flashquake Poetry

RESPONSE TO MR. MILOSZ
by Michelle Cameron

What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lifes,
A song of drunkards whose
throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
— Czeslaw Milosz

A stanza from "DEDICATION," from a sequence "Voices of Poor People" published in the book Rescue in 1945. Found in The New York Review of Books, Vol. XLVIII, No. 20, December 20, 2001, p. 16.

It is poetry that draws the startled breath of a child watching the landing sparrow that makes us bear witness to the small joys like we count raisins in our cakes makes the sophomore girls swoon, and spread, and croons a lullaby over the milksweet exhalation of a new generation profoundly asleep in trust.

Copyright 2003 by Michelle Cameron

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