
Reader Discretion Advised: On profanity and the sublime in poetry - lermontov
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/146097/reader-discretion-advised
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hprotagonist
You can go back much further than they do here to find truly delightful and
extraordinarily rude poems.

Catullus 16[0](composed roughly 60 BC) is the obvious example, whose first
line was not given in English translation until some time after 1950. (and
look, i'm doing the same thing right now!)

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_16](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_16)

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ggggtez
Did this piece censor e.e. cummings? So in a piece about using profanity in
poetry, some words are still too profane to print as is?

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hprotagonist
i noticed that too.

