WEBVTT

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Paul.

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This is Paul Blackburn,
a terrific friend.

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We met in the very early
'50s and he subsequently

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had a Fulbright and came
to spend time in Majorca

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before going to Toulouse
to take up the Fulbright

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and the two wives
loathed each other.

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[LAUGHTER]

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"Not to excuse us, it was Paul.

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I'll never forgive myself
for the violence but tell me

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he said Paul Blackburn
pushed and turned

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by both hopeless wives
who were spitting venom

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and point another into Heaven.

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We've got ourselves
to Majorca mid-fifties

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where one could live for peanuts
while writing great works

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and looking at the constant
blue sea, et cetera.

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Why did I fight such
surrogate battles of existence

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with such a specific
friend as he was for sure.

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Our first meeting in NYC
1950 we talked 2 and 1/2 days

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straight without
leaving the apartment.

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He knew ordinate dates by
heart and began unconsciously

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translating the
province of poets

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and was studying with
Moses Hultz at NYU.

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How sweet this thoughtful
beleaguered vulnerable person

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whose childhood was full of
New England abusive confusion.

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His mother the too often
absent poet Frances Frost.

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I wish he were here now.

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He could go on talking.

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I'd have company of my own age
in this drab burnt out trash

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dump we call the
phenomenal world where

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he once walked the wondrous
Earth and knew its pleasures."