WORDS FOR A CRAVEN EDITOR
A cartoon is not funny if I say
a cartoon is not funny. You may think
what you may think, but I will print
only what I decide to print. You may
object. You may at least expect a link.
But I decide what I will not reprint.
A picture may be worth, as someone said,
a thousand words. An image may, also,
encapsulate what words may never know.
But I have no desire to join the dead.
They knew what they were doing and they bled.
I ask myself if I could ever show
such courage, such defiance. Oh hell, no.
I’d rather cut the news and die in bed.
—from Poets Respond
January 18, 2015
__________
Conor Kelly: “One of the major international news stories of the week was the publication of the regular edition of Charlie Hebdo with a print run of over five million instead of the usual 60,000. The cover was a nuanced response to the terrifying events of the previous week. However, some news editors decided not to print this cover for a variety of reasons. This inverted Petrarchan sonnet with a Yeatsian title is my response to what I see as cowardice.” (website)
