Hymns Among Ruins; or, Modern Poetry’s Midcentury Inflation
During and after World War II the Mexican poet Octavio Paz (1914–98) and two of his first English-language translators in the United States, Muriel Rukeyser (1913–80) and William Carlos Williams (1883–1963), expatiated on poetic form’s existential significance and political utility. Williams crusaded for a “new measu...