How growing up in Rome and attending college in France shaped Jorie Graham's sense of language.<br /><br />Question: Where are you from and how has that shaped you? <br />Jorie Graham: Well, I grew up in Rome. I spent the first 17 years of my life in Rome, therefore speaking Italian as the first language, and going to a French lisé, so speaking and learning to think via the French system, although my parents are American ex-patriots, so I grew up essentially bilingual, and then trilingual. I learned English fluently only when I was almost 18 and came to school in the U.S. after having been at the Sorbonne in 1968. <br />Of course, all foreign students in 1968 at the Sorbonne were with people holding foreign passports were asked to leave after what they called the Evénements. So I came to New York at that point and studied in the American system, and became a speaker of English, and, as a result of that, wrote in English, although I can't imagine having written in any other language because the English language is such an extraordinary language for poetry, so I feel very lucky that it turned out that way. <br /> <br />Recorded on April 3, 2008
