Great Minds Come Together in Atlanta : Summit: Eight Nobel laureates of literature chat, sip drinks and stay up late. Oh, there was also some pontificating about the eternal questions.

What happens when eight Nobel laureates--recognized as among the greatest living writers--gather for a stimulating summit?

They have a few drinks, chat a bit and then, after some of them drift off to bed, the others settle down to watch the George Foreman fight on television.

That was why Derek Walcott, the Trinidadian poet who won the Nobel in 1992, was feeling a little groggy Sunday afternoon. “We stayed up too late,” he allowed, arriving a few minutes late to an interview.

So this is how great thinkers spend their time--lounging in front of the tube like the rest of us instead of pondering the eternal questions. Did they at least turn down the volume to discuss the significance of sport as ritual? Or sit up after to debate the uses of metonymy and mimesis in poetry?

“Some of us arrived into town late and were tired,” Walcott offered. “I’m not sure we will talk shop, except for an occasional casual remark.” And, besides, there would be plenty of time for pontificating over the next two days.

While some of the writers assembled for a conference sponsored by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games resisted the expectation that they would spew profundities at the drop of a dime, most rose to the occasion.

“The second job of literature is to create myth,” said Kenzaburo Oe of Japan, last year’s winner. “But the first and perhaps most important job is to destroy that myth.”

Discussing a writer’s responsibilities to society, Joseph Brodsky, a native of Russia who won the prize in 1987, said: “All evil--political and social--stems from the same source, which is the vulgarity of the human heart. As long as you oppose some aspect of that vulgarity, your commitment is fulfilled.”

While largely unknown to mainstream America, the writers attracted lovers of literature from across the nation. And, despite attempts by the event’s organizers to keep things tightly controlled, a few of the writers--Brodsky especially--enjoyed wading into crowds of admirers to sign autographs and answer questions.

“This is the event of the century,” gushed Jan Nagy, a high school teacher from St. Louis who came with three other teachers. “This has never been done before.”

She termed the work of the laureates, most of whom represent traditions outside the Western mainstream, “the literature of the future.” The eight writers--half of the 16 living Nobel laureates of literature--represented countries as disparate as Trinidad and Japan, Nigeria and France, Mexico and Poland, the United States and Russia. Toni Morrison, the only native-born American to attend, and the only woman--was also the most elusive.

The last to agree to attend, Morrison participated in a wide-ranging panel discussion Monday morning and gave two readings. But she declined to grant interviews, was the only laureate to skip a Monday press conference and arrived late for a black-tie dinner Sunday night, which featured comedy and musical entertainment.

During the panel discussion, which touched on the issue of privacy, she indirectly offered an explanation for the distance she kept. “We tend to discredit the child or the adult who values solitude,” she said, “but that state is important.” A writer whose work is touched by the mystical yet grounded in the real world, Morrison said she values private communion with the “inner other.”

In her interest in enchantment and magic, she showed a kinship with Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright who won in 1986 and who spoke of the power of ancestor spirits. When Ted Koppel, the ABC news interviewer who served as moderator, commented that much of Morrison’s work gives voice to “perhaps the most inarticulate of all--the dead,” she responded by saying, “Mr. Koppel, you may think the dead are inarticulate ... but often the job is to tell them to please shut up.”

“I’m glad they’re hanging out at your place,” Koppel responded.

The conference, which ended Tuesday, was part of the Cultural Olympiad, a series of events celebrating the arts that is being held in conjunction with next year’s Summer Olympic Games.

Stan Lindberg, editor of theliterary journal the Georgia Review, came up with the idea of the conference 3 1/2 years ago. He didn’t realize then how difficult a job it would be to track down the laureates.

Walcott summed it up. “I don’t think any of us really like being here,” he said Tuesday. “I really don’t enjoy the image of being a pundit of any kind. I’d rather be home working.”

The bombing in Oklahoma was much on Koppel’s mind. The laureates, several of them from parts of the world that have seen far worse acts of terrorism, tended to frame the act in broader terms or to avoid discussing it at all.

Octavio Paz, the Mexican poet who won the prize in 1990, said the bombing symbolizes the struggle in America to fulfill the dream on which it was founded to assimilate different cultures and ideas to create a new kind of society.

Walcott criticized what he termed excessive coverage, saying repetition is deadening viewers to the horror. Writers, he said, are not so concerned with the events of history but with the nature of humankind.

Walcott is a playwright in addition to being a poet, although his plays have not gained wide attention in this country. That may change with a musical he now is creating with songwriter Paul Simon. The play is set in Puerto Rico and New York, and will be produced on Broadway, said Walcott.

The audience for poetry remains minuscule. Koppel noted that his “Nightline” television show once devoted an entire program to poets reading from their work.

“I’m proud of having done it,” Koppel said, “but I’m ashamed to say the ratings have never been worse.”