We profane the scene
By the mockery of our Art.²
Is the function of the poet
Mere sound to stuff the ear?³
Poetics isn’t picturesque dilettantism
Or egotistical expressionism for craven motives—
Grasping for sensation & flattery;⁴
Inquisitive chatter & cataloguing
Things we’ve spotted isn’t Art!⁵
Our Ignorance of the Arts is notable, and
We lose no opportunity to proclaim it to each other.⁶
We with our hackneyed conventions usurp the
Supremacy in art and consider nothing legitimate
But what we do ourselves—all else we suppress.⁷
In contact with Social Conditions, our poetry loses
Its practical significance becomes purely literary …⁸
Better far pursue a
Frivolous trade by serious means—
Than a Sublime Art frivolously!⁹
If you write Books merely
To entertain—Burn them!¹⁰
¹ Henry Herbert Knibbs, Out There Somewhere
² Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Prophetic Pictures
³ Wallace Stevens, Academic Discourse at Havana
⁴ Allen Ginsberg, Meditation and Poetics
⁵ Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince
⁶ E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
⁷ Anton Chekhov tr. Constance Garnett, The Sea-Gull
⁸ Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
⁹ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
¹⁰ Miguel Ángel Asturias, The Latin American Novel