Poems Are Difficult To Silence.

I Was In Venice Teaching, So I Reread Henry James's "the Wings Of The Dove." I Love James.

Poems Are Difficult To Silence.

In High School I Read [lev] Tolstoy's "anna Karenina" And Loved It. Then I Read [friedrich] Nietzsche's "on The Genealogy Of Morals" And That Hit Me Hard. I Don't Know Where I Got It. My Parents Warned Me Not To Mention Either Of Those Books When I Went For My College Interviews So I Wouldn't Seem Like An Egghead. They Told Me To Talk About Sports.

Literate Households In The 17th Century Would Have Had The Bible, John Bunyan's "the Pilgrim's Progress," And A Couple Of Other Books. Shakespeare Plays Were Cheap, So You Could Buy Those, But A Folio Cost A Pound, Which Was An Incredible Amount Of Money Then.

What I Wanted To Do Was To Get That Sense Of Being In Touch With This Lost World While Holding Onto What Draws Readers And Audiences There In The First Place.