to you. You could actually have
[00:34:19.570]a thought, and you could actually kind of make sense of thoughts, and oftentimes we
[00:34:25.730]don't get that until nighttime. Well, you all are so PG rated, but I'm going to just
[00:34:30.770]say a couple things. Nobody here is saying, and I know that this is fake, I think there's
[00:34:35.330]nobody here under 13, so we'll go at least to PG 13.
[00:34:40.110]Nobody here is mentioning sexy thoughts. You mean to tell me nobody has any sexy thoughts?
[00:34:44.150]Sexy thoughts at all, like when the sun goes down? Okay, liars. And then number two, nobody
[00:34:51.150]mentioned death. I consider myself a very, very cheerful person, very much an extrovert,
[00:34:58.110]but sometimes at night I think it's more, it's not that I'm sitting there obsessing
[00:35:02.910]about death, but I think that's the moments where I'm like, is my will up to date? Just
[00:35:08.530]random thoughts that I would never even think when I'm grading papers or anything like that.
[00:35:14.130]Just taking a sense of mortality, my own body, why is my wrist hurting now, or why is my
[00:35:21.650]ankle sore after I did the treadmill weird one day, or something. Taking stock of your
[00:35:28.890]life as well. All of those, everything that you mentioned here, great subjects for the
[00:35:36.590]night mind activated.
[00:35:37.590]What I want you to do here, just maybe four minutes, a little bit shorter, four minutes.
[00:35:44.110]Maybe just do a night mind spill. I won't ask you to share, so if you do write some
[00:35:48.430]rated R thoughts, that's great. Just what do you think about just before bed? Again,
[00:35:54.410]just fill in half a page. No one's going to look at it. I won't call on anybody. Just
[00:35:58.550]about four minutes. Activate your night mind. In particular, if you get stuck in
[00:36:14.090]spite of all these amazing answers that everybody did, think about what images are conjured
[00:36:18.710]up when you think of events, people, sound, smells, animals. I love the animal drama that's
[00:36:24.010]happening here in Lincoln. What do you think about all of these nouns here but set them
[00:36:31.110]at night? Just think about what do you hear at night? What do you notice or smell at night?
[00:36:36.910]Anything like that. All right, folks. I also just wanted to point
[00:36:44.070]out how beautiful it is to just be in a room when there's so much chaos and nervousness
[00:36:50.690]about the election and just all the drama that's going on outside, the things that is
[00:36:58.310]bombarding us on the news all the time. It's just so lovely to be in a room and people
[00:37:02.810]are writing about night. And so I just want you to remember that too. You do not need
[00:37:07.530]to be a poet. You do not need to be necessarily like someone with a ton of book experience
[00:37:14.050]but anybody can write about night. Anybody can loosen your night mind. Anybody can activate
[00:37:21.170]your night mind and you don't have to show it to anybody. But I promise you this that
[00:37:25.830]when you don't do it, when you don't kind of express yourself or someone mentioned just
[00:37:31.270]even collect their thoughts, that's when we start to see like why do I have gum disease?
[00:37:37.230]Why is my heart upset? You know, I know it sounds cheesy but I think humans are not meant
[00:37:44.030]to not process what's going on in their life or not process their days. And so if you are
[00:37:50.590]in a situation or on a job or in a life or in a classroom situation where you can't process
[00:37:58.270]your day, fix your life. And you could do that. It takes a 50 cent notebook and a pen.
[00:38:04.410]And it's one of the most, like the, in terms of like money, if you're a harpist, you'd
[00:38:09.350]be spending $12,000 on a harp to practice the harp, which I love the harp. I'm not going
[00:38:14.010]to be knocking harpists. But all you need is a composition notebook and a pen. And you
[00:38:19.670]know, and if that doesn't work for you, then yeah, your computer and stuff like that. Just
[00:38:22.570]to even, you don't have to, again, make an entire poem. Just activate your night mind
[00:38:26.910]and just kind of jot it down. What you're thinking about at age 20 at night is probably
[00:38:32.310]very different than age 55 and 75 and you know, things like that and everything in between.
