Paying the ultimate price...

... new Mandelstam translations.

Mandelstam was ultimately crushed by other poets in the thrall of theory. Think about that the next time you run into a squabble about which “type” of poetry in America is the most politically pure, creative, progressive. Having been alerted by Milosz in The Captive Mind about the damage artists and writers will inflict on each other when power is in the balance, we may be alert for the singular voice that speaks most desperately, disturbingly and eloquently to our age. Nadezhda wrote in Hope Against Hope, “M. defined the poet as one who ‘disturbs meaning.’ What he had in mind, however, not not rebellion against inherited order, but rejection of the commonplace image and the hackneyed phrase by which meaning is obscured.” One has a reason to remain disinterested in the poetry of trivial rebellions, gratuitous political references, facile or overly complicated cranking against inherited order, and the clichéd postures of undeserved entitlements.