Waxing Poetic with Jia Tolentino (Live at Strand)

Summary

Fail Better with David Duchovny

Episode: "Waxing Poetic with Jia Tolentino (Live at Strand)"
Date: November 4, 2025
Host: David Duchovny
Guest: Laurie (Interviewer/Moderator; Jia Tolentino not present in transcript)

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Overview

This live episode at New York’s iconic Strand bookstore explores the intersection of poetry, writing, failure, and the search for meaning. David Duchovny, celebrated actor turned novelist and musician, shares insights on his poetry collection and creative process, interspersed with live readings of selected poems. The conversation also touches on the inheritance of literary influence, the complexities of fame, mortality, and what it means to "fail better"—Beckett's mantra for personal and creative growth.

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Table of Contents

• Introduction & Setting the Scene
• David's Relationship with Poetry & Early Influences
• On Writing: Poems vs. Songs
• The Notions of Fame, Death, and Legacy
• Live Poetry Readings & Personal Reflections
  • “Carbon Canyon”
  • “Dead Seven”
• Family, Memory, and the Writer’s Double-Edged Sword
• Q&A Segment: Process, Influence, and the Nature of Poetry
• Memorable Quotes

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Introduction & Setting the Scene

[01:27] Laurie:
Sets the lively, packed atmosphere and frames Duchovny as a multi-talented icon—"flexing his talents in a new realm" of poetry, described as "expansive and funny and a little absurd and poignant and very human."

[01:38] Duchovny (deadpan):
"That's how I asked to be introduced."

The program will mix conversation and live poetry readings, focusing on Duchovny's latest book.

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David's Relationship with Poetry & Early Influences

[05:48] Duchovny:

• Poetry and writing were valued in his home—father was a writer, mother a teacher.
• He began writing as both self-expression and a coded journal—“so that if my mom found it, she wouldn’t really know what I was talking about.” (06:44)
• Early motivations: to connect with his family, impress girls ("I couldn’t play music, so I could play the words"), and to puzzle through feelings.

On poetic influences:

• "John Berryman, for some reason, was, I guess, my first favorite poet."
• Also cites Houseman, "they stick in your head ... maybe they’re not the best poems..., but I’m all for filling your head with as much as possible and letting it bounce.” (08:12-09:03)

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On Writing: Poems vs. Songs

[09:31]

• Duchovny distinguishes song lyrics from poetry:

  • "A song has to be instantly memorizable... you want people to sing the chorus... A poem is not like that. A poem is really trying to jar you into dissonance, into not thinking. It's really trying to slow you down."
  • “I love Bob Dylan… but he’s not the best poet. Even Leonard Cohen’s stuff, it’s okay on the page.” (09:44–10:16)
  • Poem: words and music are one; song: words leave room for music and vice versa.

• Creative process:

  • Ideas for poems or lyrics come as feelings or phrases; novels come as concepts or plots.
  • Emphasizes the importance of patience—if you don’t write it down, “then it’s gone... No, you blew that one."
  • On editing: early poems are left true to their original voice—"Maybe it's not as good, but that guy wrote that thing, so I'm going to leave it alone." (13:32-14:24)

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Notions of Fame, Death, and Legacy

[15:04]

• Duchovny references Harold Bloom on the Greek (horizontal, contemporary fame) vs. Hebrew (vertical, eternal) notions of fame.
• “I myself sought the horizontal through acting, courting worldwide fame in the here and now, while still harboring dreams of eternal verticality by writing my way into a future… both types of fame belie a fear of death.”
• Struggles with both concepts, sometimes conflating “the here and now” with “verdicality.” (15:53)

On poetry’s universal subjects:

• "Every poem is in its way about death and also about love.” (16:25-16:30)

Collecting poems into a book:

• The volume forms a kind of coded, secret autobiography—spanning many years, “chapter one, chapter two... Maybe these are worthwhile.”
• Describes it as the “most unpopular thing I can do… anti-career… I think I have achieved it!” (17:05-17:38)

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Live Poetry Readings & Personal Reflections

Poetry Reading: “Carbon Canyon”

[28:00-31:41]

Duchovny reads "Carbon Canyon," a poem about a walk with his young daughter, encountering a dead mouse and the line:

“No, the ants, Daddy, the ants. Look how much they love her.” (31:41)

• The moment pivots from parental intent (“life lessons”) to a child’s view of compassion—her noticing the ants and interpreting their presence as affection for the mouse.
• Duchovny describes writing it ten years after the event, and the power of collecting lines and moments from life.

Reflections:

• On using his daughter’s words: “I’ll never write a line like that… Part of being a writer is noticing the good lines, too, and ripping off the best lines.”
• On writing about family: “If there’s a writer in the family, there goes the family… you don’t want to hurt people. But the best stuff is going to hurt.” (32:59-34:06)

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Poetry Reading: “Dead Seven”

[35:50–38:55]

A poem contemplating his relationship with his father, now seven years deceased:

"People think a relationship ends when a person dies, but it doesn’t… The relationship actually changes. That’s the weird thing." (38:55)

• Poem reflects on legacy, learning, and how memories shift over time.
• Written as he considered his evolving relationship with his late father.

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Family, Memory, and the Writer’s Double-Edged Sword

• Writing about loved ones is both a gift and a risk.

• Duchovny acknowledges the complications: "You don’t want to hurt people. But the best stuff is going to hurt… usually it’s going to be complicated anyway. It’s not going to be Hallmark stuff." (33:55-34:06)

• Autobiography emerges through collected poems—honoring "the wholeness" and "the rhythm" of earlier work, resisting the urge to edit older poems, even if they feel less polished.

