I was struck by this comment of Charles Simic in a review of Pablo Neruda’s poems [NYR Sept 25 2003 p.43]: Rebellion may be one of poetry’s traditions, but so is eulogizing the goodwill and godlike wisdom of some murderer
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The context for this comment was Simic’s discussion of Neruda’s devout Communism which resulted in the penning of lines such as:
In three rooms of the old Kremlin
lives a man named Joseph Stalin
His bedroom light is turned off late.
The world and his country allow him no rest