In St. Gallen, Switzerland
They Love Books . . . Even American Poetry

One pleasure of walking the streets of St. Gallen, a town near the foothills of the Swiss Alps, was climbing its steep alleys and staircases through winding passages, and then, surprisingly, coming upon a kiosk that advertised the Wortlaut literary festival, where I would be reading alongside the American poet Jan Heller Levi.

My rush of excitement couldn’t be helped. I knew that book lovers of all kinds were expected to pack a couple of dozen Wortlaut events at the main downtown library and nearby venues.

At our own event, Jan Heller Levi and I would be interviewed — in English — by two philosophy students, Julia Mülli and Lara Hofstetter, from the Kantonsschule am Burggraben, St. Gallen, a top academic high school. As it turned out, the enthusiasm of the crowd was more than evident; it was bracing — this despite the fact that we read our poems and talked in English to German-speaking listeners.

(It’s impossible to believe that an American audience, even if it consisted of dedicated poetry lovers, would be able to tolerate, let alone appreciate, a pair of poets reading their work in German.)

Of course Jan and I were outliers among more than three dozen participating writers. Admittedly, the Swiss poet and translator Florian Vetsch took the trouble to introduce the two of us in the native lingo, and our smart young questioners summarized what was being said, but still . . .

Since public funding for the arts in America has always been a struggle, especially now that the Trump-Musk regime has cut off all federal grants for the humanities, it was equally surprising to me that a small Swiss town with a population one tenth of Manhattan’s could and would support such a feast of culture. What is more, the Wortlaut festival made certain through municipal grants to pay the writers and artists for their participation. Imagine that.