The Two Boots Word Vault
Words from Minnesota's Timothy Young, poet, essayist, and social thinker.
The Two Boots Word Vault
The Vocation of Poetry and its Ten Labors
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Timothy
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Season 3
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Episode 10
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On April 11, 2026 I presented a version of my take on Robert Bly's "The Vocation of Poetry and its Ten Labors" to the Australian group, The Fifth Direction. I gave examples of how poets respond to the ten labors, and a few opinions on why poets are so important to our cultural communities. Walton Stanley, storyteller and co-presenter, gave a lead-in passage from Shakespeare's The Tempest, and he closed out the time with the preface from Walt Whitman's The Leaves of Grass. Three of the best poets who have written in English, Shakespeare, Whitman, and Bly.