Poet Power

To the Editors:

I found my name under the “Poet Power” manifesto published in your issue of August 22. My belief is that poets should not add to the general confusion by using words in an irresponsible way. A joke should not be presented as a credo. Because of my European background I consider a search for salvation through racial myths, tribal structures, high natural herbs etc. dangerous nonsense. When the text was being written by Allen Ginsberg at Stony Brook, both myself and my friend Zbigniew Herbert treated the whole matter as an exercise in humor. We did not sign the thing.

Czeslaw Milosz

Berkeley, California