Robert Bly

Robert Bly read and talked at Tempe's Changing Hands Bookstore
last Thursday evening. He was really charming, and his reading style
was very attractive. Easy going, familiar (I would imagine Mark Twain
was a little like this). Reading short poems twice really helps you to
hear what you are hearing.His interjections in the form of exhortations or
explanations also helped one listen. The poems he read from his new book
were really nice (funny, smart ghazal like poems, two of which are
in the current Poetry magazine). He also read a number of translations
which were particularly affecting. Bly handed out free copies of his
anti Iraq book, which pleased a number of the crowd immensely.
Hmmmm. The crowd was mostly older, with no more than a half
dozen under 40. But about seventy five people in all were in the
audience crowded into the reading area of the bookstore. People
loved his jokes.