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Q&A Segment: Process, Influence, and the Nature of Poetry

On literary conversation:

• Duchovny sees himself as dialoguing with other writers and texts, even if it "sounds arrogant." References allusions:
  • Shakespeare’s The Tempest ("full fathom five")
  • Joyce and others, "steal from the best" (42:40-43:20)

On writing routine and deadlines:

• No fixed writing schedule—relies on inspiration and deadlines when available.
• “A lot of my life goes by without an idea... But sometimes I'll write poetry in that space because just a little quick idea will come to me." (45:44-46:45)

On re-reading old work:

• Reading old poems “brings me back, at least to the writer that I was when I wrote it.”
• “There’s a span of time that’s being addressed in the poems… a hidden kind of secret autobiography.” (47:19–47:55)

On the purpose and approach to poetry:

• Paraphrasing a question about Billy Collins’ “Introduction to Poetry” poem, Duchovny says:
  • “I don’t think a poem is about anything. A good poem is impossible to turn into any kind of statement... It’s not an idea... it’s something more mystical, more religious.” (49:23-50:21)

On poetry as anti-utilitarian, slow art:

• "Poetry is patient... it slows things down rather than speeds things up... books, look how patient they are. They haven’t said a word the entire time we’ve been here... they’ve just been biding their time." (50:48–51:41)

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Memorable Quotes

• “Poetry is not useful. And that is exactly why we need it. It reminds us of two important things. Our ultimate lack of agency... and our inability to say anything plain.” (02:53) — David Duchovny reading from his introduction

• “Poems try to say what can never be said… maybe this time I’ll get it right. If that’s the case, it seems a worthy enterprise.” (05:01 — Duchovny)

• “People will call you a poet as a way of not having to deal with what you write, as if you were already dead.” (03:25)

• “A song has to be instantly memorizable... A poem is not like that. It’s really trying to jar you into dissonance, into not thinking.” (10:13)

• “Maybe it’s not as good in my estimation as it might be, but it was written by that guy, so I’m going to leave it alone.” (14:18)

• “Every poem is in its way about death and also about love.” (16:25)

• “A father slows his daughter, allowing the chance to happen upon a dead mouse... But it is only now, as we kneel, that I notice the vibrant cha-cha line of ants...” (28:00, “Carbon Canyon”)

• "No, the ants, Daddy, the ants. Look how much they love her." (31:41)

• "People think a relationship ends when a person dies, but it doesn’t. The relationship actually changes." (38:55)

• "Part of being a writer is noticing the good lines, too, and ripping off the best lines." (32:40)

• "Poetry is patient...books, look how patient they are... they've just been biding their time against the walls and they're going to be here for a long, long time." (51:20)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:27 – Introduction and framing of the event
• 02:53 – Duchovny’s “poetry is not useful, and that is why we need it”
• 05:48 – Early influences and writing as coded self-expression
• 09:31 – Comparing poetry and song lyrics
• 15:04 – Fame: Greek horizontal vs. Hebrew vertical (Harold Bloom)
• 17:05 – Purpose behind collecting and publishing old poems
• 28:00–31:41 – Reading and discussion of “Carbon Canyon”
• 35:50–38:55 – Reading and discussion of “Dead Seven”
• 42:40 – Allusions, influences, and literary conversation
• 45:44 – On writing practice and deadlines
• 47:19 – On legacy and rereading one’s old work
• 49:23 – On interpreting poetry and the mystical nature of a poem
• 50:48 – Poetry as slowness and patience, not utilitarianism

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Conclusion

Through poetry and candid discussion, Duchovny offers a vulnerable, sharply observed meditation on artistry, legacy, and human connection. The conversation embraces ambiguity, complexity, and the intertwined themes of love, death, and the urge to create something lasting—even in the face of inevitable failure.

Listeners are left with a sense of poetry as "patient," waiting to "jar you into dissonance" or, sometimes, to simply wait until a reader is ready to encounter it.

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For further listening:
Search for "Fail Better" on your podcast app of choice, or visit Lemonada Media for more creative, vulnerable interviews at the intersection of failure and art.

Transcript

[David Duchovny]

It's morning in New York. Hey everybody, I'm Andy Patinkin. And I'm Kathryn Grody. And we have a new podcast. It's called don't listen to us. Many of you have asked for our advice. Tell me what is wrong with you people. Don't listen to us. Our take it or leave it advice show is out every Wednesday, premiering October 15th. A Lemonada Media original foreign. Hey, just a quick message before we get started. You can now listen to every episode of Fail Better ad free with Lemonada Premium on Apple Podcasts. You'll also get ad free access to and exclusive bonus content from shows like Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis Dreyfus, the Sarah Silverman podcast and so many more. It's just 5.99amonth and a great way to support the work we do. Go ad free and get bonus content when you hit subscribe on this show in Apple Podcasts. Make life suck less with fewer ads with Lemonada Premium.

[Laurie]

Hello, everyone. It's so nice to be in this packed room with you guys. And I'm very excited to be here with icon and legend David Duchovny here flexing.

[David Duchovny]

That's how I asked to be introduced.

[Laurie]

Who's here flexing his talents in a new realm in a way that I think we can all agree is incredibly annoying, as many of us would be happy to merely excel at one thing if we are ever so lucky to get that. But just like his fiction, the poems in this book about time, they are expansive and funny and a little absurd and poignant and very human and often quite sad. It'll be really fun to talk about them tonight with you all. So, yeah, thanks for coming. So we'll talk for like half an hour, a little bit more before we open it up to questions. And I also am going to make David do some interspersed poetry reading. But first I was hoping you could read a little bit from the introduction.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, yeah, which part? Which book?

[Laurie]

Like first page and then wherever you feel like stopping.

[David Duchovny]

Sure. This one's signed.

[Laurie]

Who did that?

[David Duchovny]

I don't know where. I don't know where this is going, so I just wrote it. I haven't read it in a while, so bear with me. I might not get it. The whole page, you think? The whole page. All right, here we go. A poetic. Should I. Should I gloss on it as I go along, like I'm trying to do right now?

[Laurie]

You're the performer.