[00:38:37.890]Let me just pause for a second. This is a nocturne and because I was thinking about lightning bugs and
[00:38:43.990]fireflies, I always grew up calling them fireflies. I'll read this poem. It's always a little
[00:38:48.770]bit awkward here. I don't want to excite. I love this dog here. He's so pretty. What's
[00:38:54.470]this dog's name? Jonas. I love Jonas. Hi, Jonas. Sorry. All right, I'm going to read
[00:39:00.370]the lightning bug just so that you get a sense of the nocturne here. Again, the only limitation
[00:39:05.610]that I have is just that the poem takes place at night or a memory of night. Lightning bug.
[00:39:13.970]Lightning bug, it's a torment walk. It deserved me, I thought, for how tirelessly I chased
[00:39:18.970]for the way I cared about its inner light. A last look through the keyhole of my cupped
[00:39:24.190]palm and I set it down, then stomped flat, smearing long with my toes so the neon green
[00:39:31.990]spatter and jagged streak glowed brighter than before as though a spirit glad to have
[00:39:38.950]finally escaped its body. With a stick, I drew a crooked star.
[00:39:43.950]A diamond, and like a sickly dusk, its ink faded. Slow at first, then all at once.
[00:39:50.950]I went giddy, innocent as a god. Night's oncoming chill collected along my collar.
[00:39:56.950]I had no idea yet, bounding back out across the sighing, blue lawn for another.
[00:40:02.950]No idea the suffering it would really take in a dark world to shine.
[00:40:09.950]So I wanted to showcase this to you just to give kind of different senses of what
[00:40:13.930]different moods, and this is kind of heartbreaking in some ways for me to read because I love,
[00:40:18.930]I personally love fireflies.
[00:40:20.930]But I do love that, like the precision of the detail here.
[00:40:25.930]I unfortunately know there was a kid down the street who did something very similar
[00:40:29.930]to this and he would do it on purpose.
[00:40:31.930]I don't know if anybody knew that or was that kid who would stomp on fireflies.
[00:40:36.930]And if you don't know what I'm talking about, this actually, you do get this bioluminescent
[00:40:43.910]smear and for a moment it's kind of amazing and you realize with horror like, "Oh, I just
[00:40:51.410]extinguished this light."
[00:40:53.450]I wanted to just showcase that not all nocturnes have to be pretty, not all nocturnes have
[00:40:57.930]to be like praising the earth, but I wanted to give kind of a different mood for you as
[00:41:03.330]well that you could tackle, again, some of these darker moments of loosening your nightmind
[00:41:10.890]too.
[00:41:11.890]There's a lot of sadness in the world.
[00:41:13.890]I would be disingenuous to not say that that's an option for your nocturne.
[00:41:19.770]Okay.
[00:41:20.770]Let me move on.
[00:41:23.070]For the Obad, I wanted to showcase this and then I'm going to set you off at another meeting.
[00:41:27.170]Hi, hi, come on in.
[00:41:28.410]And there's also, we're just in the middle of writing something, so there's pen and paper
[00:41:31.990]there if anyone wants to grab something or if you have something to write with.
[00:41:35.930]We're very casual here, so no worries at all.
[00:41:38.810]The Obad in particular, this is a little bit of a sensual poem here.
[00:41:43.870]Who can tell me again the Obad?
[00:41:45.510]What is the basic form of the Obad?
[00:41:48.110]What is the basic content of an Obad?
[00:41:50.890]A morning goodbye.
[00:41:51.890]Excellent.
[00:41:52.890]There's so many people that can argue it needs to be X, Y, Z, but the one thing that everybody
[00:41:56.870]can agree on is that it is a goodbye and it's in the morning.
[00:42:00.550]All right.
[00:42:01.550]Let me give you this one out loud as well, Obad.
[00:42:05.530]Actually, and I'll ask you since this is a mini kind of class, what is the mood here
[00:42:11.730]for this goodbye?
[00:42:12.730]Remember I said there's all different kinds?
[00:42:13.850]There's all different kinds of goodbyes.
[00:42:15.550]What kind of goodbye is this?
[00:42:17.490]Bless you, Obad.
[00:42:19.850]I know my leaving in the breakfast table mess.
[00:42:25.010]Bowl spills into bowl, milk and bran, bread crust crumbled.
[00:42:29.750]You push me back into bed.
[00:42:32.050]More honey and baby.
