"Important" [55-word story] | 26
Now 80 years old, the Mexican poet was giving a reading in New York. His life had been rich. As a diplomat, he'd traveled widely. He'd introduced ideas of Europe and India to the Mexican intelligentsia. He'd hob-nobbed with great minds. His honors included the Nobel Prize.
"Poetry isn't important," he commented. "Life is important."
"Poetry isn't important," he commented. "Life is important."
posted by david raphael israel at 7:54 PM
1 Comments:
footnote:
The poet, of course, was Octavio Paz. I heard those words with my own ears. Did he speak them in English? or were they translated? I can't seem to remember for sure. Perhaps he did speak them in English. I believe he passed away not so very long after that New York visit. Well, he was born in 1914, and passed away in 1998 (at age 84). I'm not certain exactly what year the reading took place, or whether he was precisely 80 years old. But the reading might indeed have been in 1994. (It was way uptown, at the Church of St. John the Divine.) I'm sure Eliot Weinberger could tell us.
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