Roger Pulvers

So I was reading, by then I was reading Russian pretty much like English.

And I read voluminously, particularly the poets.

Russian poetry has had an immense effect on my life, not only my writing life, but my regular life.

I just love it.

And I still memorize, I don't know, maybe a hundred poems and I say them to myself.

And I used to, when I was younger, I used to walk around Europe

reciting them as I walked along, people, Russians would walk next to me, the few Russians who would get to Western Europe at the time, and who was this crazy guy dressed as a Californian with white socks and pants that were too short for him and, you know, checked button-down shirt reciting all these poems, but...

That had a big influence on me.

Who in particular is Anna Akhmatova was first.

She wrote a poem called The Muse, Musa, which I, which changed my life, Kate.

It really did.

I mean, I know people say that and it doesn't, you know, rather sometimes rather flippantly, but it really did.

It starts like this.

When at night I wait for her arrival.

It's the muse.

It's Euterpe.

There was a statue of Euterpe in her Leningrad park near her.

The Russians loved their Greeks and their Romans.

They always did and they still do.

And she used to go there and