I'll Be Back -- With A Poem

Governor Schwarzenegger's just appointed Al Young the poet laureate of California. Young was in India two months ago and reportedly, his outspoken liberal views caused some embarrassment to the First Secretary of the American Embassy, Ms Robin Diallo: “Al Young is here as a guest of the US State Department but he is not expressing the views of the state and that is the beauty of American democracy.”

Nirupama Dutt's report continues: "...the poet said that moving away from body time and natural time had been at the cost of human creativity. 'Now a child will say that his father will tell a story for 15 minutes and waste their time. I have known storytelling in old Mississippi where storytelling went on for several days and people did not tire'. Congratulating old cultures where values were developed, he lamented the fact that industrialised western societies had lost much by way of creativity. He gave the example of Australians catching hold of aborigines in the eighties to know of the parallel eality of ‘dream time’ lest it be lost. The poems he recited mirrored his feelings and one on old Houston town was very moving."