Milosz and Simic on Poetry

Czeslaw Milosz: The purpose of poetry is to remind us/ how difficult it is to remain just one person.

Charles Simic “In Praise of Folly”: – Seduction, too, was always on my mind: if you take off your shirt, my love, and let my tongue get acquainted with yours, I’ll praise your beauty in my poems and your name will live forever. It worked, too. Much of lyric poetry is nothing more than a huge centuries-old effort to remind our immortal souls of the existence of our genital organs.