Paradise for the poets
A few weeks ago I found in The Winslow Mail (1919-02-14) this article and I think it’s really funny.
PARADISE FOR THE POETS
World Surely Would Be Pleasant Dwelling Place If All Sweet Singers Were Endowed.
(read under the image the text)
A contemporary suggests that poets and poetry—be endowed.
Should such a great and holy reform be established the stream of poesy will at last be undammed. The singer will break his chains. The world may finally slake its burning thirst in limpid pools of truth. The lyre will be heard in every town and hamlet. Men will read poetry at meals, then improvise it in their sleep. Newspapers and magazines will teem with it. There will be swarms of poets, like mosquitoes, catching inspiration from every twig and leaf—and fat government subsidies.
Nor is this all. The poet will become a sort of public utility, like jthe fire department. His job will be to kindle fire, not extinguish it. He will be rushed to the scene of action in a municipal auto, there fittingly to commemorate great deeds. A poet will be available by night or day for all occasions—public as well as private.
But how shall a poet qualify? How become officially endowed? By length of servitude or quantity and quality of product? What the remuneration?, Shall we form a poet’s zoo, each with his own cage and a yard and trough? Ah, here we become lost in a maze of difficulties. Who will administer the fund? Think how Parnassus might be corrupted!
Yet ’tis worth the experiment. Gayety will be all the world’s portion when the poet, jealous of his monetary grant, is found training his muse to jump and bark at pleasure of politics.—
