by Steven Ratiner
“The Post needs to be a
profitable enterprise that stands on its own two feet. Let me tell you
why. Because it’s a measure of its relevance. If people won’t pay for our
product, it’s not a good enough product. It would be like poetry without
rhyming, it’s too easy.” ––Jeff Bezos in an interview on CNBC reported by The New York Times, May 20, 2026
Too easy without rhyme? Mr. B., I have news
for you:
you’ve no understanding of the time that goes into
educating the tongue, cultivating the heart, so
that words
might fly true to their destination, bearing the
hard
truth of what’s required to be an actual
human being in
our rancid/gilded age––where suffering’s a
commodity
on the Stock Exchange, and all it takes is a few
billion
in reserve to live gloriously without a thimbleful
of pity
or the tonnage of regret. News flash: your
yacht’s run aground
on Circe’s island, as you quaff down cup after cup
of kykeon
laced with nightshade, turning into swine along
with your crew.
Ithaka can burn for all you care. There’s no
damned hope for you.
For what (another old poem) profit a
man who gains the world but
loses his soul? Such unspeakable
waste. What rhymes with that?
Steven Ratiner is
the author of Grief's Apostrophe, published by Beltway Editions in
2025. He's also published three poetry chapbooks, a collection of poetry
interviews, and appeared in several anthologies. His work has appeared in
scores of journals in America and abroad, including Parnassus, Agni, Hanging
Loose, Poet Lore, Salamander, Vox Populi, QRLS (Singapore), and Poetry
Australia––and been translated into Mandarin, Spanish, Ukrainian, and
Hebrew. He's also written poetry criticism for The Washington Post, The
Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle, and other
journals. Giving Their Word—Conversations with Contemporary Poets
was reissued in a paperback edition (University of Massachusetts Press).
He is Poet Laureate Emeritus for Arlington, Massachusetts, and was elected in
2024 as President of the New England Poetry Club, one of the oldest literary
associations in America. Now, beginning its seventh year, his weekly Red
Letter Poems features a diverse range of poets, from up-and-coming talents to
some of the most important voices in contemporary poetry.
