In John Barr's poems, the ancient masters encounter the modern world. Dante on a beach in China beholds the Inferno: “Flaring well gas night and day, / towers rise as if to say, / Pollution can be beautiful.” Bach’s final fugue informs all of nature. Villon is admonished by an aging courtesan. Aristotle finds “Demagogues are the insects of politics. / Like water beetles they stay afloat / on surface tension, they taxi on iridescence.” And his afterlife: “When three-headed Cerberus greeted him / Socrates replied: I won’t need / an attack dog, thank
you. I married one.”
- ISBN13 9781597090414
- Publish Date 23 August 2018 (first published 10 July 2018)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Red Hen Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 88
- Language English