Claire Schwartz
In the Old Dictator's obituary, a charming anecdote—

When the Old Dictator was a boy, his father saved his wages
for a month to buy his son a watch. The boy, in turn,
turned back the watch's hands every day for a month
so his father wouldn't lose time on his account.

Remember—

Before he was the Old Dictator, he was a baby
babbling. Now he speaks three languages,
thanks to his time in the army. After genocide,
he took up painting. "His paintings manifest a man
grappling," the Curator attests, buys seven.

When the Dictator scorned the Old Dictator,
the townspeople awarded the Old Dictator
a new tide: Empathetic.

"Look at that soft power," a townswoman cooed.
"Bruised like peaches from the half-off bin."

The townspeople collected their best language
to offer the Empathetic Dictator.
The Empathetic Dictator was not home.
(He had gone to play golf with the Dictator.)

The townspeople left their gift on his stoop.

When the Empathetic Dictator returned, he adorned himself
with the townspeople's best language. He commissioned a photo,
which he turned into Christmas cards. The townspeople
displayed the cards on their mantlepieces.

One day, the photo finds the homepage. The Empathetic Dictator has died,
the newspaper reports. The townspeople are sad. The townspeople read
of their sadness on tiny screens.

How tender the old rule appears when you hold it up to the present like a cashier
turning a hundred-dollar bill toward the light, squinting, proclaiming it Real.
from the book CIVIL SERVICE / Graywolf Press
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Black-and-white photograph, sepia with age, of T. S. Eliot
"The Waste Land" at 100

"'The Waste Land,' in short, can speak to the ecological dread of her generation as it spoke to the social and political anxieties of those who had weathered the First World War. The poem, which is prefaced with the words of a Sibyl, is fated to tell each of us, from one era to the next, whatever it is that we most fear to hear."

via THE NEW YORKER
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Cover image for Joshua Edwards book, The Double Lamp of Solitude
What Sparks Poetry: Joshua Edwards on Gérard de Nerval's "Waking Up in a Stagecoach"

"I began with the title: “Le Réveil en voiture.” It seemed so simple. “Réveil” is “awaken” and “voiture” is something that carries someone, a vehicle. But which vehicle to put the reader in? What should carry them through the landscape of the poem? The obvious choices at first were “carriage” and “coach,” but those seemed too distant, too private, too monochrome. “Stagecoach” felt better! It was technicolor."
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