The Useless Critic 2.0

On Receiving News of the War Snow is a strange white word. No ice or frost Has asked of bud or bird For Winter's cost. Yet ice and frost and snow From earth to sky This Summer land doth know. No man knows why. In all men's hearts it is. Some spirit old Hath turned with malign kiss Our lives to mould. Red fangs have torn His face. God's blood is shed. He mourns from His lone place His children dead. O! ancient crimson curse! Corrode, consume. Give back this universe Its pristine bloom. Isaac Rosenberg was a poet whose work was admired by Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. However, he was killed in the Great War and not much of his work remains.  There is still no American World War I memorial. There is a museum, but no memorial.  I thought this picture  was quite touching, but I feel disrespectful including it in my post, so I'll just link to it. 

I know! I haven't posted poetry in forever! Sigh. having a class in it will do that to you, you know. Anyway, this is Karin Boye, a poet from Sweden who has been dead for a very long time. Jason introduced me to her in high school a la Nanook of the North, who have a song about her grave. (sweet little band, check them out) She was a lesbian poet that committed suicide by swallowing a bunch of pills and sitting on a boulder in 1941. She did a lot more that poetry- for example, she's the reason most of T.S. Eliot's work is available in Swedish- but that's what people remember her most for. Including this piece, which is called "Ja visst gör det ont," which is translated to "Yes, of course it hurts": Of course it hurts when buds burst. Otherwise why would spring hesitate? Why would all our fervent longing be bound in the frozen bitter haze? The bud was the casing all winter. What is this new thing, which consumes and bursts? Of course it hurts when bud...