Weaver also derives satisfaction from his activities in Taiwan. "I am happy to be here because I can say to my students, you know, `here is the list of the books, and here is the person I know.' ... If you depend on the American academic machine, they won't tell you," Weaver said.
AIT's American Cultural Center has also arranged another round of poetry recitals for Weaver at Fu Jen Catholic University on March 20, and encouraged the poet to have some of his works translated into Chinese in order to reach out to local readers.
A devoted practitioner of tai chi (太極) since 1979, Weaver says that the ancient Chinese art form has also opened doors for him during his brief stay in Taiwan.
The elderly folks who gather at NTU's Drunk Moon Lake look at him with approving smiles. Weaver also continues his daily practice every Tuesday morning on the TUA campus under the instruction of Tsung Wei (雄衛), tai chi instructor for Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, seeking physical and spiritual strength in the regimen.
"At 50-years of age, I can say that poetry has -- along with tai chi -- saved my life," Weaver said. "Because, when I started tai chi, that was the first time my energy as a poet came into focus. Before that, it was all over the place."
While tai chi helped the then emotionally shattered young man restore his life -- torn apart by the death of his 10-month-old son, Michael Jr, to Down's Syndrome -- poetry became the means through which Weaver confronted the turmoil in his life.
"In the course of the time I have been writing poetry, from 1969 or so until today, it has led me to a full knowledge of myself," Weaver said.
Despite his work's enormous thematic appeal, Weaver's journey to the publication of Multitudes: Poems Selected and New in 2000, his ninth book of poetry in 15 years, is exceptional in the arena of contemporary poetry.
A dropout from the department of engineering at the University of Maryland -- a move that upset his father who never went to high school and had hoped his son would become an engineer -- the then 19-year-old man began a 15-year stint as a blue-collar worker.
In 1984, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts enabled Weaver to leave factory work and his days of writing amid the rhythm of conveyor belts to finish his studies.
In 1986, he completed his first degree at Regents College and, in 1987, his master's degree in creative writing at Brown University.
His entry into the world of letters was not without its difficulties.
"I was strange to them," Weaver recalled. "They didn't think that a factory worker could be a writer."
But Weaver's confessional poetry gradually earned him recognition in the world of contemporary poetry; and in this year's January/February issue of Poets and Writers Magazine he was chosen as one of five figures for its special section celebrating black writers. Weaver nevertheless remains humble.
"In the time that I am here, the best thing I can do is be myself. Students can look at me, they can compare and they can understand. ... If there is anything that is to come out of my presence, it will be through them," Weaver said.
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