Caroline Kennedy | CONVERSATIONS AT KCTS 9

I'm Enrique Cerna next on conversations Caroline Kennedy attorney author and editor Kennedy has a new book she walks in beauty a woman's journey through poems we'll hear her personal reflections on this collection of poems and how poetry has played a role in her own life as a daughter wife and mother Caroline Kennedy next on conversations local production and broadcast of conversations at KCTS 9 is made possible in part by kcts-9 members and by a major grant from the Floyd and Delores Jones Foundation and by viewers like you thank you Caroline Kennedy welcome to conversations good to have you here welcome to Seattle it's been awhile since I was here for my first book tour and it's amazing because it was 20 years ago oh my gosh I know I know so it's nice to be back what was the book that the book was in our defense about the Bill of Rights right you've written what seven eight books yeah so poetry I didn't realizes that you'd actually done other books on poetry this is what the third this is the third yeah and I actually have another one that I've done also oh yes yeah it was kind of a random thing I really thought I'd end up sticking with the law or sort of more um those deep subjects yeah deep heavy subjects but but I got off on this poetry tangent with the first poetry book which kind of grew out of after my mother died I think there were so many people writing and talking about her and and mostly about her style and her fashion sense and things like that and I really felt like they were sort of missing the point of who she was and what made her the person that she was which was reading in a love of literature and poetry and I thought it would be something nice to share with people the poems that she loved and that had meant a lot in our family so I put that book together just just because of that and and then it sort of led me on to these other poetry projects so it's been something I never expected but it's been really fun your mother when you talk about reading writing and ideas obviously that was part of her career right she became a book editor but certainly when I think of her you know so many images in my mind or of her reading and and that was really I mean she just she read all the time and it was something that she passed along to my brother and me and is that something she did with the two of you as young kids I mean we hear so much but I read to a lot to my kids and how important that is in their development and was that something that she really wanted to share well I think it was just saying that she loved and I think it wasn't sort of purposeful in that way it was just something and you know amazingly enough when I grew up there really wasn't a lot of TV so back in olden days and so but I think what she did do was particularly with poetry which is a little harder sometimes she you know she made it fun and she made it something I mean I memorized poems from my father and then for every holiday or birthday we had to pick out a poem as a present for her and illustrated and copied it over and she saved all those poems so it was a fun thing for my brother and I of course we were incredibly competitive about whose poems was better and and all that and but it's it's been a great tradition and I've tried to carry it on it was something she did with her grandfather and my kids have done it for me and so it's I think it really makes brings poetry and reading into sort of different parts of life which makes a connection as a parent with your children if that's something well so many people when I went out talking about that book told me that they had had a similar experience in their own family with their grandparent or parent who took the time to read with them and you know and as much as it was about the poem or whatever they were reading it was really about that special time together and I think that's something that with our busy modern life is harder for parents to sustain and that's another reason why I've focused on poetry because problems are short you know they don't take long to read if you you know for busy family schedules and and I think that they really kind of capture and distill so many important lessons and for kids are fun because they're rhyme and their rhythm and they're supposed to be spoken aloud so there's a lot to discuss you know I always found poetry kind of intimidating because sometimes you as you say that there's the poetry that rhymes but sometimes there's some of it that's abstract it can be a bit dark did you ever feel intimidation anything about poetry ah well no that's what as I'm saying that's really I think that's really unfortunate people are intimidated and it makes them feel dumb they can't understand it that's what they say but I think because we had this early exposure I never really I mean if I figured if I can't understand it then then you know I'll go on to another poem that's not what you can't exactly so I just I feel like that's too bad and people really shouldn't put up with that that's a bad attitude you know I was talking to some friends and I still tell me when I was going to be speaking to you about this book and you probably hear this a lot for some how they they think of you still as a little girl young woman and then that you're your mother and wife now and you can talk about 50 because I'm trying to be diplomatic they grew up with me but they're somehow not 50 but I somehow I am busy so okay you're more than 50 yeah good so how do you but we all look great I don't know thank you yes you look yeah that's what you're supposed to say okay go ahead I was trying to get but as you were writing this book turning 50 was also something that you were thinking about and how you were kind of come to that milestone well yeah of course when you're coming up it's like a huge trauma and then when it passes it's just like you can't believe what was all the fuss about but I mean at least you know I got a lot of attention and but I think I got a few problems out of it and I was working on a poetry anthology for kids at the time one for kids to learn by heart and which was something else so that we sort of grew up doing and it's a little bit falling out of favor now though there is a lot of spoken word poetry and things but anyway so and the poems that I got and then I loved really