1020: Ithaka

Published: Dec. 14, 2023, 9 a.m.

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Today\\u2019s poem is Ithaka by C.P. Cavafy.


The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes\\u2026 \\u201cHarvard, Illinois is among a host of American cities and towns named for locales with more illustrious histories and associations: Paris, Texas; Rome, Maine; Athens, Georgia; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Today\\u2019s poem makes me think, first, of the city in upstate New York where some of my favorite poets reside. But it takes me next to that birthplace of Odysseus and that symbol of home, an emblematic journey by which we all must psychologically return.\\u201d


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