[00:42:35.310]Breath you tell my ear circles inside me, curls a damp wind and runs the circuit of
[00:42:40.450]my limbs.
[00:42:41.910]I interrogate the air.
[00:42:43.830]Tell Murphy's oil soap, dog kibble, no rose, no patchouli swelter, and your mouth, sesame,
[00:42:52.330]olive, the nudge of your tongue behind my top teeth.
[00:42:56.950]To entirely finish is water entering water, which is the cup I take away.
[00:43:03.030]More turning me, less your arms reaching around my back.
[00:43:07.050]You ask my ear where I have been and my body answers, all over, kingdom come.
[00:43:13.810]I would say, too, this is an interesting one, and I wanted to place this up here.
[00:43:19.150]For the nocturne and the obad, if you notice, oftentimes, and maybe you've seen this before
[00:43:25.330]in books, oftentimes there is no other title except obad or nocturne.
[00:43:30.430]There's things, Firefly Nocturne, this one could be, I don't know, Serial Obad.
[00:43:37.090]And that's okay.
[00:43:38.090]That's not a cop-out of coming up with a title, but in this way, the goodbye is not really
[00:43:43.790]kind of anywhere in the body of the poem necessarily.
[00:43:47.530]We're to get it because it sets it up for us in the title.
[00:43:52.350]So if we see in the very beginning, this is a good morning goodbye, or this is a morning
[00:43:57.250]goodbye, just based on the images here, and again, images for those who just need a refresher
[00:44:03.930]are not just visual, but there's smell, touch, taste, textures, all of the five senses are
[00:44:09.570]images in poems, based on the images presented, what is the title?
[00:44:13.770]What's the tone here in this goodbye?
[00:44:15.210]What kind of a goodbye are you getting?
[00:44:17.310]Or as my students say, "What is the vibe?"
[00:44:19.230]What is the vibe of this goodbye?
[00:44:21.890]Ideas?
[00:44:22.890]Yeah?
[00:44:23.890]Okay, I wasn't expecting that, but basically, yes, actually, it's a very sassy, sensual,
[00:44:37.790]sexy goodbye, and someone else, where are you getting that, though?
[00:44:42.750]This is, again, I want to make sure
[00:44:43.750]that even people who don't have a whole lot of familiarity with poetry know that ... I
[00:44:48.210]think sometimes people think, "Oh, where are you pulling that from?"
[00:44:51.150]No, it's from the poem.
[00:44:52.510]Where do you get that sensualness?
[00:44:53.690]Where do you get that this is kind of like a sexy poem?
[00:44:58.050]What images here connote that?
[00:45:00.050]Second stanza?
[00:45:01.670]Oh, yeah, for sure.
[00:45:04.250]I don't know about you, but I would not say that to someone at the DMV, if I'm just trying
[00:45:10.350]to think of the most unsexy interactions I have.
[00:45:13.730]The DMV.
[00:45:14.730]Yeah.
[00:45:15.730]"Breath, you tell my ear circles inside me, curls the damp wind, and runs the circuit
[00:45:20.610]of my limbs."
[00:45:21.610]I don't even know exactly what's going on.
[00:45:23.110]All I know is that it's a little sexy, a little sassy here, right?
[00:45:26.670]Other things?
[00:45:27.670]Other things?
[00:45:28.670]Where else are you seeing some sensuality?
[00:45:31.670]Yeah.
[00:45:32.670]Yeah.
[00:45:33.670]Again, that's a little too close for comfort if that was the DMV, right?
[00:45:40.170]We are getting here that this goodbye is definitely...
[00:45:43.710]A desirous moment, a sensual moment here.
[00:45:48.950]Well, I will also say, so for the Obad, this could be...
[00:45:54.630]I would say the Obad, and this is me, this is not from any book.
[00:45:57.950]I would say the Obad is any goodbye that takes place, it's 12:01 is considered morning.
[00:46:05.510]So 12:01 to I'd say 11:59 AM.
[00:46:09.890]That is, if there's a goodbye happening in that span of time in your poem
[00:46:13.690]or essay, that's an Obad, okay?
[00:46:17.110]And again, this is a sensual one.
[00:46:19.570]So many goodbyes.