[David Duchovny]

A poetic autobiography. I know what you're thinking. Just what the world needs now. A bunch of poems from an actor. It's funny in my head. I'm only half kidding. Poetry is lies. Poetry makes nothing happen. Plato banished the poets from the perfect society because they make us feel more than think. Too much passion, not enough reason. You cannot get rich at it. It can rhyme, but it doesn't have to. People will call you a poet as a way of not having to deal with what you write as if you were already dead. And among those who used to try to talk like that, an unserious individual. A man out of time. Not on garage. I can write it, but I can't speak it. Somehow. Not manly. Not Teddy Roosevelt's man, often invoked man in the arena. It's a doomed mission. Poems try to say what can never be said. These are just a few of the virtuous things about poetry that come to mind. Let me try to say it unpoetically. Poetry is not useful. And that is exactly why we need it. It reminds us of two important things. Our ultimate lack of agency. Unpopular to say I know. And our inability to say anything plain. Our inability to capture what it means to be human. With the imperfect tool of words, we come face to face with our shadow selves. For in the end we will all die and be forgotten. This is the funny part. And come away with nothing. Nothing in the way of utility anyway. No talking points, no bullet points, no propaganda, no resolutions, no policy, no knowledge. If anything, maybe we remember a few lines. Take them the heart, the lustres, or touchstones as Matthew Arnold called them, the greatest rifts. And they lie there modestly swaying in the seabed of our mind, barnacled and semi ghostly. Here we go. Something like an adult nursery rhyme. Something like a pop song from the collective unconscious. Something like wisdom. You see, I wanted to say it plain, but out comes that torrent of modifiers and adjustments. Denials, double negatives, shading, stabs at wit, backpedaling playing, capturing the lightning. Maybe this time. Maybe that's what a poem is. That glorious feeling of maybe this time I'll get it right. If that's the case, it seems a worthy enterprise to me. You see, I got somewhere, but the way back is unclear. That's a good enough definition of poetry for now. No, it's not.

[Laurie]

So I wondered if you could talk more about your.

[David Duchovny]

What I just said.

[Laurie]

Well, actually, about what? The rest of the introduction gets into your own history with poetry. When it first became personal to you as a reader and how you started to write it and. Yeah, and why.

[David Duchovny]

Well, I've been. I've been thinking about that too, above and beyond what I. What I wrote in here. And I think. I think I started to be aware of poems or write poems. My father was a writer, my mother was a teacher. And so words were. Or writing was heavily valued in my house. And to be able to work with words was, was a value and was, was applauded. So I think I, I wanted to, to work in that area so that they would like me, you know, so they wouldn't get rid of me. And I also think I was trying to just see what feelings were about, just to put words on feelings and, and almost, almost in a sense of like keeping a journal, but in, in a, in code, so that if my mom found it, she wouldn't really know what I was talking about.

[Laurie]

No idea what the words meant.

[David Duchovny]

So it was like my secret mirror writing, you know, journal in a way. And I guess to impress girls when I got older, because I couldn't. I wasn't playing music, so I just, I, I could play the words. And then as I, as I, as I got into, you know, later in school, just playing that game, you know, wanting to. Finding poets that I loved and then wanting to enter into the conversation with them that they had started hundreds of years ago. So it was really just that impetus of trying to say what I felt couldn't be said. How do I get it wrong? You know, how do I. How do I get this feeling, this thought wrong? But I'm going to keep trying.

[Laurie]

What were the poems that you wrote to impress girls?

[David Duchovny]

Like?

[Laurie]

Really good.

[David Duchovny]

They're really good. Yeah, Yeah, I do remember this. I remember. And this is not my poem, but this was. I was trying to impress a girl. I wrote the whole of Billy Joel's Captain Jack on the sleeve of the album From Memory, and this was considered quite a feat.

[Laurie]

Who were the first poets that you, when you were talking about getting later in school and having people's work started to, you know, really lodge within you, like, who were those early poets for you?

[David Duchovny]

John Berryman, for some reason, was, I guess, my first favorite poet. I remember getting into him and I remember just like 9th grade poetry class, reading a houseman, you know, that kind of. Terrence, this is stupid stuff. You eat your vittles fast enough, there can't be Muslims. Tis clear to see the rate you drink your beer. Anybody from Collegiate can do that to an athlete dying young. You know, these, these poems kind of. They stick in your head and they remain there forever if you're lucky, you know, and maybe they're not the best poems, and maybe they're hokey at this point, and maybe they belong to a tradition that is not as valued or has been overturned in a way right now. But, you know, I'm all for, like, filling your head with as much as possible and letting it bounce and.

[Laurie]

So. Okay, you've written what, six novels? Five. Six. You count? Graphic novel.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Laurie]

A lot of them.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. Graphic novel. That was a. Yeah.

[Laurie]

And you've also released three rock albums, so you have written in verse before, like, for a public eye. And you write in the intro at one point that people. A poem, you know, in a song, the words have to leave room for the music, and the music has to leave room for the words. But a poem is both the words and the music.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Laurie]

Can you talk about the different limitations that you experience in both forms and. Or the different freedoms of writing a song versus writing a poem?

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, I mean, I feel like in writing a song, you know, I know that there have been great songwriters that have had their lyrics published in poem form in a way. And I know that it's probably not popular to say, but I. I'm underwhelmed when I. I love. I mean, Bob Dylan, to me, is the best lyricist, but he's not the best poet. And even Leonard Cohen stuff, it's okay on the page. It's not fantastic. It's not as great as the song. I know that's not a great thing to say.

[Laurie]

Leonard Cohen just. Okay.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, that's the pull quote. And I know they teach a course on Taylor Swift lyrics at Harvard, and I don't know what to say about that. And it's no knock on Taylor Swift. I don't know that those lyrics, they need the music. It's part of the same thing. You can't separate lyrics out from the music. So in my experience of writing songs, it's been always that dance of how much do you want the music to carry it? And how much the lyrics are carrying the feeling. And it's a wonderful kind of give and take. There are people who are amazing at it, you know, and they're amazing musicians, and they know how to fit a lyric in there. So it's an interesting dance, but it's not the same to me. When I'm writing a poem, it's really. It all has to be carried right there. And it's not about being clear, you know, a song has to be instantly memorizable, if that's a word. And because you want people to sing the Chorus. After they hear it one or two times, you know that you want to get in their head. So a poem is not like that. A poem is really trying to jar you into dissonance, into not thinking. It's really trying to slow you down. I think a song is trying to speed you up and get you dancing or whatever. But a poem is to slow you down, knock you out of your consciousness a little bit. I think like Emily Dickinson does that to me all the time. And just a short quatrain or whatever, she can just blow my mind. And that's, that's the difference for me between something that's just words on a page and something that's, you know, taught at Harvard. I would, Come on.