didn't fit in the kids anthology so I thought you know after a while I said to my editor you know what about a poetry book for adults or you know middle aged women because everyone I know is talking about nothing but turning 50 and they're all completely traumatized all person into tears and worried about looking old and everything and then did you worry about that or in fact no because I usually hang around with people who were a couple years older than me so my cousin's that I close to our two years older than me so I you know I had heard it all and and but I think there's so many poems it had such a time in life where you're looking ahead and looking back and thinking you know your kids are growing up or you're sort of have a job that you're you know you're probably going to stay with or you're taking care of your parents and and your children and so there's just a lot of things to sort of ponder and abettor all coming together at the same time almost like adolescents and that there's all these changes happening and so many poems really speak to that and so it was just interesting for me to read read some poems at that time and I really thought that they spoke to so many aspects of life and probably would to other people too and you've actually kind of broken this up into phases of a woman's life from doing from you know having that first love to break up to working to marriage to all of these different areas that you kind of encounter in your life it's for men too and so action whatever I thought was good yeah that's good so you can let know what you're supposed to talk about in there you think about it is that even if you're a guy you can relate to this day that's right how many of us have gone through breakups how many of us have had difficulties working writer ages right growing old I feel that part of a three-day so I know where that's at did you have trouble deciding who you're going to put into this well you could read do the same book you know with columns three times over so it's really a personal selection and sort of how the things seem to go together and I you know I turned to poems that I am familiar with as well as I you know I learned a lot of new poems and sort of encountered a lot of new poets during this which was actually the best part for me a lot of more contemporary poets whose work especially when I was looking for the poems about work because there are a lot of poems about traditional kinds of work agricultural work or domestic service things like that but there are hardly any poems about sort of modern working woman and I think poets are doing a traditional kind of work mostly which is writing and but there aren't so many problems about balancing work and family or all the things that that women talk about now and so that was really interesting and I reached out to a couple of poets that I had met to see if they might know of poems as well and so that was an interesting process and also the there's a section about friendship which i think is you know becomes so important as we crow Aldermen it's important throughout our lives but and there hardly any poems about friendship even though at least as far as I'm concerned women talking about their friends all the time and they're always everything's about friendship and magazines and everything but apparently poets don't seem to have bourbon friends the kind of solitary figures you know there's a lot of poems about being really depressed and looking out the window and things like that so you probably had a vast selection of the breakup and breakup it's like couldn't you know this could be many volumes anyway the friends are and so I also I reached out to a couple poets that I had met and got some wonderful poems about friendship too and I think those those are two areas where people are going to be writing more and more I mean contemporary poets and so those are the more contemporary chapters one of the phases is making love and so your kids saw this book and they saw it all before you well if you look closely there's really I mean there's nothing in there that you know that would really excite them I don't know if you were little yeah yeah I see the Song of Solomon yeah that was that's pretty that was you rely really carefully yeah yeah up there yeah but what did they say when you were working on that oh my god they were just horrified that there would be a child it's a chapter heading this really the race is that mom what are you doing is that what a well you know and what you're making love is to do with handkerchiefs and you know flirting and corsages and all kinds of thing it's not just you know right it's it's all the build-up and so I think that that's you know now I think everything is so graphic in our society and so you know there's no sort of there are no barriers there's no yeah corsage is covering things or anything so I think that if you have but if you read these poems some of them are John Donne or or Robert hare I mean the poems from the 15th 16th centuries or even as I said the Song of Solomon I mean if you actually take the time to read them it's there's a lot there yeah the breaking up I understand that as you were doing that part of it your son actually was do with that my son was dumped by his girlfriend that's okay because he didn't he actually seemed like he managed quite well yeah you other so much like helping me through that process when this isn't shown in New York right yes yeah no X there's no such thing as the Internet either so he can't see that okay yeah yeah yeah no well he managed that they they become very good friends let's just say that yeah a little yeah yeah no I mean I was funny because you know as all these I mean part of the point of the book is that all these experiences happen to everyone and when you're going through them you feel like you're the only one who's ever you know broken up with anyone or gotten married or had a child or all the things and I think poetry really distills sort of the essence of human experience and the most powerful feelings that we have and we often can't put into words and so I think that that it's just helpful sometimes to I mean it helps you clarify your own thinking when you read a poem about something that you're going through and you realize that you know not the other way you're not the only one and this person has