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View Full Version : What Must It Be Like to Be Robert Bly?



PrinceMyshkin
08-07-2008, 07:33 PM
“This body...” I remember Robert Bly
leaning into those words
like a no longer young
but still skilled and principled prosecuting attorney
about to try an interesting, complicated,
sly customer...

He made his case carefully
but with passion,
the passion of a man who knew
that every false or lazy word
is a bit of skin stripped from one’s soul...

He had come to read to us
because they paid him (and, I hope,
had paid him well) but how much
would they have had to pay him
(or any of us) to be ‘real’?

I listened and watched this somewhat
pudgy, friendly man of a certain age
and yet of no particular age,
and I wondered
what must it be like to be him?

What must it be like to be anybody?

firefangled
08-07-2008, 10:31 PM
I so appreciate this poem and how you phrased it. Your perception of Bly is astute. He is much more than a poet. He is a sage and a magnificent translator.

Have you read Iron John or Sibling Society?

Well done, Prince, Bravo!

firefangled
08-07-2008, 10:34 PM
posted in the wrong thread