[Laurie]

I was curious about this sort of what all of this. You work in a lot of forums and what this looks like on the back end. Like, do you know, do you keep sort of all purpose notebooks and sort things into one category later? Or do you know when a thought or a line or an idea comes to you where, what form it's going to end up in and have these things like switched. Can you think of. Are there major things?

[David Duchovny]

Well, you, do you do you work in different forms as well. So you understand that an idea comes or turn a phrase or whatever, it's a, it's a feeling or a perception. And that could, that's usually just a poem or a song or something. You know, it's just a fleeting moment. I was doing some interviews this morning and the guy said, the guy who was doing the text said, I'm gonna fuck it up. It was a great line and it, but it was just a technical line. He said, I, I think he said, I'm beginning to hear myself coming back to me. You know, he was just saying about the. And I was like, oh, there's a, there's a beginning of something, you know, it's not the beginning of a novel, I don't think. But you know, novels are more plot driven and they come as concepts and poems or lyrics come as feelings or an itch or a phrase. And then, you know, you just kind of ride it out, you know, just kind of open yourself up and allow it to express itself. I think a lot of times it's just being patient with yourself and, but also driving yourself to like pursue this thing. Okay, well, here's a good line. Now I have to pursue it, you know, and I have to be a little disciplined and try to try to ride it. And if I don't do that today, I probably Won't get back to it tomorrow. And then it's gone. And that's the weird thing, is like, no, you blew that one, you know? And that was one of the things to go on. That was one of the things. When I was looking at these poems, some of them are 30 years old, and I thought, I would like to rewrite that line. And a couple I did, but then I started to back off, and I thought, that's like rewriting your stuff, you know, it's like, that's a different person wrote that thing. So I just had to, like, maybe it's not as good in my estimation as it might be, but it was written by that guy, so I'm going to leave it alone. I don't know why I got there, but that's.

[Laurie]

So it's more honest to not edit your old self. That's. It's more what, like, it feels more honest to not edit your old self.

[David Duchovny]

Have you had that experience yourself?

[Laurie]

I can't look at anything I've ever done in my life, so I wouldn't really know. Okay, there's another. I know what you mean, though. I know what you mean. Like, there are times that I'll be looking up something in an old notebook and I'll have written something quite badly, but it's very true, and sometimes it just has to stay. There's another part that I really liked in the introduction, where you talk about the Greek idea of fame being horizontal. Like, you're known as a warrior across the globe, and the Hebrew notion being vertical, you're known through.

[David Duchovny]

That's from Harold Bloom. I got that. So don't come at me if you don't believe me.

[Laurie]

Something you came up with yourself about the different notions of fame. But you write, I myself sought the horizontal through acting, courting worldwide fame in the here and now while still harboring dreams of eternal verticality. By writing my way into a future and thus conquering deaths, death, both types of fame. You write belief, a fear of death. So let's talk about fear of death for, you know, 30 more minutes.

[David Duchovny]

Well, also, can I say I struggle with the horizontality and the verticality. I could never figure out if I was getting it right, whether. Whether. Whether it was the Hebrew notion of horizontality. No, it didn't seem like that or the verticality was. Was this. Was this the here and now, you know, because this is like, one moment. This is present, right? You know?

[Laurie]

No, the here and now feels like that to me. Yes, time feels like that to me.

[David Duchovny]

That's What I settled on. Yeah. So this was Greek. Be known across the globe right now as a warrior and as a fabulous person. And then the Hebrew was this verdicality.

[Laurie]

As a genius who's going to. Unedited poems will live forever.

[David Duchovny]

Well, but I mean, in the Bloomian sense. And, and I thought, well, it's a gross generalization and like gross generalizations. It's fun to think about and probably 70% true, you know.

[Laurie]

Yeah. Well, you. You go on to say that every poem is in its way about death and also about love.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. Well, then I start hedging it and I say, every poem's about death. Every poem's about love. You know, every poem's about this, two.

[Laurie]

Of the main subjects, you know, the human mind. But, but so you were saying some of These poems are 30 years old, right? Like, what it was. There was something interesting about this idea being in. In the introduction. Like, was there something about all of this sort of crystallizing? Like, what made you want to collect these poems, many of which were written over like many, many periods of your life, like into a volume? What was the thing that made you want to look at it all at once and collect it?

[David Duchovny]

