The Real War Poets Are Always War

We Read Our Mail And Counted Up Our Missions In Bombers Named For Girls, We Burned The Cities We Had Learned About In School Till Our Lives Wore Out; Our Bodies Lay Among The People We Had Killed And Never Seen. When We Lasted Long Enough They Gave Us Medals; When We Died They Said, "our Casualties Were Low." They Said, "here Are The Maps"; We Burned The Cities.

I See At Last That All The Knowledge I Wrung From The Darkness - That Darkness Flung Me - Is Worthless As Ignorance: Nothing Comes From Nothing The Darkness From The Darkness. Pain Comes From The Darkness And We Call It Wisdom. It Is Pain.

Except From The Americans—but Every Pearl Has Its Oyster.

More And More People Think Of The Critic As An Indispensable Middle Man Between Writer And Reader, And Would No More Read A Book Alone, If They Could Help It, Than Have A Baby Alone.

If My Tone Is Mocking, The Tone Of Someone Accustomed To Helplessness, This Is Natural: The Poet Is A Condemned Man For Whom The State Will Not Even Buy Breakfast And As Someone Said, "if You're Going To Hang Me, You Mustn't Expect To Be Able To Intimidate Me Into Sparing Your Feelings During The Execution."