>> Yes, even poets can commit murder, as this arricle shows.
>>
>> Has anybody every read any of Porter's work?
>>
Yes, he wrote stuff like "Lady Rutherford's Cauliflower",
and something about his erectile dysfunction, which
he compared to puttering with a golf club and missing
the hole. Oh, dear.
Of course poets can be killers- Osama Bin Laden does
poetry, Mao Tse Tung did poetry.
It does seem a bit hypocritical for a man who committed
an execution-style murder to be on a high-horse about
anti-war causes, etc. People who are this heavily contaminated
should not degrade worthwhile causes by association.
Porter's life does illustrate the absurdity of human existence.
The real-life surrealism could almost have a charm to it,
if it were not also revealing life's cheapness.
Now, who is to say what is good poetry? In Chicago, the papers
say, he was "one of the city's most beloved antiwar poets",
and a "poet of the month".
I suppose the moral of the story is that we all gotta move
to Chicago, our kind of town, so maybe our ramblings can
be well-received by trusting sorts who are easily fooled.
Let's face it.
However- what is the mark of *real* poetry? I would say
that being a real poet should mean never having to kill
anyone with a gun, in a bungled clothing-store hold-up.
A *real* poet should be able to kill people *with* his
poetry, killing bastards who deserve it, softly with
his surrealism.
The advantage of this, if you can pull it off, by bending
reality to fit your poetry, is that you don't have to go
to jail for it, like this pitful Porter fellow.
Tom Keske
....................................................................................
2. Poetry of Mao Tse-tung
... of Mao's poetry, quite a couple of years ago: As you can see, I got the text of "Answering to ... to those men, the last
line of Mao Tse-tung's poem ...
http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de/MAO2.RXML [Found on Google, Yahoo!]
The Long March by Mao TseTung
-- a lushih
October 1935
The Red Army fears not the trials of the Long March,
Holding light ten thousand crags and torrents.
The Five Ridges wind like gentle ripples
And the majestic Wumeng roll by, globules of clay.
Warm the steep cliffs lapped by the waters of Golden Sand,
Cold the iron chains spanning the Tatu River.
Minshan's thousand li of snow joyously crossed,
The three Armies march on, each face glowing.
=====================================================
I dunno. It doesn't seem to be working. Maybe it is losing
something in the translation.
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