The Oresteia
Let's workshop this poem about the divisive impact of one president's election, which intensified an already-brewing witch-hunt urge to "cancel"--fire, harm, tarnish--whatever violates PC norms
The Oresteia
The derangement incited
by his presidency meant
her, like so many
artists, being fired
for words or links
to what “protected identities”
(trans BIPOCs,
above all) might find
“triggering,” “unsafe”: how
could she not startle herself
with a vote for him
next time?
* In "The Oresteia" (a trilogy of plays by Aeschylus), the cycle of vengeance and blood feuds, represented by the ancient law of retribution (the kind of justice where crimes must be paid for with equivalent suffering), is contrasted with a more civilized form of justice (diké justice), embodied by the establishment of the Court of the Areopagus in Athens. This transition marks the movement from personal vendetta to a judicial system where disputes are settled by a community or state, aiming for fairness and societal harmony rather than continuing cycles of violence and eye-for-an-eye blood feuds.
