Free verse has been an essential American mode since Whitman, but it's not the only American mode. The stories that we tell ourselves about the history of American poetry are greatly reduced for some poets' polemical ends. When we examine the reality of the different types of poetry that our great poets have written, then we discover that it is quite various and often ties us to the 'oldest' traditions in poetry much more than one might think.
—Edward Hirsch
The barbarians (Cavafy)
Why isn’t anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What’s the point of senators making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.
C. P. Cavafy, from "Waiting for the Barbarians"
Labels: poetry