[00:46:20.570]There's the, I do love the, I'm quitting, goodbye, you know, that kind of thing.
[00:46:24.490]One of my favorite goodbyes I've ever seen, and only it's because of social media that
[00:46:28.810]I saw it, is, did you all see, it was maybe a couple of years now, there was a flight
[00:46:34.330]attendant who, I don't know, either had a full day, do you know what I'm talking about,
[00:46:38.910]and was like, I'm done, and they, it was like the most bossed goodbye.
[00:46:43.670]ever of quitting. He activated, they were on the ground, but he activated the emergency
[00:46:50.270]thing, got the slide activated, and took off on the slide. Do you guys see this? Do you
[00:46:55.390]remember? I don't, what happened? I don't remember what made him quit at that moment.
[00:46:59.430]I just thought that was the funniest goodbye if you're a flight attendant. He really did
[00:47:03.350]like slide off and then just walked off the job. If you don't know what I'm talking about,
[00:47:08.630]Google like flight attendant quitting and then slide, it's the funniest, you won't have
[00:47:12.890]a bad day when you do that.
[00:47:13.650]The last thing I want to show you today, and I want to make sure that we have time here,
[00:47:20.010]I'm going to give you the prompt and that's going to be the finale of it. Because this
[00:47:23.350]just happened, I want to say two days ago, the current poet laureate, who just happens
[00:47:27.510]to be one of my dear friends, Ada Limon, actually was asked by NASA of all things, it's kind
[00:47:34.270]of an amazing situation, to write a poem, the first ever poem to be launched into outer
[00:47:39.770]space. Specifically, and we won't know this in our
[00:47:43.630]lifetime, but it's being sent to Europa, which is one of the moons of Jupiter. So you can
[00:47:48.570]imagine the pressure, the pressure. I was with her actually at a conference and we were
[00:47:54.010]talking, she was still like kind of shaking, like there's so much pressure if I, you know,
[00:48:02.190]this is in any language, this is the representative poem that's being literally launched into
[00:48:07.390]outer space. And so this is, I think of this as a nocturne as well.
[00:48:13.610]What is night, but the deepest, deepest parts of outer space. Even if you're zooming towards
[00:48:20.410]Europa of Jupiter, there's still a lot of darkness that you're going through. All right.
[00:48:29.190]In Praise of Mystery, a poem for Europa. Again, Europa is one of the moons of Jupiter. Arching
[00:48:36.570]under the night sky, inky with black expansiveness, we point to the planets we know. We pin quick
[00:48:43.590]stars from Earth. Oh, sorry, on stars, period. From Earth, we read the sky as if it is an
[00:48:50.270]unerring book of the universe, expert and evident. Still, there are mysteries below
[00:48:56.810]our sky, the whale song, the songbird singing its call in the bow of a wind-shaken tree.
[00:49:03.910]We are creatures of constant awe, curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom, at grief and
[00:49:10.350]pleasure, sun and shadow.
[00:49:13.570]It is not darkness that unites us, not the cold distance of space, but the offering of
[00:49:18.830]water, each drop of rain, each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
[00:49:24.530]Oh, second moon, we too are made of water, of vast and beckoning seas.
[00:49:31.150]We too are made of wonders, sorry, and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds, of a need
[00:49:40.090]to call out through the dark.
[00:49:43.550]That's love, that's in outer space right now at this moment.
[00:49:46.210]I think it was launched, I want to say, three days ago, and it is now a children's book.
[00:49:52.190]So I just also love too that some of children's first interactions with poetry is a nocturne
[00:49:57.590]of this book being sent out into space.
[00:50:00.890]All right, some things to consider as well in terms of like, "Okay, this is all good,
[00:50:06.850]Aimee.
[00:50:07.850]You promised us that we were going to have some sort of writing here.
[00:50:10.690]I want you to pay attention to the diction of science.
[00:50:13.530]It's science and nature, what that language gives you to talk about your days or to talk
[00:50:18.510]about night in general.
[00:50:20.290]Even if you consider yourself, "I am not good with math or science or anything like that,"
[00:50:25.670]I find there's so much space for metaphor in there as well.