I think it was this idea of an autobiography that was hidden, you know, much in the sense of like having started to write poems almost in code for myself. So it was going back to those old poems and going, okay, well, no, don't rewrite it. This is just chapter one, chapter two, whatever. And for me, it was an interesting project to try and put that together and to look at it. And then I thought, well, maybe these are worthwhile. Maybe these are things that people be interested in. And it was just like that. It was just. And then it was that idea of what is possibly the most unpopular thing I can do. I don't mean unpopular, unproductive or anti career. You know, what can I possibly have no chance of really succeeding at or of reaching the minimum amount of people? So it was like that. I think I have achieved it. I'm wildly successful at that. Lack of connection Foreign this episode is sponsored by Better Help. It's become fairly common knowledge that the changing of seasons and the shortening of the days is hard for a lot of people. It can be a tough time of year. But here's how you can help. Reach out. Reach out to a family member who doesn't get a lot of calls or to a friend who always makes you laugh. Support goes both ways. And making that initial connection is a simple action with huge impact. This November, Betterhelp is encouraging everyone to reach out. We're healthier when we have community and when we have support, and a great way to get additional Support is through BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform with over 30,000 therapists ready to offer help with a variety of questions and struggles. Whether you're experiencing anxiety or are wrestling with an issue in a relationship, it all starts with filling out a short questionnaire. Before you know it, BetterHelp matches you with a therapist tailored to your needs and preferences. They've served over 5 million people around the world, so this month don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. Our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] failbetter that's betterhelp.com failbetter it's beginning to look a lot like that time of year when we all crowd into cars and airports, stress over finishing off our work, and likely find ourselves off our nutritional game. This year I can stay one scoop ahead with AG1 AG1 is an easy, great tasting daily nutritional drink and it's super easy to work into your schedule. It's trusted by athletes and health minded people everywhere and it's clinically shown to support gut health and fill in common nutrient gaps. Travel that causes strain on our systems is no match for the antioxidants, probiotics and functional mushrooms that support immune resilience. Dark evenings and shorter days may throw off your rhythm, but superfoods and B vitamins can support steady energy without the crash. And with prebiotics, probiotics and enzymes, AG1 helps support regularity and gut resilience even with all the stress and disruption that the holidays can bring. I've done a lot of travel over the past few years, as always, and I wish I'd had this to give me a boost. It's the simplest all in one solution I've seen and that's exactly what I need when I'm strapped for time. Head to drinkag1.comfailbetter to get a free welcome kit with an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 when you first subscribe. That's drinkag1.comfailbetter I believe that humility is a super important quality. We have so much to learn from others and that's why I love Masterclass. Through my own research, I've really come to appreciate the creative practice of the writer Joyce Carol Oates and she just happens to have a fascinating class about short stories. I'm sure that pretty soon I'll be quoting it to anyone who will listen. With Masterclass, you can learn from the best to become your best. Plans start at just $10 a month and that gives you unlimited access to over 200 classes. They're taught by the world's best business leaders, writers, chefs and more. And every new membership comes with a 30 day money back guarantee. That's the kind of learning I like. Low stakes. Learn to eat more ethically, healthfully and sustainably with Michael Pollan or build habits that stick with atomic habits. Author James Clear. These are bite sized lessons with big impact, which means they can fit into even the busiest schedules and they really make a difference. Three out of four surveyed members feel inspired every time they watch Masterclass. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual [e-mail] failbetter that's 15% [e-mail] failbetter masterclass.com failbetter.

[Laurie]

Okay, so some people, people might already know this, but in case people don't, it was, you know, literature was the thing that led you into acting, right. In graduate school. And you had imagined a life prior to that where you might be a teacher or writer. And obviously you've played writers, you've written about them.

[David Duchovny]

I wonder if you seem to play writers a lot.

[Laurie]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Which is weird, I know, because writers.

[Laurie]

Are really not interested to watch unless they behave badly.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, well. Yeah, well, they take a lot of walks and things can happen on that walk.

[Laurie]

It's true. But. So I wonder if you can just talk about that, talk about the trajectory from where we left off when you're in school and you're reading John Berryman and et cetera. And then how did all of this lead you back around here?

[David Duchovny]

Well, I started acting because I was. At first I wrote poems, as you've heard tonight, and then I thought I'd write fiction. And then, and. But it was also lonely, you know, it was just me sitting in a room doing these things. And I was 21, 22, 23. And I didn't want to be lonely sitting in a room. So I thought, how can I do what I want to do and be with other people? Now I'll write plays. So I started to try to write plays and then I thought, if I'm writing plays, I should probably know what it's like to say those words in front of people. So I did. I was at Yale in the Graduate school. And they have these little plays happening all the time because so many actors in the graduate school, in the. In the drama school, and they needed a body, and they. They allowed me to do it. And it was the Green Cockatoo by Arthur Schnitzler. It was this, you know, radical political play. And I was Albin. I played the part of Albin, le Comte du Tremouille. Thank you. And I felt I had one line or two, and it was in the round. It was a theater like this, and maybe I'd be sitting over there and there was action going on. Actually, the story of the play is fascinating. There's a revolution going on in France. They're actually bringing down the government, and they've got all these aristocrats in the audience. And the job of the actors is to keep them entertained so that they don't go defend what's happening. So it's a very kind of meta. Interesting, brilliant play. And I was one of these foppish counts. And I felt so relaxed that after the first performance, I got high before the second performance, and then I got paranoid, and I thought, this is interesting. You know, this is an interesting kind of feeling that I'm chasing here. You know, I enjoyed. I enjoyed that feeling. Not. Not just getting high, but just the performing part or. Or semi performing. And just from there, I started going to take acting classes in New York, where I'd ride my bike to the train station in New Haven and get off at Grand Central and go to my acting class and go back. And so it was kind of a fun time for me back then. Just really exercising my curiosity.

[Laurie]

It's funny now your intellectual credentials get trotted out in an interesting way every time you publish something. Like, you said something about this in an interview in the Believer a bit ago. You said, like, the tenor of most reviews is, oh, God, another actor writing a book, but he went to Yale, so he knows how to write. And you, you said, but neither of those statements has any kind of validity. Anybody can try to write. It doesn't matter whether you're an actor, an airline pilot. It doesn't matter how much school you had. You can write or you can't. And when I read that, I was like, in more. I agree with that. And more specifically, it seems to me like you're either compelled to write or you're not. Like, you're either gonna do. You're either gonna write whether or not ever pays you to, asks you to, wants you to, or you're not. And if you're the former. That's like when, you know, you're kind of doomed or blessed to be a writer. Right?

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. And also the. The idea that just going to a school like Yale makes it makes you a writer or. I just never understood either of those. And I never understood, you know, I will gladly, you know, talk about, you know, dumb actors, like everybody likes to like, okay, yeah, stupid actor, whatever. But it's. It's a dumb. It's a dumb old generalization of a joke. And it. It's what a per. It's what a person does. Anybody can write it. I just never understood the. And I always say, well, what about Shakespeare? Like, he was an actor. He's a pretty good writer.

