My dad gave me a copy of Rothenberg's Shaking the Pumpkin: Traditional Poetry of the Indian North Americas when I was a kid. The book came out in 1972, and it must have been not too long after that, so I was probably 13 or 14. I always loved that book, but at some point I no longer had it. Either it disintegrated after repeated readings or it was lost at some point. So I decided to find another copy of it, which arrived today in the mail. I admire Rothenberg's other anthologies as well, but none quite as much as this one. I can't tell whether that's for mostly sentimental reasons. The book, long out of print but easily and cheaply available on the second hand market, still stands up because of the quality of the translators, Schwerner, Tedlock, Hollo, Rothenberg, Levertov, Tarn, Richard Johnny John, etc...

Did I "get it" when I was a kid? Yes I did.