June 8, 2012<\/p>\n
In his article \u201cWho Needs Poets?\u201d Jorge Luis Borges wrote: \u201cThe poet\u2019s
\ntrade, the writer\u2019s trade, is a strange one\u2026a writer needs loneliness,
\nand he gets his share of it. He needs love, and he gets shared and
\nalso unshared love. He needs friendship. In fact, he needs the
\nuniverse. To be a writer is, in a sense, to be a day-dreamer\u2014to be
\nliving a kind of double life.\u201d As a poet in the Creative Writing
\nMasters of Fine Arts Program at Boston University, I have become
\nincreasingly aware of this insatiable need for \u201cthe universe\u201d and so,
\nhere I go. To Argentina: to experience the sounds and movements of
\ntango flooding the streets and the unique music of Argentinian
\nSpanish; to discover the country through the works of Borges and Julio
\nCortazar, but also those of contemporary Argentinian writers; to get
\nlost in cities I\u2019ve only ever imagined. To Brazil: to learn Portuguese
\nfrom new friends, from poetry, and from Bossa Nova; to delve into its
\nEuropean, African, Middle Eastern, and Asian blends; to explore its
\nbrimming selvage and tangled languages, its traditions, new and old.
\nTo imbibe little bits of universe, one corner at a time.<\/p>\n