Song of a Citizen Essay | Critical Essay #2

Song of a Citizen Critical Essay #2

Ozersky is a critic and essayist. In this essay, Ozersky considers Milosz's poem as a statement of faith in the power of life. Czezlaw Milosz, in his acceptance for the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature, asked what tyranny had to fear from experimental poetry. His response was that "Only if we assume that a poet constantly strives to liberate himself from borrowed styles in search for reality, is he dangerous. . . . There is no reason why the state should not tolerate an activity." He continued:

that consists of creating 'experimental' poems and
prose, if these are conceived as autonomous systems
of reference, enclosed within their own boundaries.
Only if we assume that a poet constantly strives to
liberate himself from borrowed styles in search for
reality, is he dangerous. . . . In a room where people
unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one
word...
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