Here’s a put-down poem by one of my favorites, Catullus, one of a group of young Roman poets who revolutionized poetry in the 1st century BCE: XLII Come, Hendecasyllables, come one and all, From everywhere, as many as you may be, For an ugly, skanky slut thinks I’m a joke…
A Prayer to Aphrodite On your dappled throne, Aphrodite—deathless, ruse-devising daughter of Zeus: O Lady, never crush my spirit with pain and needless sorrow, I beg you. Rather come—if ever some moment, years past, hearing from afar my despairing voice, you listened, left your father’s great golden halls, and came…
