New Year’s Eve
Champagne and a ribeye, that’s the ticket,
Beethoven’s string quartet in C# minor,
and good riddance to the plague year.
The mind can provide, provide,
and theories will continue to propose
themselves in politically incorrect seminars
in which ardent young men declare
the whole study of aesthetics may be
divided between Titian’s “Venus of Urbino”
and the fashion industry. Nor is it just
a luxury, this taste for delicacies, this
indulgence in beauty for its own sake,
these academic escapades and linguistic
adventures that may eventuate in
a poem of delight, desired and deserved.
— David Lehman (from Commonweal)
Above: Titian’s “Venus of Urbino” at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence
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Author: The Best American Poetry
