Robert Pinsky’s recent autobiography is Jersey Breaks. His books of poetry include At the Foundling Hospital, The Want Bone, The Figured Wheel, and his translation The Inferno of Dante. Among his prose works is Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry. He has appeared on The Simpsons.
The mind skitters, its one rudder
Being its own voice. The great
Fascist poet taught me free verse.
Trying to concentrate on “The forgiving
Of an unforgivable crime” in a lecture
By Emmanuel Levinas,…