This is a section of my draft on the Poland trip.

Our translator, Thomas, at the conference was a Doctor who had studied
microbiology in Chicago. He spends about 2 hrs. per week being a Doctor, and
the remainder of his working time as a translator. <Doctors in Poland make
$200 p/mnth> I spent most of Thursday at our conference booth with Thomas. He,
and another individual, Peter, from the 17th century furniture booth next
over, had gotten ahold of my poem _Heaven Waits the Rubble Mason_ and
independently of each other they decided to translate the poem into Polish.
<It all started when they asked me what Black Velvet was, a cheap, mild
Canadian whiskey with a picture of a sexy lady dressed in black velvet on the
label. A whisky smooth as velvet, and a favorite of the subject stone mason.>

The morning was spent talking to visitors to the booth, through Thomas the
interpreter (an interesting experience in itself), and answering questions
about the poem. Dueling translators. Before I left Poland I had a translation
of the poem, as well as a poem in Polish for me to translate for Thomas. I
also had an agreement for translation of a poem of mine about maps and
preservation, _Topo Dreams_ and possible publication in a Szczecin ecological
magazine.

Peter was from Vancouver and was back visiting with childhood friends, with a
mind of returning to Poland. I was not exactly sure what Peter said his
occupation had been in Vancouver, but it had something to do with Urban
planning and the ecological environment - he expressed that he had an
international reputation for his work. We had a really fine discussion, in
English, about the global ecology respecting the built-environment.

I have attended various conferences in America and brought my poetry, and
never had any response - to the extent that I felt only half involved.
Creative expression should not be confined to reservations in an apartheid of
the spirit. The contrast in cultures between America and Poland in regard of
the value of expressive language is glaring.

Poetry is very much valued in Poland in part because of the fluid melody of
the language (my intensive in listening to Polish over several days of
confinement made me consider that spoken Polish is a Siren’s song - regardless
of the topic), and also because the language of ambiguity and weighted
meanings has been, for centuries, a primary mode of political activism. Not
reported on American television was the significance of poetry to the
SOLIDARTY movement.

I believe that the enjoyment of life, regardless of classification of
occupation or special-interest-group, is a higher level of culture than we
tend to allow ourselves in America. That Americans reject anything they feel
to be outside of the “topic of conversation” is a barbaric stance... ie. the
rejection of Gab & Eti on Preservation-L. In a microcosm, the suppression of
Poland by outside interests is of a similar motivation as the individual-to-
individual suppression of creative expression in American business and
professional organizations. Censorship of the creative spirit, in any manner
of exclusion, is a manifestation of fascism.

][<en Follett