A Gentleman in Moscow

All poetry is a call to action.

“A king fortifies himself with a castle,” observed the Count, “a gentleman with a desk.”

“I see the blackberries have come in early this year!”

All poetry is a call to action

Why did you write the poem?

COUNT ALEXANDER ILYICH ROSTOV

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Given Russia’s long, heartless winters, its familiarity with famine, its rough sense of justice, and so on, and so on, it was perfectly natural for its gentry to adopt an act of definitive violence as the means of resolving disputes.

However, audacity and steadfastness—entirely contrary means—have sometimes served to produce the same effect

By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.