Shakespeare and Ashbery

Though we were very poor, and didn’t even have a car, I found much to do as a teen in Hollywood.

For one thing, at that time, Hollywood boasted any number of excellent, small bookstores, used, rare, etc. Once I found them, I spent much time in them, and the owners did not seem to mind me standing in the close packed, usually dusty and dim, aisles, reading. I didn’t have the money to BUY a book, but I did much ‘spot reading’ in those wonderful shops.

It was in those stores that I discovered Shakespeare’s Sonnets and John Ashbery’s poems. I was enchanted! I would note what pages I was on so I could pick up where I left off when I went back.

I had not yet thought of writing poetry, didn’t think of myself as a ‘poet’, but the seed was planted.