[00:50:30.130]I was just talking to one of your biology professors who was talking about birds finding
[00:50:34.330]their flock and whether or not they return or not return, and I just thought my mind
[00:50:39.110]was going a million miles an hour because I was thinking, "That's such a great metaphor
[00:50:43.510]for humans, finding a connection and whether or not we gravitate towards people we're familiar
[00:50:49.510]with or we leave when we can't handle it," that kind of thing.
[00:50:53.630]Anyway, but you pay attention to the worlds of science for those ripe moments of diction
[00:50:59.810]and metaphor.
[00:51:00.810]All right.
[00:51:01.810]How to start a naturopath.
[00:51:05.390]Don't worry about rhyming here for now.
[00:51:07.450]If rhyme comes naturally to you, great, but what I always like to say ... Oops, I keep
[00:51:13.490]doing this.
[00:51:14.490]Why does this always come down ... I want to make sure ... It's like I don't want anything
[00:51:23.810]else on the screen.
[00:51:25.990]I want you to activate your night mind, and we only have just a little bit of time here,
[00:51:30.190]but I do want to set you to write ... For this free write, it's one to two pages, but
[00:51:36.450]I want you to start off ... You have to decide first of all, do you want to write an obad,
[00:51:41.530]a poem in the morning, or do you want to write a poem?
[00:51:43.470]Write a obad in nocturne, something that takes place at night.
[00:51:46.750]The nocturne does not need to be a goodbye.
[00:51:48.790]It could be whatever you're doing at night, but the obad, if you choose the obad, it has
[00:51:54.110]to have some sort of goodbye.
[00:51:56.090]It could be a goodbye to your favorite sweatshirt.
[00:51:58.110]Again, it does not need to be human to human, that kind of thing.
[00:52:03.330]You'll need to activate your night mind.
[00:52:06.090]Some places to start, oftentimes people ... Oh, I wanted to mention in terms of rhyme.
[00:52:11.110]If rhyming comes natural to you, great.
[00:52:13.450]I also like to tell people who are experienced poets and people who have never written poetry
[00:52:17.490]before is that rhyme is literally, for my money, the hardest thing to do in poetry.
[00:52:23.430]You're setting yourself up for difficulty if you are like, "Oh, I have to get this rhyme
[00:52:28.830]scheme right or find the right word."
[00:52:31.110]It limits your vocabulary with what you choose to write about.
[00:52:34.550]I'm not anti-rhyme, but it's the equivalent of saying, "Oh, I want to learn how to ice
[00:52:38.690]skate.
[00:52:39.690]I'm going to start off.
[00:52:40.690]I've never been on skates before.
[00:52:41.690]I'm going to start off with a triple lutz."
[00:52:43.430]No, you don't start with rhyme, that kind of thing, so again, build up to that if you
[00:52:49.090]want.
[00:52:50.090]For right now, go margin to margin because this could be an essay, too.
[00:52:53.370]You never know.
[00:52:54.370]This could be a beginning to a memoir that you didn't know was in you.
[00:52:58.070]This could be just journaling, whatever it is.
[00:53:00.650]I want you to start in a specific location, and for the purposes of this, if you are writing
[00:53:05.570]a goodbye poem or just a nocturne, start in the kitchen in somebody's arms.
[00:53:11.470]It does not need to be sexy, sexy times.
[00:53:13.410]It could be your grandma, it could be a teddy bear that you had as a kid, again, it does
[00:53:21.930]not need to be human.
[00:53:24.470]Maybe a car at the edge of a lake, and I want you to choose one of these three times.
[00:53:30.350]Obviously, the 6:00 a.m., depending on where you are in the States, that's probably morning
[00:53:34.730]for most people, but you can choose to do an obad at that moment if you want.
[00:53:41.390]I'm sorry, you could do a nocturne if it's picturesque.
[00:53:43.390]I'm going to switch to black in the winter.
[00:53:44.630]Notice, too, why I'm being so specific about location.
[00:53:48.490]I know you're like, "Aimee, I thought you said we could do a free write.
[00:53:51.130]This is not free."
[00:53:53.010]When you don't have a location, you don't ground the reader.
[00:53:56.290]It's very much like we're in outer space.
[00:53:59.010]Notice how different the tone becomes if you're writing about a breakup.
[00:54:04.770]It is very different in tone and mood if you're setting a breakup in a kitchen at 7:00 p.m.
