Edward Hirsch
The Case Against Poetry

                             While you made the case against poetry—
                             Plato’s critique of the irrational,
                             Homeric lying, deluded citizens—
                             to a group of poets in Prague

                             night deepened in old windows,
                             swallows gathered on a narrow ledge
                             and called to the vanishing twilight,  
                             and a beggar began to sing in the street.

 
Found In Volume 39, No. 01
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  • Edward Hirsch
Edward Hirsch
About the Author

Edward Hirsch’s most recent book is The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (2010). He is now president of the
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.