Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

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.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, it's a pleasure to have as my guest, Irving Feldman,

whose collected poems from 1954 to 2004 has been published by Shokken.

Now, what happened is that I... to 2004 has been published by Shokin.

Now, what happened is that I was at a party,

met someone who told me that Irving Feldman comes to Los Angeles with some regularity.

I said, oh, how wonderful.

I'd love to have him on my show.

The very next week, I heard that Irving Feldman would be here.

So I had a book of collected poems.

This is 50 years of poetry.

And I read the whole book. But I don't think in my whole life I've sat down to read someone's

complete work overnight, unless it were, you know, years ago in the classroom, you know,

and even then we read selections. So I'm full of Irving Feldman right now, and it is a remarkable body of work.

So many different kinds of poems, so many tones and voices, ranging from, well, I'm actually

going to use what Cynthia Ozick said.

A choir of multiplicity,

ranging from the cosmically miltonic to the up-to-the-minute vernacular.

...