I learned enough Hebrew to stagger through a meaningless ceremony that I scarcely remember.

You pay your money, you take your choice. I get the audience my language attracts and I lose the ones it repels.

The ancient Greek "oral poets" all had this anxiety about the deficiencies of their memories and always began poems by praying to the muse to help them remember.

There are editing procedures for talks just as there are editing procedures in jazz improvisation.

I am quite unsatisfied by the distinctions between the oral and literate.

I'm standing up thinking. Anybody who wants to listen is welcome. If not, I'm happy to see them go.

While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music, I really don't think of speech as so far from song.