 I was a young poet in the late 60s and early 70s. I, there weren't really translations of anything. And my language is Spanish, and there were some Lorca and Neruda, essentially, and the translations that I was reading, somehow I had the feeling that they weren't really getting the essence of the poetry. So I thought I had just high school Spanish, but I was good at it. And so I had a very strong knowledge of the fundamentals, and I had a good reading knowledge. So I just took a crack at some, doing some of the poems that I was reading that I was of these people that I thought were probably better poets than were being revealed in the translations that were available. And from there, I just kept at it, it was partly a way of learning how to write in English better, partly a way of expanding the range of my style and my voice as a young poet, and partly a way of reading much more deeply in these poets that I wanted to know better. Well, the obvious reason is that we can't read literature from other languages without it, and I know I've been extremely grateful for the translators that have made people, writers like Rilke, the Russians, and all the other languages that I can't read available to me, including some of the great translators in Spanish whose translations I've read without ever having read the originals, people like Rubasa. So it's a service. I mean, from the translators' point of view, it's a service to the reader who can't read the originals, and as a reader, of course, how else would we know literature in other languages? I think culturally it's important because it gives us more breadth of understanding of the world that we can get on the newspaper, obviously, maybe not so obviously to me, but literature gives much deeper insight into pretty much any culture than anthropology or, I mean, this is an arguable point, but in my opinion literature is like the deepest window into a culture of any, at least of any written form. So, you know, we're doing something that gives access to realities you wouldn't know otherwise. Alta is a place where you know everybody is devoted to literature in a very serious and committed way. So, unlike other kinds of writers' organizations or academic organizations, you are amidst colleagues who are real lovers of literature. So that's one, it's great to come once a year and see all these people who use devotion and whose commitment is so serious.