Persuading Plato

‘In Petrescu’s poem, Afternoon at Buon Giorno’s, Poetry with a capital P, elegantly sitting drinking lemon, lime and bitters, remarks that her interest now is in the lyrical stance of the ordinary. To which her interlocutor, Mephistopheles, replies, B******t. Should Poetry sell her soul to this devil? Of course she should – but only if he is a less whimsical figure than the neo-Gothic Dracula Bram Stoker ascribed to Petrescu’s native Transylvania.’ – John Drew, Cambridge, UK