[00:54:11.710]That's a very different breakup than...
[00:54:13.370]In a car in a McDonald's parking lot at midnight.
[00:54:18.970]The tone and everything there is charged differently, so choose a location.
[00:54:23.990]If you want to go off script and go to another location, fine, but have a location, otherwise
[00:54:29.290]you're just doing a monologue for an actor who's floating in darkness in outer space.
[00:54:35.490]You could always change it up later, but for right now, choose a location and aim for a
[00:54:39.790]specific time.
[00:54:40.790]You do not need to be at 7:30 p.m.
[00:54:43.350]at the edge of a lake.
[00:54:46.510]I want to break up with you.
[00:54:48.870]Nobody talks like that.
[00:54:51.370]Just figure ways to use image to connote location or time.
[00:54:56.510]We should be able to know, for example, if it's night or morning.
[00:55:00.030]If you are not including morning words or night words, we don't know when you are, let
[00:55:06.790]alone where you are.
[00:55:08.530]Again, write normal as if you are in fast speaking.
[00:55:13.330]Don't worry about rhyme for now.
[00:55:15.190]Let's go margin to margin and just see what happens when you activate your night mind.
[00:55:20.610]You could be just journaling from life, like I remember there was a time maybe after my
[00:55:26.790]parents' divorce or something and I sat in the kitchen and I had midnight cereal and
[00:55:32.370]it was the best bowl of Lucky Charms I ever had or something like that.
[00:55:36.610]Just write those details down.
[00:55:39.850]Activate your night mind, whatever that means for you.
[00:55:43.310]And in the future, you can write the full two pages.
[00:55:46.810]Right now, let's see what happens in about four minutes.
[00:55:49.810]Let's see what happens in about four minutes, okay?
[00:55:54.610]All right, activate your night mind.
[00:55:58.790]All right, folks, find a place where you can pause.
[00:56:07.690]I hate, like I really, truly, it pains me to make you stop writing, but hopefully you
[00:56:13.290]don't.
[00:56:14.290]This is a green flag for you to say, "Hey, there's something here about when my night
[00:56:19.530]mind is activated.
[00:56:20.530]I actually have a lot to say," and you don't need to share this with anybody, and maybe
[00:56:25.410]you journaled a lot in fifth grade and kind of dropped it, and you became an accounting
[00:56:30.010]major or whatever, and nothing against accounting majors, but maybe you forgot to kind of what
[00:56:36.330]it's like to kind of get in tune with writing and noticing, I'm telling you folks, writing
[00:56:43.270]and noticing, especially about the outdoors, can save you. And what I mean by that is this.
[00:56:50.950]When you have wonder, when you make wonder a practice, you actually feel less alone.
[00:56:57.450]And what I mean by that, and I want to say it one more time so you get the message, when
[00:57:01.390]you make wonder a practice, you feel less alone. Even if you live by yourself, if you
[00:57:07.750]take a moment, it doesn't have to be long, like we did a four-minute spill here, if you
[00:57:13.250]do a timer and do 30 minutes, if you do an hour, whatever it takes while you're waiting
[00:57:18.270]for your kid's soccer game or something like that on a napkin, that's something to get
[00:57:22.990]in touch with the awe and wonderment, but in particular, just for the purposes of this
[00:57:28.430]class, it could be day or night, but see what happens when you think about night. When is
[00:57:33.370]the last time you were truly astonished about something that took place at night? When is
[00:57:39.750]the last time you had a lot of drama at night? Again, it doesn't have to be pleasant, it
[00:57:43.230]doesn't have to be pleasant, but there's something about recording what you see, taking note,
[00:57:49.050]because in a world that wants us to move fast and move on to the next thing, only we all
[00:57:55.170]individually have the power to say, "No, I'm going to slow down." Our brains are not meant
[00:57:59.510]to take in this much information without slowing down a little bit. I know you all can feel
[00:58:05.670]it in your heart and in your head, and I am no guru whatsoever. I am not a psychologist,
[00:58:10.450]so I don't have any scientific proof.
