Great Regulars: Moral instruction is one of poetry's

oldest functions, but it is often hard for modern poets to muster the confidence that earlier writers must have felt, both about their own wisdom and their position in society, to tell us how to live. So it can be startling to encounter an unknown work that speaks directly to us with this lost confidence. Here is a poem by the 12th century Tamil poet Avvaiyar, in Thomas H. Pruiksma's beautiful translations of her short, aphoristic poems:

from Powells: Review-A-Day: A Moral Education

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