Word: poets
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...Brezhnev era, Lenin's dream state had devolved into a corrupt and failing dictatorship. Only the Lenin cult persisted. The ubiquitous Lenin was a symbol of the repressive society itself. Joseph Brodsky, the great Russian poet of the late 20th century, began to hate Lenin at about the time he was in the first grade, "not so much because of his political philosophy or practice...but because of the omnipresent images which plagued almost every textbook, every class wall, postage stamps, money, and what not, depicting the man at various ages and stages of his life...This face in some...
...determined to live his life as an ascetic, but, as the poet Sarojini Naidu joked, it cost the nation a fortune to keep Gandhi living in poverty. His entire philosophy privileged the village way over that of the city, yet he was always financially dependent on the support of industrial billionaires like Birla. His hunger strikes could stop riots and massacres, but he also once went on a hunger strike to force one of his capitalist patrons' employees to break their strike against the harsh conditions of employment...
...opening stanza of "Poem Noir I": "I'm in a bad mood/Fit to kill/One might say/Not that I would/Just don't give me a weapon." Perhaps not quite as arresting as Raymond Chandler, but at least killing things is a reasonably noir concept. Daring browsers can unmask this dark poet brash enough to call herself Catwoman simply by clicking on the little kitty, with anticlimactic results--Catwoman's portrait displays a homely sixteen-year old posing in front of a couple of butterfly stickers. Her frumpy red dress doesn't do much to complete the Cat motif either; a visit...
...bingo! Eureka! You've got it! For what, indeed, determines merit? All those science camps mom and dad sent you to when you were little? That inspiring high-school English teacher, Mr. Perry, who always knew you were a poet inside? Or maybe it was all those grueling afternoons spent practicing the viola when you would have preferred being outside, playing with the kids on your block. Merit is enabled by all of the above and more. Merit is a promise, an investment in human capital. And this investment necessitates time, encouragement and, of course, money...
...visit by the Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever to her mother's salon changed Wisse's mind...