Edwin Frank
is the author of Snake Train: Poems 1984-2013 and the editor and founder of the New York Review Books Classics series.
Picture a Picture of a Bed
By Edwin FrankBeing a mere imitation of a thing, a picture is a bad thing, and since other forms of imitation, such as epic and tragic poetry, are likewise bad, it is essential that the citizens of the republic not develop a taste for such things, which offer empty distraction and false gratification and will only bring them to grief.
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