The Downside Of Talking To The Dead

America may learn that living in the past does not have much of a future

Conversing with dead people isn't all it's cracked up to be. The other night I had a brief edgy chat with Robert Lowell, the great poet who taught me poetry writing in the 1960s and died a few years later; I don't believe there was a connection. I do this sort of thing a lot lately--talk to the dead, live in the past--probably because I am getting on. But it's mainly a matter of preference. I would rather have a conversation with Lowell than with most of those who are so-called alive--though, I tell you, he can be a royal pain.

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