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    • May 2013

    David Caplan, Linda Gregerson, Derek Sheffield, A. E. Stallings, Michelle Boisseau, Peter Cole, and more.

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Were I to fall in love all over again, it would be

with this low ceiling, with the calm  faces

of  the two men going about their craft,

and with her, now twisting towards them,

beautiful, defiant and free.

Because we forget how beauty was once itself

and nothing else, how it held its stellar

moment in attic and cellar.

Because that is what beauty is, this compact

with time and the silence of  concentration

on one subversive operation,

that requires courage and sacrifice

and never comes without a price.

Source: Poetry (February 2008).

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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

This poem originally appeared in the February 2008 issue of Poetry magazine

• Ross: Yellow Star
  by George Szirtes
• Midsummer
  by Louise Glück
• Kolár: Housing Estate
  by George Szirtes

• February 2008 Table of Contents
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More about this poem

Biography

George Szirtes was born in Hungary and emigrated to England with his parents—survivors of concentration and labor camps—after the 1956 Budapest uprising.

Szirtes studied painting at Harrow School of Art and Leeds College of Art and Design. At Leeds he studied with Martin Bell, who encouraged Szirtes as he began to develop his poetic themes: an engaging mix of British individualism and European fluency in myth, fairy tale, and . . .

Continue reading this biography

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Poems by George Szirtes

• Kertész: Latrine
• Kolár: Housing Estate
• Petersen: Kleichen and a Man
• Ross: Children of the Ghetto
• Ross: Yellow Star

• More poems by George Szirtes (6 poems)
  • Sudek: Tree

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Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Living, Arts & Sciences, Social Commentaries

POET’S REGION England

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Related

Audio

• Poem of the Day: My Fathers, Coming and Going
• Poem of the Day: Petersen: Kleichen and a Man
• Poem of the Day: Ross: Children of the Ghetto
• The Poetry Magazine Podcast: When Guns Talk the Muses Fall Silent

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