Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Poet avenger

Discuss:

What we expect from poets is that they avenge evil somehow.


— From "A Note on Poetic Justice," in Other Colors: Essays and a Story, by Orhan Pamuk.

[In what must be a subconscious attempt at editorialization, I keep typing "pests" instead of "poets"...]

2 comments:

"Ms. Cornelius" said...

TAG!!!!!! You're it!

"Ms. Cornelius" said...

Now, on to more serious things:

I am sure that some of my favorite poets address if not avenge evil. e.e. cummings did. Nora Van Duyn did. Howard Nemerov and Denise Levertov and Jane Kenyon and Gerard Manley Hopkins and Langston Hughes did.

I do not think Allen Ginsburg always did-- I will never get over being forced to read "Howl" aloud in a freshman literature class of about 45 strangers.

When you tell the truth, that is a blow against evil.