When I read Mexican poet's Octavio Paz poem about the art of writing poetry in "Certainty" or "Certeza" in 1961 (translated by Charles Tomlinson) in "Literature" 9th ed. by Kennedy/Gioia, Poetry, I questioned the prism of alternate reality and dubious slurs that have become the rhetoric of right-wing xenophobic, political violence engendered by hate-speech, produced by "would-be kings" and conspiracy theorists in front store fronts or Proud-Boy rallies or descending elevators and pundits speaking of racist slurs against Mexicans as vermin, rapists, and murderers, and I cried out against rhetoric that is antithetical to poetry, art, and the beauty of immigrants that shaped western culture, Paz talks about the writer's attempt to express his or her feelings, traditions, or art through written communication and the poet's attempt enlighten or like Apollo, to show knowledge, the rational light and beauty of words set in poetry; but the writer's words soon disappear, From what I say vanishes. . . .I know that I am alive between two parentheses. (1053).
