Ars Poetica
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse
“The word ‘classic’ itself . . . derives from the Latin word classicus which referred to recruits of the ‘first class’, the heavy infantry in the Roman army. The ‘classical’, then, is ‘first class’, though it is no longer heavily armoured.” ~ Robin Lane Fox, The Classical World: an Epic History from Homer to Hadrian, p. 1
The finest do not win the war with weight
Of numbers. Heavy popularity
Is not enough to stop them. You can freight
The arts with freedoms of vulgarity,
Simplicity, and banging rhymes in verse,
Or wildest sloshes meant to shock the eye
In paintings. You can conjure even worse
In license in a film with all awry
With tastelessness and dirt. There is a way
Which always has been there to make the best
Of creativity. It is the sway
Of formal rules to help the artist wrest
The power of lawlessness by might of mind
And make of grossest chaos things refined.