Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Tenton bird.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

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

I haven't been in New York City, where I was born, in a good number of years.

Ron Padgett hasn't visited Los Angeles in a good number of years,

and so when Ron Padgett's collected poems came out, although I wanted to tremendously, we didn't talk about them. They've been out for

some time now. The year they came out, they won the Los Angeles Times Book Award. They've

won the William Carlos Williams Award. He's one of my very favorite poets, but here am I,

in the middle of the coldest winter New York has seen in many years, in Ron Paget's apartment,

to talk about his collected poems, which include poems in that volume, collected poems, and a poem or two

beyond it. He is also the person who wrote the poems for the poet in Jim Jarmish's movie,

Patterson.

And that poet is a young poet, bus driver, making a living now, as I remember, you, when you were very young, were asked what you were going to be by your father.

And you didn't say bus driver, you said.

I said, I'm going to be a poet.

And your father said,

Well, okay.

...