put it into words better than you ever could and it actually gives you something it helps you talk about the experience with other people as well and I really think poems are not just to be read but they're to be passed along and shared that's actually the great thing about when you have to memorize poems as a child or anything I mean they just stay with you and you know you can pass them on and share them there's a conversation yeah you can almost have that book club experience where you can talk about what the poem means to you and and how it strikes you and you could decipher it pretty clearly there as far as how the impact value right yeah now you've talked a lot about how poetry particularly in these times as you mentioned already the fact that you know we we were in such this we seemed to be in a hurry everywhere everything seems to be short but it's the written word and and also trying to continue to appreciate that are we not doing that enough today well I don't think I mean it's that they're short it makes poetry actually very well-suited to the world we live in because I think that people do have limited time and poems really get right to the point and right to the heart of the matter so in that way I think although people think of them is sort of an old-fashioned removed thing they're not they're very much about the ordinary moments and sort of making them extraordinary and appreciating those but I also think that poetry is about ideas and I think I've been working in the schools in New York and thinking and raising my own children and thinking a lot about how do you get kids interested in ideas and how do you help them find their own voice and you know that's what we need to change the world that we live in and make it better and so I think that poetry really has an ability to do that it helps you cut through a lot of the manipulation and really get to what's authentic and you know no one talks about poetry on TV except for you but but in fact it's a great I got that market alright by William Carlos Williams that says it's difficult to find the news in poems but men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there so I mean we have revolutions of ideas going on all around the world and I think poetry is really a place where those kinds of values have been passed down for generations do you write poetry yourself not a lot maybe I'll start yeah I think I have to start now talking about it but have you memorized a lot through years I become really familiar with a lot but I haven't you know memorized to to memorize and perform refferal I want to ask you to do that now but I will ask you if you don't mind sharing if you would read a couple of poems that are here and actually one of the sections is about vos and probably related to breakup as well and I was taken by the one by Queen Elizabeth the first on the Sears departure there also are problems in there about breaking up where the person is thrilled yeah well this was a little heavy we dry and reading that Queen Elizabeth you know I mean she really it was kind of I thought it was just interesting it's not the easiest poem no I understand but she were to read so thanks for asking me but but that she brought here I thought it was really kind of just interesting you know yeah it's called on messiahs departure I grieve and dare not show my discontent I love and yet and forced to seem to hate I do yet dare not say I ever meant I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate I am and not I freeze and yet and burned since from myself another self I turned my care is like my shadow in the Sun follows me flying flies when I pursue it stands and lies by me death what I have done his too familiar care doesn't make me rue it no means I find to rid him from my breast till by the end of things it be suppressed some gentler passions slide into my mind for I am soft and made of melting snow or be more cruel love and so be kind let me let me or float or sink be high or low or let me live with some more sweet content or die and so forget what love air meant she was hurt yeah me why she had I guess she had to tell the guy to go away yeah because she was you know her he was what you know who no I don't know she didn't tell me well darn her yeah yeah didn't return the email to that Walter Raleigh were you trying to find a mix of poems that obviously this is pretty heavy but also there's some in here that are just short and sweet and funny good night I wanted to definitely have funny poems in there there's a lot of there are some funny poems in there that that I thought were great alright I should have picked one of those out there now do your children do they write poetry at all did your uncle Ted write poetry or Joe he loved it I mean you couldn't stop him from reciting the midnight ride of Paul Reiser every time does anybody want their site in our city do the ferry functions or yes yeah absolutely why that was a just like it knew it and now and and it happened in Massachusetts it was about true you know changing the course of history and you know one each person could could do that and I mean it's obviously you know such a great poem and so much fun she was you quite the performer whenever can you imagine yeah yeah yeah I think you're really doing that I remember him singing a Spanish song or trying to sing the Spanish stuck out in a campaign oh yeah yeah I figured feelings cow yeah yeah nice go yeah yeah yeah can you sing that I see that's about all I know okay oh yeah yeah I didn't get sort of it up too but he loved yeah I never understood what he was saying but it was quite nice it was quite yeah all these go that's one other that I'd actually like you reading when you talk about the education part of things and this one actually it's called PS education Ellen Hagan can you tell me a little bit about who she was you don't have to read the whole thing because actually it's pretty it gets the I put a line here because some of the language gets gotten this but who is she actually she is a poet that it works in New York City public schools and teaches poetry a teaching artist and I actually the the after-school poetry program that I work in she is one of the people who works in it and so I was as I said I was looking for homes about different kinds of work so I have in here a poem about being a waitress