This inspires me to pick up Paz again. Thanks.

I'm enjoying these posts. I think poets need to work on their spoken delivery. And I say this as a stutterer who never reads out loud but who thinks a lot about the best way to read out loud. I think poems should be delivered with as little verbal drama as possible. If the poem has power then it does not need any verbal drama to propel it. I don't speak my poems, but I hear them clearly, and I can hear myself in my mind delivering them to an audience in a slow, even manner. Not necessarily too dry or too dignified or uppity in any way. Just devoid of drama. Many people associate poetry with drama or handwringing or mere complaint. I think poets can do a lot to improve the image of poetry if they instill some discipline into their delivery.

What a great post. I've been very troubled by the yellow journalism that attends the BP oil spill. Reading AP articles, it seems as if BP is a favorite sports team pitted against a particularly truculent opponent, go team.

>>>People feel at home doing things that they watched their parents do when they were growing up. I am very conscious of it, and since my parents / stepparents did so many nonproductive or detrimental things, I try hard to NOT be like them. It is sometimes a struggle to not respond as they to a given situation, or behave as they in an ongoing way. My father has become a gentle, kind, and wise man and most often I try to do what he does.

Go Bill. I'm glad he's reading, and takes it seriously.

It looks like a really great time. Wish I coulda been there.