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You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read read I am a child who receives first communion in

Vilno and afterwards drinks cocoa served by zealous Catholic ladies I am an old man who remembers

the day in June the ecstasy of the sinless, white tableclothes, and the sun on vases filled with peonies.

Catufé, Catufo de Tavi, voices call, in various languages gathered in your wanderings through two continents.

What did you do with your life? What did you do?

Slowly, cautiously, now when destiny is fulfilled,

I enter the sins of the bygone time.

Of my century, in which and not in any other,

I was ordered to be born, to work, and to leave a trace.

Hello, this is Michael Silverblatt, and welcome to Bookworm.

That was Nobel laureate Cheshua Mewos, reading from his autobiographical poem, Capri.

Mewish died in August of this year at the age of 93. Today's show is a tribute to the great poet

whose career spanning seven decades is among the longest and most prolific in literary history.

He was in his early 20s when he published

his first volume of poetry, a poem on Frozen Time. His final book of poems, Second Space,

is published this month by the Echo Press. In 1998, Claremont McKenna College hosted an international

festival honoring Mewosch, organized by McKenna College hosted an international festival honoring Miwosh,

organized by McKenna Professor Robert Fagan.

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