Monthly Archives: March 2022

They Left a Reed Basket of Wind – This Dislocated World – Two Poems by the American Poet and Novelist Victoria Redel

Garden In the first weeks we already knew this was history, that you’d speak of our nakedness, the flat grasses we wove & slipped over each other. First there was wild onion, the sharp tang of shoot & bulb. Later came frills of green leaf, stalks, tips too. Then peaches. Standing together in sunlight, of […]

Found and Erasure Poem – from an Interview with Ukrainian Writer Vladislav Kitik and Excerpts from Other Interviews in the Same Article by Ilya Kaminsky in The Paris Review, March 24th, 2022

AN ERASURE AND FOUND POEM A seagull, all fluffed up, sits at the edge of the pier, chest against the wind. A sharp explosion  interrupts its contemplation, the gray water, it spreads its wings. Seagulls don’t know what war is. But after sixteen days, the gulls overcome confusion, learn not to fly too far when […]

How To Praise This Mutilated World? – A Post Triggered by Ilya Kaminsky’s Twitter Feed Today – In Response: Two Poems – One from American Poet Maggie Smith and One from Canadian Poet Patrick Lane, from His Posthumous Collection Released Last Week

OscarDomesticated @OscDomesticated A note from #Mariupol : “Dima, Mom was killed on 9 March 2022. She died quickly. Then the house burnt down. Dima, I’m sorry I didn’t protect her. I buried Mom near the kindergarten” – and the scheme where exactly. It’s so horrible that tears are freezing in the eyes. 2:03 PM · […]

To Celebrate World Poetry Day – Praise and Wonder In Spite of Everything – Poems by Kaminsky and Milosz And a Kaminsky Interview Excerpt from March 15th, 2022

from The Separate Notesbooks: A Mirrored Gallery Pure beauty, benediction: you are all I gathered  From a life that was bitter and confused,  In which I learned about evil, my own and not my own.  Wonder kept seizing me, and I recall only wonder.  I asked, how many times, is this the truth of the […]

At War with Words – Three Poems by the Ukrainian Poet Lyuba Yakimchuk and some More Words from Ilya Kaminsky

Crow, Wheels When the city was destroyed, they started fighting over the cemetery. It was right before Easter and wooden crosses over the freshly dug graves put out their paper blossoms— red, blue, yellow, neon green, orange, raspberry pink. Joyful relatives poured vodka for themselves and for the dead—straight into their graves. And the dead […]

Take a Door Handle With You – Dislocation By War – Two Poems by Agnieszka Tworek

Grief Runs Untamed In one hand the exiles hold a bundle with a blanket, medicine, and a comb; in the other, a door handle. They attach it to every mountain and wall, hoping the handle will conjure the door that will open and let them in. Through the swamps, down the dirt roads, through the […]

The Necessity and Yet the Price of Photo Journalism – A Poem by Tracy K. Smith from her 2007 Collection Duende

Letter to a Photojournalist Going In You go to the pain. City after city. Borders Where they peer into your eyes as if to erase you. You go by bus or truck, days at a time, just taking it When they throw you in a room or kick you at your gut. Taking it when […]

The “Isness of the Agony of Displacement – Part Two – Three Poems, One by Michael Rosen and Two-in-One by Brian Bilston

The Migrants in Me Maybe I look as if you could spin a story at me about how threatening and dangerous migrants are, as I neither I nor you would ever dream of upping sticks and living somewhere else and being, you know, a migrant. As if neither I nor you might suddenly find ourselves […]

In Love with This World But Telling the Not-Always-Beautiful Truth of It – Some Wisdom and A Poem from Ukrainian American Poet Ilya Kaminsky – Part of an On-Going Series of Poems Dealing With War and Its Consequences

In a Time of Peace Inhabitant of earth for forty something years I once found myself in a peaceful country. I watch neighbors open their phones to watch a cop demanding a man’s driver’s license. When a man reaches for his wallet, the cop shoots. Into the car window. Shoots. It is a peaceful country. […]

Load Poems Like Guns – A Poem by the Afghani Woman Poet Somaia Ramish – Its Heart Cry Against War

Load Poems Like Guns Load poems like guns — war’s geography calls you to arms. The enemy has no signs, counter-signs, colors signals symbols! Load poems like guns — each moment is loaded with bombs bullets blasts death-sounds — death and war don’t follow rules you can make your pages into white flags a thousand […]