SOURCE: "The Nightmare, That Tiger of the Dream," in Borges at Eighty: Conversations, edited by Willis Barnstone, Indiana University Press, 1982, pp. 135-52.

In the following interview, Borges discusses the poetic influences of Walt Whitman, Edgar A. Poe, and others.

[Willis Barnstone]: In the years that we have known each other we have spoken almost exclusively about poetry.

[Jorge Luis Borges]: Yes. It's the only subject, really.

A few days ago when we took a plane in New York, you asked what the name of the airline was, and I said TWA. You asked what that stood for, and I said Trans World Airlines. Do you remember what you said?

Yes. I said that that stood for Walt Whitman Trans World. He would have enjoyed that.

What about that pioneer trans world pilot?

I think that what I have to say now is what I said quite some time...