The enemies of poetry have always had an obsession to submit to their immediate purposes, to crush under their god and now the chain beyond the pale new deity brown or "red" - red-brown of dried blood - even bloodier than the old. For them, life and culture are summarized in useful and useless, it being understood that the useful takes the form of a pickaxe wielded for their benefit. To them, poetry is just the luxury of the rich, aristocratic or banker, and if she wants to go 'useful' to ground, it must be resigned to the fate of arts 'applied', 'decorative', 'domestic' etc.. Instinctively, however they feel it is the fulcrum claimed by Archimedes, and fear that brought the world falls on their head. From there, the ambition of debasing, to withdraw any effectiveness, any value of exaltation to give the role hypocritically consoling a sister of charity.
Benjamin Peret (Dishonour poets - 1945)
This man "who believed in him so little that attaches so little importance to
his poetry - one of the most original and wild
of our time - never ceased to trust in life [...]. With men like
Peret night in the century is not absolute "
Octavio Paz
