Lisa Swayze, the Director of the Ithaca is Books Festival in the United States, proposed that I make a short video about my poetry and Montaigbakhtinian. Karim, one of my Belgian nephews, and I thus made the 8-minute video attached here. May it prove of interest to some Montaigbakhtinian readers.
The interview is in English only, though Karim is a native French speaker. I might note, too, that the objective was to make something relaxed, low-key, even amateurish. This has not stopped friends and family from remarking that I might have brushed my hair, changed my shirt, . . . used artificial lighting . . . put on make-up. Indeed, I might have!
This year’s festival will take place, apparently, from 10 to 13 September 2026 in Ithaca, New York.
At the end of the video Karim and I read the brief dialogue that readers may find in English, Italian, French and Spanish at Guinea pigs, porcellini, cochons d’Inde, conejillos. This script was written, during COVID, for an Italian actress, Valentina Carlone, who was then modeling for me via Zoom. All credit for the Italian version goes to her! (The image at right is among the many drawings and watercolors I made during our sessions together.)
The video mentions three of my books:
Surviving the Twenty-First Century
In fact, this latter mention was a mistake, Surviving being a book of personal essays. I should have mentioned in its place Light verse, light verse: Everything else is worse.
Finally, I note that reference was also made to poems! To wit:
Mis Poemas de Costa Rica (in Spanish, but with translations into English prose).
The Limericks: Part I (Pence, Trump, Mueller, Capitalism, May 16, 2017 to July 1); Part II (Injustice, Trump, Illness, Poetry, July 2 to August 12); Part III Animals, Capitalism, the News, First Impressions, July 2 to September 3); and Part IV (No nation on Earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals): September 4 to October 16, 2017.
& 4 billion eggs… 4 mil millones de huevos… 4 milliards d’œufs . . .
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, having lost whatever light some gods, however fanciful, may once have offered us, we strive on to, at least, finish the work we are in.
Cordialement, William Eaton
montaigbakhtinian 