[Laurie]

Okay. I was wondering if you could read Carmen Canyon, which is one of my favorite poems in here.

[David Duchovny]

Thank you. I need more hands. This was. Well, this is pretty self explanatory. This is a poem that talks about itself. So you'll get it if I can find it. Carbon Canyon. We lived in Carbon Canyon then. Before the fire. Unpack that given irony, were there no carbon copies? We so unique and blessed. There was a time when I walked with my three year old daughter. I think three, anyway, I know. We were walking the deep decline of Carbon Canyon on one of those short mommyless jaunts, and we came upon the recently car crushed carcass of a gray field mouse. Part three dimensional as in life, part flattened as in a drawing. The weight of the car having made its lower half unreal. A cartoon. The driver long gone unaware of their handiwork, guiltless. A tiny trickle of blood from its slightly open mouth. A last profound, unheard utterance so perfectly dramatic and telling as to. As if to seem placed by a movie crew hiding in the bushes, perhaps. And my daughter, 2, 3, 4, about to spy it on the ground. And I, a daddy with knowledge spilling out of my pockets. Life lessons sense a teaching moment for the disquisition on mortality that every parent believes every three year old needs. See it all ends. Best laid plans and all that life's unfair. Carpe diem, little one. Latin for heaven. There but for the grace of God. In these moments I realize I am nothing but a recording of my own parents voices, their greatest hits, my soul, their phonograph fade in. A father slows his daughter, allowing the chance to happen upon a dead mouse. It death, knowledge, consequence, mortality. But it is only now, as we kneel that I notice the vibrant cha cha line of ants dancing in and out of the ruined creature. All their anarchic discipline, carrying to and fro unseeable bits of meat and nutrient. Mouse ooze. And my breath catches because suddenly this lesson is for Daddy. And it is Daddy who cannot face too much death. The death after death, my death in this mouse's mouth, my daughter's death I've not quite stomach enough to face. The pieces of us all carried off into oblivion, eaten till we are unrecognizable, digested. Roadkill. Dizzying. I say, oh, let's go, sweetheart. But it's too late. My daughter, 2 or 3 or 4, has seen, leans down farther, her blue eyes an inch or two from the ground, and says, daddy, look, the ants. There's so many of them. Yes, I see. Maybe we should let the mouse sleep, I say. Let her sleep. I take her hand to lead her, though I don't know where. I know I am blind and unprepared. A child leading a child. And the little one stops and smiles and points back to the carnage. No, the ants, Daddy, the ants. Look how much they love her. Well, I didn't write the last line, you know, I just.

[Laurie]

The best line in there.

[David Duchovny]

I know. So isn't that always the case? I'm sure you're like, oh, I love that line. Well, yeah, that was. Somebody else made that one up.

[Laurie]

Well, I wanted. I mean, I love that poem. And it's. You know, I've had. My older daughter is 5, and there are already those moments where you, like, I write them down in a notebook in hopes that they don't fall away forever in my memory. But here you've got this.

[Julia Louis Dreyfus]

This thing.

[Laurie]

You've got this day, this sort of gift for her and for you that, like. Did you. Did you write that? When did you write this?

[David Duchovny]

Ten years ago, at least. You know, I didn't. I don't.

[Laurie]

Not right away, after.

[David Duchovny]

No, no, but I.

[Laurie]

But it lodged in your brain.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, that line.

[Laurie]

Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

I was just like, oh, my God. That's. It's all in that line. Everything. I mean, I. I'll never write a line like that, you know, so I can keep it. And part of being a writer is noticing the good lines, too, and ripping off the best lines.

[Laurie]

Yeah. Yeah. And it's. I was talking to, like, a daughter of a writer the other day, and I feel kind of like she was saying what a kind of gift it was to find traces of herself in her. In her dad's old writing, you know, and, like, what a. I think what a beautiful gift to your daughter to have this moment.

[David Duchovny]

It is. It's also, it's dangerous though. You know, they always say, and, and Griffin, we talked about that when, when there's a writer in the family. I just read this quote. It's like, if there's a writer in the family, there goes the family. You know, because it's all material. I'm like, it's tough, it's tough. You know, you don't want to hurt people. But, you know, the best stuff is going to hurt. Usually it's going to be complicated anyway. It's not going to be Hallmark stuff. So it's a double edged sword, that one. Yeah, I'm scared. I get scared. You know, I mean that. Yes, I'm fine with my daughter reading that. And I do think of it as a gift. Yeah. But it can go, it goes, it goes further and it's a very difficult kind of formulation to figure out. I'm sure you, you know, you'll, you'll know. Yeah, you'll know or you already do know.

[Laurie]

There goes the family. Well, I was going to ask you to. The next poem I was going to ask you to read is also about. It's Dead 7, a poem about your father who published his own first novel at age 73.

[David Duchovny]

There's his daughter and his agent right there. I say 74. 75.

[Laurie]

75.

[David Duchovny]

Do I have 75? 75. 75. Well, he died shortly after. Yeah, he died 75, so it's probably 74.

[Laurie]

And I wonder if you can. Yeah, I'll tell you this.

[David Duchovny]

My dad, he always said he was a writer. And then, yeah, he did it, he.

[Laurie]

Did it, he did it.

[David Duchovny]

And when he went to go on his book tour, something was happening, something big. Like something was happening in the culture that was making small crowds for his, for his reading. And bless him, he, like he, he soldiered on and he gave a reading at a Brentwood bookstore. And I don't know if you were there, Laurie, but I think it was just me and Danny in the audience. Were you there too? Yeah, it was just me and Dan. So he gave. But he gave. He gave that damn book reading like it was a full house. And then it was like, any questions? And we're like, can you tell me about your son? Yeah. But he was not going to be denied that victory lap because he said his whole life he was a novelist. And then at 73, he made true on that. Oh, dead seven. Okay.

