I, my sister and my son, were presented with our own illustrated edition of the Songs of Innocence And Of Experience at the age of 10. A lovely tradition my mother started.

A real Hero, one of the original Imagineers--I have recited "A Poison Tree" many a time, at Mama Java's and Bards Books and various other Valley venues. It is "We have met the enemy and he is us" exposition of non-original sin for the ages.

Ah, William Blake...one of my favorites, as well as Allen Ginsberg's (the beat even recorded a sort of neo-primitive LP that put the Songs of Innocence and Experience to music). Probably the best faux-prophetic writer of his era, and his wacky reverse-burn printing method has a wholly singular, acidic look. He was also pretty handy with the off-kilter bon mots (on the painter Fuseli: "The only man that e'er I knew, who did not make me almost spew").

This mostly, however, reminds me of your highly negative DEAD MAN review, the denouement of which had you leafing through a collection of Blake's poetry and considering that the evening hadn't been an entire waste. I'm not in agreement with you on the film, but I admired your evocation of Blake's mysticism, rather than Jarmusch's, as a coda.

One of the greatest poets who ever lived. Today he'd be called a supporter of terrorism. But he wouldn't care; his business was to create, to tell the truth as he saw it.

For years I've been trying to remember the one that goes "self-contained and all-repelling." Can't. Anybody? Or was that even Blake?