To the Pisos the Art of Poetry: Notes for Aspiring Poets and Playwrights (excerpt)
Suppose some painter had the bright idea
of sticking a human head on a horse's neck
and covering human nether limbs up with
assorted feathers so that a beautiful
woman uptop was an ugly fish below,
and you were invited in to take a look,
How could you possibly manage to keep a straight face?
Dear Pisos, dear friends, a poem's exactly like
such pictures as those, when the poet's fantasies
are like a sick man's raving dreams in which
you can't tell head from foot nor what it is
that they're attached to...
trans David Ferry
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