[Laurie]

It's on page 29. And after you read it, I wondered if you could talk about how this sort of idea of this one came to You.

[David Duchovny]

It's called dead. Seven. Yeah. I don't need an occasion to think of my father occasionally. Dead now seven years. Better than nothing, I hope waits for him an afterlife, a rebirth. Is it? If so, then is the old man young again in death. A seven years dead boy growing steadily deadly as he watches me and life growing seven years learning the netherworld ropes, still a child by turns wide eyed and sullen as he crawls, walks, runs into the walls of his newly unlimited understanding. His 75 years or so on earth useless except as a dream of power, a moderately successful campaign on tiny plastic soldiers. Who is his mentor there, who reminds him, who comforts him and teaches him the otherworldly equivalent of fishing or algebra or empathy for the dead living all around him? Does he sit dead, little head and little dead hands on the curb, lonely and abandoned, he who held my hands and taught and did not teach me so many things of nature and that nature I age like a tree, each new ring and orbiting armor round an empty marrow. The things I did not learn closed off at the center of my being, unreachable, of interest only to those who would chop me down to see what I might deliver coldly from another age. Oh, so you see here, this was the problem, right here. The worm at the root, the uneven ring, older now in life than he in death. I see him confused, reaching for my steadying arm as a dead branch purges life in the wind. His language, his access to our symbols impenetrable, the dead tongue mute. My need for him transcribed into his imagined need for me, my inarticulate want, his full fathom. 5, 6, 7. Now going on 8. My sweet sunken boy calls to me. I am here. I respond and ready and of absolutely no use. You know, people think a relationship ends when a person dies, but it doesn't, you know, and it. The relationship actually changes. That's the weird thing. I don't think we talk about that very much in life, but I just. The poem was written because I just started to think about that I had a relationship with this dead man, you know, and that it was changing and that he was changing as I. It makes no sense, but it made kind of a sense to me.

[Julia Louis Dreyfus]

Well, hi everybody, it's Julia Louis Dreyfus from the Wiser Than Me podcast. And I'm not going to talk about food waste this time. I'm going to talk about food resources. All that uneaten food rotting in the landfill. It could be enriching our soil or feeding our chickens because it's still food. And the easiest and frankly, way coolest way to put all its nutrients to work is with the Mill Food Recycler. It looks like an art house garbage can. You can just toss your scraps in it like a garbage can. But it is definitely not a garbage can. I mean, it's true, I'm pretty obsessed with this thing. I even invested in this thing. But I'm not alone. Any Mill owner just might corner you at a party and raps and eyes about how it's completely odorless and it's fully automated and how you can keep filling it for weeks. But the clincher is that you can depend on it for years. Mill is a serious machine. Think about a dishwasher, not a toaster. It's built by hand in North America and it's engineered by the guy who did your iPhone. But you have to kind of live with Mill to understand all the love. That's why they offer a risk free trial. Go to mill.com wiser for an exclusive offer.

[David Duchovny]

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[Laurie]

Is it just me or are things actually really scary right now? In the world of public health, every day brings another confusing headline. Or yet again, a far fetched claim. Vaccines are somehow up for debate and parents are scrolling TikTok for medical advice. I'm Chelsea Clinton an advocate, author, investor, teacher, and mom navigating this insane time right alongside you. I hope you'll join me on my new podcast, that Can't Be True, a show that sorts fact from fiction, especially on issues impacting our health. From Limonada Media and the Clinton foundation, that Can't Be True is out October 2nd. Okay, questions from you guys.

[David Duchovny]

It was the fragment full Fathom five made me want to ask this question. So there's the conversations with your family, with, you know, your. Your daughter, maybe in the past, in the future, your father in the past. What about the conversations you're having with other writers and other texts? Is it also the. The introduction had a bit of backers in it and thought. And so there's a few of them I heard. Sure. Yeah. So that's Shakespeare. That's. And then Joyce. Where's the Joyce? Oh, does he. Yeah. Well, I said steal from the best, right? Yeah, those. Those are the pearls that were his eyes. That's the killer line, you know, that's. That I don't quote. It's. Is it in Hamlet? It's the Tempest. See, it's good to be half smart sometimes. So, yeah, it's. It just kind of came in the writing of it. I have a lot of stuff in my head because I've read a lot, and I did go to school for a long time with it. So it's in there, and I like having access to it and it comes out as it will, and it came out then and there, and I'm accused of showing off sometimes, but it's really. I'm not really showing off. I'm just kind of regurgitating sometimes, and things that have been laying dormant or just bouncing off each other for the longest time, and it just entertains me to go at it that way. And also, if I'm lucky, then it deepens the experience for a reader as well, sends them back to better writers than me to go to the original or whatever. I feel like I'm in conversation, even though that's somewhat arrogant to say. But I'm in conversation with those other books and those other poems, and that's my way of paying back or of saying I'm engaged in this conversation. Hey, David, how are you? Hey. I'm good. Thanks for doing this. I've been listening to your podcast lately. It's great. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, no, definitely. I got my podcast people here today with me. Oh, that's. That's. That's awesome. I heard you guys on the podcast together, you know, but I'm wondering. Yeah, you did? Yeah. Listen, that's great. My question is, though, you. You know, actor, singer, songwriter, poet, author. Do you have a. A writing schedule or. Or, like, how do you. Like, what's your writing like? Like, are you fighting a deadline or stuff like that? I wish. I would love to have a deadline. I would love somebody to give me a deadline. I think there's a guy sitting over here who wants to give me a deadline, because I work really well with a deadline. I found out, and I don't know, Laurie, if you know this, but I found out that my grandfather wrote on a deadline for the Yiddish newspaper here in the city. And he wrote. He wrote. He was like the. He was like a Yiddish Charles Dickens, apparently. But we don't have any of his work because it was just in the paper. But he. He would write his stories on the way to work, so he. He would have to write. I like having to write. I have to write when I have an idea. I don't always have an idea. So in those times when I don't have an idea, which happens a lot, there's a lot of my life goes by without an idea. I'm not writing. I'm not writing. But sometimes I'll write poetry in that space because just a little quick idea will come to me. But what I really want is a big idea to be writing, and I don't have that. And when I don't have that, I'm not sitting down to write. And that's probably why I don't write more. And it's probably why, you know, if I'm acting too, it's hard for me to write. I don't think I've ever really written while I was acting. So, yeah, I don't have a schedule. But when I am writing, I write really hard and fast. I'll say that for myself, and I'll just see it through. And I see it through quickly.

