An aspiring poet who hones his craft through hard practice experiences an unexpected setback when his younger cousin undermines his belief that skilled art-making requires time and effort.

In a small town, a resident watches as the people and place change. He recounts eight seemingly disparate stories, but the town connects them all.

The young son of a grocer becomes fascinated by a peculiar customer who speaks little and only eats crackers and milk.

A man tells the story of his son-in-law who used his poetry skills to make real money.

Upon returning to Paris after a decade-long hiatus wandering the French countryside and writing an epic, a poet encounters an enigmatic young woman who believes he is a god and wants to be his disciple,

A young man who works at a shipping company comes back to a rooming home and befriends the host. He meets the host's ill husband and discovers more about the couple until he receives the news of the husband's passing.

Caught between two dimensions of spacetime, a poet shares stories with two women in need of his narrative insight, all the while meditating on the meaning of stories and the intricacies of interpersonal connection.

A teacher on the Lower East side meets a friendly man with a presence resembling a dead English poet.

A woman reflects on a day — back when she was a young poet in 1972 New York City — she spent retrieving furniture to borrow from a young man about to visit his home in Chile. The man was eventually taken by the secret police, leaving the woman with his furniture for years to come.

Knowing that some things happen only once in a lifetime, a man walking down a street is convinced that he sees the girl of his dreams and wonders if fate is telling him to leave his wife.