[00:58:13.210]Except for the fact that when I taught to people who don't make time to just do a little
[00:58:18.590]bit of writing, just checking in with themselves, even if you're typing on your phone as a note,
[00:58:22.990]even though that's not ideal, it's something, check in with yourself and you won't feel
[00:58:28.130]alone on this planet, because you realize actually how connected we all are. The leaves
[00:58:37.290]that we're always told to rake is important to fireflies, and those fireflies are important
[00:58:43.190]to the forest ecosystem and the prairies ecosystem. And birds, I don't even have to tell you how
[00:58:47.990]important birds are here in Nebraska. But it just makes you realize, oh, you're not
[00:58:52.170]alone actually. You are connected to every other thing. And I would be wary, one thing
[00:58:59.450]I would say too, as we are T minus three weeks to an election, I would say be wary of anybody,
[00:59:07.690]and I don't want to assume anything about anybody here, but I would just say as a human,
[00:59:13.170]be wary of anybody who says like, "Help yourself, make yourself great, or make any one thing
[00:59:20.090]great," because that's actually the most unnatural thing to hear. Every other thing on this planet
[00:59:27.530]that's alive depends on somebody else, so when we're only helping ourselves or only
[00:59:32.230]looking out for people who look like us, move like us, did I say love like us, we're doing
[00:59:41.770]a giant disservice.
[00:59:43.150]We're acting the most unnatural that we could possibly ever act.
[00:59:47.650]So I don't know, I guess I would just end with not only does making wonder a practice
[00:59:53.930]make you feel less alone, but it helps you realize that no matter our differences, we
[00:59:59.790]are still connected, and to have a little bit of grace, and most of all, grace for yourself
[01:00:06.430]in this time, and to let yourself.
[01:00:08.530]There's always four minutes that you can do in your day, I don't care how busy you are,
[01:00:13.130]there's four minutes that you can just do a check in, and let yourself daydream, let
[01:00:19.130]yourself have that moment of time and clarity, what it was like to dream big, think about
[01:00:24.290]the future with a capital F, think about the past with a capital P, but let yourself think,
[01:00:30.590]don't let social media or don't let the internet always be spoon feeding you these things.
[01:00:36.010]And look what you did here with a notebook and a pen, that's about 75 cents total, that's
[01:00:43.110]medicine that you can do for your heart all day.
[01:00:45.670]And then let me see here, and that's all I have for you on this, but I wanted to end
[01:00:51.710]with, I wanted to go back to the summer day.
[01:00:58.510]I wanted to go back to the summer day, and particularly if this will let me, good.
[01:01:03.730]Those last two lines, it's not just Joanna Gaines, but it's Aimee Nezhukumatathil who loves
[01:01:08.530]those two lines as well, and don't quote me, this is not me, I do not want to take credit
[01:01:13.090]for that. This is the guru of nature writing herself, Mary Oliver. Please write these last
[01:01:17.950]two lines just on a blank sheet of paper or turn off your page. I just want you to remember
[01:01:22.990]this one thing here, not only when wonder is a practice that makes you feel less alone,
[01:01:28.670]but let's take a look at these last two lines. Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your
[01:01:34.030]one wild, and it is precious, life? All right. Ask yourself of that, like at least maybe
[01:01:43.070]if you can't do it every day, once a week, check in with yourself. And it doesn't have
[01:01:47.690]to be monumental. It could be, I took time to like, I don't know, take a bath, like actually
[01:01:55.790]take a bath today. Or I took time to take an hour-long walk with my dog. You know, what
[01:02:04.070]is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
[01:02:06.910]I think the people who are the meanest on this planet don't daydream and they also don't
[01:02:13.050]even have answers to this last question. So that's all I'll have to say on that subject
[01:02:18.010]right there, but I want to just give you a big thanks from the bottom of my heart for
[01:02:21.710]joining with me, for activating your night mind in the middle of the day, and thank you
[01:02:25.670]most of all to the University of Nebraska's Honors Program for bringing me here today.
[01:02:30.350]Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. Thank you.
[01:02:31.350]Thank you, thank you. Thank you.
[01:02:32.350]Thank you.
[01:02:33.350]Thank you.
[01:02:34.350]Thank you.
[01:02:35.350]Thank you.
[01:02:40.350]you
[01:02:40.770]you

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How to Fall Down into the Grass: Nature Journaling Workshop

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