{"id":29161,"date":"2022-04-03T22:41:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-03T22:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=29161"},"modified":"2022-05-05T12:27:10","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T12:27:10","slug":"laugh-right-in-its-face-a-poet-reflects-on-her-crafts-defiant-role-in-the-middle-of-a-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/laugh-right-in-its-face-a-poet-reflects-on-her-crafts-defiant-role-in-the-middle-of-a-war\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Laugh right in its face\u2019 \u2013 a poet reflects on her craft\u2019s defiant role in the middle of a war"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rachel Hadas<\/a>, Rutgers University – Newark<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the two years of intermittent lockdown, writers had plenty of time to write, a state of affairs that becomes clearer and clearer as books generated by, and written during, the pandemic<\/a> begin to appear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only to write, but to write to, with or for another alleviates loneliness. More online writing groups and workshops<\/a> than I can begin to count have sprouted; some already existed, but now they\u2019re ubiquitous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here we still are, in the spring of 2022, perhaps a bit less alone. But now, as the pandemic begins to recede in at least parts of the world, something equally alarming has taken its place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPutin makes Covid look good,\u201d said a friend \u2013 a sentiment no doubt shared by many. As some of us are beginning to take off our masks, go to museums, gather with friends in a world that feels smaller every day, millions of refugees cram onto trains and into cars<\/a>. Across Europe, people are buying iodine pills and survival gear<\/a> and thinking about bunkers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Covid virus was frightening and frustrating because it was faceless and invisible, the evil this time has a face. And yet the swiftly spreading miasma of terror and violence the world is now experiencing also feels more like an atmospheric condition \u2013 as if a long-brewing storm is gathering strength \u2013 than a result of human actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as Covid has given way to war, as these two apocalyptic horsemen gallop along, with the others \u2013 famine and death<\/a> \u2013 not far behind, poetry is right there, keeping up with them. https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?height=420&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fedoardoballerini%2Fvideos%2F648944963074516%2F&show_text=false&width=560&t=0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heroic defiance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Ukrainian poet Yuri Izdryk has a poem, \u201cDarkness Invisible<\/a>,\u201d about this uncanny ubiquity, this spread of darkness. In Boris Dralyuk\u2019s translation<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cevil has melted away in our world, as ice turns to water.
diffused invisibly, like mist in air
grope in the deepest, darkest of pits, your search will be futile
you cannot say evil is here, evil is there\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Yet \u201cDarkness Invisible\u201d ends with a moment of human, intimate defiance. When evil surfaces and is no longer invisible, it will prove to be<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cpathetic, a thing of no worth
and we two will laugh, we\u2019ll laugh right in its face.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Ilya Kaminsky, like Dralyuk a Jewish writer originally from Odesa<\/a>, refers in a recent essay, \u201cPoems in a Time of Crisis,\u201d<\/a> to this defiance \u2013 a spirit the world has also seen in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Whatever the outcome, the extraordinary and contagious courage shown by this young comedian-turned-statesman offers something to admire and emulate \u2013 the kind of beacon that, even before Covid, has been very scarce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spirit of heroic defiance manifests in literature as well as on the front lines. \u201cOdessa stories have no endings,\u201d Dralyuk wrote recently. This resonant claim surely suggests that exiles will return, that the city will survive, or that so long as we have stories, the idea of Odesa \u2013 a city named after the Greek hero Odysseus \u2013 will persist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cPoems in a Time of Crisis,\u201d Kaminsky reports on a couple of his recent exchanges with writer friends who remain in Odesa. One of them writes: \u201cI\u2019m trying to do art. Read out loud. To distract myself. Try to read between the lines.\u201d Another older friend, \u201ca lifelong journalist,\u201d responds to Kaminsky\u2019s offer of help: \u201cPutins come and go. If you want to help, send us some poems and essays. We are putting together a literary magazine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the middle of a war,\u201d Kaminsky concludes, \u201che is asking for poems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poetic idea<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/a>
Since the Russians invaded, Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky has been tweeting messages from Ukrainians witnessing the war, including this one from someone in Kyiv. Twitter<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a poet and a scholar of classical literature<\/a>, I know that enormous events like pandemics and wars remind us that human emotions are not rarefied; they\u2019re shared. Understanding them, we can sometimes begin to understand one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poets write poetry to help them come to terms with the terror of their times. The process of writing those poems, and the process of reading them, both offer respite. Thus Kaminsky\u2019s friend\u2019s resolve: \u201cRead out loud. To distract myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the middle of a war, he is asking for poems.\u201d Kaminsky\u2019s resonant words at the end of his powerful essay remind me of C.P. Cavafy\u2019s 1920 poem \u201cDareios<\/a>,\u201d translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. This poem presents a Greek poet at work on his epic about the Persian king Dareios, attempting to analyze \u201cthe feelings Dareios must have had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the poet\u2019s reverie is interrupted by the news that \u201cwar with the Romans has begun; most of our army has crossed the borders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe poet is dumbfounded. What a disaster!
How can our glorious king,
Mithridatis, Dionysos and Evpator,
bother about Greek poems now?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Next, as happens when war approaches, the poet becomes fearful: \u201cThe town isn\u2019t very well fortified \/ and the Romans are the most awful enemies.\u201d He prays: \u201cGreat gods, protectors of Asia, help us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then? \u201cDareios\u201d ends on a note which transcends centuries to speak to us right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut through all his distress, all the turmoil,
the poetic idea comes and goes insistently:
arrogance and intoxication \u2013 that\u2019s the most likely, of course:
arrogance and intoxication are what Dareios must have felt.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

[Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation\u2019s newsletters to understand the world.<\/em> Sign up today<\/a>.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel Hadas<\/a>, Professor of English, Rutgers University – Newark<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rachel Hadas, Rutgers University – Newark During the two years of intermittent lockdown, writers had plenty of time to write, a state of affairs that becomes clearer and clearer as books generated by, and written during, the pandemic begin to appear. Not only to write, but to write to, with or for another alleviates loneliness. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":29162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,38],"tags":[7689,2033,11411,1212,97,11599],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29161"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29475,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29161\/revisions\/29475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}