there's poems about being a teachers there's problems about office work and there's poems about agricultural work there's a poem by chili Olson about garment workers so grandmother's is a poem by Margaret Walker there's a public market water about how her grandmother's worked in the field and and had so much strength and she wants to emulate that strength and there's even a poem of by Natasha Trethewey about a call girl I figured that should be in there too working yeah Langston Hughes about a woman who works for you know made who doesn't liked her boss and which is very funny but Allen Hagen I've you know has really seen the dysfunction in our urban schools systems firsthand and so she writes this sort of very morally outraged poem about how the adults are really not serving the kids well and and I can't believe you asked me to read some of it but no I there's only a portion of it there I did the he did the very where I don't see the line let me finish okay it's not really very much yeah we don't wanna go beyond testing oh there's urban language in here all right so it's called PS education take all the metal detectors apart and build imaginary cities with them then my seventh graders can build a utopia and walk around in it tell Harold the security guard who sings only Tito Puentes songs that he can have his own music room and buy gold trumpets and trombones that slide like hot oil buy drums that rumble the whole school dum de dum build a garden as big as a football field a Taft High School and feed everything then there's yeah I think you want to stop me being there but it ends up too with the kids and put the principal in class with all the rundown teachers no pencils paperless notebooks don't give him books because you know he's lazy call and lazy because he is make him walk in and out of the metal detectors saying next school year I will do better and serve you better make him mean it show up pencils and papers at the ready pretty soon as tough it's tough in this it's also real of what yeah what she's talking about there oh now this is what the 50th year anniversary of your father's administration what you have big things planned other books related to that or well actually we just did a book that sort of for young adult younger adults which has three of his greatest speeches in it an introduction and the poem that Robert Frost read at the inauguration because that's something that everybody remembers and it really kind of showed my parents commitment to the Arts into poetry and sort of elevated that and then we launched the largest digital archive of a presidency in January we digitized all President Kennedy's papers so you don't have to go to the Kennedy Library anymore but you can really also you know discover research and decide for yourself you don't have to take it from historian can you go on yeah you go online and it's JFK Library org and and all his papers are there available and we were able to get them translated into many languages and so it's available worldwide which I was really our contribution to this fiftieth anniversary that meaning my family and the Kennedy Library and then we also had did a special kind of website for kids because that they're not so interested perhaps in sort of combing through every document but if you do it on ya know and there's downloadable curriculum and really showing you the time and setting the events in context and his decisions in context so it's really been a powerful tool in there they're going great but hopefully making that legacy accessible to more people will encourage others to serve our country speaking of serving the next year the presidential race well it's already heating up are you going to be as involved as you were with the Obama campaign into that I don't know it's still a year away I mean yeah sure I mean and how about you have you kind of decided you're not going to do politics or that's about as far as our tree that's your limit now as far as all that concerned well that's good I'm just curious I actually was listening to a speech that you gave and you were talking about your uncle Teddy and I thought that this was kind of interesting is that did he would he kind of push you to get out there and do speeches and do things was he always like come on you got to try this now he just liked me to introduce him all right yeah so that was always fun because I would always come up with something too you know and give him a hard time and all that and and and he was so much fun and he made it fun he would always say this is going to be really fun and I'd say I know but you said that the last time and it really wasn't fun at all say no no this time this time is going to be really fun and so off we would go to you know the exact same thing that we had done before but it was fun he was fun to do anything with because he was you know just such a good company and so was he always a guy with a sense of humor and trying to keep your you know your interest and humor up as well and yet would ask you to do things you're doing family things or whatever well I mean it was he was a lot of fun to be around and he did he played that role for my entire extended family and everybody wanted to be with Teddy and he is always coming up with these expeditions and events and you know and he loved history also and he was passionate about that and so we had a lot of you know uncommon and a lot of fun together you'll miss the ride of Paul Revere for many moons to come with him delivering it anybody tape it by any chance I'll be sure I'm sure you or I can hear it in my mind today I don't need to yeah well April 19th is coming up April 18th yeah the book is called she walks in beauty a woman's journey through poems selected and introduced by Caroline Kennedy thank you very much take the time oh thank you reading few poems putting you on the spot I appreciate that though thank you all right local production and broadcast of conversations at KCTS 9 is made possible in part by kcts-9 members and by a major grant from the Floyd and Delores Jones foundation and by viewers like you thank you

Channel: KCTS9

Views: 31,670

Rating: 4.8823528 out of 5

Keywords: poetry, Ted Kennedy, Caronline Kennedy, She Walk in Beauty, President Kennedy

Id: Alzqh8x9OpI

Length: 26min 46sec (1606 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 28 2011