The Atlantic | March 2003 | Sure

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Contents | March 2003

More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly.

The Atlantic Monthly | March 2003

Sure

by Lee Upton

.....

Hear the author read this poem (in RealAudio)

I'd call this place hell
if it didn't sound so final.
I prefer: The Underworld:
awe clapping its great wings about our heads.
My daughter read the hero's name without ever
having heard it said:
Useless, she informed us, blinded the Cyclops.
Useless: that's a name he might have liked,
next to Nobody, next to Walk-through-the-fires-of-the-dead.
First things first, he learned, usefully.
Back to the living,
the false world, the changing one
where customs differ,
but where everyone wants certainty to last.
So, much later, a poet wrote of an infant god
whirling in flames:
Poor Robert Southwell, first strung up,
next gutted, then beheaded.

What do you think? Discuss this article in Post & Riposte.

Lee Upton is the author of four poetry collections, including Civilian Histories (2000), and three books of literary criticism, including The Muse of Abandonment (1998).

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