1. The Vacanas are devotional free-verse lyrics, composed in Kannada, one of the major South Indian languages, and not in Tamil.

2. Hughes perhaps refers to Speaking of Siva, an anthology of vacanas translated with an Introduction by A. K Ramanujan, (London: Penguin Books, 1973).

3. Perhaps Hughes had in mind New Lines, Robert Conquest, ed. (1956; rpt. London: Macmillan, 1962).

4. This book, Wolfwatching, became available for study soon after the interview.