Evil Self: That poets against the war site demonstrates an utter contempt for the art form. More than 9,000 poems with very few actual POEMS. How depressing!

Virtuous Self: Contempt for the art form? I think you're putting your aesthetic preferences above the anti-war effort. You have your priorities reversed. I find it deeply moving to find so many poems written by professional poets of varying styles, by high school kids, by ordinary citizens. And there are fine poems by Fanny Howe... John Gallaher's "When the bomb went off" is not too bad either. I could give other examples.

Evil Self: I agree about those particular poems, but what do poets as a class have to contribute to the opposition to war? If they are no longer acting as poets, that is, if they write badly, mistreating the language, then they are no longer "poets" except in the sentimental sense of the term. Poetry is supposed to be a defense against mediocre, sentimental, and slack uses of language. Did the language writers write in vain? Weren't they supposed to do away with simplistic political poetry once and for all?

Virtuous Self: Sure, but most people don't really care about some minor schism within the poetry world. You're making this into a professional issue when it is really a civic matter. Poets have a duty to speak, like other citizens. They might express themselves through poems or through statements of conscience. And poems are a good way for young people to express themselves as well, whether or not they are "real poets" according to your elitist definition.

Evil Self: The opposition to mediocre uses of language is a civic duty as well, and that is precisely the social function of poets. You trivialize the issue when you characterize it as some minor turf battle. Isn't evil just as much a function of banality and laziness than of actual malice? Also, why do you always get to be the virtuous one? What makes my position so evil?

Virtuous Self: I guess that's because you intellectualize everything and paralyze yourself, so that you end up undermining the opposition to evil.

Evil Self: That's just who I am, I suppose. Someone has to take the "devil's advocate" position to keep everyone else honest. If we just throw our support behind the banalization of poetry we end up losing integrity, another form of virtue. The integrity of the art form is really the only thing that poet's can claim as their own....

(And so they argued as the shadows fell... )