[Laurie]

Hi.

[David Duchovny]

I just want to say thank you.

[Laurie]

So much for continuing to share your gifts with the world. And my question is, am I speaking okay?

[David Duchovny]

When you read poems that you wrote.

[Laurie]

20, 30 years ago, do they sort.

[David Duchovny]

Of bring you back to who you.

[Laurie]

Were as a person back then, or.

[David Duchovny]

Are they reflective of who you are.

[Laurie]

And what you were doing back then?

[David Duchovny]

I think they are. And that's something we talked about, is like, I wanted to kind of honor the wholeness of the older poems, even if I wanted to. I mean, there's parts of Carbon Canyon that I would rewrite right now. I would probably Rewrite. I think I say two or three or four. I'm trying to figure out my daughter's age a few times. Like, that's one. I would. I would take that out. But then I was like, no, this is the rhythm of the way you did it, and it was written long ago, and that's the way you wanted to say it, so I'm going to honor that. And so in that sense, yes, it brings me back, at least to the writer that I was when I wrote it. And obviously, if. If my consciousness led me. Led me to want to record these moments or these thoughts or these images, then it does open up. I recognize it. I recognize myself. I don't think I've changed that much. I think I've. Yeah, there's a couple in there that I think, oh, yeah, that's a younger guy or whatever. But that's why I see it as kind of an autobiography in a way, like a hidden. A hidden kind of secret autobiography. Because there's a span of time that's being addressed in the poems. I know I didn't answer your question.

[Laurie]

I don't know if you've ever encountered a specific poem called Introduction to Poetry. I've encountered it a long while back in high school. And the poem talks about how the system urges students and the people who are learning literature to suffocate the poem and get the meaning out of it. So I guess my question would be, how do you think the poem should be read? Or what is the advice to specifically younger people, I feel like, who want to squeeze out the understanding and the meaning out of poem?

[David Duchovny]

Well, I think your question kind of answers itself in a good way. You know, I think I know what you're saying, and I agree. I don't think a poem is about anything. There's no. Kind of A good poem is impossible to turn into any kind of statement, which is what I'm saying in the introduction. And I think I quote Emily Dickinson. I don't have it right now, but she says, what's a poem? I know it. If it makes my blood run cold, you know, just hits you over the head. So it's not. It's not an idea. It's not a formulation of meaning. It's something more mystical. It's something more religious, even. So, yeah, I mean, you can paraphrase a poem, but that's not. That's. That's not what a poem's here to be done to.

[Laurie]

I was wondering. You talked about poetry being not practical, not productive, esoteric. And I Wonder how much pleasure in it you get because it's almost like the opposite of being a celebrity and everything that's judged by surface and utility. And I went, wonder if it's almost like a cleansing thing. I guess.

[David Duchovny]

I mean, it can be seen that way. But I've been doing it since before I was anybody knew who the fuck I am or was, you know, so it's like, obviously I wanted to do it before any of that, but I. Part of your question was I was like, what is the. Maybe I heard. What is the feeling I get after I have embarked upon a poem or finished it or feel like it's mostly finished. It's really just that sense of like, oh, today I tried to say that thing and I kind of did it. And there's a sense of not really like accomplishment, like big accomplishment, but there's a sense of, oh, I showed up for that thought today and there it is. And that's good enough for now and that'll stay there. And I feel like poetry is patient, you know, And I feel like it slows things down rather than speeds things up. So it's not so much like superficial versus depth, but it's just like slowness versus speed and patience versus impatience. And I like to think of the books or even. Or even performances. Even though I realize now with streaming services, there will be a time when you're not going to be able to see certain things because they're not going to even exist physically. They're just going to be on a server that is no longer offering those things. So there is. They used to say, film lasts forever. I'm not so sure anymore. So where am I going with that? We're going to finish up here and what I was trying to say before I started spiraling into that. Oh well, all these books, look how patient they are. Look at them. They haven't said a word the entire time we've been here. They've just been biding their time against the walls and they're going to be here for a long, long time. And one day you might encounter one of them, just pull one off the wall by mistake and voila, there he is. He's been waiting. She's been waiting. And now being used and being read and being understood. Thanks so much for listening to Fail Better. If you haven't subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet, now's the perfect time. Because guess what? You can listen completely ad free. Plus you'll unlock exclusive bonus content like the full version of my post Interview Thoughts that you won't hear anywhere else. That's more of my recaps on interviews with guests like Chris Carter and Emily Deschanel. Just tap that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or head to lemonadepremium.com to subscribe on any other app. That's lemonadapremium.com don't miss out. Fail Better is production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Keegan Zema, Aria Brachi and Donnie Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of Weekly is Steve Nelson. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Kopinski, Brad Davidson and Jonathan Smith. The show is executive produced by Stephen, Stephanie Whittles Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band, the lovely Colin Lee, Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowan and Sebastian Modak. You can find us online at Lemonada Media and you can find me avid Duchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership.

[Laurie]

You know when you're just going about.

[David Duchovny]

Your busy day and a voice asks you something like why do people have crushes? Or do dogs know their dogs? The Brainzon podcast is here to help. Every episode answers tough questions with funny skits, cool facts, and more. It's a science show for kids of all ages. Whether you grew up with jfk, mtv, TLC, or tmz, Brains on is for you. Listening may induce uncontrollable mobile laughter and.

[Laurie]

Turn backseat squabbles into harmonious car trips.

[David Duchovny]

Fine Brains On Wherever you get your podcasts.