Letters from Tomis

Letters from an Exile: A Marxist-Leninist Writes

According to legend, in the year 8 AD, Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, at the age of 50 years, was exiled by Augustus Caesar to Tomis, a town on the edge of the civilized world. Peopled by rough, non-Latin speakers, the most quintessential of Roman poets would remain there until his death ten years later.

In our world turned upside down, faced by the barbarity of our public discourse in our recent political elections, I feel the sorrow of an exile–an exile from the dream of a better, more just society where everyone has enough to eat and a safe place to sleep. A place where decent healthcare and life-affirming labor are human rights, not privileges of the rich. Where immigrants are welcomed as human beings worthy of compassion and respect. And all the children of the world need not fear the sounds of war or the wreckage of poverty.

As a self-imposed “exile” from this lost utopia, like Ovid I must write my sorrow out. These “letters” are my crude attempts to better understand this world we have created over the last fifty or so years. And, perhaps, I hope, to point to a better world that we must create for the next.

I hope you will join me.