Where Poetry Is Respected, It Gets People Killed

Remember. Wherever writers—
Or let’s just say storytellers
And poets, writing or singing—

Are celebrated and admired
Across all the social strata
From powerful to powerless,

Power will work to draw them close,
Acquire its courtly praise poets,
Its party-approved fabulists,

Toss the troublemakers in jail
Or exile, or execute them.
Sometimes you’ll hear Americans

Sigh about lands where poetry
Is important and memorized
And paid attention to by all,

How romantic those courtly bards
Rotting in exile, those poets
Of the people tortured in jail.